The Last Word

Chapter 3

As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.

—VIRGINIA WOOLF

Olivia came home from an exhilarating inspection of the refurbished harborside warehouse that would soon become The Bayside Crab House and brewed a pot of strong coffee. Carrying the coffee and a white chocolate chip biscotti to her desk overlooking the ocean, she printed out Laurel’s chapter, uncapped the green pen Harris had given each of the writers to use for critiques, and began to read.

No one ever explained what was meant by happily ever after.

I asked. Through a champagne haze, I voiced the question during my bachelorette party. My married friends exchanged lopsided, knowing smiles and murmured vague replies about the rewards of serving my husband wholesome meals, creating a home of my own, and giving birth to children.

But there was something in their eyes that betrayed their words. It was an indistinct flash, a hesitation brought on by self-doubt. I didn’t recognize what their looks meant at the time. I believed my friends were just searching for thoughtful answers.

In reality, of course, they were simply considering how much to lie to me the eve before my wedding, before I would walk down the aisle, white rose petals scattered at my feet.

They kept their secrets close. The wives.

It was my first lesson.

Later, after I became one of them, I checked off the list of the requirements they’d deemed necessary for me to live happily ever after. I cooked my husband meals that could outshine any restaurant’s, I decorated our home until it resembled a magazine spread, and I gave birth to three healthy children.

When nothing magical happened to my marriage after our third child entered the world, I began to work harder at my job. I gardened, ran for miles to turn my body into a toned work of art, and coordinated the social events sponsored by my husband’s company. I even got us accepted to the finest country club in town. My husband finally got to play golf on the course of his dreams.

And still, not a speck of glimmering fairy dust rained down onto our marital bed. There were no sparks of enchantment in my husband’s eyes when he looked at me across a candlelit table. He didn’t reach for my hand in the dark movie theater or whisper his hopes and fears across my pillow before we drifted off to sleep. We made love like it was a chore on Saturday’s to-do list. My husband never murmured my name.

Somehow, I had failed.

Olivia put down her pen, too stunned to make a single mark on Laurel’s paper.

“What is this?” she asked, flipping to the next page and skimming over the lines. “What happened to the duchess? She was falling for the highwayman. He was on his way to collect the ransom from the duke. Laurel had set up an ambush. This is supposed to be the ambush scene!”

Reaching for her computer mouse, she clicked on Laurel’s e-mail. Olivia hadn’t bothered to read her friend’s note. Too interested in seeing what would befall the rakish highwayman, she’d just opened the file and printed out the chapter. Now she carefully read Laurel’s note.

Dear Bayside Book Writers:

I am not sending any more chapters about the duchess. I’m shelving that project for now. I just didn’t feel that it was working. Instead, I’ve attached the first chapter of my new manuscript, which I’m calling Lessons for Ever After.

It is a contemporary romance but won’t feel very romantic at first. The upside is that this story feels much more genuine. I can barely sleep because I want to work on it all the time. The characters are so alive in my head! Sorry to do this without warning, but I hope you understand.

See you Saturday,

LH

Olivia sat back in her chair and took a bite of biscotti. Laurel had written over one hundred pages in her historical romance and now she was just going to stick it in a drawer and begin a new project? The decision took courage, Olivia knew, but she wondered if something else hadn’t prompted the change. Was the passage she’d read an autobiographical account of Laurel’s marriage to Steve? Olivia truly hoped not.

“I can’t read into it like that,” she admonished herself out loud and handed Haviland an organic dog treat from the jar on her desk. “That’s not my job as a critique partner.”

It didn’t take long for Olivia to finish a run-through of the chapter. She was surprised to find that it was much stronger than Laurel’s previous work. She made a note below the last line that she’d never sensed the presence of voice in the historical romance, but that this woman’s voice, whom Laurel refers to only as “The Wife,” was both vibrant and authentic. The duchess was self-serving and often shallow, but Laurel’s new protagonist was an interesting blend of self-doubt and pluck. She was sympathetic and multidimensional, and Laurel’s switch to first-person succeeded in drawing in the reader.

