Cheating at Solitaire (Cheating at Solitaire 1)

"Are you kidding? Look at this place." I le gestured around him to the dozens of trailers that filled the streets, the crews, the barricades blocking hordes of fans. "He got them to fly me in from California. And when he wraps here, he's going to New Zealand to start the new Peter Jackson. He's on top of the world," Tom said with only the slightest glint of jealousy in his eyes.

Never before had good news made Julia feel so terrible.

"So, what brings you by?" Tom asked.

"Oh, I'm in town for meetings with my editor," she lied. "Then I'm catching a plane to London. I'll be on tour in Europe for a few weeks." She was shamelessly scanning the street, looking for Lance.

"Hey," Tom said. "He's in with Tiffany, but I can get him."

"Tiffany?" she questioned.

"Female lead. Nice girl."

"Oh," Julia said, and tried with every ounce of resolve in her body not to crumble into dust and blow away. "Are they ..."

Tom looked at her, then he nodded and said, "Yeah, I think so."

"Oh." That's terrible. "That's great." "Why don't you let me go get him?"

"Oh, no," she said, waving off the suggestion. "I've got to catch a plane."

"You sure?" Tom asked, unconvinced.

Julia smiled and said, "Yeah."

"You wanna leave a message?" he asked.

She thought about what she'd say. But of the thousands of words she'd written in her lifetime, she couldn't imagine stringing a half dozen together to say what she wanted him to hear. She could just say "Hi" like an old friend stopping in out of the blue and disappearing just as quickly. She could take a chance, say the words that had brought her running through traffic and airport security. Or she could say good-bye.

"Actually ..." She began digging in her bag. "I just need to give him something."

"Can do." Tom nodded and crossed his arms, waiting for his assignment.

She dug into her purse and removed her deck of cards. "Can you give him these, please?"

Tom looked at the ragged deck and seemed to wonder what kind of freak would return something you can buy brand-new for a buck twenty-eight at any corner store. "Any message?" he asked.

Julia shrugged, fighting tears. "Just tell him he broke me of the habit."

"Okay," Tom said, taking the cards without trying to disguise his confusion.

She walked away quickly, certain any more words would betray her. She focused on planting one foot in front of the other as she walked down the Manhattan sidewalk, surrounded by lights and cameras and action, as somewhere in her mind, the soundtrack of her life began to play, and the credits rolled on her romance.

She dodged the busy crews with their bright lights and long cables. They worked all around her, setting the scene, getting ready to make a perfect movie ending.

Julia always knew it was phony.

In the end, no one goes home with the fairy tale.

Chapter Twenty Eight

WAY #101: Accept the hand you're dealt.

True peace comes from accepting what you are—a self-sufficient entity, a deserving individual who is much more than just half of a whole. Sometimes happiness depends on understanding that even a losing hand of solitaire can be a great  way to pass the time.

—from 707 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire

‘It's good," Abby said without taking her eyes off the manuscript. "Really, it's good."

There were a few things Julia had picked up from being around professional critics, and one of them was that when a person feels the need to pay a minor compliment twice, they're probably hiding a major criticism.

Julia knew she had it coming. She wanted to blame some of the manuscript's shortcomings on the tight schedule, the challenge of promoting and doing research at the same time, the fact that European stores didn't carry her favorite brand of pen. But those were just excuses. Julia knew too well where the blame belonged.

"It's a marketable book," Abby went on.

"But . . ." Julia prompted.

"Jules, I'm a fan." Abby leaned her small body onto the top of her oversized and impossibly tidy desk. She waved her hand, gesturing to the multimillion-dollar corporation around her. "Everyone here knows it. I've loved everything you've ever published."

That's what you think, Julia thought.

"Even those sexy bodice-rippers you wrote way back when," Abby added.

Julia nearly lost her lunch.

"Didn't think I knew about those, did you?"

Julia could do nothing but be honest. "No, I didn't."

