Page 68 of All the Right Words
‘I don’t know if it’s that simple. That wasso muchcake.’
‘There’s no such thing as too much cake,’ Gina said with a cheeky smile.
Harper couldn’t help but smile back but then she realised she was sitting there smiling at Gina, and Gina was smiling at her. In a heartbeat, the room got tense. They both looked away.
‘It’s a lot,’ Sarah said, coming into the room with a tray filled with various baked goods and a teapot and cups. ‘Maybe you could wrap some up and take it home. Take as much as you can. It’s gonna go bad otherwise.’
‘I’ll rent a truck and take the lot,’ Gina said.
‘You haven’t tasted it yet,’ Sarah said.
‘You don’t have to eat a cake to know it’s gonna be a banger,’ Gina told her. ‘I mean, look at that flower design on the cupcake. Paul Hollywood would shake your hand if he saw that.’
Sarah smiled shyly, and it felt like an excellent start to the meeting. This was the thing about Gina. Someone else could say something like that, and it would smell like bullshit. But Gina didn’t kiss arse. Even Sarah, meeting her for the first time, would feel that about her. If Gina said something nice, she damn well meant it.
Sarah plonked the tray on her coffee table, and there was dishing and pouring and munching for a few minutes before anyone approached the taboo topic.
Gina polished off a fairy cake and said, ‘So, let’s talk about the book.’
Sarah’s shoulders dropped. ‘If you want to talk about progress-’
Gina shook her head. ‘I don’t. I just want to hear what it’s about.’ She picked up another tiny cake and took a bite. ‘God, this ismoist.’
Sarah perked up slightly. ‘Well, it’s a biography of a woman called Jane Morris who kidnapped her boss and ran his company while she pretended he was taking a break abroad, making people think he was running things via email. Nobody cottoned on for six whole weeks, and by that time, she’d implemented a lot of improvements within the company. A creche, raises across the board, working from home. People had never been happier.’
Gina raised an eyebrow. ‘Tell me if I’ve got this wrong, but isn’t that the plot ofNine to Five?’
Sarah laughed. ‘That parallel is what drew me to her story. The funny thing is, Jane claims she’d never even seen that movie.’
Gina burst out laughing. Harper had never seen her laugh that way. She was unable not to find it sexy. She was very angry with herself about that.
Sarah looked at Harper. ‘How bad is it, though? How angry is Lauren?’
Harper decided not to answer that question. It was better to keep it positive. ‘Well, they just want to see something. If they have something, I think I can renegotiate the deadline.’
Sarah only looked semi relieved. ‘But… I mean, I do have some stuff… But I just kind of stopped. I don’t know if I can finish it.’
‘That’s what I’m here for,’ Gina said. ‘I’m gonna help.’
Sarah looked like she might burst into tears again. ‘How? You can’t write itforme.’
‘No. But I think I can get some jumper leads on you, get you going again.’
‘How do you know you can do that?’ Sarah asked. ‘I mean, how can you be so sure I can even write a book?’
Gina didn’t look remotely rattled by that question. ‘You were a journalist for years. You can’t do that without meeting a lot of deadlines. I’m guessing you just got a bit intimidated by the size of this project and got blocked. It could happen to anyone. Ithashappened to alotof writers.’
Sarah looked ready to ask Gina to adopt her. ‘That’s it. That’s what happened,’ she said shakily.
Gina popped the last bite of her second fairy cake into her mouth and washed it down with a sip of tea. ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do. You email Harper what you have so she can sort out the publishing side. That’s her job,’ she said dismissively, as though that part of the problem was a mere annoyance. Gina felt that was precisely the right approach. The deal had been poison to Sarah’s work ethic. Gina was sucking it out. ‘And I will stay here with you all weekend and help you do yours. We’ll talk, we’ll plot, we’ll make a lot of notes. We will drink endless coffee, eat endless cake, and push through the block. You’ll be writing before you know it. I won’t leave until I know you’re OK.’
Sarah looked truly happy. But this was way beyond what Harper had asked her to do, and she was beyond grateful. ‘Gina, are you sure you can spare the time?’ she had to ask.
Gina smiled. ‘I might have to cancel my plans to clean my oven, but I think I can swing it. Now go. We’ve got work to do, and I’ve got cake to eat.’
Harper stood with a smile. Gina started cutting a piece out of a large square cake, getting comfortable.
‘Oh, Harper, you need to take one of those. I’ve got way too many pineapple upside-down cakes. They’re such an easy make,’ Sarah said. She looked unmistakably more relaxed.
