The Mistletoe Inn (13 page)

4. Don't ever slip pages under a bathroom stall. I will be so offended that you disregarded my privacy that I will use your pages as toilet paper, or at least send them down the toilet and probably clog it, making a huge mess of the bathroom. And yes, this really happened.

5. Don't ever claim to be the “next big thing.” You don't know that. I don't know that. No one knows that. It's presumptuous and embarrassing for you.

As we walked out of the session Samantha said, “I wonder if she'd be my agent.”

“I thought she was kind of snarky.”

“A good agent needs to be snarky,” Samantha said. “The snarkier the better. In the publishing world you swim with the snarks.”

“At least you know what
not to do
to get her,” I said. “Don't follow her into the bathroom.”

“How much do you want to bet that someone will still do that at this conference?”

“I wouldn't be surprised,” I said. “We are a desperate lot.”

“I just wish she had told us the five things we
should
do.”

“Number one should be
write a good book
,” I said. “I'm hungry, let's get some lunch.”

We returned to the same dining room where we'd had breakfast. I recognized several people from my workshop.

“There's John Grisham,” I said.

“He's not really Grisham,” Samantha said.

“Yeah, I know that,” I said. “I'm just not so sure that he does.”

We found an empty table near one of the windows and put our bags on it, then went over to the buffet table. The day's main courses were chicken cordon bleu, sausage lasagna, and vegetarian lasagna. I opted for the chicken and Caesar salad.

I gave the woman at the cash register one of my conference meal vouchers and went back to our table. Samantha was already eating.

“How was your workshop group?” I asked. “As bad as you thought?”

“I've decided the
F
stands for freaks,” she said. “Just about everyone but me is into paranormal romance. But it was okay. They gave us playing cards to pair us up with writing buddies.” She took a bite of food and I waited for her to finish chewing to continue. “I drew the queen of hearts, which I figured was a good omen. How about you? Did they pair you up with someone?”

“Yes. But we picked our own buddies.”

“Did you have any men in your group?”

“Just one,” I said.

“We didn't have any. He wasn't that one guy, was he?”

“Which guy?”

“You know, the hot one who's got the whole Clooney thing going? Handsome, cool glasses, a little older.”

“You mean Zeke?” I said.

“You know his name?”

“He's in my group. And I met him earlier in the gym.”

“I want to meet Zeke.”

I cut into my chicken. “You will.”

Samantha looked impressed. “I love your optimism. It's quantum physics—you make your own reality. Just throw it out to the universe and it's going to materialize.”

“In this case it's going to materialize sooner than you think. He's going to be joining us for lunch. He's my workshop buddy.”

Samantha looked at me incredulously. “Clooney's your workshop buddy.”

“He's not Clooney, but yes.”

“I told you I was in the wrong group. The closest thing to a man in our group was this one chick who writes werewolf love stories. She looked like one of them.”

“Like a man or a werewolf?”

“Both.”

“That's mean,” I said. “And here's Zeke now. Watch your tongue.”

Zeke walked directly up to our table, his hands in his pockets. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I returned. “Zeke, this is my friend Samantha. Samantha, this is Zeke.”

Samantha just stared at him. “You can call me Sam,” she said.

“But Samantha is prettier,” he replied.

“Samantha's good,” she said.

Zeke turned back to me. “Still all right if I join you?”

Before I could answer Samantha said, “Please.”

“Thank you.” He pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Did you want to get some food?” I asked.

“What are we eating?”

“I'm having the chicken cordon bleu. It's good.”

“It looks good. I'll be right back.” He stood and walked toward the buffet tables. Samantha's eyes were glued to him the whole way.

“He's better looking than Clooney,” she said.

“No one's better looking than Clooney. Why do you say that?”

“Clooney's not real. Who knows how much of what you see is Photoshop.”

“He's a movie star. You can't Photoshop movies.”

“Of course you can. It's called special effects.”

