Page 66 of All the Right Words
Harper was managing. Just about.
She’d fallen into a holding pattern with the whole Parker Press situation. Things were rolling along without much outward trouble. Olivia had not been in touch, and every communication was down to a bare minimum with Gina. It was rough, no doubt. She was hurting. But it was probably fair to suffer for her crimes like this.
She’d been worried about mixing her work with her personal life and told herself it would be ok to take a chance just this once. Well, lesson learned. Don’t take a shit on your own doorstep. Next time she decided to get herself into a romantic mess, she’d make sure it was one she could at least walk away from. God, she felt dumb. Worse, she was the villain. She’d never been the villain before. She didn’t care for it. She couldn’t wait to have this whole thing in her rear view. She wasn’t sure how long that was going to take. She just had to bear down until she stopped thinking about Gina. And Olivia.
But mostly Gina.
But that made sense. You didn’t forget the kiss of your life in a few weeks. Maybe a few months? A couple of years tops. It couldn’t last forever. The thoughts of Gina’s lips would one day pass. As long as they kept things between them cold. It was the only way. Harper felt like she was doing quite well. There had been an occasion when she’d found herself scribbling a portrait of Gina on a coffee shop napkin, but the second she realised what she’d done, she screwed it up and chucked it into a bin. A fitting allegory.
Until Sarah Fletcher - a journalist who’d been waiting years to get a true crime book deal and finally clinched it - had gotten herself in trouble.
Harper was no stranger to procrastinating authors. She routinely waited an entire fortnight for a reply to her emails and didn’t flinch. But Sarah Fletcher hadn’t been reachable for a month. Harper had checked her social media to confirm she hadn’t died and saw her posting about some breed of monkey going extinct; she relaxed on that front.
But then a deadline came and went. Sarah’s publisher, Atlantic House, wanted answers that Harper could not give. Shit was about to get real. Taking back the advance real.
Now, Harper hadn’t brought Gina in for this one earlier (before the kiss that broke the camel’s back) because there wasn't much point if she couldn’t arrange a meeting. She wasn’t going to send her to Sarah’s to bang on her door.
Only that was precisely what Harper had to do now. She needed the big guns. She needed Gina.
So with knocking knees, she made a call to the woman herself. ‘Gina. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need a favour.’
‘Harper?’ Gina asked, surprised. As well she might be.
‘Sorry, yes, it’s Harper,’ she said. Why did she never remember basic etiquette with Gina? ‘Umm, yeah, so, it’s… I’ve got this writer, and she’s about to lose her deal. She’s stopped replying to my phone calls, emails, texts, everything. I think she’s actually gone into hiding in her flat. And I think… I need you.’
Gina didn’t say anything for a good long while, and Harper felt like she should say more. ‘Look, this wouldn’t be like before. She wouldn’t even know we were coming. We’d be surprising her. I know that’s maybe not… I’ll double your usual fee.’
Gina paused and then said flatly, ‘Well, I could use the money. What’s the plan?’
***
Harper was waiting in the rain for the woman whose lips had ruined her life. Awkwardly, they’d never talked about it. And they would most likely continue not to talk about it today. Harper was glad about that, and it killed her too. But it wasn’t the point of today. Gina would do her writer superhero bit and save Sarah Fletcher from herself. And Harper would thank her with a cheque. She wouldn’t act like a god damn moony teenager who couldn’t take a hint. She would be confident and business-like.
‘Hi!’ Gina said, coming from the opposite direction than Harper had expected, causing her to jump and let out a little scream of alarm. Great start.
‘Sorry,’ Gina said, and Harper waited for her heart rate to return to normal. Which it wouldn’t do because Gina was one of those people who looked sexy in the rain. Her glossy black hair moist, her face dewy.
‘You’re getting wet,’ Gina said.
Harper felt faint. ‘What?’
‘Your umbrella isn’t covering you,’ Gina said quickly.
Harper glanced up to see that her umbrella had drifted slightly. ‘Oh. You too. I mean, you’re not dry either,’ Harper replied over the loud bang of her heart, shoving the umbrella over them both. Unfortunately, Gina had to step in closer to Harper to get the benefit. There were inches between them. It was difficult proximity, but Harper decided to push on. ‘OK, so I’m going to knock on the door and announce myself, and if she doesn’t answer, I’m just going to let you do your thing through the door. OK?’
‘How do we know we wouldn’t be talking to an empty flat?’ Gina asked.
Harper pointed up at the second-floor window of a converted Victorian house, at maroon curtains. ‘I’ve been watching her window for the last ten minutes like a creepy stalker, and I just saw some movement. She’s in there.’
Gina looked up at the window. ‘You know this one might be beyond what I can do, don’t you?’
‘I think if anyone can do it, it would be you. Just do what you can.’
Gina sighed. ‘Have you thought that is probably beyond what an agent can do? It’s possible she needs an actual doctor if she’s hiding from the world.’
‘Maybe. But I don’t know anything until she talks to me. I’m hoping she’s just deeply blocked and avoiding telling me because she’s gone into denial about the situation. My mother told me stories about things like this happening.’
‘And how didshehandle it?’ Gina enquired.
