Barista - Chapters Eleven and Twelve

11

 

Eric woke at three in the morning. He’d been dreaming what could be a great story. It was about a woman who…

Who…

Who…

Was it a woman or a man…

Ah, fuck.

Like that, the dream was gone.

Damn, it had been good. Whatever it was.

He tried going back to sleep but his eyes took a ridiculous interest in the ceiling and didn’t stop looking at it for an hour. Until finally he wrote off the night’s sleep and got out of bed. Since he was up anyway, he started his laptop and sat on the sofa in the living room. If he was awake, he might as well be writing.

Except he couldn’t write.

So he did the one thing he swore he’d never do again.

He went online and searched for writing tips.

He’d given this bad habit up a long time ago. It was easy to inundate yourself with advice, most of it conflicting, and be tempted to follow the latest new tip, which invariably was a repackaged old idea that had been around for decades.

Write your book in 28 days.

Write your book in 1 week.

Write your book in 10 hours.

Let our computer program write your book for you. Just send us the names of your characters, a rough outline including climax, and general ideas about the series and we’ll…

He wished he’d thought of developing software that could write books for people. The firm that created it probably wouldn’t be around too long, but he knew they’d make a ton of money short-term off newbs.

Not getting anywhere, he decided to be productive and check email. Because he got so much of it between the hours of midnight and four in the morning.

A message from John. It included the proposed agenda for the conference this weekend and five separate instances of John thanking him.

Good news—both your panels were expanded to two hours and there will be a workshop at the end of the plotting session, which would be great if you could…

Eric groaned. Under normal circumstances he didn’t salivate over the idea of membering on a panel. But doing it right now, when he’d apparently forgotten how to write a book, would be kind of fraudulent.

He owed christie17 a response. He fired off a quick one, hinting around the fact he was blocked but kept the message otherwise impersonal. Getting involved with a fan was a bad idea…but then he found himself re-reading her earlier email. He was tempted to write her back again and share more but he wisely stopped himself.

He couldn’t do that. It was a telltale sign of desperation.

“You’ve been working too hard,” he said.

But the bills were piling up and sales were sliding and he’d already missed a deadline. Which meant he wasn’t working hard enough.

12

 

Meredith went to the gym for the first time in three months. She wasn’t in college anymore and couldn’t eat whatever she wanted. She’d developed this stubborn tiny gut that wasn’t going away.

Since it was her first time back and she’d never been an exercise nut, she decided to take it easy. The treadmill terrified her, the elliptical required coordination she didn’t naturally possess, and she saw this other cardio machine that was a cross between a stepper and a treadmill, which she didn’t even know how to operate.

So the bike it was.

Exercise sucked, but she’d wisely brought her headphones so she could listen to an audiobook through her phone. She scrolled through her library. Nothing jumped out at her until—

The Dead Ones by Eric Hanlon.

It was his first book and she’d given it three stars. It was the perfect book for the stationary bike: she already knew the story and characters and being a thriller wouldn’t require much critical thinking.

She sat down and started pedaling and hit PLAY.

“The Dead Ones. Chapter One. I hit the pavement. And the pavement hit back. A lot harder than I could.”

She hit STOP and went back to the beginning.

“The Dead Ones. Chapter One.”

She hit STOP again.

It was Eric’s voice.

He’d done his own audio narration? She’d read the book originally and must have gotten this audio file through a package deal.

Self-published authors were notoriously bad at doing their own narration. They usually skimped on sound equipment to save a buck. People also assumed (incorrectly) that good writers made good speakers, but the two skills did not always overlap. To be a good narrator, you had to be an actor of sorts, slipping in and out of various roles as the story progressed.

Having talked to him twice now, Meredith suspected Eric would make for a horrible narrator. He was abrupt and kind of awkward, except of course when Alana presented him with a big pair of tits and flirted ridiculously.