“I can’t wait to see what the rest of the group makes of this new chapter,” Olivia said to Haviland and drained her coffee cup.

Unfortunately, it was two weeks before the Bayside Book Writers were able to meet again. The sellers had officially accepted Harris’s offer, and the closing went through without a hitch. Clearly Millicent Banks had gotten the job done. It had been decided to postpone the next meeting until moving day. They’d all promised to help Harris cart boxes and small pieces of furniture from his old apartment to his new house on Oleander Drive.

Whether Nick Plumley had made any attempt to contact the sellers, Olivia didn’t know, but she’d seen Millicent at the grocery store, showing off her new Chanel purse to a group of admirers gathered around the deli counter.

Despite overcast skies and the fact that the day would be spent hauling things from one residence to another, Harris couldn’t stop smiling. Upon seeing Olivia standing in his living room, he greeted her with an exuberant embrace and then shook Haviland’s paw. The poodle quickly disengaged and jogged off to explore the apartment. With the knickknacks boxed and the furniture piled in the center of each room, there was an array of exposed scents waiting to be investigated.

Harris had secured the aid of two coworkers by bribing them with promises of pizza and beer in exchange for helping him move the bed, sofa, and kitchen table. The congenial software developers made several trips in a commercial-sized pickup, sparing the Bayside Book Writers from having to manhandle the massive leather sectional or the heavy oak coffee table.

However, they were all sore, sweaty, and tired by the time the last box had been carried across the bungalow’s threshold. Olivia sank down on the sofa while Millay perched on the coffee table, surveying the haphazard arrangement of furniture and accessories.

“Where’s Little Administrative Assistant?” she asked Harris. “Isn’t it the girlfriend’s job to help haul her lover boy’s crap when he moves? This is, like, a major Kodak moment. A freaking milestone. How can she miss it?”

Harris blushed and turned away from Millay’s sharp stare. “Estelle volunteers at a senior center on Saturdays. She would have been here if she didn’t have another commitment.”

“How sweet of her!” Laurel quickly exclaimed. “And I’m sorry I arrived so late to the moving party. The twins are going through this biting phase, and I’m afraid Dermot sank his teeth into my father-in-law’s thigh and hung on like a little bulldog.”

Rawlings and Harris hooted with laughter.

Millay nodded her head with approval. “A pint-sized vampire. Way to go, Dermot.”

“The in-laws don’t think he’s so cute at the moment,” Laurel answered with a giggle. “And Steve tried to make it seem like Dermot’s bad behavior was my fault for not being by his side every second of the day. I told them Maddie Jackson is still biting people and she’s old enough to wear a training bra!”

Harris’s house was filled with the sounds of mirth.

Later, over six-packs of cold beer and several large ham and pineapple pies from Pizza Bay, Harris’s friends toasted his new home.

The coworkers took off with the leftover food, but only after pausing at the doorway to haze Harris about spending Saturday night with his book club.

Millay was on her feet in a flash. “It’s not a book club, nerds. We’re a writers’ group. We write books. Book clubs discuss someone else’s published works. You just wait.” She pointed a finger at their chests while slinging her free arm around Harris. “One day, this übergeek is going to be signing his book for packs of hormone-crazed hotties. And what’ll you clowns be doing? Playing online video games with some twelve-year-old in Albuquerque?”

Instead of being offended, the young men were delighted by Millay’s sauciness. “Now we see the benefits of this group. You’ve got sweet Millay on Saturday and Estelle Sunday through Friday. We didn’t know you were such a player, dude!” They took turns exchanging high-fives with a dumbstruck Harris.

Harris pushed them onto the porch just as Millay lunged forward, her eyes flashing. Amused, Rawlings mollified the lovely bartender by handing her a fresh beer. He raised his own bottle in salute.

“If you ever consider a job in law enforcement, come talk to me. You could scare the good back into half the town’s criminals.”

Millay grinned, her face relaxing as she took a sip of beer. Twirling a strand of her glossy black hair, which was dyed fuchsia at the tips, she walked back to her spot on the coffee table, giving Laurel a squeeze on the arm in passing. “Let’s get down to it. Mama’s got a brand-new bag.”

