Page 12 of Rivals to Lovers
“It is, right?” She bit her lip, glanced at the door again. “My roommate gave me some weed gummies. I don’t know if they will make things better or worse. I’ve never tried them.”
But before he could reply to that interesting bit of information, Estelle rejoined with Gary in tow. She placed herself at the head of the table again, and Gary sat in the empty chair to Wes’s left. Their appearance on the scene was like being given a new script to read from. The tension shifted. Wes wondered what it was like to be on a reality show, suddenly. If sometimes there was real banter between the contestants that went unfilmed.
Gary tapped a folder on the table and smiled. His graying beard was neatly trimmed, and so was his jacket. “All right, procedures for the weekend,” he said, handing each of them a printed formal agenda from the folder. The top page held a schedule of events for the next two days, including what appeared to be the dinner they had finished eating. In fact, the conversation they were having was included on the schedule as an “introductory session,” and like a chess piece laid on the board, he sensed himself being moved against his will.
Wes skimmed the paper until he got to a three-hour block after breakfast the next day. Another block after lunch, then dinner. “Wait,” he said, “these are marked as readings?”
Estelle nodded. “You will read portions of the book out loud. I am an avid reader, but I can’t finish two novels in a weekend. You’ll leave a copy with me after the weekend ends to enjoy in their entirety.”
“These post-meal readings are an audition?” Maureen’s voice was small.
“Of a sort,” Estelle said. “After breakfast, you will read your first chapters. The first, say, twenty pages or so. Afterlunch, you can select any middle chapter you’d like to share, and after dinner, the ending,” Gary explained. “We have tea and lozenges on hand if your voice gets tired.”
“I can talk,” Wes said. “That’s not the issue. My issue is that reading random chapters spoils the ending!”
Estelle only smiled. “It shouldn’t if you did an adaptation right. I’ll still be surprised by the journey.”
Wes had been surprised by this journey so far, that was for sure. If only he knew how it was going to end.
CHAPTER SIX
Wes
After the orientation, Estelle—and the official paper schedule—dismissed them for the night. Wes went back to his room and lay on his bed. Estelle had given them free range of the grounds, but the sun had set more than an hour ago, and right now the only sightseeing he wanted to do was the back of his eyelids. But again, it was only eight thirty, and he hadn’t gone to bed that early since he thought Tamagotchis were cool.
The bed was comfortable, with a forest-green duvet. The same green echoed the leafy decorations of the room—botanical prints, as if from some ancient textbook on the subject, the kind with the hand-inked sketches. There was always something sexual about the reedy flowers in those textbooks, or maybe he was a pervert who saw necks and slender legs in everything.
It had been a while since he’d had sex, to be fair.
The bed frame was deep mahogany, with a matching desk and bureau. He placed his bag on top of the bureau andunpacked his laptop and manuscript on the desk. The print shop had bound the book with those irritatingly fragile plastic rings. It stared at him as if it too were restless. He was about to fetch the laptop to bring to bed to peruse a client’s manuscript—he was nothing if not a workaholic—when he heard a tap on the door.
Maureen had changed from her dress into jeans and red Converse sneakers. She wore the same yellow cardigan, a jacket draped over her arm. “I’m going for a walk,” she said, “If you want to come.”
“You’re not still mad at me?”
“I am. I just don’t like to be alone in a new place.”
On one hand, he should get to know the woman he was competing against. On the other hand, he worried that knowing her better might dull what competitive spirit he possessed. Wes hadn’t found passion in sports until discovering boxing as a teenager. He never saw the point of winning at games that he wouldn’t remember tomorrow. If he put something on paper, he could return to it, relive it. Watching an old game never had that feeling, and his muscles forgot the strain of exercise after a few hours. At least with boxing, there were bruises that forced him to remember the bouts.
Like in boxing, it might help to know his competitor this weekend. “Okay. Give me a minute.” He slipped on his gray pea coat and followed.
The stillness was unsettling, as was the darkness. Gary informed them that the lights were on a timer system, set to turn off after the staff were usually gone for the night. No one lived in the huge, sprawling residence except Gary, who had a main floor bedroom, and Estelle, who had the large roomnear the elevator upstairs. They left through the French doors at the back of the kitchen.
It was strange passing from the gleaming chrome of the kitchen to the cold expanse of flagstone patio outside. The zero-entrance pool hadn’t been filled yet for the season and sat like an empty, white hand. Lights inside were also lit so the cavern of the pool glowed eerily.
Keeping pace beside him, Maureen buttoned her pale-pink coat. She had what Wes’s dad would have called “a classic figure”—shorter than he was by a few inches, with an hourglass shape accentuated by the cinched belt. “It’s hard to believe this is where she wrote the novel, isn’t it?”
“Not exactly humble beginnings.” He suddenly needed to prove to her that he had been here before. “There are some new gardens around this way,” he said, gesturing. The classic English gardens, with winding paved paths stretched out in the distance. Wes remembered the side plot of peonies he had seen from Estelle’s office last week.
“Oh?”
“I was here with my mother last week,” Wes said.
“Is Ulla working on something with Estelle? How convenient for you.”
“No, no,” he said, glad for the confirmation that she knew. He didn’t post about his mother on LinkedIn, but Maureen still knew somehow. He decided to answer with a partial truth. “It was a personal visit. Something about these peonies.”
“How lucky for you, to know your way around here.” She glanced away. “Maybe you can give me the full tour. Or perhaps we could wait for Ulla to arrive.”
