Page 10 of Made For You

“Uh-oh,” I reply, grabbing the pie and a fork before walking over to the dining area. I walk up the two steps and sit down. “It’s not even nine.” She laughs. “Is this a good or bad phone call?” The nerves in my stomach start, my leg moving up and down as I wait for her to answer. I put the fork down beside the pie, holding my breath.

“I stayed up all night reading,” she gushes. “Even though I know better than to pull all-nighters I just couldn’t stop reading.” The smile fills my face now. “It was so good, Vivienne. I can’t wait for more.”

I put my head back and sigh loudly in relief, picking up the fork and stabbing a piece of pie. “I wasn’t sure, it’s a bit different from the rest.”

“It’s so refreshing. This has to be the best book to date.”

“Out of the forty books I’ve written, this one is the best?” I ask her as I chew a bite of pie.

“Yes,” she confirms. She’s been my editor since book five when I was signed with the publishing house. “Now the question is, when are you going to be done?”

“In about a month,” I tell her.

“Ugh, fine,” she huffs. “I can’t wait to see where this is going to go.”

“You and me both,” I admit to her and she laughs. “But I promise, as soon as it’s done, I will send it over.”

“Fair enough. I have to get going. I’ll be dragging my ass the whole day.” She chuckles. “But it was worth it.”

“Thanks for calling, I’m always nervous when you start fresh.” I hang up and walk over to grab my coffee, going back to eat more pie.

I never thought I would end up becoming an author. I mean, I didn’t even like writing in high school, but that all changed when I started college. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do with my life, so I just took the basic college classes.

The truth be told, I was so homesick I would stay in most nights, then one night I stumbled upon this fan fiction page. I went down the rabbit hole reading story after story. So much so that an idea popped in my head, so I opened a Word document and started at chapter one. The one thing I was obsessed with was murder mysteries. I just couldn’t get enough of them, and after watching all the murder mysteries on television, I was hooked.

So I created Lucinda Cartwether, a little small-town girl who lives in a little small town solving the mysteries. Until the CIA gets wind of how good she is and now she works for them going around the world solving mysteries.

It started as a joke really. I would post one chapter every two weeks on the fan fiction board. The response blew me away, I had over seven hundred comments in two days. People would count down the days until another chapter dropped. When I finished it, they were asking when the next one would come. There was no pressure, so after doing two books on the fan fiction site, I thought it would be even cooler to publish the books.

Since I was doing this in secret, and I still am, I had to google how to publish a book. I did everything in steps. First thing I did was get it edited by four people. Then I read the book over and over again. To the point where I hated it and doubted every single word.

I got a graphic designer I went to school with, who helped me create a cover. I uploaded the two books I had on two of the fan fiction sites first. Within a month of each other. I was shocked when everyone who read it on the free site went ahead and bought it. Then when the third one came out three weeks later, it became an overnight best seller. I was climbing the charts on all retailers; I was so fucking shocked.

Here I was at twenty-three, writing books in secret from my family. Until I hitThe New York Timesand had a semi freak-out and called my aunt and namesake Vivienne. I was a sobbing mess and she rushed over to see me. If anyone would understand me writing and keeping it a secret, it would be her. She had this dating blog for the longest time and no one knew who she was. Until she fell in love with Uncle Mark and it went from dating advice to parenting advice. I swore her to secrecy and showed her the paper. She had no idea what she was looking at since I didn’t use Vivienne Grant. Instead, my pen name was Cooper Parker. The minute she saw the name, she knew. She pulled me into her and cried happy tears with me.

It was the week after that I got an email from the biggest publishing house out there. I was shocked when they wanted to speak with me. Of course, Aunt Vivienne stepped in and acted as my agent, she went soft on them for two books. The advance was not even five thousand dollars, but she knew what she was doing. Because the books blew the other three out of the water. They came back and asked for three more, but now Aunt Vivienne went in there and had demands. Six figures with higher royalties, she gave them a couple of days to think about it or she would take it to auction. I had no idea what any of this meant, nothing. Not one thing, all I knew is I loved writing this fictional world I was creating.