Harris dug around in a nearby box until he found a file folder from which he pulled out Laurel’s chapter. “Is it okay to ask why you ditched the duchess?”

Laurel had clearly been anticipating this question. “The more I worked on that book, the less sincere it felt. With every paragraph, I was struggling to place myself in her shoes. The scenes felt forced and then, one day, I realized I didn’t even like her.”

“You could have gone back and edited her,” Rawlings pointed out.

“Sure,” Laurel agreed. “But it was too late. She is who she is. I just got to this point where I didn’t care what happened to her and so how could I expect a reader to care?” She pointed at the pages in Harris’s hands. “But this woman! She leapt from my mind like, um, who was the Greek goddess who was born fully matured?”

Millay tapped her forehead. “Athena, goddess of wisdom. She busted right out of Zeus’s head wearing a full suit of armor. Talk about some serious labor pains . . .”

“Imagine if he’d had twins!” Laurel chuckled. “Anyway, that’s how The Wife came about. She literally forced every other character out of my mind and started whispering her story to me. I literally cannot stop writing. It’s like being high on drugs.”

Rawlings arched a brow. “Oh? Is that something you’ve personally experienced?”

“No!” Laurel cried in horror and then realized the chief was joking. “I know I just dropped this on all of you with no warning, but I wanted this chapter to be read without any preconceptions. So I’m ready now. Fire away!”

Millay volunteered to go first. “I totally thought this woman was going to be some whiny Stepford wife, and I guess, on the surface, she is. She’s got the tan and the toned bod and the French manicure, but I felt sorry for her when I read about all the things she did to make herself more attractive to her husband. I was, to my own surprise, rooting for her.”

“You did an incredible job describing the scene where she gets Botox.” Harris gave a little shiver. “I hate needles. And the way she just sits there—thinking about how good she’ll look without those lines on her forehead and around her mouth while the doc sticks her again and again—I kind of wanted to shake her and tell her she didn’t have to go through that.”

The group of writers began to argue vociferously over whether The Wife had been wasting time and money trying to improve her physical appearance, since her husband didn’t seem to notice anything she did.

“You’re forgetting that she also attempts to become a better person on the inside,” Olivia said. “She begins volunteering at the hospital. She bakes meals for the employees at her husband’s company that have had babies or fallen ill. She reads dozens of biographies about strong and powerful women. That’s what saved her as a character in my eyes. She wants to be the whole package. She is deeper than she appears.”

Rawlings threw up his hands. “But she wants to be Wonder Woman and that’s ridiculous. Impossible.”

Everyone began talking at once. This was unusual, as the writers were careful never to interrupt one another. Olivia wondered if the afternoon’s physical labor coupled with several beers had produced this chaotic atmosphere. She glanced over at Laurel and saw her friend smiling with happiness.

Eventually, the rest of the group noticed her expression and fell silent, gazing at her inquisitively.

“It doesn’t bother you that we want to push this woman off a bridge half the time?” Millay asked.

“Not at all,” Laurel replied. “She’s evoked emotion in you in a way the duchess never did. I’m thrilled.”

Rawlings reviewed the notes on his paper. “An excellent point, but I think you need to revamp your title. Lessons for Ever After doesn’t seem to reflect the complexity of The Wife’s character.”

Olivia agreed. She’d made a note about the title as well. “You may need to wait until your story develops further before deciding what to call this book. We already know from reading one chapter that The Wife must figure out what makes her fulfilled, with or without the husband, and that she needs to redefine her definition of happily ever after.” She scanned over the pages in her hand. “Don’t get too caught up in the fairy-tale theme,” Olivia cautioned. “I sense this romance is going to have more depth than your previous project. It might turn into more of a Chick-lit romance if you use too many Cinderella elements.”

Laurel nodded in agreement and then Harris pointed out bits of unclear dialogue. Millay finished the critique by voicing reservations about Laurel’s word choice in the final paragraph, but overall, it was clear that the Bayside Book Writers were impressed by her new project.