“Clooney isn't a special effect.”

“He has a special effect on me.”

I grinned. “You're insane.”

Zeke returned a few minutes later with a plate of lasagna and vegetables. As he sat down I said, “You changed your mind about the chicken.”

“You didn't tell me there was lasagna. I love Italian.”

“Kim's Italian,” Samantha said.

I wanted to slap her. Zeke just smiled. As he raised a fork to his mouth, Samantha asked, “Where are you from?”

He put his fork down. “I'm originally from Alexandria, Virginia. But more recently I live in Florida.”

“Florida,” Samantha said. “Beautiful beaches, beautiful weather.”

“If you don't mind an occasional hurricane,” Zeke said.

“Where in Florida?” I asked.

“Jupiter Island.”

“Isn't that where all the movie stars live?” Samantha asked.

“Some,” he said. “Burt Reynolds lives there. Tiger Woods lived there. I'm not sure if he still does.”

“You must be rich,” Samantha said.

I was now positive that Samantha had no filter.

“Not everyone who lives on Jupiter Island is rich,” Zeke said. “Someone's got to mow the lawns and work the 7-Elevens, right?”

Samantha seemed vexed by the concept. “You mow lawns?”

“From time to time,” he said.

I moved to change the topic. “Have you been to many writers' conferences?”

“A few,” he said. “But this is the first one I've been to in a while.”

“How long's a while?”

“A few years. I let my writing go for a while.” He took a bite of lasagna.

“Life happens,” I said.

“Yes it does,” he said.

“What's your last name?” Samantha asked.

I realized that I didn't know what his last name was either.

He finished chewing, then said, “It's Faulkner.”

“Faulkner,” I said. “Like the author William Faulkner.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Why unfortunately?”

“Because sharing the same name of a famous author invites comparison, and trust me, I'm no Faulkner. Think of it this way: if your name was Streisand, people would ask you two things—if you're related to Barbra and if you can sing.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“You could be like that David guy telling everyone he's Grisham,” Samantha said.

“I don't know who you're talking about, but Faulkner is really my name.”

“It's still a great name,” I said.

“What about you?” he asked. “Do you go to many of these things?”

“I've only been to two others. One in San Francisco, the other local, in Colorado.”

“You're from Colorado?”

“Yes.”

“I'm from Montana,” Samantha said.

He glanced at her. “Montana's beautiful. Big Sky Country.”

“That's what they say. I mean, we're not really a country, we're a state. Just like the other fifty. But we have a lot of country.” She hesitated. “It's kind of confusing.”

Zeke looked at her as if trying to figure out whether or not she was being serious. Then he turned back to me. “Where in Colorado are you from?”

“Denver. I used to live in Boulder, but I moved after I got divorced.”

“You're divorced,” he said. He casually glanced at the diamond on my ring finger. “And the ring is . . .”

“Garlic.”

“Garlic?”

“It keeps vampires away.”

“Does it work?”

“We'll see,” I said.

“So this is your first time at the Mistletoe Inn.”

“It's my first time in Vermont.”

“Why did you choose
this
writers' conference?”

“It sounded like a good one. But, honestly, mostly because H. T. Cowell is going to be here. I wanted to hear him speak.”

“That's a lot of money to hear someone speak.”

“He's worth it,” I said. “He's the reason I decided to be a writer. I can't believe that he's really going to be here in person.”

“Isn't he a bit of a recluse?” Samantha asked.

“That's putting it mildly,” I said. “He makes J. D. Salinger look like an extrovert. The funny thing is, how do we really even know that the person who speaks is Cowell? I mean, who really knows what he looks like? They could bring in an imposter and no one would even know.”

“Maybe the whole Cowell thing was a fraud from the
beginning,” Samantha said. “And the organizers are just betting that Cowell's too reclusive to ever find out.”

Zeke looked amused by our ramblings. “So Cowell's your inspiration?”

I nodded. “He's amazing. I've read some of his books five or six times. How about you?”

