Page 37 of Enemies in Earnest

Acacia was perched on one of the studio chairs, still blindfolded, and seated next to someone who, once she took off her blindfold and saw who it was, she’d absolutely lose her shit. And I stood at the ready, iPhone already recording because I wanted to relive this moment over and over again.

“Those out in radio-land can’t see—because we aren’t live-streaming today—our friend Acacia is seated with a blindfold on. She has no idea who is sitting directly next to her, whom we’ve been speaking with for the last ten minutes. Mystery guest, would you like to tell Acacia why you’re here?”

Acacia went to relieve herself of the blindfold. Felicity stayed her hand, whispering in her ear that Bear lived for dramatic reveals and to sit tight for just two more seconds. A directive that my lovely soon- to- be wife did not appreciate.

“Ms. Ashley, we meet again.” The mystery guest spoke into the microphone but was turned toward Acacia. “You have a lot of people here who love and respect you. They think the world of you. A few of them reached out on your behalf to my offices.”

Thank god Felicity’s friends chose the week of Christmas in July to come down and pay a visit to “Grandpa Krane”, as he was now called in their house. If not for Bear and his ability to track down practically anyone and call in a favor—I would not have been able to give my soon-to-be-bride-in two days, the ultimate wedding gift.

“In recognition of your wedding, and of all the work you have done over the years to further the legacy of my grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, I am officially declaring you a member of the Ernest Hemingway Society with full academic rights and recognitions.”

Acacia was sobbing before the blindfold even came off her face. I may have shed a tear or two seeing such unfettered joy and surprise on her face. Who was I kidding? I was a blubbering fucking mess.

After thanking the Hemingway family member—whose name I didn’t catch—and thanking everyone who made it possible she turned to me, holding up the very official looking leather binder.

“You did this for me?” she cried, her fancy painted wedding nails covering her lips. “I can’t believe you did this. For me.”

“Sweet Acacia,” I drew her in against my chest, rubbing her back as she cried her joy and surprise into my neck, “I will move mountains to ensure every day, you know that my world is meaningless without you in it.”

“…and there you have it, folks.” Bear exclaimed into the microphone. “From enemies in earnest to earnestly in love…I want to be the first to congratulate the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler on a joy-filled wedding and a life filled with love.”

“Just one small point of clarification, my friend.”

I pulled Acacia into my side, her eyes rounding with surprise and concern. Though I knew what she was afraid of, I wouldn’t tell a soul that I’d put a baby in her roughly six weeks ago. That was our secret. For now anyway. Hopefully no one noticed her drinking sparkling cider at the wedding.

“That would beDr.and Mr. Wheeler,” I clarified. “She’s worked hard to earn the title.”

Our lives look a bit different these days.Three Sheets Chartersexperienced a bit of a pivot. While we still offered a libation or two on our ship, our tours were lessGirls Gone Wildand more a highlight of the rich history of our fabulous Key.From Pirates to Poetsnow featured contributions and readings not just from me, but both Acacia and Grandpa Krane–when he wasn’t in Chicago visiting his grandkids–hopped the tours with me to offer expanded insight.

Klaus and Felicity visited regularly. So much so that they now shared my side of the duplex with Marley and Bear so each couple had a place to stay when they popped down for a visit. Acacia and I found a cute Hemingway inspired home within walking distance to our inlet that we instantly fell in love with.

Walking into that house, knowing we’d be bringing home our child to raise in roughly eight months, centered me in a way I never expected to feel. Some days, it felt like a dream. I didn’t think Acacia and I would ever get to the point where we were friends, let alone lovers. But I would spend every day showing her how earnestly I loved her.

Willow’s Mea Culpa

For those who have read me before, you know that I use my mea culpa to admit/acknowledge/accept all of the shit that I took serious creative license on in my book. As a reminder this Mea Culpa is a literal last minute brain dump thrown into the back of the book just before I hit publish—so there’s probably going to be typos. No one sees this but me. Oh.. and probably swearing because by the time I get to this part the four letter kind of words are pretty much all that’s left.

So if you’ve been reading me straight through it’s been a while since you’ve had a published book from me. (I think Mile High Monarch ). Anyhow for me it seems like I haven’t stopped writing since then, but they’re all stories going into anthologies so “you” won’t see them for a while.

I say that because it seems strange to not be able to reference those books that won’t come out until next year when discussing this one. First I guess I should address the elephant in the room as to why my release got pushed back. I know it was supposed to come out about three weeks ago. My mom is sick. I had to drop everything to fly to Chicago and the last thing I was thinking about while at home was making sure I could get my manuscript to my proof reader, get it formatted, put up for ARCs etc etc while dealing with everything going on back at home. Life happens, and my publishing schedule had to adjust. As you all know I don’t write full time, I still juggle a regular 9-5 and cobble together stories in gasps of time between life, work, family and motivation. Anyhow the book is out YAY and there’s a lot of shorter/anthology type stories coming down the pike so you’ll see I haven’t been slacking off since February haha.

On to the Mea Culpas!

1. This book was written in 2023. As of right now Hemingway is 124 not 125 but I liked the 125 because it fit better… I feel like everyone would put more meaning behind those five year markers so Acacia would be more upset at a 120 more than a 119 for “the incident” So… Mea Culpa. For anyone who is a Hemingway expert or looked it up, yes I fudged his timeline.

2. On the topic of Hemingway, I only know enough about Hemingway to me sound like I know what I’m talking about. Most of the shit I put in here about Hemingway was #Siroti. Also, I’m only going off what has been written about his drinking and womanizing. I have no idea how much of it is actually true.

3. My apologies to the Hemingway family. I’m sure that they are all lovely and generous people who would graciously laugh at an “incident” where someone shows them their tits and then pukes over the side of a boat. I bet they wouldn’t hold it against the host of the event, since it would be out of their control.

4. I know shit all about pirates and especially female pirates. Though there was this pirate show on Showtime for a while back in like the late 2000s or mid 2010s—IDK time has become fuzzy now that Im 40. But I watched the shit out of that pirate show. It was the first time I think I’d ever seen a show on TV where there was full male frontal and DAMN ?? the main pirate in that show had quite the “mast” ??. Anyhow, the information I shared about those two female pirates whose names Ive already forgotten and I don’t want to go searching through my manuscript were based on academic articles I saw on JSTOR (which is an academic site where professors post papers and well if you’re in school you have to search it obsessively for peer reviewed articles on whatever the hell you’re researching.)

5. Speaking of academia… those in academia, please don’t come for me for misrepresenting the process of becoming a full professor. I know like a nose hairs worth of information about universities. Other than being around and witnessing the insular politics I never actually had to try to become a full professor so Mea Culpa, seriously.

5a. Also I’m sorry to anyone who attended the University of Florida. Originally I was going to use FSU because I’d always heard that FSU was a huge party school. But even then—I feel like everyone labels every school as a huge party school. (Except Iowa, we know it’s true for them. ??). Anyway based on #Siroti University of Florida is apparently considered the bigger party school of the two. Also, it actually had history classes on Pirates and I didn’t see anything like that at FSU.

5b. I know absolutely nothing about Maritime history. I just needed something that made sense for someone who worked a boat and lived in Florida and of course, Pirates because why not hahah

6. Did anyone catch the Mrs Soames reference? That would be from another literary great, who wrote a little play calledOur Town byThornton Wilder. Fun fact I was Mrs Soames in my high school version. I went to an all girls school and we had literally no budgets for our plays. So we didn’t have the fancy sets and the practically broadway esque budgets to make our productions top notch.

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