I got off the bench and stood next to Tony. He and Errol looked at each other. Why did this feel so awkward?
“Tony, this is Errol,” I said. Did I need to say more than that? We’d kissed, for reasons I had yet to understand, but he wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t even my friend. But Tony wasn’t my boyfriend either. Or my friend. Really, I didn’t know either of them very well. Yet I’d kissed one and I’d dreamed about kissing the other. “Errol lives in my building.”
“Hey,” Tony said with a nod.
Errol said nothing.
“These are for you,” Tony told me, holding out the bouquet.
“Thanks.” I took it. Little yellow roses snuggled between sprays of baby’s breath and feathery ferns. No guy had ever given me flowers except for Archibald. This proved it. Tony liked me. Even though he knew I’d been watching him from my window, he liked me. Even though I’d turned him down and had fallen like a total klutz on the sidewalk, he still liked me. I wanted to cherish the moment, press it in a keepsake box, but Errol’s story was racing through my head.
Errol slid his sunglasses down his nose again and he and Tony locked eyes. The tension was as thick as the heat. “Am I interrupting something?” Tony asked, leaning on his skateboard.
“As a matter of fact, you are,” Errol said coldly.
“We’re working on a project,” I told Tony. And as much as I wanted to walk away with him that moment, into some kind of happy ending where we’d be totally into each other, I couldn’t. I had a story to write. “These flowers are really pretty,” I told him. Then I led him away from the bench and spoke quietly. “I’m helping Errol with some writing stuff.”
“Oh. Okay.” Tony shrugged. “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better.” And with that, he jumped on the dragon’s back and glided off down the path.
Why was our timing always off?
“You were rude,” I told Errol, who was still sitting on the bench.
“I’m just looking out for you. You need to focus,” he said. “That guy would only be a distraction.” Then he stood, slowly, and started to walk away, but in the opposite direction of our apartment building.
“Errol, where are you going?” I asked, following.
“I’ve got things to do. Go write chapter one.” And that’s when he doubled over. As I grabbed his arm, a few people turned and looked at us. “Errol? What’s that matter? Are you sick?”
“We’re all sick,” he said, yanking his arm away. Then he straightened, shoved his hands into his jean pockets, and walked away.
Late last night I finished chapter one. Sitting at the keyboard, I wrote the scene as Errol had told it to me, filling it in with his details—like how the horse’s hooves kicked up dirt in the road, and how the fields of lavender rustled in the breeze, and how the farmer’s bread had a thick crust but was soft inside. I loved the first chapter and couldn’t wait to hear more of the story. This was it—my mother’s next book. I still needed to figure out a title but I knew, without a doubt, that Heartstrings would love the story too. I’d need to get some sort of legal document because it would be a nightmare if Errol showed up at Heartstrings six months from now, claiming his story had been stolen. That could happen. He’d told me he didn’t need money, but everyone needs money. What if his friend Velvet stopped paying the rent?
Archibald would help me. His being a legal secretary sure came in handy. And he wouldn’t tell anyone that I was writing my mom’s book. I could trust him with yet another secret.
After hitting the print button, I did a happy dance. Untitled Work in Progress by Belinda Amorous had a first chapter!
Friday was a new day. I showered and dressed, even sang out loud. Errol was upstairs reading the chapter, and when he finished reading he’d tell me how good it was, and then he’d tell me what happened next so I could write chapter two. Then chapter three, chapter four, and soon I’d have the entire story to send to Heartstrings Publishers. Now this was the way to write a romance novel—let someone else figure out the plot. At this rate I’d easily get the book done in a few weeks. Then the publisher would send us a big fat check for one hundred thousand dollars and I’d pay the hospital and have plenty left over. And Mom’s medication would start working, and she’d come home and be so grateful that I’d saved the day. Finally there’d be lots of time for me to do other things like … dating.
Dazed with happiness, I traipsed upstairs to see Errol. “Alice,” Mrs. Bobot called from her doorway. “Come on in. I’ve just made breakfast.”