“You’re on the chopping block next week,” Millay informed Olivia after examining her day planner. “It’ll be nice to be back in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage. I like your choice of booze better.”

Olivia gestured at the pair of empty bottles at Millay’s feet. “You didn’t seem to suffer. Besides, you’ve never been much of a wine drinker.”

“And what about you, Chief?” Millay’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “You going to wash down that Coors with a chocolate milk chaser?”

Rawlings, who was known to have a penchant for chocolate milk, gave Millay a wink. “You should get in at least three servings of dairy per day. It’s never too late to protect yourself against bone loss.”

Millay threw one of the sofa cushions at him.

Harris rose, banged his pen on the neck of his beer bottle, and cleared his throat. “I have a strange and wonderful announcement.”

“Estelle is knocked up and you’re eloping to Vegas?” Millay interrupted. Rawlings returned fire with the pillow and gestured for Harris to continue.

“Thanks, Sawyer.” Even after months of having the chief as a critique partner, Harris always looked pleased to be able to address the policeman by his first name. “You’ll never believe it, but I met Nick Plumley yesterday. The Nick Plumley. Right in front of my house.” He beamed. “Man, that feels so good to say. My house.”

Olivia frowned. The bestselling author had failed to buy the bungalow, but he was clearly still interested in it. “What was he doing here?”

“Said he’d been doing research for the sequel to The Barbed Wire Flower and came across a newspaper article describing how all the houses on Oleander Drive had been relocated. I told you guys about that earlier, but what I didn’t know was that one of the trucks broke down in the middle of Main Street on a Sunday. A local minister with initiative blessed the house and held an impromptu service inside.” Harris smiled. “It wasn’t my house though. Plumley came inside and looked around but said the floor plan didn’t match the description in the newspaper. He’s lucky he caught me. I was only here because I’d come over to meet the cable guys.”

Nick Plumley’s motive to see the inside of Harris’s house sounded plausible, but something in Olivia’s gut told her that there was more to it than research. For some reason she could not fathom, the writer had a connection to this house. It was important to him. Because it could enable him to pen another excellent novel? Perhaps. But would he decide to purchase the property just to be able to study the interior? Olivia didn’t think so. Nick might be wealthy, but he didn’t seem like a compulsive spender. When she’d met him at the diner, he’d been dressed in khaki trousers and a white button-down. His shoes and watch were of good quality, but neither was especially costly.

Even his soft briefcase was modest and similar to the one Rawlings carried. It had the worn suppleness of those toted around by professors, not millionaires. Yet Nick had wanted to buy this house instead of continuing the lease on the spectacular beachfront property near Olivia’s place. She wondered if he was still a mile down the road or if he’d bought another home. Dixie hadn’t seen him at the diner for the last two weeks, and Olivia’s feisty friend had pretended to be extremely offended that Oyster Bay’s newest celebrity had eschewed Grumpy’s in favor of other eateries.

“Are you certain he’s defected?” Olivia had asked, amused.

Dixie didn’t even crack a smile. “He’s been at Bagels’n’ Beans every single day. Even if he doesn’t like eggs or pancakes, there’s still Grumpy’s lunch menu! I can’t stand the thought that he didn’t like our club sandwich. Who makes a better one, I’d like to know!”

Olivia had tried to assure her flustered friend that there wasn’t a restaurant within two hundred miles that could top Grumpy’s “mile-high club sandwich,” but Dixie was not to be consoled.

Except for the fact that Flynn McNulty had created an entire window display at Through the Wardrobe featuring signed copies of Nick’s book, no one in Oyster Bay had called attention to the writer’s presence. This in itself was an oddity. Normally, a rich, handsome, and unattached celebrity would have had the gossip chain on red alert, but even though he’d been in town for several weeks already, Nick had kept such a low profile that Olivia had nearly forgotten about him.

After all, she was a busy woman. Between preparing for the grand opening of The Bayside Crab House, outlining the next chapter in her novel, and adjusting to the existence of her new family, Olivia hadn’t had time to dwell on Nick Plumley.

