Page 30 of A Novel Summer
“I think I made myself pretty clear.” His dark eyes regarded her with detachment. People filed past them. Duke touched her arm and mouthed,See you outside.
“Are you doing this to get back at me? Is this about what happened between us?”
He shook his head, looking infuriatingly amused.
“I hate to break it to you, Shelby: not everything is about you.” He turned and walked out before she could find the words to respond.
She wished she hadn’t come to the meeting. She wished she hadn’t seen him. She wished... Actually no, she didn’t wish either of those things.
The exchange would make for great dialogue in her novel.
Twenty-Two
Hunter walked along the bay side of Commercial Street, already late for work.
She just hadn’t felt right since Duke tried to hit her up for a donation. It was disappointing—as it always was when a friend looked at her and saw dollar signs. But with Duke it was also surprising. She knew he didn’t mean any harm, that it was for a good cause. But it hurt because she’d convinced herself that while her friends in Ptown knew her family was extremely wealthy, it never crossed their minds. One of the things she loved best about her summer life was that it made her feel just like everybody else. So when one of her Ptown friends treated her like, well, like she was rich—it was upsetting.
And it was why the character in Shelby’s novel was so triggering. It wasn’t just that she was promiscuous; it was that she was a stereotypical rich girl.
Hunter stopped walking. A man sitting on a bench on the bay side of the street caught her eye. He was reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. Not a vape—an actual cigarette. The way he held it drew her attention, the casual elegance. He had a mop of brown hair, long limbs, and was dressed in long pants, canvas shoes, and an all-weather jacket.
It was Anders Fleming, the acclaimed British novelist.
What an incredible turn of luck! She’d been so busy feeling bad about losing her job, exiled from “real” publishing for the summer—and there she was, ten feet away from her fiction-writing idol.
She’d been reading his books since she was in high school, when—bored on vacation with her parents—she borrowed her father’s copy ofNowhere Land. When Hunter was a junior in college, Anders Fleming spoke at Bryn Mawr just after winning the Booker Prize.
Did she dare go over and say hello? Really, why not? She was already late, but Duke wasn’t going into the office today. He was going sailing with a sales rep from Malaprop. He said he could see if there was room for her, but she wasn’t in the mood to hobnob with the publisher of the company that let her go.
But now, Anders Fleming. Of course she had to say hello. She waited for two cyclists to pass and then crossed the street.
“Excuse me, Mr. Fleming?” she said. He glanced up, regarding her with curious gray eyes. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m a huge fan,” she said. He appeared skeptical, and she realized that in her black Paramore T-shirt and her hair pulled back in low pigtails she probably looked like a teenager. “You spoke at my college a few years ago, Bryn Mawr.”
“Well, hello, huge fan,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Hunter,” she said. “Are you in town doing a reading?”
He stood, and she realized he was remarkably tall. Probably six foot five. He reached out and shook her hand. “Nice to see you. Actually, I’m teaching at the Fine Arts Work Center.”
The Fine Arts Work Center was a famous Ptown institution on Pearl Street, over fifty years old. It was an incubator for artists that provided housing. Every summer it offered courses in everything from visual art to playwriting and literature. If he was teaching, it meant he’d be local for weeks.
“Amazing,” she said.
“Are you a writer?” he asked.
“No, but I work in publishing. I was actually at your publisher for a while, but now I’m working for a small press here in town.”
“Well, good for you. We need our small presses. I don’t think I’d be here today if it weren’t for the indie that first published me.”
She smiled, suddenly feeling like a warrior for the arts instead of a corporate failure.
He checked his phone and stood, folding the newspaper under his arm. “It was lovely to see you, Hunter. I’m afraid I have to go meet up with some friends.” He turned and Hunter watched him stroll away. When he was out of sight, she pulled her phone out of the messenger bag on her shoulder and logged onto the Fine Arts Work Center site to check the class schedule.
The summer was finally looking up.
Shelby forgot how exhilarating it felt to leave land behind—even just on the rocky little water taxi transporting her and Duke to the sailboat waiting on its mooring. She’d also forgotten how much cooler it was out on the water, and was underdressed in a T-shirt and jeans. At least she’d remembered a hair tie, and pulled the rubber band from her wrist to contain her hair from blowing wildly in the breeze.
She inhaled, fighting the dizzying combination of too much coffee and too little sleep. She’d been up all night writing, and then, when she’d finally closed her eyes, her phone rang with a call from Claudia.