“Okay.” There was time for breakfast, and my stomach was empty after I’d written most of the night. Creativity burns a ton of calories.
Realm sat in the living room watching the morning news. The weatherman was talking about Seattle reaching 104 degrees and warning people about heatstroke. “Did you read Death Cat?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t had time.” I offered no other explanation. Her dirty looks ricocheted right off my shield of happiness.
Toast, eggs, and juice were on the menu, along with Mrs. Bobot’s homemade marmalade—a bit chunky but edible. She’d added something that was bright green. “I made a few jars for William,” she said. A few jars turned out to be ten jars and they sat on the counter, a pretty ribbon tied around each one. “He doesn’t eat enough fruit.” Counting marmalade as a fruit serving was a bit of a stretch but Mrs. Bobot just wanted an excuse to cook for the reverend. “What are your plans for the day?”
I smiled innocently. “I need to sort through the mail. And do some laundry.” I was wearing my last clean tank top. “Stuff like that.”
“I wish you’d waited for me yesterday. I could have taken you up to see your mother. You shouldn’t go through those visits alone.” She rubbed my shoulder. I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Then we both sat at the kitchen table. Mrs. Bobot added sugar to her coffee and stirred. “I spoke to one of the lawyers at Archibald’s office. She’s going to draw up a thirty-day notice to terminate the rental agreement. That should give Velvet plenty of time to find a new place for that boy. I’ll even help them look.” She pointed to the newspaper, where she’d already highlighted apartment rentals in the classifieds.
We couldn’t kick Errol out. Not now. At least not until I’d finished writing the book. “I think we should let him stay.”
“What?” Mrs. Bobot set her spoon on the table. “Why?”
“Mom really needs the rent money. Maybe we should just see how things go.”
Mrs. Bobot folded her hands, her brown eyes staring into my very soul. “You and that boy aren’t—”
“No. We’re not.” I quickly buttered my toast. “It’s only about the money.”
“I hope that’s what it’s about because that boy strikes me as very odd. What’s the matter with him? Why does he need a place to get better? And why does he have so many girlfriends? I saw two of them yesterday, bringing him food. They were wearing uniforms from Velvet’s beauty parlor.” She fiddled with the red and white rosettes that she’d glued to the collar of her apron. “A boy with so many girlfriends can’t be trusted. You need to meet a nice boy.”
Realm barged into the kitchen. Her baggy sweatshirt hung to her knees. “How come you didn’t read it?”
“Read what?” Mrs. Bobot asked.
“My book. Alice said she’d read it.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Bobot smiled. “That’s so nice of you, Alice.”
“Yeah, real nice,” Realm said. “So when are you going to read it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of … fan letters to answer for my mom. But I’ll read it when I can.” It wasn’t a total lie. I’d look it over. Skim it, probably. Just not today.
A flash of anger widened Realm’s eyes. Then she marched back to the living room. “Realm,” Mrs. Bobot called. “Come back and eat your breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Mrs. Bobot looked at the plate she’d prepared for her granddaughter. The toas
t, cut into triangles, the pile of eggs, the dollop of marmalade. “It’s not right,” she told me quietly. “She barely eats enough to keep a bird alive. I don’t know what to do.”
I’d read all about eating disorders in the health class at Welmer Girls Academy. I knew what anorexia looked like because I’d seen it on Oprah. And there was this one anorexic woman who walked in Cal Anderson Park every day, whose legs were like chicken bones. Realm wasn’t that skinny, but even though she hid her body beneath layers of clothing, her weight loss showed in her thin neck and sunken cheeks.
“It’s so nice of you to help her with her book,” Mrs. Bobot said. “She needs something like that—something to help her feel better about herself.” A tear sparkled at the corner of Mrs. Bobot’s eye.
I felt about as slimy as a peeled grape. “No problem,” I said. Okay, I’d help Realm. I’d read her book, and I’d even show her how to submit it to my mother’s publisher. But not today. Today was all about chapter two.
I ate my toast. Then I ate all the scrambled eggs, even though they were speckled with burned bits and way too much pepper. “Thanks,” I said, rinsing my plate in the sink.