“Wait, there’s more to this story!” Harris declared exuberantly. “When Plumley heard I was an aspiring writer, he actually offered to read my work in progress. He said that he loves science fiction and has always admired authors of the genre. He’s going to swing by on Tuesday to pick up my manuscript.” Glancing around at the scores of unpacked boxes, Harris’s eyes took on a frantic look. “I totally have to get my computer and printer hooked up.”

Laurel’s mouth had formed a perfect O of surprise. “Harris, this is wonderful! I’d heard that Mr. Plumley was in town, but I still haven’t laid eyes on him. Do you think he’ll give you feedback?”

Harris tried to look modest. “Yeah, I do. In fact, he said he’d love to attend one of our meetings if we were willing to have him.”

“Seriously?” Millay asked. “Why would he want to do that? He’s already made it.”

“Maybe he wants to share his knowledge of the publishing process with us,” Laurel suggested. “Maybe he wants to pay it forward.”

Rawlings crossed his arms over his chest, as though pondering what it would be like to receive constructive criticism from the famous author. “I wouldn’t say no to an offer of assistance from Mr. Plumley. I truly admire his work and would enjoy hearing the story of his success.”

“That’s three votes for him,” Harris stated, raising the fingers of his right hand in front of Millay’s face. “Your book is closest to being ready for publication. I bet Plumley could tell you a thing or two about finding a literary agent.”

Millay gazed dreamily at her writing journal. “I do have a ton of questions about the querying process, so it’s fine with me if Oyster Bay’s own Dan Brown wants to hang out. Let’s see what he can do for us.” She turned to Olivia. “Does this mean you’ll be breaking out caviar and the top-shelf liquor?”

Olivia wasn’t pleased. “We’re not changing a thing for Nick Plumley’s visit. Personally, I don’t care for the idea of him being there for the critique of my chapter, but I guess I’ll deal with it, as everyone else wants to extend him an invitation.”

Having come to a decision, the group broke up. Millay left for her shift at Fish Nets, Rawlings needed to swing by the station to sign paperwork, and Laurel had to be home in time to bathe the twins and put them to bed.

Even after taking Haviland outside for a brisk walk down Oleander Drive, Olivia felt restless. She could go home, change clothes, and get to The Boot Top in time for the evening rush, but she was reluctant to leave Harris’s house. She wanted to know why Nick Plumley found the modest bungalow so intriguing.

“I need to do a little snooping,” she told Haviland. “You’ll have to wait another hour for dinner. I’m going to offer to help Harris unpack some boxes and see if the house wants to whisper a clue in my ear.”

Harris was delighted to accept her offer. “Could you set up the kitchen? Not to sound old-fashioned, but women have a better sense of where stuff should go in that room.”

“I doubt Michel would agree with that statement,” Olivia remarked with a laugh and got busy putting away dishes, pots, and pans, and Harris’s odd collection of flatware and cooking utensils.

The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was dated. It desperately needed new flooring and a fresh coat of paint, but the cabinets were solid, and Harris had done his best to clean them. The entire room was redolent with the smell of bleach.

When she was done setting up the room, she began to make a mental list of all the changes that would have to be made to freshen up the space. She hadn’t bought Harris a house-warming gift but decided on the spot to splurge and hire one of the men from Clyde’s team to rip up the worn and discolored linoleum and replace it with tile.

She wandered around the rest of the downstairs but found nothing unusual in the coat or broom closets and didn’t feel she had cause to be poking around upstairs. Harris, who was putting clothes in the chest of drawers in his bedroom, might find it odd to discover her jumping up and down on the floorboards in the attic. After scrutinizing the paneling in the living room for a final time, she gave up. Haviland hadn’t picked up any alarming scents either, and the house felt as it had each time she’d visited: solid and dependable.

Thoroughly tired now, Olivia wished Harris good night and stepped out into the warm evening. Casting a backward glance at the illuminated bungalow, Olivia decided she was going to have to investigate any and all public documents pertaining to its history. As Clyde had said, all houses had secrets.

“Yours might be well hidden,” Olivia addressed the timeworn facade. “But I will discover it.”