Page 46 of A Novel Summer
It was true. Reading Anders’s new manuscript made the Seaport Press slush pile all the more discouraging. She was never going to find a career-changing novel in Duke’s submissions. They weren’t all bad; they were just...small. Niche. Nothing jumped out as a novel that would make a splash in the marketplace. Her idea of finding a diamond in the rough and shining it up to make a name for herself seemed more and more like a fantasy. Seaport would never be anything more than a placeholder for her. She could justify taking a summer to work at a small Cape press, but the narrative would grow stale by the fall. She had to either find the proverbial needle-in-the-haystack manuscript, or she needed a Plan B. And soon.
“I’m wondering,” he said, “does the Katarina character read authentic to you? Since you’re roughly the same age...the same generation.”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“Specifically, how so?” he said.
She sat back in her seat, thinking. “The way she relates to technology? And her views on sex. The whole ‘situationship’ thing.”
He nodded. “I want to dig a little deeper here, if you’ll indulge me. Let’s say, for the sake of narrative argument, that youwereKatrina. Would you still want Claud even after realizing the ‘situationship’—as it were—was purely transactional?”
Hunter maybe wasn’t the best person to ask about this.
“What’s wrong with purely transactional sex?”
Clearly, it wasn’t the response Anders had been expecting. He looked at her in surprise and shifted in his seat.
“What about the power imbalance?” he said.
Hunter tilted her head to one side. “I’d say power is in the eye of the beholder.”
“That’s beauty,” Anders said. “Beautyis in the eye of the beholder.”
She leaned forward. “Personally? I think their scenes together are hot.”
Their eyes met, she felt a jolt, and with it all her stress evaporated: the disappointing manuscripts. The fruitless job search. Shelby. She couldn’t control any of that. But men? Men, she knew. And in that moment, she was in “the zone”—an ignited spark between herself and someone she wanted. The zone was the one place she never failed and that never failed her.
She reached for the iced tea he’d served her, and took a long sip. “I’m sorry. If you’re looking for an authenticity reader, I have to admit that when it comes to sex, my attitudes might be more casual than the average person.”
Anders messed with his manuscript, shuffling the pages into a neater pile, and nodded. When he looked up at her, his expression was unreadable. “Well, Hunter, thank you for your feedback. It’s been very...illuminating.”
“Anytime,” she said, reaching for her phone. She stood up, taking her time pushing the chair back in place. “Well, see you in class. I can find my way out.” She took her time making her way across the kitchen. And felt him watching her every step of the way.
Justin’s parents instilled in him the importance of doing the right thing even when it was hard.Especiallywhen it was hard. And so he stopped by Land’s End after work.
His mother’s accusation that he was biased against the store nagged at him. He took his committee jobs seriously, and his primary responsibility was to act in the best interest of the town. When it came to the issue of beach access for Land’s End, he was afraid maybe he’d failed to do that.
He was relieved to find the store busy. It validated his belief that a town filled with art-lovers could support two bookshops—as it did the many art galleries and wide variety of live shows. Hendrik’s was additive, not detrimental. There was always room for people who wanted to contribute to the town. How else could any of them endure their hometown swelling to ten times its population every summer?
He spotted Shelby standing on a ladder to retrieve a book from the top of a shelf. Standing below, holding on to the ladder to keep it steady, was Elise, the owner of the tea shop across the street.
“Sorry to make you risk your neck,” Elise said. “Maybe you need to move Margaret Atwood out of alphabetical order. She’s too iconic to be out of reach. Give her an honorary spot on a lower shelf.”
“I like the way you think,” she said with a laugh.
He smiled at seeing her smile.
She climbed down, spotted him, and raised her eyebrows in surprise. He hung back while she rang up Elise’s purchases. When the front counter was clear of customers, he walked over. She finished punching something into the desktop, took off her computer glasses, and rubbed her eyes. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail, and she looked extremely pretty.
“Scouting the competition?” she said.
“Very funny.”
“I’m only joking. Well, mostly joking.”
A few customers walked in behind him. She called out they should let her know if they needed any help.
“I’m not sure what you’re looking for, but I still recommendThe Overstory. If you haven’t read it,” she said. She’d been talking about that book since they first got together, refusing to believe he didn’t enjoy fiction. And after a while, witnessing her habit of reading in bed every night, he thought maybe he was missing out. “Okay, what’s one novel I should read?” he’d asked. And she’d named, without hesitation, the Richard Powers novel.