“Don’t forget that we’re all going to the lake tomorrow for a picnic and a swim,” Mrs. Bobot said. “That includes you, too, Realm.”
“No friggin’ way,” Realm said from her grandfather’s chair. “I don’t do bathing suits.” While they argued about the lake and the benefits of fresh air, I slipped out.
Muffled television sounds drifted from Errol’s apartment. If Mrs. Bobot heard me knocking on Errol’s door she’d get all worried. Fortunately I didn’t have to knock because the door opened and two girls walked out, both dressed in pink aprons that read “Velvet’s Temple of Beauty.” One of them held a laundry basket filled with jeans and black hoodies. They smiled at me, then hurried down the stairs.
Weird, I thought, then shrugged. It was his business, not mine. If he wanted to have a million girlfriends, who was I to say anything? We were working together, that was it.
Furniture and packing boxes, unarranged and unpacked, were crammed into the corners of Errol’s apartment. Nothing had been organized. But a feast was laid out on the kitchen counter—lattes from Tully’s, bagels and cream cheese from Neighborhood Bagels, a bowl of fruit, and a platter of cold cuts. Gifts from the girlfriends, I thought.
I found Errol in the living room with the lights off and the curtains closed. He sat on the carpet, real close to the television the way a kid sits, its eerie glow dancing across his face. A tear-streaked sweet sixteen filled the screen as she sobbed about life not being fair. “She wants to tattoo her boyfriend’s name on her ass,” Errol told me. “But her parents won’t let her.” He wore the usual black hoodie, its hood nestled around the back of his neck. It looked like he’d plugged his white hair into a socket, like each strand was a filament of light. Chapter one lay on the carpet next to him.
“Did you read it?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, what do you think?”
He pressed a button on the remote. The sobbing girl disappeared and the bluish glow faded. “I’m disappointed,” he said matter-of-factly, his face expressionless.
“Disappointed?” Surely I hadn’t heard him correctly. Surely he was joking around. “That’s not funny. I worked all night on it.” I waited for him to break into a grin, then say, “Just kidding, it’s great!” But he said nothing. “But I wrote exactly what you told me to write.”
“Yes, that’s what you did. You wrote exactly what I told you.” He sighed. “I could have done that. Anyone could have done that.”
“What?”
He grabbed the pages. “It’s dry. It reads like a textbook. He saw this, he saw that. He moved here, he moved there. She did this, she did that. It’s like a newspaper article, informative, but it’s …” He paused, closing his eyes as he searched for the right word. His eyes popped open. “Boring.”
“Boring?” The word cut like a paper’s edge, sharp and stinging. “BORING?” My bare toes gripped the floor. “What do you mean it’s boring? It’s your story.”
“Yes, but you’re supposed to make it readable,” he said, waving the pages. “You’re supposed to infuse it with … I don’t know … with … feelings. Emotion. Stuff like that.”
I folded my arms. “You didn’t tell me your feelings.”
“That’s why I need a writer. I can tell you what Psyche looked like. I can tell you about the weather and about the landscape, but I can’t put into words the way I felt. It’s too difficult. I’m not good with feelings. I imbue people with love, Alice, but I have no idea how to describe love. I’m not a poet.”
Something brushed against my leg. I reached down and picked up Oscar the cat, who must have followed me inside.
Errol slowly got to his feet. The hems of his jeans swished against the floor as he walked across the kitchen. With Oscar tucked in my arms, I followed. Errol set chapter one on the counter—the chapter I’d worked on all night, the chapter that had put me into such a good mood, the chapter that was NOT boring. Errol grabbed a can of Craig’s Clam Juice from the refrigerator, then popped open the lid. Oscar wiggled madly as the scent escaped its aluminum prison. After pouring the juice into a bowl, Errol set the bowl on the floor. Oscar hurled himself from my arms, then settled in front of the bowl, lapping blissfully. “Cats love the stuff,” Errol said.
