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The Right Time by Danielle Steel (8)

Chapter 8

Alex started her sophomore year at Boston College the week after her trip to New York to see the agent. She hadn’t heard anything from her by then, and didn’t expect to. Rose Porter was an important, busy woman, and Alex knew it would take a while for her to read the book and get back to her. Halfway through September, she had an idea for another book, and started working on an outline one weekend when her roommate was away. She had homework to do, but couldn’t stop herself, and the words just rolled onto the page. She had figured out the plot by the end of the weekend, and was happy with it, and she’d written a few pages of the first chapter. She had the opening scene nailed and it was a knockout. The title of the book would be Darkness.

She had finished four chapters of her book, according to her outline, when she heard from Rose Porter two weeks later in October. Mother MaryMeg called her at school to tell her that the agent had left a message for her. Alex didn’t know if that was good or bad news—maybe she called to deliver rejections too. She returned the call with trembling hands again from the phone in the dorm lobby, and got through to her very quickly.

Rose cut to the chase, sounding busy. “I read Blue Steel.

“Thank you,” Alex said, holding her breath.

“It’s terrific. I’d like to represent you. It needs some editing, we can talk about that later. I think I can sell your book. I’m going to have it retyped and send it out next week. I’ll mail you the agency agreement, and if it meets with your approval, sign it and send me back one copy, and keep the other for yourself. You can have an attorney look at it for you, if you have one.”

“I do,” Alex said, stunned by everything she had just said.

“And what name are you going to publish under, if we sell it? Are you still determined to publish under a male pseudonym?”

“Yes. Alexander Green,” she said, off the top of her head.

“Why ‘Green’?” Rose assumed it was her mother’s maiden name or something similar, which was usually the case with pseudonyms.

“It’s my favorite color,” Alex said, smiling, and her new literary agent groaned.

“Oh God, you are thirteen years old. You’d better like the name, because you could be stuck with it for a long time, and I hope you will be. It’s a very, very good book, and I’m happy to represent you,” Rose said kindly. She liked her, even though it was obvious that Alex had no idea what she was doing, or about the publishing business, but she was one hell of a great writer. One of the best Rose had read in a long time. She had been an extraordinarily lucky find. It was kismet for both of them.

“Thank you,” Alex said politely. “I’m working on a new one. I’ve done four chapters so far.”

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet, to help you with the editing,” Rose said, sounding businesslike again. “His name is Bert Kingsley, and he happens to be in Boston. He only works with writers he likes. I want you to call him, and work on Blue Steel with him. And he can advise you about the new one. He’s a brilliant editor. I’ll give him a call first. I’ll pay for it. You can pay me back when we sell the book. I think it’s important. He can help you tighten your writing even more than it already is. He’s a little gruff at first. Officially, he’s retired, but he takes on projects like this from time to time. If he likes what you write, he’ll be a wonderful ally for you. Learn as much as you can from him. There are almost no editors left like him.” She was very pleased to hear that Alex was working on another book. It was the sign of a true writer. She hadn’t waited to hear Rose’s reaction, or to see if it would sell. She had another book in her, and had to get it out. Those were the writers Rose looked for and wanted to represent. She had a true vocation, a powerful drive about her writing, and immeasurable talent.

Alex jotted down Bert Kingsley’s number when Rose gave it to her, and Rose told her to keep trying until she reached him. He didn’t always answer his phone or return calls. She made him sound like a cantankerous old man, and Alex was a little nervous about working with him, but she could at least meet him once and see what she thought. She trusted Rose’s judgment.

The contract arrived at the convent three days later, and Alex called Bill Buchanan to tell him, and sent it to him, and he called her the following week to say that it was fine and she could sign it.

“You’ve written a book, Alex?” He sounded surprised and impressed. Despite all the changes she’d been through, she was still writing, a novel now, not just stories. He knew how pleased and proud her father would have been.

“Yes, and I’m working on another one.”

“That’s very exciting. Don’t forget to have some fun too. You should be having a good time in college.” She was, but mostly with her writing. She still hadn’t been on any dates, and didn’t really care. She had only one roommate this year, a girl from Mississippi who had just gotten engaged and was with her fiancé all the time, which gave Alex peace and quiet to write in her room. It worked well for her.

She called Bert Kingsley the following week, to give Rose Porter plenty of time to get in touch with him and send him the manuscript so he could read it. And when he answered, he seemed as though she’d woken him out of a sound sleep. She apologized profusely, and he didn’t sound happy to hear from her.

