Chapter Five #2
“You know when you’ve been working on a story for months, or years, and it’s just .
. . not coming together? No matter what you do, or how hard you try to force it?
Maybe it’s the plot, and maybe it’s the characters, and maybe it’s all of it, or none of it, but at some point you know, even if it’s hard to accept, that you can’t save it. You have to start over.”
Malcolm’s cheeks are red, but before he tears his gaze away from hers, she sees the glassy shine.
“Does that mean you’re dropping out?” asks Cate.
“I’ll toast to that!” says Jaxon, raising his beer. No one joins him. “What? It’s one less person gunning for the prize.”
Sienna crosses her arms. “Actually, it’s not. Because I’m not dropping out.”
“Neither am I,” says Malcolm.
Annoyance curdles into rage. “When’s the last time you wrote anything without my help?”
Everyone else retreats, but Priscilla steps between them, a referee in pink.
“I think,” she says, “it’s been a long day, and everyone’s tired. Let’s get some food and sober up.” This last with a pointed look at Malcolm, who responds by swiping the bottle of Macallan from the bar and tucking it under his arm, scowling like a bratty child as he marches out.
* * *
THE CHANGE OF SCENERY DOESN’T HELP.
The easy camaraderie of the games room has given way to something more tense.
They stand around the counter, grazing and refilling their glasses. Again. And again. Moving away from sober instead of toward it. Which is fine with Sienna.
For some inexplicable reason Jaxon has brought the pool cue with him, and is leaning on it like a staff.
“I still think they should have given us a chef,” he mutters. “Let us focus on the work.”
The work. It’s clear that no one wants to talk about the work, but no one seems able to talk about anything else, either, so the air gets stiffer by the second, as Malcolm drinks, and Millie loads ingredients one by one onto chips before popping each one in her mouth.
“Well,” says Kenzo. “I’m having fun.”
“Seriously?” asks Cate.
“No. I’m not a fan of writing under pressure.”
“Pressure makes diamonds,” says Jaxon.
“And dirt,” mutters Malcolm.
“Have any of you seen those videos of the hydraulic press crushing household objects?” asks Millie. “Some things are pretty beautiful.” She shrugs. “But by the end, everything breaks.”
No one has anything to say to that. The silence starts to settle again, and Sienna can’t take it.
“Well,” she says, cradling a glass of wine filled way past the usual mark, “someone’s already done.
” She hates the bitter tinge in her voice, hates that she said it, but it’s too late, everyone’s looking at her.
“Someone turned their ending in.”
“How do you know?” asks Priscilla.
“I saw the editor reading. Through the window.” She’s about to explain that she was on her way to ask if she could write alone, that she wasn’t spying.
But nobody cares. They’re too busy eyeing each other, suspicion crackling like static as they try to guess who it was.
Sienna’s money is on Priscilla, or Kenzo, but Jaxon flashes a conspicuous grin.
“All right, you got me,” he says.
There’s a single taut second, and then the silence splinters, giving way to chuckles, and even a few full-throated guffaws.
Jaxon’s smile falls. “You didn’t have to laugh that hard,” he grumbles. But Sienna catches the look on Millie’s face. She’s the only one who didn’t find it funny. In fact, her arms are crossed, color rising to her cheeks. And Sienna knows, even before she says it.
“It was me.”
She lifts her chin as she speaks, clearly bracing for another round of mockery. When it doesn’t come, she hurries on. “I’ve always been a fast writer, and after the whole thing with the typewriter, I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I figured I should just stay up and get it done, so—”
Priscilla lays a hand on her sleeve.
“You don’t have to explain yourself,” she says tightly. “But well done, Millie.”
A shallow echo of Priscilla’s words rolls through the room. Sienna forces herself to say it, too, even though the idea of someone being done makes her feel a little sick.
“Thanks,” says Millie, clearly embarrassed. She reaches for another chip, but she must be rattled because her arm clips Jaxon’s beer, which spills onto the counter and his Moleskine.
“What the hell!” he snaps.
“It was an accident,” she yelps, rushing to help before he shrugs her off.
“More like an act of sabotage,” he says, frantically wiping off the journal.
“Oh, chill out,” says Kenzo. “You haven’t opened that thing since you got here.”
Jaxon rounds on Kenzo. “What is your fucking problem?”
Kenzo shrugs. “You’re an asshole.”
Priscilla pinches the bridge of her nose as Jaxon steps toward Kenzo, knuckles white on the pool cue, and Malcolm, drunk as he is, has the decency, or at least the sense, to step in front of Jaxon and plant a hand on his chest. “Now, son—”
“I’m not your son,” says Jaxon, shoving Malcolm off him, and then Sienna is stepping forward, reaching for her husband—soon to be ex—and Cate’s shuffling back, out of the way, as all the nervous energy that’s been building is channeled into the fray, and—
“Enough!”
The moment staggers.
Millie stands there, hands on her hips, chest heaving and eyes bright. It’s the loudest voice she’s ever used, and it lands like a bucket of ice water, sudden and cold enough to snap everyone back to their senses.
“Enough,” she says again, and the tension begins to leak away. Malcolm looks down at Sienna’s hand on his arm. Kenzo folds his arms and leans back against the counter. Sienna exhales in relief.
And then the lights go out.