“Do you have your writing group tonight?”
Is it already Tuesday? Wait… Didn’t we meet last week? I rack my brain and realize Dad’s right. “Aye. I should go.”
I take my plate to the kitchen and hurry to the library. Rain lashes at the window, so I decide to take the car. Slipping into my wellies, I head to Thistle House. The windshield wipers working overtime, I can’t help but wonder where Miles is in this weather. What kind of research on his character does he need to do, anyway? Is that the real reason he left, or was it my temper?
Thistle House is warm and blessedly dry when I enter, hanging up my wet coat. Kate, Gabs, and Bella are already seated in the cozy chairs by the fire, clacking away with their needles. I grab a whiskey from Margie and make my way over. A few years ago, when our writing group formed, it didn’t technically start out that way. If it’snot knitting, then there’s not a group for it in Foyers. When I was a teenager, I tried to start a book club. We readGone Girl.At the meeting, many of the members expressed concern for my mental state, that I would select such dark materials. They acted like I had us read the Necronomicon and suggested we try a few of the chants. It’s not like I wroteGone Girl.
God, I wish I had.
So, I joined the knitting group, and it turned out they were all avid readers. They read my pages and gave me feedback. Bella and Gabby started writing their own novels. Now we get to exchange pages, instead of them all reading just my stuff all the time.
“Skye!” Gabby smiles, her brown hair pulled back in a loose bun held together with knitting needles. Despite her sweet face, Gabby writes dark historical mysteries—emphasis on dark. Bella holds up the mitten she’s working on to me in greeting, her long braids swishing with the motion, her dark skin glowing in the firelight. She’s a nanny and is writing a cozy mystery about a bookstore owner who stumbles upon a dead body with her pet cat in tow. Our work used to have a lot in common.
Kate holds up her whiskey to me, and I clink it with mine. She’s the only one of the group who hasn’t tried her hand at writing yet, but she gives great feedback. I sent them some of my new pages the other day, thinking I was giving them enough time to read them. They would’ve, if I hadn’t gotten the dates mixed up. In reality, ‘not realized what date it was’ is more accurate. I could’ve sworn we met last Tuesday, but no, that was the day Miles got here.
“We were just talking about Bella’s pages. Then we’ll do mine, then yours. Does that sound good?” asks Gabby, her cheeks a little extra rosy tonight, either from the fire or the nearly empty glass of wine next to her.
I nod, wishing I’d actually learned to knit so I’d have something to do with my hands. I hate going last. I’m nervous enough about how they’ll react to the genre switch, which none of them have brought up. Now I have to wait until the end. We discuss Bella’s latestchapters and get into a lively conversation on how many characters are too many. We move on to Gabby’s latest chapters. Gabby’s writing is clean, her research is thorough, and her plots are hole-free. She doesn’t really need us, and any suggestions we have or feedback we provide, she usually doesn’t do anything with. But she seems to enjoy our meetings, and she’s a great facilitator. We spend her time questioning one of her character’s motivations on whether it was believable for an uptight English woman in 1922 to stretch in the garden in plain sight of the neighbors. She convinces us it is.
Gabby sips her wine. “Okay, now on to Skye. New genre.”
Kate smiles like a cat that’s caught a canary. “Romance. How’d you get into that?”
I make eyes at her.
Bella chimes in. “Romance is my second favorite genre.”
Gabby pushes the bridge of her glasses up. “So, the pages themself are, well, they’re…”
I might throw up into my whiskey.
“They’re marvelous.”
Every muscle in my body relaxes at the same time, and a pleasant tingle moves through me. This must be what drugs feel like.
“I loved them,” Kate says with a massive smile.
Bella is nodding so hard that the beads at the end of her braids are clacking together, almost like applause—an ovation for my pages.
“Sorcha is just a spitfire. I like her. I’m rooting for her. And Mickey…”
I’ve been calling the character Miles, but I did a quick find and replace, changing the name to Mickey before sending the pages.
“…oof, he’s a dreamboat.”
I giggle, not able to contain the pure elation this praise is giving me, but also because blouse-buttoned-to-the-top-button Gabby saying dreamboat is too much.
We talk for thirty minutes about my opening pages, and the response is overall very positive. They are excited to read more…but as of now, there isn’t any.
I need to get my head back in the game. I need to text Miles.
I layin bed writing texts and deleting them.
Me: Do you know when you might come back?
Delete, delete, delete.
Me: Do you have an ETA for your return date?