“Rose Porter called me. She sent me your book.” He didn’t say if he’d read it or not, and Alex was afraid to ask him.

“I’m writing my second one now,” she volunteered. “Rose just signed me on as a client.”

“So she said.” He seemed unimpressed and sounded like a cranky old man. Rose had called him a curmudgeon, which seemed about right.

“Rose thought you could help me edit,” Alex said cautiously.

“I’m retired,” he growled at her. “Editing young writers is a lot of work,” he complained. There was a long silence then while Alex didn’t know what to say to him. “Why don’t you come over on Saturday? I’ll have finished reading your manuscript by then,” he said grudgingly. He told her he lived in Cambridge, near the Harvard campus where he used to teach. She wasn’t looking forward to meeting him, he sounded disagreeable, but she didn’t want Rose to be angry at her either for not trying to meet him, so she bicycled over to his address on Saturday at the appointed time. He had told her to come at noon. And when she got there, he took forever to answer the bell. She was just about to leave when he opened the door. He was startled when he saw her, as though he’d forgotten she was coming, and then he nodded and stepped aside when she reminded him who she was. He didn’t say it, but he was stunned by how pretty she was and even younger than he’d expected.

She followed him upstairs to a large living room that would have been lovely if he tidied it once in a while. There were stacks of books everywhere, a pile of newspapers, a mountain of manuscripts on the desk, half-eaten food from the night before, and an empty bottle of red wine on the coffee table. He obviously lived alone and needed a housekeeper desperately. He was as disheveled as his living room. He had a long, unkempt beard, a mane of wild white hair that made him look like Albert Einstein, and was wearing jeans, a sweater with holes in it, and tennis shoes. It was hard to figure out his age, but he seemed to be about seventy, although Rose told her later that he was only sixty. But to Alex, he looked ancient. And she had a feeling he was hungover from the empty wine bottle sitting on the coffee table.

He pushed some papers aside and made room for her on the couch, and then sat in a big overstuffed chair with sagging springs across from her.

“I read your book.” He stared at her for a long time while she waited for him to tell her it was garbage and throw her out. She fully expected him to do that. “You need to simplify the beginning. And you need to slow down the last two chapters. You rushed them,” he said critically in a sharp tone, but she had suspected that herself.

“You get too complicated in the second chapter, that slows it down. You can tell them most of that later. Don’t interrupt the pace for your reader.” He picked up her manuscript and showed her several places where he thought she should move sections to later in the book, and as she read it with him, after his comments, she could see that he was right. They were simple changes, but they made a difference in the smooth flow of the book. He got right down to business with her, and had obviously read Blue Steel several times and made detailed notes.

She spent two hours with him. All the suggestions he made were valid, and he had a way of spotting the problems and telling her how to correct them and where to make changes that all seemed reasonable and helpful to her. What he said wasn’t complicated, but it was brilliant.

“Come back next Saturday, after you’ve worked on it. And I like your book, by the way.” It was high praise coming from him, and she was stunned. He hadn’t even offered her a glass of water while she was there. He only cared about the book. “Rose said you’re good. She’s right,” he said simply. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have seen you. She’s got an amazing eye for talent. See you next week, same time, and bring the outline for the new one,” he closed the door behind her. He seemed in a hurry to get rid of her, and had wasted no time on small talk. But she could tell that the work they’d done that afternoon would make the book much better. It was like giving her book a good cleaning so it shone, and a tune-up. Rose was right to make the suggestion that they work together. Bert was a great editor, and she was flattered that he liked her work. She was curious about him, but he had volunteered nothing about himself, nor asked about her. He was interested only in the book.

She made the corrections he suggested before they met again on the following Saturday, and she brought the new outline with her and a copy of the first chapter to leave with him. He read the changes she’d made to Blue Steel and said he liked them. And then he poured himself a glass of wine, didn’t offer one to her, and made another date for a week later, which was her cue to leave. And as weird as he was, she liked working with him. He really improved her book. She smiled at him, and couldn’t help wondering how he had gotten so rumpled and his house such a mess. He looked like he’d been shipwrecked for years.

Alex couldn’t resist saying something to Rose Porter about him when she called her on Monday to tell her that they had spent two Saturdays together and it had gone well. Alex told her she was sending her a copy of the changes to Blue Steel. Rose was pleased. Bert was the most talented editor she’d ever known and would help Alex hone her skills.

