She tried to be sympathetic.“Still want one?”
The look in his eyes said he’d kill for a puff just then.“Your manuscript took my mind off it for a while.”
She grinned.“I knew you’d like it.I could feel it.The words came so easily.Something connected.”
Arlan nodded sagely.His fingers were steepled now, flexing like crab’s legs.“That’s because you’re intimately involved with the situation and the characters.It’s like they’re your family.”He paused.“But they’re not.You have family of your own.So why is it,” he slapped a hand to the papers, “that you come across in this manuscript as an orphan?”
“Because I’m not a major player in the story.”
“But I want to know where you fit in.You refused to give us any kind of detailed bio to use for your other books.”
“I gave you a bio.You got all the pertinent information—where I was born, where I went to school, what publications I have to my credit.That’s all that matters.”
Arlan shook his head.He reached for the sunflower seeds.“I want to know more.It’s part of this story.You grew up in Tammany Hall—”
“Timiny Cove, Timiny Cove.”
“You lived there, you knew all the people there, but you’re not like them, and you never were.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“But you lived there.”
“My family lived there.”
He popped some seeds into his mouth.“Go on.”
“Really, Arlan.This isn’t necessary.”
“You want a contract?”
She knew that he was teasing, but it was a low blow.Rising slowly from the chair, she said, “I make my own way in life.I may not be as famous as I want, but what I’ve done, I’ve done on my own.Not once have I tried to pull strings.”
“Too bad.Your dad has nice strings.”
She stared at him in silence for a minute.“You knew?”
“Sit down.”
She sat down but remained ready to bolt if the conversation took a turn she didn’t like.
Arlan seemed to know that he’d found her Achilles’ heel, because his voice immediately gentled.“Somewhere along the way, I read that Oliver Cox was living in a small town in Maine called Timiny Cove.The name stuck with me because it reminded me of—”
“—Tammany Hall.”
“Then you came along and inadvertently mentioned you were from the place.I began to wonder.Same name, same town.A phone call was all it took.”
“To my father?”
“To the postmaster—uh, mistress.What a lovely lady she was.No questions asked, she said you were Oliver Cox’s daughter.”
Hillary was too busy adding things up to be annoyed.“Then you’ve known for a while.”
He nodded.“I figured you had your reasons for wanting anonymity.”
“I certainly did!”she cried, sitting back in the chair with her faith in Arlan restored.“My father was a brilliant poet who’d won nearly every award in his field.My older sister graduated from high school when she was fourteen, went off to M.I.T., and to this day is doing advanced work in nuclear physics for the government.They were both odd, but my mother was the real eccentric of the bunch—which she’d have to be, to be able to live with the other two.
“Then I came along.”She sucked in a breath.“Let me tell you, I was a disappointment.I wasn’t a poet and I didn’t multiply, four-digit numbers in my head when I was six.When I was three, I did all the normal things that three-year-olds do.When I was four, I did all the normal things that four-year-olds do.Not that the townspeople believed that.They figured I had to be weird, too, so they didn’t accept me any more than they did my parents and sister.”
