Page 43 of A Bookish Story

“So…you’re not trying to get back together?”

Another smile. “I thought you said this was none of your business.”

Now, I’m done with my waffle cone so I throw it in the receptacle. “It still isn’t, but you brought it up.”

“The thing is, maybe it is your business.”

My heart jumps. He says it’s my business, too, but I can’t imagine why. Maybe Ryan is beginning to have some slight, and by slight I mean minimal, interest in me beyond being Elizabeth.

“W-why is it my business?” My voice sounds shaky to my own ears.

“She knows about you. I had to tell her.”

This is more serious than I thought. I’d like to say it’s fear that strikes me but unfortunately it falls far closer to excitement. She wouldn’t know about me for any other reason than he’s talking to her about me. This worries me because I’m dangerously on the cusp of what I might describe as giddy.

“How does she know about me?”

This is where my imagination runs wild. He could lean in close and say he told her there’s someone else. He can’t stop thinking about me. Since the night of the spontaneous party Eddie threw and I danced with my cousins, he can’t stop thinking of my legs and the way I gyrated my hips. The way I threw back my head and let the music guide me. Like Shakira.

But he doesn’t say anything remotely like that. He simply drags a hand through his hair. “She’s heard about the book and she knows everything.”

Oh, the book. We’ve switched gears and now segued to the book. It takes me a minute, but I’m now on track.

“She knows you wrote a bestseller with a pen name. A woman’s pen name.”

He nods. “It couldn’t be helped.”

I’m having a tough time keeping up here. They’ve been divorced three years. It’s like Ryan has left out important information.

“How did she read the book? Did she get an early copy?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“In which manner of speaking?” Now, I’m the one who’s annoyed.

“She had the earliest version, because in a way, I wrote it for her.”

I’m stunned. Shocked. My ability to speak is temporarily gone. I’m probably gaping so big a seagull could make a nest in my mouth.

“You wrote the book for your ex-wife?”

“No, not exactly. And she wasn’t my ex-wife at the time. We were separated. But remember I told you that I wrote the book as a joke, a lark? Just to see if I could do it? That was a lie.”

I pointed. “I knew that didn’t sound like you!”

“You were right. It’s too humiliating to admit, but I don’t see how I have much choice now. I wrote what amounted to a short story, a love story left open to see who she’d choose. Me, or the other guy. So now you see why it isn’t standard romance fare.” He shrugged.

It makes sense now. The book is written from a male’s point of view because it might as well have been a diary. No wonder the book read like the writer bled all over the pages. He had. Even I’d never do something like this. I doubt any romance author would. A poem or short story? Sure. But devoting an entire novel, tens of thousands of words within a plot, is too much work to simply be a gift never intended to see publication.

“And…if it was just intended for her, when did you decide to try to get it published?”

“I didn’t. It wasn’t a book.”

“I’m lost.”

He works his jaw. “I never had plans for this to be a book, much less be published. But she took the liberty of sending my unedited pages to my agent.”

I take a step back as if he’s slapped me. “She did what?”