Envy Mass Market

“Guilty.”

“If I had gushed over how good your writing was, you would have known I was insincere.”

“Or a lousy editor.”

“But I knew better,” Mike interjected. “I’ve read books that you edited, Maris. I told Parker, made a fifty-dollar bet with him, that his low opinion of you was unfounded and just plain wrong.”

Maris heard all this, of course, but she hadn’t even glanced in Mike’s direction. Her anger was fixed on Parker. He smiled the sly grin of a gator that had just devoured a nest of ducklings, a grin that he knew would only make her more angry. “Sorry you came? Want to call the boat to take you back now?”

She tossed back her damp hair. “What caused Todd’s father’s death?”

Parker’s heart gave a little flutter of gladness and relief. His wicked grin had been a lying indicator of the anxiety he’d been harboring.

“Was his death sudden or did it follow a lingering illness?” she asked.

“Does this mean you’re still interested?”

“Did Todd take his death hard or was he glad to see the end of him? Was his father his idol? Or did the death release him from years of emotional abuse?”

She pushed an armchair close to him and snatched the pages from his hands as she sat down. “Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

“The characters need to be fleshed out.”

“Precisely. Where do they come from? What were their families like? Rich, poor, middle class? Did they have similar upbringings or were their childhoods vastly different? We know they want to be writers, but you haven’t told us why. Simply for the love of books? Or is writing a catharsis for Roark, a way for him to vent his anger? Is it a panacea for Todd’s unhappiness?”

“Panacea?”

“Are you listening?”

“I’ll look it up later.”

“You know what it means,” she snapped.

He smiled again. “Yes. I do.” From the corner of his eye, he noticed Mike leaving the room and pulling the door closed behind him.

Maris was still in high gear. “Life in the fraternity house—”

“There’s more of that in the next chapter.”

“There’s a next chapter?”

“I worked on it this morning.”

“Great. I liked that part. Very much. It’s vivid. As I read, I could smell the gym socks.” She shuddered delicately. “And the bit with the toothbrush…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s almost too outrageous to be fiction. Personal experience?”

“What else needs work?” he asked.

“Ah. I get it. Personal questions are disallowed.”

“If you washed out your undies last night, what did you sleep in?”

She sucked in a quick breath, opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. Her teeth clicked softly when she closed her mouth.

Tilting his head, he squinted his eyes as though to bring her into sharper focus. “Nothing, right?”