“How was he?” Rose asked, with a faint tone of concern, and Alex wasn’t sure what she meant at first.

“Gruff, cranky, like you said,” Alex said honestly. “But what he said about the book was terrific. All his suggestions made it better, even when they were really simple.”

“That’s why he’s the best editor in the business. Simple is almost always better. It’s about timing and balance and where to put something. His eye for that is uncanny.”

Alex agreed.

“Was he okay otherwise?”

Alex hesitated and then answered her question. “His house looks like a bomb hit it and so does he. But he likes the book and was fine with me. He wasn’t friendly, but he’s not mean or rude. And he’s very focused.”

“Did he get drunk?” Rose asked her bluntly, which startled Alex a little.

“No. He poured himself a glass of wine as I was leaving, but he didn’t drink while we worked, and he was sober.” Alex felt sorry for him when Rose asked the question, and she could easily imagine him getting drunk after she left. “Does he have a problem?”

Rose sighed before she answered. She felt strangely close to this exceptional young woman she had taken under her wing. “He used to, for a while. I think he has it under control now. He had some tough things happen that he never got over. He was one of those confirmed bachelors who never wanted to marry. He was a great editor, and always did some teaching on the side. About twenty years ago, when he was forty, he fell madly in love with one of his students. She was a fantastic writer, a poet, and she wrote historical novels, not at all your kind of thing, but very elegantly done. She was a very talented young woman and they were very happy. But she had a dark side, some writers do. You could see it in her writing. I think there were some family problems, her sister died of cancer or something, and Faye committed suicide. She was twenty-six years old, and it was a terrible waste of a nice woman and a great talent. It always is. It almost killed Bert. I think he stayed drunk for a year. He went back to teaching eventually, but he’s never been the same. He’s still a fantastic editor, but part of him died with her. That was fifteen years ago. He retired a few years back. He’s pretty much been a recluse since she died. Faye was the only woman he ever loved. It’s a sad story, and even if he’s difficult at times, I love him dearly. I’m glad you two got along. He’ll be great to help you edit your books.”

Alex was bowled over by the story and didn’t know what to say at first. “How terrible for him,” she said softly, suddenly more compassionate about how he lived and looked, and how gruff he was. They talked for a few more minutes. Rose said she liked the new outline too, and then they hung up.

Alex did her “homework” for Bert again that week, remembering the story Rose had told her about him. And she forgave him easily now when he was cranky with her. He always looked hungover when they met, but he never drank more than a single glass of wine, if any, with her when they were working, although once or twice she saw him pour himself a straight scotch right before she left. And the work they did together was extraordinary with great results. He guided her in the writing of her second novel all through the fall. They had a strong professional relationship but never discussed their personal lives, only her books. He had become her mentor and teacher, and improved her writing immeasurably.

She put the finishing touches on Darkness, her second book, during the Christmas holidays, and on January 2, with Bert’s approval, she sent it to Rose Porter as a finished novel for her to sell to publishers. And she already had an idea for a third. She was becoming a book machine. He teased her about it, but he was proud of her, and so was Rose.

Although Bert didn’t agree with her and said it was a waste of time, she signed up for a creative writing class at school for second semester. She thought it would teach her something to try more varied fiction assignments, but it was a disappointment. There was an arrogant student in the class who criticized her work constantly, and had no talent himself. The teaching assistant was lazy, and the famous writer supposed to teach the class was never there.

She worked on her third book, Hear No Evil, as soon as she finished her second one, during sophomore year, with Bert’s help. Writing-wise, things were going well, although she felt like a loser socially.

She hadn’t joined any clubs or sports teams, and when she got lonely, she went home to the convent for a night or weekend. There was no room for anything but writing in her spare time, so she totally neglected her social life. She said as much to Mother MaryMeg when she’d asked if she was dating, and was surprised she wasn’t. Alex had grown even more beautiful than she had been as a child and young teenager.

“I haven’t met anyone I really like.”

“Do you give yourself a chance to meet anyone, or are you always writing the way you are here?” Alex smiled at her sheepishly, knowing it was true. She worked constantly and loved what she did. Her first two books hadn’t sold yet, but Rose was sure they would. She had only represented her since September. “Have you thought about what’s going to happen when you get successful?” Mother MaryMeg asked her, seeing that possibility not so far down the road.

“I can buy cuter clothes.” Alex laughed, sounding her age for a minute.

