Page 2 of The Plot Twist

Verity sighed and took the book out of Allie’s hand, laying it carefully back down on the pile and straightening the other copies. Verity had started out life as a bookseller, and it was still hard for her not to instinctively tidy and rearrange display tables when she walked into a bookshop.

‘Come meet Jake Matthews.’ She took Allie’s elbow. ‘And send me that outline, OK?’

Allie awkwardly agreed and made a mental note not to spend tomorrow how she had planned: hungover and in sweatpants. Instead, she’d actually open her laptop and pull up that draft outline she had started and check it was as good as she had thought it was when she typed it out at 1am high on margaritas and inspiration and a night out in Soho. She was sure it was, she knew what she was doing, she had the golden touch, didn’t she? Verity had just told her that. Emboldened with excitement at writing again, she allowed herself to be taken to meet Jake Matthews, the new sales director.

ChapterOne

Nine months later

Allie stared gloomily at her lavish surroundings and came to the conclusion that despite all the swank, this was almost certainly her idea of hell – a literary event when no one had ever described her writing as literary. A crowded party when all she wanted to do was be alone. A celebration for authors when she wasn’t even sure she could describe herself as an author anymore. She did a quick mental calculation; it had been four months now since she had last written anything. And even the opening chapter she had started, four months and one day ago, was now confined to the trash folder on her laptop. How long could you go without writing and still call yourself an author? And if she was no longer an author, who was she and what was she doing here?

Allie gulped back the sense of doom she could feel rising inside her and tried to remember the breathing exercise that Jess had been boring on about during her previous, fevered love affair with yoga. Was it breathe in for two and out for two? Allie gave it a go, her breath speeding up as she did so, her eyes going wide as she realised that this technique definitely wasn’t helping. She hiccupped slightly and stopped, cursing herself for being so dismissive of Jess’s latest fad, wishing she had paid more attention, trying to elongate her breaths as she did so. She shouldn’t be here, she should have turned down this invitation, she should have stayed home and tried to write, or at least not shown up at her publisher’s party masquerading as a writer when she didn’t even have a half-written book at home. But she’d had some foolish idea that tonight might inspire her, that being at a party with lots of other writers might just unblock her creativity and allow something – at this stage,anything– to pass from her fingers down through her barely used keyboard and out onto the glaringly blank page on her laptop.

God, that blank laptop screen. Allie was having nightmares about it. Sometimes, they seemed so real, so oppressively mundane, that she honestly didn’t know if she was awake or asleep when they happened. More than once she had startled herself screaming, only to discover that she hadn’t been asleep, just spaced out in front of the blank screen of doom, praying to the gods of words to grant her some. So far, her prayers had gone unanswered, which did nothing to change her opinion on organised religion in all its forms.

She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and picked it out.

WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE?

Allie smiled – typical Jess.

Because you messaged me?

Stop checking it. Go back to the party. Mingle. TELL VERITY.

Allie’s smile turned to a frown. The previous night she had disintegrated into a puddle of wailing self-doubt at Jess, panicking that she would never write a book again, terrified of seeing Verity and Verity discovering that her writing mojo had left the building months before and that Allie had essentially been lying all those times when she had told Verity that the manuscript was almost ready, just being tweaked.

‘Why don’t you just tell her?’ Jess had asked in the kind of measured and reasonable tone that had Allie reaching for something to throw at her. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

‘Oh I don’t know Jess. Professional suicide? Financial ruin? My mum finds out?’ Allie’s eyes had gone wide in a comedic look of horror making Jess snort with laughter.

‘Better or worse than Martha finding out?’

‘Don’t,’ moaned Allie, ‘I can’t even bear to contemplate that.’ Martha was Allie’s younger sister but for the entirety of their relationship had consistently behaved like the more mature one. Right down to the fact that she was now married, which Allie definitely wasn’t, and she had a job which had required many years at university (chemist,) which Allie didn’t and, despite Martha’s fondness for the written word, she had been permanently surprised that Allie had managed to make a living out of producing them.

‘Seriously Allie, you do need to tell Verity. You can’t be the first author suffering from writer’s block?’

And, of course, Jess was right. It was a rite of passage for any author. Those sleepless nights trying to conjure up a new plot, googling past crushes to avoid working on edits, stress eating entire packets of Haribo and having to take a lie-down to sleep off the nausea. Although that last one, Allie would concede, was probably peculiar to her. And so what if she couldn’t write another book? Plenty of authors retired, took sabbaticals, sometimes even permanent ones, or they pivoted to other professions. Allie gnawed her knuckles anxiously; retiring at not quite thirty-five probably wasn’t viable, neither was taking a long-term sabbatical, so that left changing professions, which in turn left Allie … blank. Just as blank as her computer screen. She’d spent all her life writing, making up stories as a kid, making up copy for an advertising agency (which she hated) and finally, writing love stories for a living, which she had loved. But if she couldn’t write anymore, what was left for her? It was too late to go back to college and retrain, she’d be the weird old woman sitting at the front of the lecture hall, actually on time and listening. And what would she study anyway? What did she actually care about other than words? And she was pretty prescriptive about which type of words as well, they had to be romantic ones, love letters, grand sweeping gestures of passion. All of which had been missing from her life for months.

Her phone buzzed again,

Allie?

What?

STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE.

Well stop messaging me then.

I will, just checking you were actually at the party and not hiding in the toilets…Wait, you’re not hiding in the toilets are you? Send me proof you’re not or I’m calling you in 5… 4… 3…

Allie took a discreet snap of her surroundings and sent it to Jess.

Satisfied?

Very. Now go…

Going…

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