Chapter 7 What If
What If
From: William Corwyn
To: Sam Vetiver
Simone,
Salutations! Hello. Hello, lip-nipper. Hello, dining companion. Hello, genius. Hello.
Tour stats: 326 miles, seven events, one convenience store sandwich gobbled behind a bookstore dumpster and countless breakfast
bars from the carton in my back seat.
I greet you now from my hotel room in—where am I? A quick look at hotel stationery says: Connecticut!, where in an hour I’ll
be speaking at a swanky country club.
I should be doing what I always do before I speak: eat. Nap. Shower. Instead, may I confess to you what I’ve been doing since
I checked in? Watching videos of your events. Not to sound like a total creeper.
You do the same thing I do, Simone: You give your readers a good show.
I have to say, if I met you as your audience member, I’d be too bashful to approach you.
I might just be able to hand you a book to be signed and stammer my thanks.
Because as gorgeous as you were the other night in your casual wear, and you must know you are beautiful, in these videos you are an absolute goddess.
The heels. The makeup. The red clothes. Jesus.
And you are good. You’re charming and funny and so, so smart. I knew this the other night from dinner. But at the mic you
turn it up to eleven.
I have been wondering many things, playing the writer’s favorite game: What If.
What if your bravura performance is a kind of wall? Do you ever feel as I do, that our public personae keep us safe but also
lock us in? What if you let me into your blockade—as you did a bit the other night—and I do the same?
What if you are as tired as I am of wasting hotel rooms? What if you were here with me now, putting this one to use as God
intended? (By which I mean I would feed you expensive snacks from the minibar, what did you think I meant?)
What if I look up from a podium at an event, see you, and think, as I did before: It’s you.
What if I find you when my tour is over and take you for a walk, and if your book is still being stubborn, we brainstorm together?
I know you said you were reluctant to share. But what if I can persuade you to accept my assistance? What if I can give you
that?
Because what if I can help bring another Simone Vetiver novel into the world? What if I could make that kind of lasting contribution,
not only to the literary pantheon, but to you?
I’m so far out on a limb here. But I have so rarely felt the connection I experienced with you. What if we are the keys to
each other’s prisons of solitude?
There’s also this: What if you’re reading this with horror or dismay? If that’s the case, I’ll step into the wings, after
bowing in your direction and giving thanks. Thank you for your company the other night, for coming to my reading. For your
books and for being you.
Take that pen from your braid, my dear, chase down that Muse of yours, and write.
X William
From: Sam Vetiver
To: William Corwyn
Date: August 11
Time: 10:49 p.m.
Dear William,
Thank you for your lovely email. I too was wondering some things. How your tour was going. Whether I’d imagined dinner the
other night. Are you actually real. Things like that.
How was your reading? You don’t need to answer. I know you wowed them. So please answer this question: What is in your minibar?
And what is the one thing you could do for me in a hotel room that would completely hypnotize me? (Hint: It’s probably not
what you think.)
I feel shy about some of the other things you said, not because I don’t agree with them but because I want so badly to. I’ve
been divorced about a year, and the only men available to date have been guys who have weirdly shaped heads, are carrying
large fish, have an overly robust attachment to golf, and are completely unable to spell or use grammar. The fact that you
exist gives me both pause and hope. You do exist, don’t you?
My turn. What if I came to one of your events this week? NOT that I am procrastinating in any way, willing to undertake ANY
evasive maneuver that would allow me to escape this hellish Gold Rush novelscape I find myself trapped in, of course not,
why would you say that? (And thank you for your offer to help . . . It’s really kind of you. I will think about it!)
What if half the things you said in your email are true? What happens then? Hypothetical questions. What if: The fiction writer’s
favorite. But it’s the game we play to find the right story.
XO Sam
From: William Corwyn
To: Sam Vetiver
Date: August 12
Time: 12:13 a.m.
Simone,
Tonight’s audience was pure sugar. Retired librarians in purple hats and red dresses, more cozy mystery gals than William
Corwyn readers, but good sports and full of wit and vim. Also wine. They plied me. I’m pretty lit. It’s lucky I made it back
to the hotel.
If you were here with me . . . but it is a good thing you’re not. To build something real takes time, and care. Tonight I
have neither.
I know precisely what would hypnotize you in a hotel room. I’d read to you. In bed. Any story of your choosing.
What if you come to another of my events? Well then our story will unfold. In ways I can only imagine. In ways I love to imagine.
I look forward to it. If you are not just teasing.
More from the road when a roomful of septuagenarians have not gotten me drunk.
XOXO! I see your XO’s and raise you two and some exclamation points, XO!!!
William
PS, not one of those women could slay a red dress like you.
To: William Corwyn
From: Sam Vetiver
Date: August 12
Time: 10:08 a.m.
Dear William,
I won’t keep you while you’re in event mode, which I know is all-consuming. Break a leg. I hope you’re not too hungover from
the frisky librarians. But I have your tour schedule from your website, and what if that What If is not a plot device after
all? I’d love to come to another of your readings. So keep glancing up from that podium.
XOXO and then some,
Sam.
PS, that was not my answer for how to hypnotize me in a hotel room, it was you could braid my hair, but it might work. We
could test the theory.