Page 62 of A Bookish Story

CHAPTER 21

It’s a few days later when I bump into Ryan at Piazza’s on Charleston grocery shopping. It’s a shock to my system because he’s out of place in this setting. It’s like seeing your doctor at a coffee shop, or your irritating misogynist boss cuddling with his wife at the movie theater. It doesn’t quite compute. I join him in the produce aisle where he’s loading a carton of grape tomatoes into his basket.

I need to ask him about Elizabeth’s name and between his writing hours and my research hours, a good time to bring it up hasn’t come up. Particularly since I want to make sure he doesn’t read the editorial review, the one that derides a woman from writing a man’s point of view. He’s going to be sorry he didn’t go with a man’s name. So far, if he’s seen it he hasn’t mentioned it.

“Hi,” I say now, sidling up next to him.

“What are you doing here?” he says, with his infamous eyebrow quirk.

“Skydiving,” I deadpan. “You?”

“It’s open-mike night and I’m thinking about trying out some new material.”

Damn, his is better!

“I like doing this,” he says. “What else can we pretend to be doing instead of grocery shopping?”

“Writing?” I snort.

“Writing is hard. You know what’s easier? Juggling apples while riding a bicycle over a tightrope. And the bicycle is on fire. Everything is on fire.”

“It sounds like you mean that. The book isn’t going well?”

I’d left him my notes and they were encouraging. His opening is excellent, truly riveting, and I don’t quite understand why Kate “hates it.” The truth is she probably doesn’t hate it at all. Still, I did what I could, adding areas here and there where he could layer in more emotion with his love interest. If there’s anything I agree on with Kate, it’s that those layers seem stilted when compared to the book. But probably everything does in comparison. Kate will just need to accept this is a different kind of book and that’s okay too.

He doesn’t reply, simply studies the label on a carton of cotton candy grapes, as if there’s anything interesting to read there. Not exactly riveting material.

“There can’t possibly be cotton candy in here, but why are they so sweet?” He throws one in his basket.

I ignore that because I can’t help. I don’t know why, either, but I add one in my basket too.

“I mean, you can’t have every book be Soulmates. That would be boring. Didn’t you get anything from my notes?”

He nods. “They were good but I’m stuck.”

Hoping I don’t come off like a stalker, I follow him down the fruit section. I start stocking my cart with cut-up melons, pineapple, and peaches.

“You’re going to think this is a weird question, seeing as it’s a little late in the game now. But since I hadn’t read the book when you asked me to be Elizabeth, now I wonder why you didn’t just take on another male pen name? It was written from the male’s perspective.”

“Kate and the publisher thought it might make a more intriguing marketing angle.”

That sounds like a reasonable answer. You could put everything I know about marketing inside a flea’s home, so I can’t argue the point. It probably was a stroke of marketing genius. The truth is if Soulmates had a man’s name attached to it, it wouldn’t be called “women’s” fiction and it probably wouldn’t be called a romance, either. It would be shelved as commercial literary fiction.

Ryan picks up a carton of blueberries. “And Elizabeth Brogan is a family name, so I used it.”

That makes sense, but I admit I expected more information. It feels like Pepper could have told me that, but she didn’t. However, more pressing at the moment is Ryan’s apparent writer’s block, which I dare not mention out loud. He’s the superstitious sort, probably coming from the love of baseball.

“Okay. Get this. I have an idea for the sequel. And I think, if I say so myself, it’s pretty damn brilliant,” I say.

“Excuse me,” a loud voice behind us says. “Are those organic berries you’re standing right in front of?”

It’s only then we both realize we’ve been chatting for far too long. Ryan is the first to move out of the woman’s way. I don’t usually have entire conversations with people at the grocery and am in fact frequently annoyed by people who do. I push my cart to a less bustling section and beckon for Ryan to follow me, which he does.

“The sequel is written entirely from Lula’s point of view!” I hold my arms out like, “ta-da!”

Ryan is pensive for a moment, stroking the beard he used to have. He’s got stubble again. While I wasn’t fond of the full beard, I have to admit this look works for him. And if I’m to go by the attention he’s getting from the females in the store, it’s working for all of them under forty. Even the white-haired woman not far from us is checking Ryan out.

“I mean, it worked for 50 Shades.”