Page 70 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“He should have, but that would hardly have gotten him anything,” Emily said cryptically, but she left it at that.
They all either drank or pretended to drink tea for a whole uncomfortable moment of absolute silence. Sol’s mind was spinning, throwing options on what to say next, but nothing seemed to be appropriate or smart, considering her task. She was starting to understand that Divya’s and Luke’s job was, indeed, more complex than she’d ever given them credit for—not that she had any intention of letting them know that. But her tried and true technique of falling silent so that her interviewee subject would continue talking, and hopefully reveal something about themself, wasn’t exactly working on Emily. The woman had been married to a journalist, after all.
“So, you two have the afternoon off work, I presume,” Emily said in a not-so-subtle change of subject.
“My afternoons are perpetually off,” Travis started. “Didn’t you hear I was forced to retire?”
“I think I may have heard something. Sorry about that.” Emily was, once again, a model in politeness and empathy. “What about you, Sol?”
“Huh. I’m supposed to be writing this article from the interview I did with Victor Lago,” Sol said. The events from the last few days hadn’t allowed her to focus on work much. “But I somehow haven’t gotten to it yet. I honestly don’t know what to say about it.”
“AboutHaughty Horizons?” asked Emily.
“Yes, I mean. I guess I’ve never been like Simon Smith,” Sol said, in all honesty. “I don’t find any pleasure in publiclydestroying someone else’s work. But the thing is, I hated the movie. And I don’t really like Victor Lago.”
“So you don’t think critics can be nice?” Emily asked. It almost moved Sol to realize that the woman—who she was there to see for entirely calculating reasons—had actually hit a nerve and put into words something she'd been thinking for a while but hadn’t fully articulated.
“Travis has always been a nice critic,” Sol reasoned.
“I still got booted. Perhaps I’d still have a job if my writing had been a bit harsher in some of my views,” Travis lamented. “It surely seemed to work for Simon Smith. I’ve heard he’s getting a seven-figure book deal.”
“Seven figures? Are you kidding me?” Sol scoffed.
After a few agreements from Travis and Emily and some backchanneling sounds, they found themselves once again in perfect silence, except for Travis’s pretend slurping of his tea.
“And are you taking a few days off work, then?” Sol finally thought of asking Emily. She didn’t know what Emily did professionally. They’d now officially reached the point in the relationship in which it was bad not to know and almost even worse to admit it. But she thought she needed to ask, nonetheless.
“Oh I’ve been taking the whole day off for the last”—Emily said, squinting as she thought—“fifteen years?”
“So you don’t work?” Travis asked, and it looked like he was also clueless when it came to Emily’s occupations. “Good for you. If you have any advice on how to spend my mornings, and afternoons, please do tell. So far, the only thing I have on the calendar, besides SoulCycle, is hot yoga and power walking. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. “
They left half an hour after that, when they’d run out of ideas for new topics of conversation. The chat hadn’t exactlycracked the case, or gotten a confession, but Sol was certain about three things, and she made sure of sharing them the moment she got into Luke and Divya’s car.
“She feels no remorse, not even when we mentioned the poisoning of Travis—but that could be because nothing awful happened to him. There has to be a prenup. And you should probably find out what Emily did when she was working.”
35
“We’ve been in this bloody place a day short of two weeks,” Luke grumbled. “But let’s start looking for return tickets, because we’re wrapping up this case today.”
“It would be fantastic to no longer be on Officer Hunky Dory’s no-leaving-the-country list. I really need to go back to London,” Sol said.
“Because of the appointment with your colorist,” said Divya, as she had also heard Sol complaining about the unmissable rendezvous.
“No, because my editor really wants me back in London. I’ve been neglecting work for way too long. Plus, I miss home. And yeah, the appointment with the colorist,” Sol admitted.
The three of them were enjoying an outdoor breakfast of frittata, pastries, tea, sun, and the odd celebrity sighting—they’d seen one of the original cast members fromCSIon their way there—at Gjusta in Venice.
The sunglasses were on, the weather was a temperateseventeen degrees Celsius—even if Sol was still wearing one of Luke’s cozy knits (it smelled like him: lavender and smokey wood)—and their return home looked closer. Although she had always loved traveling, she cherished her time at home every bit as much. Right now, Sol was starting to feel tired of so many meals eaten out, and she was missing her cozy Georgian cottage South of the Thames River.
“You sound as if you’re also a bit homesick for London,” Luke told her with his most seductive grin.
“Iamhomesick,” Sol admitted.
“I thought you loved traveling,” Luke said.
“I do, but like you said, we’ve been out for almost two weeks for a trip that was supposed to last four days. I’d like to go back to the comforts of my own house, my own closet, and the city I learned to love,” she said.
“After that, I think he’s even more in love with you than he already was,” Divya said.