“Aside from that, people will be jealous of you. That may be why the pompous student in your writing class made nasty comments. I’m sure he was jealous of your talent. Envy is a very ugly thing and very dangerous. You have to protect yourself from it every day.”

“That’s why I’m going to publish under a pseudonym,” Alex said innocently. “Then no one will know it’s me. Except you, my editor, and my agent.”

“And what will you tell people you do for a living?” Mother MaryMeg was intrigued.

“I can say I’m an editor, or I write articles or something,” she said vaguely.

“You can’t hide your light under a bushel forever,” the mother superior warned her gently.

Bert said pretty much the same thing when she told him she was going to write under a pseudonym. “Don’t be afraid to be who you are. No one can take that away from you, and they shouldn’t,” he said firmly. He had grown very fond of her in their months of working together, and sometimes treated her more like a daughter than a pupil.

“Women aren’t supposed to write crime,” Alex said stubbornly, still adopting her father’s prejudice as her own. “If I write under my own name, men won’t want to read them.” She had heard it from her father and believed it. She trusted his word and judgment completely. He hadn’t liked female crime writers, and would only buy a thriller written by a man.

“It’s still a men’s club, but not entirely,” Bert conceded. “The problem is that your books are more ‘evil’ than most women write. What name are you going to publish under?” he asked her, curious.

“Alexander Green,” she said proudly. If they wouldn’t let her into the clubhouse as a woman, she could sneak in the window as a man.

“That sounds good,” he said, approvingly. “In some ways you do write like a man, Alex, but whatever you write is going to piss off some people because you’re so damn good at what you do. And male readers will want you to be a man. Maybe you’re right. It may just be easier for you to write under a man’s name.”

“That’s what my dad always told me.”

“I hate to give in to that kind of limited thinking,” Bert said, and then smiled at her. “But Alexander Green it is.” They went on editing then, and corrected a few problems she hadn’t been able to solve herself. He always had the right fixes, and knew just where to insert something, what to cut, and how to move things around. It was still her writing, but he made it better, just as a good editor was supposed to do. He never inserted his own words and ideas, but he used her own to improve it, in ways she hadn’t thought of and didn’t see. They finished Hear No Evil in March. She had three books to sell now. She was a prolific author as well as a talented one.

Alex got a call from her agent in April.

“I’ve got good news, Alex. We’ve had an offer for Blue Steel.” She hadn’t shown the other two yet, and wanted to wait till they sold the first one. Alex had to establish herself with one published book first before a publisher would buy more, which Rose had explained to her. And now they had their first sale, to a very reputable publisher offering a standard amount for a first book. They would publish it the next spring, a year from now. And they had accepted that she would do no publicity for it. She couldn’t, and preserve the secret of her identity as a woman crime writer. “I expect to have a contract on my desk by next week.”

Alex couldn’t believe it. She thanked Rose profusely and called Bert to tell him as soon as they hung up. And then she went to St. Dominic’s the next day to tell the nuns in person. She was beaming as she came through the door and told Mother MaryMeg the minute she saw her.

“I sold my book!” she shouted with glee. The mother superior gave her a hug, and Alex ran upstairs to tell the others. She stopped in her room for a few minutes to glance at the photographs of her father. He would have been so proud of her.

She found Sister Regina in her room. She had lost weight in the last few months and looked troubled. She was going to mass frequently and trying to spend more time praying. But so far nothing helped, as she wrestled with the agonizing decision of what to do with the rest of her life. The mother superior was aware of it, and had suggested counseling. She had told her that at some point in most lives dedicated to the church, there came a crisis of some kind, and either a renewal of one’s faith or a change of direction. Sister Regina was still at the crossroads and felt paralyzed, but she was happy for her friend, and her good news about the book. Her career as a writer was beginning.

Alex signed the contract after Bill Buchanan checked it out. They had created a plausible biography for “Alexander Green” by then, and Rose and Alex had fun doing it. He was thirty-six years old, born in the States but had grown up and been educated in England. He was reclusive and lived in Scotland part of the year, and Montana when he came to the States. He preferred the rugged outdoors to cities, was unmarried and had no children, and under no circumstances would he agree to do publicity for the book. There were to be no photographs of him, and the publisher was so excited about the work that they agreed to all of her conditions. They had assigned her an editor, Amanda Smith, with whom Alex would communicate by email, so she didn’t have to see her. And all the real editing had been done by Bert.

As soon as school ended, she moved back into the convent and wrote every day. She was working on a plot outline for another book.

