And she agreed.
Professor Farrow carried her suitcase to the side door and set it below Zeus, the stone god who wielded a lightning bolt from his hand.
“I’m sorry about Howard’s guff.”
“It’s all right,” she said, not particularly caring who drove as long as she arrived before the train’s departure. “He’s trying to be honorable.”
“Which is admirable until it disconnects from reason. When he gets something in his head, he won’t deviate from it,” Professor Farrow said. “But it’s been a tremendous honor to meet you. Perhaps you could join me another time for dinner.”
His persistence was equally admirable. And she was flattered that this younger man, as articulate and attractive as one of her imagined heroes,would want to spend time with her. To talk about literature, of course, but she appreciated his earnestness.
“My home is a few hours from Philadelphia,” she said. “It’s much too long of a journey, I’m afraid, for a meal.”
“Sometimes I travel east to speak.”
“If you are ever near Lititz, I would be glad to join you.”
His smile flashed like Zeus’s bolt, as if genuinely pleased with this news.
After the train pulled out of the station, an idea for a new story began to take root in her mind. About a young woman, never married, whose parents died, forced to travel west when trains began connecting the States. By an uncle, perhaps, who didn’t want to provide. She was a stylish student, like Izzy, with a bright and courageous spirit. A woman who grieved her loss but refused to succumb to the heartbreak.
A woman much different than her.
The college lights faded into black as the train chugged through the farmlands and then Pittsburgh, the thread of this character dangling in her head, begging to be stitched into a story.
Olivia removed the tablet from her bag and opened her Waterman pen. Then, as night settled over the car, she dusted off her brain and began to write.
4:Harper
“They appear to be stuck,” Kelsey whispered as she and Harper scanned the living room from the second-floor landing, stowed away behind a case of Mediterranean artifacts.
Below the landing, three of the four weekend warriors had draped themselves across designer chairs and couches, a flutter of papers on the floor in their attempt to find a decent script.
“Like beached whales,” Kelsey continued, and Harper corked a giggle with her hand. The team did look like a pod waiting for a giant wave of inspiration to sweep them away.
Harper nodded at the counter where she’d serve lunch. One of the producers had requested pigs in a blanket so she’d already slipped a baking sheet full of them into the oven before hiding away with her friend. “I need to help Dirk with the lunch trays.”
“Can’t you wait until they ask for food?” Kelsey sighed as if Harper was depriving her of much-needed entertainment.
“Only if we want Dirk to lose his job.”
Kelsey snorted. “My father is never going to fire him.”
“Then he’ll fire me, and I don’t have anyplace else to go.”
“He’s not going to let you go either,” Kelsey said. “But if you decided to leave, you’d land right back on your feet.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Even if she managed to get a full-time production job, she’d need at least two roommates to afford LA rent.
If only Evan would read one of her scripts and recommend it to another director or producer. Maybe she could actually get paid for doing what she loved.
She glanced down the hall at the closed door to his suite, the stack of clean towels and breakfast tray she’d delivered still outside. As the team below reviewed mounds of printed scripts, pre-approved by a host of first readers, Evan and Marlo had stowed themselves away the past two days, waiting for the producers to recommend a story idea that would continue Evan’s legacy in the industry along with the income to expand his portfolio, reputation, and square feet.
While Marlo had yet to make an appearance this morning, Mop Man—with the actual name of Chet Taylor—joined Sissie and Tony. After he’d winked at her yesterday morning, when she brought them a round of cappuccinos, she refused to meet his eye.
Sissie shoved a lapful of papers onto the floor. “This is all rubbish.”
Chet peeked over the top of a paper, his feet perched on the arm of the opposite chair. “No one saysrubbishanymore.”