Perversely, she looked forward to hearing how awful his reading was going to be.

~~~

“Hey, do you want these?” Alana held out her pack of cigarettes. “I’m quitting.”

“For real this time?”

Alana flipped her off. “Do you want them?”

It was a nice day, warm for early March. And it was Dan’s day off. He’d scheduled a one-on-one with her for tomorrow, which would be as fun as a root canal. But at least today he wouldn’t be looking over her shoulder and criticizing everything she did.

Meredith was about to take the cigarettes but stopped herself. “You know what, I’ve been good today so no thanks.”

Alana did a double-take. “Uh-oh. What exactly does that mean?”

Meredith felt a blush coming on. She didn’t like talking about dieting or what her body looked like. All her friends over the years had done it, many to the point of obsession. But she’d never understood why and it had always made her feel self-conscious.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Don’t oh, nothing me,” Alana said. “What are you doing, a cleanse or something?”

“God no!” Meredith said. “I exercised this morning and am going to try out a new diet I think.”

“Oh-my-god-why? You’re hot.”

This was all part of the dialog. Woman declared she was going on a diet, her incredulous friends assured her it wasn’t necessary, woman had to justify why she was dieting…it was all so fake. She hated fake.

“Thanks,” she said and left it at that.

“So let me get this straight: diet, exercise—are you going shopping today or tomorrow also?”

Meredith frowned. “It has been awhile since I bought myself anything ni—”

“Who is he?” Alana said.

“Who is who?”

“Mer, it’s me. Alana. Your best friend slash co-worker ever, maybe not exactly in that order but close enough. Who is he?”

Meredith shook her head. “Why does everything we do have to be about guys? Why can’t I just be taking care of myself because it’s good for me?”

Alana held out her palms. “Okay, okay. Just asking a harmless question.”

“Your questions are never harmless.”

Alana smiled. “Guilty as charged. So, hey, can you drive this weekend?”

“This weekend?”

“To the conference in Allentown?”

Meredith gave her an incredulous look. “Ha-ha. Very funny.”

“You’re backing out on me?”

“In order to back out, I would have needed to be going in the first place.”

“Mer…”

She shook her head. “I’m not going. Besides, he’s going to be there.”

“Eric?” Alana smiled.

“No, not him! He’s all yours. My ex.”

“And that’s why you should go. Do you know how easily you could pick up a guy at this thing? You work in a bookstore, they’ll love you.”

“No, they won’t. They’ll think I’m an obsessive fan girl.”

“Not if you do it the right way. And there will never be a greater opportunity to say screw you to Damian, than by showing up at the conference where he’s headlining, looking all sexy, and hooking up with some guy.”

Meredith hated to say it, but Alana might have been right.

Still, she tried to argue. “But if I have to say screw you to Damian, I’m telling him I still like him.”

Alana shook her head. “No, you’re not.”

“I kind of am.”

Alana tried a different tack. “You know I’m the best wing girl out there. It’s just like pairing people up with books. I’ll find ten suitable guys for you in an hour.”

Meredith hated to say this too, but it was beginning to sound like a lot of fun.

“So…can you drive?” Alana asked.

“This was your idea.” Meredith’s car was on its last legs. Every day still running was a blessing. “Why can’t you?”

“I kind of, sort of, maybe got a DWI last night.”

“Kind of?” Meredith wasn’t surprised.

Alana held out a palm. “God’s honest truth here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I met some friends at the bar and got carried away. I knew better than to drive, but I had to get out of the bar or I’d just keep drinking. So I had this great idea.”

“Which was?”

“Sleep it off in my car for a couple hours. And that’s what I did. And they said I was driving while intoxicated.”

“How?”

“It was cold as hell last night, so I got in my car and turned it on to keep warm while I slept it off. So you see, I wasn’t driving.”

Classic Alana.

Barista - Chapter Ten

10

 

Meredith turned in her chair and saw Alana moving in fast, like a lion running down a gazelle on the prairie. Her long blond hair looked amazing like always and she walked with a bounce in her step…which made other parts of her anatomy bounce too. Meredith knew she did it on purpose. Alana had once told her when they were out at some bar.

Meredith was suddenly embarrassed. She hadn’t texted Alana to alert her to Eric’s presence and she was nervous Alana would reveal she was a book reviewer blogger and had read Eric’s books. Why had she emailed him last night? It was so incredibly stupid.

“I’m sorry,” Meredith said. She turned back to Eric. “I don’t actually know your name.”

He stuck his hand out and smiled at Alana. On second glance, he was kind of cute and when he smiled he was actually handsome. She realized it was the first time she’d seen him smile since he’d been coming.

“I’m Not Awesome,” he said. “I’m just Eric.”

Alana laughed breathily at the joke. Meredith tried not to roll her eyes.

“Oh, our Meredith is Very Awesome,” Alana said. “Did you know that she’s a speed reader?”

Meredith shot Alana a fierce look.