"The reason I know is because I happen to be a very big fish in a not-so-big pond. They were good. I agree that they don't exactly 'go' with your nonfiction career, but they're nothing to be ashamed of. Books like that bought my house in the Hamptons." Abby shifted in her seat. "I'm getting off track. What I'm trying to say is that I know you, kiddo. I know how you think and, more importantly, I know how you write. This"—she tapped the manuscript with her glasses—"is good. But it isn't you."

"Well, it's just a draft," Julia hurried to say. "I've still got to polish. You won't even recognize it in a month."

Abby shook her head. "It won't change until you change. I don't know what this Lance Collins business did to you.

Maybe it shook your confidence, opened your eyes to something? I don't know. What I do know is that your first books were fresh. They were fun. But this sounds like work. I don't want to hurt your feelings—it really is good—but it isn't the work of a believer. Do you see what I'm saying?"

Julia nodded, understanding perfectly.

Abby went on. "I could publish this tomorrow and it would debut at number one, and we'd both make a load of money. Or we could sit on it until you get your voice back, and then we'll publish something that we both know is an actual Julia James book. Makes no difference to me. You make the call."

Julia couldn't imagine how this woman could have risen to a position of power in a carpool, much less an entire industry. But, she supposed, there is an inherent strength in kindness.

"What are we going to do?" Abby asked.

Julia thought about it. "I'm going to go home and hang up a picture."

Abby leaned back in her chair. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about," she said, then kicked her feet up onto her desk. "But let me know how it works out."

"Are you sure you don't want me to meet you?" Nina asked as Julia adjusted the grip she had on her cellular phone and looked around the terminal of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

"No," she said. "I think I'll rent a car."

"That's ridiculous! I haven't seen you in weeks. Come on,

I'll pick you up. We can go to Hideaway and get a pizza, then go to your ..."

"No, really, Nina," Julia said, feeling a little guilty, but not so guilty that she was willing to let Nina derail the plan she'd already gotten her heart set on. "I'm looking forward to driving. I've been chauffeured and flown around for weeks now. I want to drive."

"Then you can drive my car."

"I need a little time alone."

"Julia, you've been alone for a solid month and for thirty-four years before that. Don't you think you've had enough alone time?"

Julia thought about it, then said, "I need a little more."

In the rental car, heading home, her headlights sliced through the black, and it occurred to Julia that she didn't need them. She could feel her way, taste it, hear it. All she had to do was follow the flow of the land and the sound of water. It had been a long time since Julia had been homesick, not since she was living in New York, she guessed. Not since before the first book got published and she became famous for being the woman who wasn't waiting for someone to join her at the table. It took another trip to New York and a stranger sitting down beside her at Stella's to convince Julia James that, sometimes, the strength lies in the waiting.

Veronica White was going to come out of retirement. During the past three weeks, Julia had realized something: she killed the Veronica in herself, then only the Ro-Ro would survive. Once she'd figured that out, the rest became easy. In the flight from Dallas, she'd pulled out a notebook and felt Veronica's words fly from her fingers.

In her suitcase, she had a dozen home decor magazines and a list of ideas she'd picked up in Paris. She'd given Nina a blood oath that she was serious about the renovation. She couldn't wait to say good-bye to the leaky faucets and cracking walls that had framed the last three years of her life. It was time to start making permanent changes to the house, to everything.

She drove down the gravel road in the darkness, ready to begin her grown-up life.

The headlights swept over the house, and she thought, Home sweet home, as she parked the car and popped the trunk. She lugged her suitcases onto the porch and struggled with the key.

When, at last, the door was open, she started inside but stopped short. Someone had fixed the door leading into the study. There was a fresh coat of paint on the wall. Have Nina and the contractors started? she wondered. But then she saw that new lights had been installed in the ceiling above the fireplace, and they were shining down, accenting her grandmother's painting, which hung, perfectly centered, above the mantle. She crept closer, wondering who had arranged that surprise. She studied the painting through t he lights' glow. Its brushstrokes, the way the oil caught the light. She stepped closer and heard the familiar creak of the floorboards, but another noise as well, something she knew but couldn't pinpoint, something . . .

Behind her, cards shuffled.

Julia turned to see Lance sitting at the dining-room table. He cut the cards, then looked at her. With a sly smirk, he said, "I think it's time you learn how to play gin."