Chapter Twenty-Two
You’re AFRAID? You’re afraid of what, Gertie?? Oh my God. Where did you go? Are you okay? Is this why you haven’t been responding to me? I’m starting to worry that you’ve been taken!! Seriously though, do I need to call the police? Gertie? Please reply asap.
All best wishes,
Bridget
Text undelivered
By the time River and I arrive at the campfire party, it’s already in full swing.
Tons of guests, including a few other authors I vaguely recognise from online or articles in The Bookseller, are either gathered on deckchairs around a roaring fire or sitting at one of the candle-lit banquet tables, chomping on food made at a bustling barbecue station on the other side of the wooded clearing.
‘You look incredible.’ River leans in to me as we approach the crowd around the campfire where Henry is sitting, idly strumming on an acoustic mandolin.
Marisol is next to him wearing a chic violet-coloured dress, sipping from a glass of red wine.
Various other guests gather, passing a joint around the circle, chattering, laughing, happy to be out in the world, getting high in the woods on a perfectly balmy evening.
‘Are you sure I don’t look like a spoon?’ I ask, trying to look backwards at the curve of my larger than average backside, tightly encased in the silver dress.
‘Well, if you do, it’s a spoon I’d like to eat off of.’
I throw him a look.
‘Sorry. Habit. You do not look like a spoon. You look like a gorgeous confident human woman who Henry would be very lucky to have.’
The silver dress, while a little too tight, looks prettier than I imagined it would, the sparkle of the sequins seeming to light me up.
My hair has been brushed, blown and serumed into a perfect shiny curtain, and I’m wearing a pair of high heels that make my usually quite short legs look long and lithe.
All in all I look … totally unlike me. But in a good way, I think.
Still, though, my heart has started to skitter about with the nerves the jacuzzi utterly failed to calm.
‘You’ll be great,’ River says confidently. ‘Let’s get the next phase of Operation Windbag under way.’
I lift my chin as River and I grab a couple of bottles of beer from an ice bucket and head over to the fire where Sir Otto has gathered a bunch of the guests, including Henry, who looks me up and down in surprise, sitting up a little straighter in his deckchair. Marisol follows his gaze.
‘Gertie, that dress!’ she cries. ‘You look amazing. Wow. I’d give anything to have boobs like that.’
‘Oh! Uh, thanks. I, uh, like your breasts too, Marisol.’
Why did I say that?
She giggles and holds up her glass in a toast, throwing me a tipsy wink.
‘Hello, Gert.’ Henry grins. His eyes slide across to River, and the smile immediately drops.
I go over the plan in my head: while last night I bathed in every drop of Henry’s attention, tonight I will try to do the opposite.
And then, when I have confused the heck out of him with my distance, tomorrow afternoon I will lay it on thick with the flirting.
River has given me a few tips already, but we’ve earmarked the whole morning tomorrow for an intense coaching session.
Following River’s instruction to act nonchalantly, I give Henry a vague nod and, taking River’s hand, follow him to the opposite side of the circle where I sit down on the chair River pulls out for me.
As instructed, I cross my legs so that the skirt of my dress rides up my thighs a little. River gives me a nod of approval.
Jim plops down beside me.
‘You look marvellous, Gertie darling,’ he whispers to me. ‘Bloody marvellous.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, self-consciously patting down my newly sleek hair. ‘Are you having a fun time?’
‘I’m having a delightful time.’ Jim hiccups and I wonder how much he’s already had to drink. ‘Are you?’
‘Yeah.’ I nod. ‘I’m so pleased to be celebrating this with you, Jim. You deserve all the happy things.’
Jim looks touched. Then his face falls a little.
‘Gertie,’ he says gently. ‘I’m not sure this is the best time to—well, I’m a little bit pissed but …
’ He sighs and fiddles with his bow tie.
‘Perhaps you ought to know that—’ But before he can finish the sentence I’m distracted by the sudden raising of Henry’s voice – an unusual occurrence for someone so ordinarily cool and collected.
‘But Derberville & Falcon is the last bastion of serious bookshops!’
‘What’s the commotion?’ Jim calls over to where Henry and Sir Otto are holding court on the other side of the bonfire.
‘What’s that about your bookshop, Sir Otto?
You’re not closing down, are you? Or is it a merger?
I had read in The Bookseller that there’d been some interest. I never thought you’d go for it, of course. ’
Otto shakes his head. ‘Nothing as serious as that. I just told Henry here that Derberville & Falcon are introducing a romance book section into our major stores. Starting up a series of events for romance readers.’
‘Oh bravo!’ Jim catches my eye excitedly. ‘How perfect! You know Gertie writes the most charming romance novels.’