“Are you still writing thrillers that will scare your readers half to death?” Sister Xavier teased her after she missed lunch one day, and she brought Alex a sandwich at her desk and some fresh peaches from the kitchen. It was hot in Alex’s room, as she pounded away on her typewriter, but she didn’t care. She had never been happier.

“I’m trying to.” Alex smiled at her. She had more confidence in herself since selling the first book. Her only frustration was having to wait another ten months before they could sell her second and third books. It seemed like a long wait. She joined them in the dining room that night to take a break from her writing. She told them that she was going to New Hampshire for a week in August, to attend a summer camp for writers she’d read about. There were going to be several well-known guest speakers, and the writers at the camp were mostly unpublished. She thought it would be interesting, but Bert said she’d be wasting her time and her money when she told him. She felt a little more extravagant at the moment, having received the advance for her first book. Rose had explained to her how the advance worked. The publisher estimated what she would make on royalties for a certain number of books. If she sold more, they would pay her the difference. If less, she still got to keep the advance. It sounded good to her.

“What do you need with a writers’ camp, for God’s sake? Stay here and work on your outline,” Bert told her. “They’re going to be a lot of bored wannabes who are never going to write a book, and has-been hacks telling them how to do it.” Bert didn’t believe in creative writing workshops for amateurs. And she was a pro now.

But in spite of his dire warnings, she left for the camp in August. They promised campfires at night, and the simple life in tents, and lectures and workshops all day long to help campers hone their writing skills. The draw for her had been an important mystery writer who was supposed to be there, and she thought meeting him might be interesting and helpful.

But when she got there, the accommodations were incredibly uncomfortable, raccoons wandered through the tents at night, the mosquitoes attacked them constantly and devoured them, and teachers and would-be writers alike spent most of their time having sex or drinking too much, or both. The lectures were incredibly boring, and the well-known mystery writer never showed up, and was replaced by a very good-looking writer in his late thirties who had written two pornographic crime books that no one had ever heard of, and it was later revealed he self-published. He spent most of his time trying to seduce the housewives from Connecticut who had come to the camp to learn about more than just writing and went swimming naked at night in the nearby lake after drinking too many mojitos.

The writer’s name was Josh West, and he noticed Alex immediately. She felt out of place the moment she got there, and spent most of her time hiking in the hills surrounding the camp, and avoiding the others. She was startled and a little unnerved when he followed her on one of her walks one day. He approached her when he walked into a clearing as she was sitting on a rock, gazing at the view and trying to decide if she should leave the workshop early.

“You look very serious,” he said. “Am I interrupting a literary meditation?” he asked as he sat down next to her, a little too close for her liking. “It’s good fun being here, isn’t it?” He had a movie star smile and perfect teeth, he had the appearance of someone who worked out a lot, and he had taken his shirt off so she could admire his muscles.

“It’s not exactly what I expected,” she said, although it was precisely as Bert had predicted, much to her dismay.

“What did you expect then?” Josh seemed surprised. Most people loved it there.

“More writing, and a little less ‘fun.’ ” She could hear the others having sex in the tents at night, after they sat around the campfire drinking too much and passing joints around, playing strip poker, or they came back to the camp naked after a swim. It was Sodom and Gomorrah for would-be writers.

“It’s good to let your hair down. What kind of writing do you do?” He hadn’t talked to her yet, and she had been avoiding him, once she observed him trying to seduce the other women indiscriminately. She was the youngest person in the camp. The only other person close to her age was a Dartmouth dropout who said he was writing a book about whales and smoked weed all the time. So far, he was incoherent every day by dinnertime, and she could smell the marijuana wafting from his tent at all hours of the day and night.

She wasn’t sure how to answer Josh about her writing, and didn’t want to tell him the truth. She said the first thing that popped into her head. “Young adult novels, for girls.” She felt ridiculous saying it, because it was so far afield from what she did write, but her answer suited her image better than the truth.

“No sex in those, I guess,” he said, looking bored, and then put a hand on her thigh and smiled at her, as she wondered in terror if he was going to rape her. “Maybe you need to do a little research so you can move on to adult novels, although the big money is in YA these days, so you’re smart to aim for those, just don’t live them.” It was a slimy thing to say, and she stood up to get his hand off her leg. He made her feel dirty just sitting next to him.

