They go back and forth like that for a few more minutes, until Estelle chuckles. “I noticed you made Until September a New York Times bestseller. Love the ambition, doll.” Then she sobers, looking up. “Oh, I almost forgot—your ex-husband can’t be the US Ambassador to the UN.”
“Why not?”
“Because he is the US Ambassador to the UN—and you turned him into an arms dealer. And then into a fat, cheating auto mechanic with an alcohol problem. He’ll sue you for defamation.”
“Are you kidding? He loves it when I put him in my books. This is first time I’ve used his real job, but he’ll still love it. The man can’t get enough of himself in print.”
Estelle wags a finger at her. “No can do. I know you and Chris are on good terms, but any publisher will insist you change it. The potential liability is too big.”
Olivia sighs. She knows this isn’t a fight she can win.
Scanning over more of her notes, Estelle continues. “The red pill/blue pill Matrix reference won’t need permission because you’re not directly quoting the film, and neither will the lines from Dostoevsky because they’re in the public domain, or the Rumi meet-me-in-the-field thing because he’s been dead for centuries. But you’ll have to get in touch with Simon and Schuster for permission to use the Hemingway quotes.”
“Already got it. They were really nice, too.”
Estelle nods, pleased. “Good to know. Okay, that’s all I’ve got.”
She closes the manuscript, picks up her bourbon, and smiles. “A book within a book. I love how you continue to stretch your own narrative conventions.”
“I was going to go full Inception and make it a book within a book within a book and have another ending after the lovers meet again in the rain.”
Estelle looks intrigued. “Really? What would’ve been the additional ending?”
“Us, doing exactly what we’re doing now.”
Estelle is confused for a moment, then her eyes widen and her mouth forms the shape of an O. “Yes. Do it! Margaret Atwood had three books going on at once in The Blind Assassin and it won the Man Booker Prize.”
“You think so?”
Estelle nods vigorously, her beehive bobbing. “Definitely. How long do you think it will take to write it?”
“Not long, considering it will basically be me transcribing this meeting and whatever happens for the rest of today.”
Estelle says, “Transcribing this meeting? I guess I’d better figure out something interesting to do then, hadn’t I?” She looks around her office, as if for ideas, but immediately gives up. “Nah. I’ve got nothing.” When she looks back at Olivia, a knowing smile creeps over her face. “Guess you and that hot hubby of yours will have to make up for it.”
“I thought you said reading about my sex life makes you uncomfortable?”
“It does, doll.” She laughs. “But what a way to end a book.”
They toast to happy endings and finish the rest of their drinks.
* * *
After lunchat Estelle’s favorite Asian-whatever fusion restaurant near her office, the two women part ways with a hug. Estelle returns to work, Olivia to the commuter train that will carry her home to the suburbs.
She works during the ride, reading her manuscript again on her Kindle. She makes a note to ask Estelle her opinion about how she addresses the audience directly as “you” several times, breaking the fourth wall and risking making the reader aware of the narration, and makes a few other notes to change this word or that.
Every time Olivia rereads a manuscript, something new jumps out that she feels needs to be changed. It’s a never-ending process. Every book she’s written has been published with something she’s still not satisfied with, but she’s learned over the years that the perfect book doesn’t exist.
Unlike the perfect man, who definitely does exist, despite what her character Edmond would have to say on the subject.
Olivia doesn’t know if it’s coincidence that she happened to be having brunch at that particular restaurant on that particular day with her girlfriends or if fate intervened on her behalf. All she knows is that she glanced up from her eggs benedict and found a gorgeous stranger staring at her from across a room full of people…staring at her with the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen.
Her heart beating painfully hard, she stared right back.