And here he comes down the causeway. Even though I’m camouflaged, I slide down in my seat out of habit. It’s more prudent that way. Also painful. I slept in this car last night, and there’s a monster crick in my neck. I’m only in my early forties, which is notthatold. But I’m getting too old for this sh*t.
I see William’s profile as he pauses at the end of the drive, then turns onto the logging track and passes me. He’s in his prescription sunglasses and travel clothes, khakis and a light blue button-down. I still remember how those shirts smelled, how even in our program, when everyone else reeked of CK Obsession and cigarettes, William always smelled like a dry cleaner. Like starch.
It has been a dry summer, and the dust plume his car raises hangs in the air after he disappears from view. I watch my watch, counting the seconds, the minutes. I’ll wait till he’s a mile away before I get out, drag the branches back off to the side, and follow. I know where he’s going, of course. His appearances are listed on his website. Still, I want to be on his tail all the way. You never know who he might meet on the road. I have to be vigilant always.
Especially when he’s doing book events.
And the tour forAll the Lambent Soulsofficially kicks off now.
Let the games begin.
Chapter 3
Literary Cinderella
The next afternoon Sam was back in her apartment in her yoga pants and T-shirt, her suitcase unpacked, her dry-cleaning bag so stuffed with red clothes that it bulged as if it contained a body. She sat at her desk in her study, face scrubbed and hair in its usual side braid, her favoriteWRITE LIKE A MOTHERFUCKERmug full of dark roast. Literary Cinderella back from the ball, ready to do what any career writer would: Try try again.
Sam opened her laptop. She said the usual prayer—God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference—and set her hands on the keyboard. She typed:
Chapter One: Panning for Gold
There. She was done. Could she be done? If only. Unlike many writers, who loved the Pollock splatter of first drafts, Sam hated beginnings. She much preferred having written and cleaning it up. She glanced at the wall above her desk, which was coated with magnetic chalkboard paint. Stuck to it were two things—her favorite quotation, from Winston Churchill:Never give in, never give in, never give in. And a photo of her adventurous, energetic, lucky/unlucky, and extremely virile ancestorOle Nielsen. A man like a blade, thin and stern with the white-blond Norwegian hair Sam had had as a child. Sitting on his farmhouse porch in Minnesota, surrounded by his multitudinous progeny.
“Hey, Ole,” Sam said. “If you have any inspiration to send me, this would be the time.”
Ole’s gray gaze remained remote. Sam returned to the keyboard.
Ole Nielsen sat up on his haunches in Dead Man’s Creek and rubbed a weary hand over his eyes. His hand shook, and when he held it in front of his face he saw the missing nails, the dirt ingrained in the fortune teller’s lines. Protruding as it was from a wrist scrawny with starvation, his hand which for the last several months had held a panning pan
Sam backed up and tried again:
It was early morning in the California hills above Dead Man’s Creek, and when Ole Nielsen emerged from his __tent?__ the sun had just cracked like an egg yolk over the mountaintops
Well, this was terrible. Sam got up and went into the kitchen to warm her coffee in the microwave. It was fine. Everything was fine. Sam was just out of shape. She never wrote when she was on tour. She’d been at conferences with other authors who did, including one super-successful historical fiction writer Sam had affectionately nicknamed The General because she got up at 5:00 a.m. daily to run sprints in their hotel staircases, then banged out a thousand words before they went onstage. When Sam was on tour, she conserved her energy for her audiences.
The big Nordic man standing askance in the frigid waters of Dead Man’s Creek had ceased days ago to even feel his gangrenous feet
Ole Nielsen hadn’t come all the way from Norway to Ellis Island to ___another ship___ down the __Mississippi?___ via steamer? Paddle boat? Canoe? JETSKI
“Jesus,” Sam muttered. But this, too, was part of the problem. Sam was not aMad Libswriter, getting the story down first and filling in historical details later. She usually did at least six months of research before she wrote a word, so she could climb into her characters’ skins as if they were virtual reality suits and replicate their lives for her readers. Her tour had not allowed her much time to do this.
Sam opened her browser to look upNorwegians in Gold Rushand got tractor-beamed in by her email, which she had been deliberately ignoring, in particular a message from her agent Mireille with the header:I HAVE BEEN CALLING YOU! PLEASE READ THIS!
From: Mireille Levenge
To: Sam Vetiver
Date: August 1
Time: 9:30 p.m.
ChèreSam,
Félicitationson theSodbustertour! You are a road warriorpar excellence.
I have tried to call you several timesand it went straight to voicemail, so I am sure you are writing. ;)Bien. I hope this is true! Once you have taken a breath, I would like to hop on the phone to discuss where you are withGold Digger’s Mistress.
I was calling to tell you I reached out to your editor Patricia yesterday to see if I could get your first-month numbers forSodbuster. Sam, there is not an easy way to say this, so I will tell it to you straight: they are not as we had hoped. (See attachment.)Bien sur, this is not your or the book’s fault. Sales are soft industry-wide, and it is never easy to launch in summer. Add to this recent consolidations at every publishing house, and you haveun peua perfect storm.