“I think I’ll go back to camp,” she said as she started to walk away and he followed her. She was by far the most attractive woman in the camp—he just hadn’t gotten around to her yet. He assumed that every woman there would be pleased to go to bed with him, but he was wrong about Alex, who made it clear that she wouldn’t. He reminded her of a snake as he slithered along beside her.

“How about a swim in the river on the way? And since we didn’t bring our bathing suits…” He smiled lasciviously at her, and she wanted to throw up. She sped up her pace, which only enticed him more, and just before they reached the camp, he grabbed her, pulled her into his arms, and pressed his body against her. She could feel his erection bulging in his hiking shorts, and knew exactly what it was, although she’d never been in that situation before. She was still an innocent at twenty. By pure reflex, she did the only thing she could think of to get him off her and raised her knee sharply into his groin. And as he doubled over, she ran the rest of the way back to camp, and went to pack her bags. The week at writers’ camp had been expensive, but she didn’t care. She was packed by the time he got back to camp, limping slightly and livid. He stopped at her tent and looked at her with eyes blazing with pain and fury.

“What are you? A lesbian?” he spat at her, while two women stopped to listen and wondered what had happened.

“No, a writer. I must be the only one here. What is this? A sex camp for bored housewives and people like you pretending to be writers?”

“Who are you? Heidi? What did you expect here?”

“A lot more than this. Have a great week,” she said as she brushed past him and went to check out at the main tent. She was in her rented car five minutes later, and offered no explanation for her early departure. She drove home slowly through New England and got back to the convent four hours later, where everyone was surprised to see her. She told them about it at dinner, and they were relieved she had left. And when she saw Bert a week later, she told him he had been right about the writers’ camp.

“I told you, it’s just a lot of wannabes looking to get drunk or high and laid.”

“You forgot to tell me that part,” she said, looking embarrassed.

“You don’t belong in a place like that. You’re the real deal, Alex. There’s nothing you can learn from them.” She had discovered that herself, and she still felt sick when she thought of Josh West. She told Bert about that too. “What’s a porno crime novel?” he said, laughing after she told him she had kneed him in the groin.

“I didn’t want to ask. But when he gave a workshop on self-publishing, which he recommends, I realized that that’s how he published his porno crime series.”

“What did you tell him you write?”

“Young adult books for girls,” she said, and started to laugh too. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“That’s what you look like. They should know you write the scariest damn crime scenes I’ve ever read.” And she did it with art, skill, and precision. The victims in her books so far were evildoers whose deaths were no loss to anyone. There were no crimes against women or children. The key to her books was not the violent deaths she depicted, but the intricate twists and turns in the plot to solve the crimes. They were acts of pure genius that kept the reader guessing till the end. There was nothing seamy or sordid about them, which wasn’t easy to pull off and yet somehow she did. They were smart books for intelligent people—a Rubik’s Cube of crime that she took apart and put back together, and presented the simple answer no one had thought of in the end. Reading her books was like watching a magic trick, even he couldn’t figure out how she did it, which he loved about her work. There was no sex in the books, and the reader didn’t even miss it. She had created a style all her own, distilled from all the crime books she had read, detective stories, and thrillers. And he thought her latest one was even stronger than the first two, and it involved multiple murders.

“No more writers’ camps for you, young lady,” he chided her. “Now get back to work,” he said sternly, and then chuckled to himself as he walked to his kitchen to get a glass of wine. He loved working with her. It was the most fun he’d had in years, and he was learning from her too. It was a good exchange. He was grateful to Rose for bringing them together, and so was Alex.

He sat down in his favorite chair and read the new pages she’d brought him. She’d completed the outline and was starting to work on the book.

“This is terrible,” he said, frowning at her after he read for a few minutes.

“It is? I thought it was good. I thought it was a lot tighter.” She looked disappointed.

“You’re right. It’s terrible because there isn’t a damn thing I can do to improve this. You’re getting too good for me, Alex. Slow down a little. You learn too fast. Give an old man a chance.” She smiled at what he said and was pleased.

“Don’t worry. I just had a good run this week. I’ll make a mess of it again next time.” But he doubted it. She was learning quickly. And one day she wouldn’t need him anymore, but the time hadn’t come yet. He still had a few tricks to teach her, and she was an avid student.

He sent her home early, back to work on the book, and after she left, he poured himself another glass of wine, and thought that if he’d had children, all he could have wanted was a daughter like her. But he knew he would never have been that lucky. He was just happy to be her mentor and her friend. She had added immeasurably to his life. And he hoped it would never end. It made up for some of what he’d been missing for fifteen years.