‘Then we will certainly look into stocking your work!’ Sir Otto says, raising his wine glass to me.
‘That would be amazing!’ I grin. ‘I’m so glad you’re going to have a whole romance section. That’s brilliant.’
Sir Otto shrugs as if it’s no big deal. ‘Romance books are a juggernaut these days and I am a businessman, after all.’
‘It’s more than that!’ I grin, smiling as I cast my mind back to all the books that raised me, the books that made me want to write, that brought Cassidy and Bedlam Creek into my life.
‘Romance novels bring contentment and joy and … and … courage to so many people. They sell well, yes, but they never get the respect they actually deserve. A good romance novel takes an enormous amount of care and craft to create. To have visibility in a traditionally literary fiction book chain would be incredible.’
‘I agree,’ Marisol says. ‘This is a really great move, Sir Otto.’
Henry groans. ‘That may well be, but Derberville & Falcon has always been a literary fiction bookshop. For serious novels.’ He sips from his bottle of beer. ‘We hardly need more genre fiction readers in the world, especially romance of all things. Goodness gracious. Help a novelist out!’
The crowd titters. Especially romance? I feel my face go hot and it’s not from the flames of the bonfire.
I know Henry is no great fan of romance novels – he’s often been peeved by how widely they sell over literary fiction, and he only read my first Bedlam Creek novel after I begged, but he’s never been so openly disparaging before.
Well, except for the one time he laughed when I told him I had gotten nominated for a romance award on a popular Instagram account and he said, ‘Will it be black tie? Will The Times be covering it?’ Which needled me at the time, but seemed like nothing more than a silly joke.
‘Well, I think they’re wonderful,’ I say, my voice hardening a touch.
Henry rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair. ‘I have no doubt about how hard you work, Gertie. You’re a talented writer and you deserve the very best. You know I believe that … But … more bookshop space dedicated to genre fiction could really take opportunities off real writers.’
Real writers?
I gasp, a sharp coil of anger making my eyes blur a little. How dare he?
I lift my chin. ‘Well, maybe if you “real writers” learned how to tell a story without meandering into navel-gazing, plotless, masturbatory prose long enough to keep a reader interested, you’d get those opportunities for yourself.’
The crowd start to hoot and holler and from beside me I hear River laugh out loud. I immediately move to apologise to Henry – my natural urge at times of conflict – but somehow, to my relief, I manage to hold it in and allow my words to settle over the crowd. I said what I said.
Henry holds his beer bottle up to me, but I can tell from the flex in his jaw that his teeth are clenched.
One thing about Henry – as self-possessed as he is, he does not do well with looking less than, especially in a public setting.
When he didn’t make it to the Booker Prize shortlist he took to our bed for a whole week, citing a virus that – as far as I could tell – had no symptoms beyond googling the names of everyone who had been shortlisted above him and reading their one-star reviews online.
He gathers himself and smiles abruptly. ‘Fair play, Gert.’
Marisol gives Henry an indecipherable look and then narrows her eyes teasingly at Sir Otto. ‘Any chance of a modern poetry section in there too?’ she asks with a laugh. ‘I’d love Statements on Being – The Poetry of Marisol Keats to be more widely accessible when it comes out next year.’
‘God save us all,’ Jim cracks, to which all of us laugh.
‘You’re all just a bunch of Neanderthals!
’ Marisol cries in an over-the-top way, but she’s laughing too.
Ugh, even in the face of ribbing she can hold herself with a confidence and elegance that I could never muster.
I glance at River to see that he is also staring at Marisol in admiration.
There’s a swift burn in my stomach at the sight of it, which is unexpected and annoying.
I take a big swig of my beer, the thought soon lost in the distraction of Jim’s assistant Zo making her way towards the circle, carrying an obnoxiously large cake in the shape of a grandfather clock, after Jim’s bestselling book series The Grandfather Clock Mysteries.
‘Happy birthday to yooooou,’ she sings, nodding at us all, her pointed expression indicating that we should join in. ‘Happy birthday to yooooou.’
As we sing along, Jim claps his hands in delight and Zo places the cake on the banquet table.
‘Make a wish!’ she cries and we all watch as Jim’s smiling face becomes serious for a second before he closes his eyes and blows out the candles in one go.
‘Hip hip hooray!’ Henry shouts. ‘For this man we all admire and love deeply.’
‘Hear, hear.’ I clink my beer bottle to Jim’s. ‘Happy birthday, lovely man.’
Jim stands up and signals to the tuxedoed chamber orchestra waiting over in the wooded clearing. ‘Right! I only turn forty once, and my plan is to remember very little of it. So let’s get this party bloody well started!’