don’t have to help Carl move because he slowly but surely moved his stuff out of the house over the last month so his darling wife wouldn’t notice anything was amiss. While Alice was busy calling hospitals to see f her husband had been injured in a car accident, Carl sent his mother to tell Alice that her marriage was over … and that she wanted her heirloom china back.
On an unrelated note, Alice will be hosting a bonfire this weekend.
Carl left behind his precious collection of Elvis memorabilia.
I’m not going to say the money wasn’t a motivating factor or me. But frankly, it was easier to vent on unfaithful husbands than to keep building my story. And it made me feel helpful, I guess. Like I was doing some sort of service for these women, helping them. And it made me feel a little less crazy for doing what I’d done.
On the other side of my professional conundrum, Monroe was already preparing me for “selling myself” as a writer, which sounded uncomfortably similar to prostitution. He said the most important step in getting published was finding a good agent. He’d offered to send my stuff to people from his agency, but that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want people in the publishing industry doing me favors just because I happened to be sleeping with a bestselling author. That felt like something Beebee would do. I wanted to know that my writing was genuinely good, that it might sell. So I refused his help. Monroe lovingly called me “a stubborn pain in the ass,” but he also gave me the address of an internet database of literary agencies so I could find my own. He said it took him a year and forty-nine rejections before he found an agent. I hadn’t even finished the damn thing yet and it seemed like it was going to be more work to sell it than it was to write it. The thought of it exhausted me. And I just wasn’t sure if I was up to being rejected again and again.
Monroe talked about writing as if it were something that just happened, like he sat down at the computer and the words just appeared somehow. He acted like he didn’t have anything to do with it.
“It’s like these people are living in my head, telling me their stories,” he said as we traversed the festival fairway.
“Some people consider that a mental illness,” I told him, sipping homemade apple cider, which I suspected might have been made in an old oil drum.
As much as I enjoyed my little hermit’s retreat, it was nice to be out among people, even if most of them were five-year-olds whining for balloons. I liked walking through the crowd with Monroe, his hand at the small of my back, making me feel linked, but not led. Nobody seemed to recognize me with my Wildcats cap pulled low over my face, and if they did, they didn’t care enough to say anything. The air had just enough nip to it to make me appreciate the smell of churning peanut oil and wood-smoke. I had eaten my weight in kettle corn, lost five dollars at the dart booth, and had bought a ridiculous frog-shaped paperweight made of painted rocks. Overall, I considered that a productive afternoon.
“And lately, my antagonist doesn’t seem to be speaking to me,” he said. “I want the reader to be creeped out by her actions, but I don’t want to make her a caricature. I want her to be human, but not sympathetic.”
“So basically you’re afraid of alienating your female readers with psycho crushes on you,” I mused.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, the best way to get a woman to dislike a character would be to give your cop a nice, normal girlfriend, then have your crazy girl do something that endangers her, but doesn’t actually hurt her. Girlfriend is separated from cop either because she’s afraid or he breaks up with her to protect her, then by chapter twenty, they’re reunited.”
“You’re trying to make me into a romance writer, aren’t you?” he said, narrowing his eyes at me.
“It wouldn’t hurt to chick-ify your books by about ten percent.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” he said.
“It’s flattering that my opinion matters to you, despite the fact that I’ve only read one of your books,” I told him.
“Wait, I thought you were reading Drunk Tank Duets?”
“I knew you’d catch that.” I grinned.
“You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are,” he told me. “Well, what about you? How goes Laurie’s search for personal-fulfillment-slash-personal-renewal?”
“It’s progressing. I’m still having a hard time reconciling the idea that other people might read this. There are things that I want to say about marriage, about husbands, about sex, but I keep editing myself because I’m afraid of offending people or grossing them out.”
“Lacey, I’m pretty sure you’ve already crossed that bridge,” Monroe said. “I don’t think there’s much you can write at this point that would shock people.”
“Good point,” I admitted, frowning at him when he dug his hand. into my kettle corn. “Hey, hey, popcorn thief!”
“You need to learn to share,” he said, popping the oversweet popcorn into his mouth.
“You need to learn to ask,” I told him, giggling as he reached around my back to take another handful from the bag.
Over his shoulder, I saw Hap Borchard coming our way, sipping from a large blue bottle of homemade root beer. He saw me, smiled, and waved.
“Okay,” I breathed and tried to talk without moving my lips as we approached. “Be polite, but not your normal engaging self. If he starts to tell a story, I will fake an anaphylactic reaction to the cider and you carry me to the infirmary tent.”
“You’re assuming I can carry you after all that kettle corn,” Monroe muttered, dodging when I reached out to smack him.
“Nice to see you out and about, Miz Lacey,” Hap Borchard said.
“Mr. Borchard!” I exclaimed in a sweet tone that had Monroe double-taking. “It’s nice to see you, too. Is Mrs. Borchard here with you today?”
“She’s over at the craft booths, buying some geegaw for the yard. Lord knows we don’t have near enough concrete critters on our lawn.”
“Well, the good news is you don’t have to clean up after them,” Monroe said.
Mr. Borchard gave a loud, hooting laugh. “I’ll have to remember that one.”
An awkward silence fell over the three of us. Mr. Borchard was looking at me, expectantly. Clearly, I was supposed to say something here, but what? It had been so long since I’d socialized with anyone but Monroe, I felt out of practice. I wracked my brain, trying to think of the appropriate conversational volley. What would my mother say in a situation like this?
“Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell how much I appreciate you finishing the dock so quickly,” I told him. “It’s just as solid as the old one. I’m really very happy with it. And the benches are great. Gammy would have loved them. I’ve told everyone I’ve seen what a great job you’ve done.”
Okay, the only person I’d told was Monroe, but he was the only person I’d seen for a while. So it was just a small lie, necessary to maintain the delicately balanced scales of small-town politics.
“Good to have something to keep my hands busy,” Mr. Borchard said in a pleased, proud tone. “Have you thought about those other improvements to the cabin?”
“Improvements?” Monroe asked.
Mr. Borchard smiled beatifically at me. “Yeah, she’s thinking about staying up here for the winter, becoming a local. If she’s going to do that, she’s going to need some new windows, some new insulation. We don’t want her freezing to death, do we?”
Monroe shot me a speculative look. “No, we don’t.”
“Then again, from what I can see, you two do what you can to keep each other warmed up,” Mr. Borchard said, winking at us. Before either of us could respond or protest, he raised his hands like he was making a benediction and said, “The missus and I think it’s a good thing. We couldn’t be happier for you, Miz Lacey. Never took much to your husband. If this fella here treats you right, he won’t have to worry.”
“Is that a not-too-subtle threat?” Monroe asked, grinning good-naturedly.
Mr. Borchard shook his head, all innocence. “Not from me. I meant, if you treat her right, she won’t send an e-mail to all and sundry, calling you everything but a nice Christian boy. You’ve got your hands full, I’d say.” My eyes must have looked like saucers, because Mr. Borchard winked at me again and said, “The missus just got a copy from one of the gals in her quilting group. We laughed our heads off. Always knew you had your granny’s backbone.”