“I've read his books,” Zeke said. “Not five or six times, but I mostly liked them.”

“I just want to know why he stopped writing,” I said. “His disappearance from the writing world is one of those great mysteries, like, whatever happened to the Mayans or who was Carly Simon really singing about in ‘You're So Vain.' ”

“Mick Jagger,” Samantha said. “Everyone knows it's Jagger.” She looked at me. “It was Jagger, right?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Maybe the words just stopped coming,” Zeke said. “Or maybe he was just old. It's like you said, no one knows much about him. For all we know he's ninety years old.”

The idea of him being an old man made me a little sad. “Maybe.”

“I don't think it's such a mystery,” Samantha said. “I mean, why wouldn't he quit? He sold tens of millions of books, which means he made tens of millions of dollars. If I had his money, I wouldn't keep writing. I'd take the money and move to Bali or the south of France and enjoy life.” She looked at Zeke. “Or Florida.”

“Maybe it wasn't the money,” I said, ignoring her flirtation, “but the pressure to keep succeeding. Like Margaret
Mitchell. She hit the top, then just stopped. I mean, after
Gone With the Wind
, where do you go but down?”

“Actually,” Zeke said, “Margaret Mitchell claimed that she stopped writing because she was too busy answering fan mail. But it was probably more likely that she just hated the fame and was annoyed by all the people who wouldn't leave her alone. Once she got so mad at a fan who came to her house that she swore that she'd never write another word.” Zeke frowned. “Then she was hit by a drunk driver.”

“Margaret Mitchell was hit by a drunk driver?” I said.

“That's how she died,” Zeke said. “The drunk was a taxi driver with twenty-three previous traffic violations.”

“Wasn't Stephen King also hit by a drunk driver?” Samantha asked.

“He was hit by a car, but the driver wasn't drunk. But he did have a lot of traffic violations.”

“I heard that the guy who hit him died on Stephen King's birthday,” Samantha said.

“That may be true,” Zeke said.

“That's creepy,” Samantha replied. “Like his books.”

“I don't know why Cowell stopped writing,” I said. “And maybe we'll never
really
know. But what I do know is that he may be the only man on the planet who understands how a woman feels. I couldn't believe that a man could write like that. For a while I wondered if his books were really written by a woman using a man's name.”

“Wait,” Samantha said. “That would explain why he hides from the press—or should I say why
she
hides from the
press. And why she uses her initials instead of a name that would reveal her true gender, the way Nora Roberts does when she writes her thrillers. H. T. could stand for Helen Taylor. Or maybe it's not just one woman but a group of women.”

Zeke nodded. “I used to think that about R. L. Stine, the guy who wrote the Goosebumps books.”

“That he was a woman?” Samantha said.

“No, that he was really a group of writers. I mean, he was releasing a new book just about every month and his name is Stine, like Frankenstein. It sounds like a brand, right? Just like Betty Crocker.”

Samantha looked confused. “Betty Crocker's not a real person?”

Zeke and I glanced at each other.

“No, Betty Crocker is a fabrication,” Zeke said. “Like the Easter bunny. Or the queen of England.”

I forced myself not to laugh. Zeke was clearly having fun with her now. Samantha just looked confused.

“And R. L. Stine isn't a real person either,” she said.

“No, actually he is,” Zeke said. “I met him.”

“You met R. L. Stine?” I asked.

“Robert Lawrence Stine,” Zeke said. “He goes by Bob. He's a great guy. He started writing humor books for kids under the pen name Jovial Bob Stine, then moved on to kids' horror. He's the man who got millions of boys to read.”

“None of this explains why Cowell is such a recluse,” Samantha said.

“Maybe he's just so ugly that his publisher decided to
hide him from the public so he didn't ruin women's romantic fantasies.”

I shook my head. “You're brutal. And if he does end up coming, I hope you don't meet him. You'll probably just offend him.”