“Speed-reader, huh?” Eric smiled at her. He needed to smile more. It made him look less like a dick.

She nodded.

Alana said, “And what do you do, Eric?”

Meredith watched as Eric blushed. Figured. It was laughable how easily Alana could score a guy. They just looked at those big, blond locks and those big boobs and they were goners. It was disappointing to find out that Eric was just like every other guy on the planet. Put a pair of big tits in their face and they were happy.

“I’m a writer,” he said.

Meredith started. Why had he been vague with her, but upfront with Alana? Was she not good enough to hear the truth? She was liking him less and less.

“A writer?” Alana said as innocently as possible. “Very cool. What’s your last name?”

“Hanlon.”

“Eric Hanlon. You’re Eric Hanlon?”

Alana couldn’t have laid it on any thicker.

He could barely look either of them in the eye. “Yeah.”

“I’ve read your books. I love, love, love The Hard Woman. Though honestly, you could make your sex scenes a little hotter.”

Alana shot her a quick look.

Eric looked like he wanted to crawl under the table.

Alana picked up on his unease and changed direction. “I wish I could recommend your books to readers, but the store doesn’t let us promote anything we can’t order.”

Meredith watched his reaction carefully. She knew from reviewing his books that he self-published. Many authors situated like him had a huge chip on their shoulder. Having been rejected by agents and editors, they felt like they had to prove themselves and that they didn’t need the blessing of the so-called New York gatekeepers.

But Eric grew thoughtful. “So how could I get my books in here?”

“You’ll have to talk to my manager,” she said. “Maybe there’s some arrangement we could work out. Do you use CreateSpace for your hard copies?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” he said.

She nodded like she appreciated his struggles, but Meredith didn’t feel like hearing the woe-is-me, writing-is-hard crap. Writing was just like anything else. Anybody could do it if they put the time in. And anybody could learn the business. There were plenty of how-to’s online. All Eric had to do was read up and figure it out. If he worked hard enough he could get his books into their store. Typical writer, though. Always blamed the business for his problems.

That confirmed it for her. He was one of those proud self-publishing sorts, the kind that was constantly thumbing his nose at New York for failing to have recognized his genius and not offering him a multi-million dollar contract. Meredith hadn’t known their independent bookstore prohibited employees from referring readers to self-published books that weren’t available through their store. It totally sucked and was capitalism at its worst, but she didn’t feel sorry for Eric. He was kind of a jerk.

“It would be great if I could talk to your manager. Could you help me get a meeting?” Eric said.

“Sure thing, I work at the Reader Services desk.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve seen you around.” Eric winked at her.

Alana’s eyes went wide and she pretended to be embarrassed. Meredith knew she was not and was in fact eating this up.

“You’re not so bad yourself. I could turn you into a bestseller if they let me. Just ask Awesome right here—I have a super power.”

Eric turned to her. “She has a super power?”

“She has a super power,” Meredith managed to say.

“And what is that?”

Meredith sighed. “Finding the perfect book for anybody.”

“Is that right?” he said. “Could you find one for me?”

Alana studied him for five seconds. “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Eric stared at her dumbly. “Are you serious?”

She nodded. “It would help you with your sex scenes.”

Eric laughed nervously. “Maybe I’ll check it out.”

“You won’t be disappointed, I promise.”

Meredith could tell that Eric wanted to die from embarrassment. “Alana has a gift. You should read it.”

“Have you read it?” Eric asked her.

Meredith had but felt uncomfortable telling Eric that for some reason. “No.”

Alana shook her head. “Of course she has. She’s just embarrassed to admit it.”

Meredith was ready to strangle Alana. She’d made her swear, under penalty of death, not to tell anyone she’d read that book.

Alana caught her look and turned back to Eric. “So, what does a writer do for fun?”

Meredith was in serious danger of puking in her mouth. She couldn’t stand to watch Alana flirt with this guy. She wanted to excuse herself but thought it would look funny if she got up and suddenly left. More importantly, she wanted to make sure Alana didn’t tell Eric who she really was. So she had to stay. She just hoped the vomit-worthy flirting would end soon.

“Not much these days,” he said. “Too busy writing.”

“In that case, how about you and I do something fun?”

Eric seemed to remember that Meredith was sitting next to him. His blush deepened. His eyes darted nervously from Alana to her and back again.

Before he could answer, Alana followed up. “How about this weekend?”

“Oh, I actually…” He looked at Meredith, then back up at Alana. “…I’m going to be at a conference.”

“The Allentown one?” Alana asked. She looked at Meredith.

He was looked surprised they’d heard of it. “Yeah, that one.”

“We’re going,” Alana said, putting her arm around Meredith’s shoulders.