Needless to say, they called the next day and the rest is history. I’ve been with them for the last five years. I’ve hitThe New York Timesover two hundred weeks, which is insane because one of the books stayed onThe Timeslist for over forty weeks. There were even weeks when four books ended up hitting the same list. My books were translated into fifteen foreign languages, with five more contracts that just came in. The best thing out of all of this is no one knew who I was. There was a small cartoon character of my face, which wasn’t even me, it was who I thought Lucinda looked like. The only thing we had in common was the hair color, other than that she had a pixie cut with blue-rimmed glasses.

It was crazy how successful I was, and I would celebrate in secret because the only thing my family knew about my job was that it was in writing. They knew it had to do with writing and the computer, since I traveled with them wherever I went. Once Franny caught me editing and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was freelance editing. She never asked me another question. My father sometimes tried to ask me what I did and all I said was I edit websites.

So now I was writing a book in which Lucinda was falling in love for the first time. I didn’t know if it could happen. She was such a badass single person, who you knew had a love life off the pages, but now she was actually catching feelings and I was loving every single second of it. It was the first time there were two storylines going at the same time.

Finishing off the pie, I get up and walk to the bedroom. I hop into shorts and a tank top before sliding back into bed, this time with my laptop. I open my computer, checking my emails first, before opening the Word document and reading the last three chapters I wrote.

I put on my favorite classical music and start writing. I don’t even know how long I write, when I’m in the zone, the only time I stop is to pee and grab water. When I finally look up, I see that it’s now dark outside. “I should have written outside,” I mumble when I get off the bed, going to the bathroom. My stomach rumbles and I walk over to the kitchen, opening the fridge and feeling suddenly exhausted. I grab the loaf of bread, fishing out a couple of pieces, and butter them on both sides. Taking out a frying pan, I start the burner, putting a piece of bread down in the pan, and then adding two slices of cheese, covering it with the other slice of bread. Making my way over, I take out the kettle and plug it in on the counter, filling it with water and then starting it. I grab a couple of strawberries and some bananas and make a fruit salad of sorts, and place it on the table. I flip the grilled cheese over, pressing down while I prepare my tea bag in the big mug.

I put the grilled cheese on the plate and carry it over to the table, where I sit down, turning on the big television. I’m scanning the channels while I eat my grilled cheese and fruit. When I finish, I grab my mug and open the sliding door, the breeze hits right away, so I grab my sweater before going outside. I put it on and then make my way up the stairs. I walk down the front steps, going past the sun pads, stepping over the skylight before hopping on the seat in the front. I walk over to the side of the boat and look over to see if the boat is still attached. Seeing it is, I smile to myself. “Would you look at that,” I say proudly. Turning, I make my way over to the steps to go to the sun pads when I see Xavier sitting on the front of his boat. His sun pads are gorgeous as they take up the whole front of the boat, and Beatrice is next to him while he reads a book. “Hi,” I greet, and he just looks over at me, not saying a word. “Did you see my loop de loops are still in place?”

“I saw,” he mumbles, and I take a sip of my tea.

“How was your day?” I ask him, feeling awkward that we are the only ones outside.

“Good,” he replies, his eyes never leaving the book.

I look ahead at the stars in the sky as I finish my tea, my eyes getting heavy. “Well, good talk,” I say, getting up and walking back up the steps, not even bothering to look back. I also ignore the need to throw my mug at his head, instead I walk back inside and lock the door. I’m about to flip him the bird when my phone rings, and I rush to the bedroom where I forgot it.

Grabbing it, I see it’s my father on FaceTime, so I press connect. The little circle goes around and around before his face fills the screen. “Oh, thank God,” he says when he sees me. “I’ve been calling you for the past five minutes. I was about to send out someone for a welfare check.” I shake my head and laugh.

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