Sunlight poured through the kitchen window and Errol’s white hair practically glowed. Did he bleach it at Velvet’s salon? With hair like that he’d fit in with any rock band. At that moment he didn’t look sixteen. There was a sculpted strength to his chin and nose, a maturity to his features that most teenage boys have to grow into.
I laid my hand protectively over the chapter. “I don’t think it’s boring.”
“Well, it’s not exciting.” He tossed the can into the sink.
Chapter one stared up at me, a bunch of neatly typed words on crisp white paper. Could Errol be right? Sure, there were sweeping descriptions of the Roman landscape, and a whole mess of details, but had I written a step-by-step rehash of the event itself—Boy Meets Girl—without the most important part? Writers call that “inner dialogue” and without it, a story is as flat as a slice of Wonder Bread. I grabbed a pencil. “I can fix it. Just tell me how you felt.”
“I told you, I don’t know how I felt. It’s too hard to describe. How do you feel when you see someone for the first time and you know you’ll love her forever? How do you feel when you talk to her for the first time? When she looks at you for the first time?”
Suddenly I was standing in front of our living room window, watching Skateboard Guy glide past, my heart racing, my legs turning to cement. Waiting, waiting, waiting for his face to come into focus, and then there it was—like when you’ve been sitting in the dark during a storm and suddenly the power turns on and everything jumps out, brilliant and on fire.
But then I took a deep breath. The living room window disappeared and Errol stood directly in front of me, so close that his breath tickled my forehead. As I tilted my neck, his eyes locked with mine. “What does it feel like?” he asked as he slid his hand around my waist. A tingle spread down my legs and I forgot how to breathe. “That moment just before …” His hand moved up my back and he pressed closer.
This was crazy. One second I was drooling over Tony and the next second I was tingling over Errol. Maybe it wasn’t Errol, exactly. Maybe it was simply the way he was touching me. Yes, that was it. It was his hand on my back and his breath on my neck. Because there was no way I was going to have “feelings” for this guy. He was too confusing. Too unstable. Too dangerous.
“Do you remember how it was?” he whispered. “When we were together? When you were my wife?” Just as his lips touched mine, I snapped out of it.
“Your wife?”
His arms dropped to his sides and surprise swept across his face. “I …” He blinked quickly, as if waking up from a dream. “I’m sorry. I kee
p drifting. This is difficult.” He stepped away. “I don’t think we should work together.”
“Wait a minute.” Whether or not he was delusional, I needed Errol. I needed his story and there was no way I was going to let him take it away. Not now. Not when I’d gotten my hopes up and everything was going right. “You said it was my destiny to write your story, remember?”
“Well, I lied,” he said.
“What?”
“I lied.” He slid his hands into his jeans pockets. “I tried to write the story but I was a total failure. So when I saw the sign in the bookstore’s window that the Queen of Romance would be visiting, I thought I’d found my solution. But the next day, when I came back for the event, there was this note on the window that the queen wouldn’t be there. So I thought I’d get one of the other romance writers to help me. But then I saw you and …” He grimaced, the pain staying longer this time. He hunched his shoulders and held his breath.
“Errol?” I asked. “Do you need your pills?”
He shook his head. “I saw you …” He grimaced again. “I saw you …” He leaned against the counter as if his legs might suddenly give out. “I saw you and everything changed.”
“Me? Why?”
As the pain passed, his face relaxed, and he sighed. Then he pulled himself to his full height and looked at me with the same serious expression he’d worn when he’d told me he was Cupid.
“Because you look just like Psyche.”
I’m not that gullible. Flattery is one thing, and who doesn’t appreciate a little flattery now and then, but if he expected me to believe that I looked like Psyche, a girl who was prettier than Venus, then he was under the impression that I was as delusional as he.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes because truly, I felt sorry for Errol. His physical pain looked totally overwhelming. His mental pain seemed equally real. Maybe the Cupid persona had begun as a game, a way to deal with the stress of being ill. I knew what it was like to spin so many lies that they start to take over your life. Or maybe Errol was one of those people Dr. Diesel had referred to—someone who walks a tightrope between creativity and madness.