Meredith turned in her chair to face Alana. “We are?”

“How could you forget?” Alana said.

Meredith did not want to go. Not only because she hated hearing writers talk about their hallowed craft, but because her ex was on one of the panels. She hated that she knew that, but some masochistic part of her still read his newsletter. She’d never been able to one-click her way off the distribution list.

Alana nodded. “Maybe we could catch up after the sessions? The guys will be all over Meredith—we could probably double up.”

Meredith couldn’t take it anymore. She stood. “Okay, Eric, I’ll see you later.”

Alana grabbed her arm. “Did Meredith tell you she’s a book review blogger?”

Eric turned back to her. “Really?”

Meredith nodded. That was it. She was definitely going to kill Alana.

“Oh wow. Do you review thrillers?”

Meredith pretended to think. “I think I’ve reviewed your books actually.”

He frowned. “What’s the name of your blog?”

She told him.

“I remember!” His face lit up. “You gave me a few good ones.”

Meredith didn’t know what to say and Alana being all flirty wasn’t making things any easier.

“I really appreciate it,” Eric said.

She could tell he was desperate for reviews. Self-published writers lived and died by them, because they had very few other ways to market their work. Not unless they were independently wealthy.

And Meredith knew Eric Hanlon wasn’t independently wealthy. He’d never bought a damned thing from the café.

Barista - Chapters Eight and Nine

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8

 

Meredith tried not to stare at Eric, but Alana had got her thinking. Was he really like that in bed?

“You’re coloring everywhere! I told you not to do that! You never listen to me!” Meredith casually glanced over at the window. The Mom-inator was at it again. This time she’d been nice enough to get her girls a special treat: a round of sugar cookies. But then she’d buried her nose in a magazine while they got out their coloring books and went to town.

“You never listen!” the woman said. “I know you can hear me! Now there is crayon all over the table. You girls are behaving so poorly! I can’t believe it.”

Meredith’s eyes roved to Eric. He was watching the scene himself with a neutral expression and his arms folded.

“That’s it! We are not going to color anymore while we are out somewhere!” Mom-inator woman said. She had stood up and was frantically gathering the toys, crayons, and coloring books, while her girls had lowered their heads and were looking at the table.

“If you can’t behave, we can’t go anywhere! I bring you out on this special adventure, and this is what you do?”

Meredith couldn’t stand it. The girls were so young and close to tears. The mother was running all over them for something minor.

She grabbed a wet towel from the sink and stepped out from behind the counter. “Ma’am, it’s really no big deal.”

The Mom-inator stopped what she was doing and slowly owled her head to look at Meredith. She had perfect hair and perfect teeth and she was a size zero, of course, and her jewelry was expensive. She was one of those types that hadn’t worked a day in her life, who had nothing to do but be a good mother, and she was utterly terrible to her kids.

“How dare you,” the Mom-inator said.

Meredith felt her anger rise, like bile in her stomach. She told herself to keep calm. “These tables wipe down easily. Food, coffee, crayons, even markers…it’s not a big deal.”

“That’s great!” the woman said. “You’ve just told my children that it’s okay for them to draw on tables, the exact thing I’m telling them not to do. That’s perfect!”

Meredith was ready to explode. She took a calming breath and looked briefly away. Eric had turned from the scene and was absorbed by his laptop again. What a coward.

Meredith said, “Your girls are so young and—”

“Do you have kids?”

“No.”

“Then you really have no idea, do you? Where’s your manager? I want to speak to him.”

 

9

 

Eric reread the ten pages he’d written. The words had come haltingly all afternoon, but they had felt okay as he was writing them.

But looking at them now, he realized with profound disappointment they were crap. In the span of ten pages, he’d flashed back twice, gave away an entire character’s backstory in one massive info-dump, and telegraphed about three different endings. And he had no idea where to go next in the story.

He saved it and moved it into his Could Be Made Good folder. But even that classification was being generous.

John had texted him six times this afternoon to follow-up about the conference. They must have been really desperate. Eric wasn’t even in the barrel to be considered at the bottom of it.

And he was self-published.

Which was such a divisive topic these days. The topic attracted such ardent proponents and venomous detractors. He didn’t want to insert himself in any real way into that debate. He preferred just writing his books and honing his craft. He didn’t yearn to carry a banner or be a spokesman. He knew that as soon as the subject came up, whatever panel he was on would get immediately derailed and the two sides would retreat into their not-so-neutral corners.

But John was his friend, despite how much he drove Eric nuts when it came to writing. And to John’s point, maybe being around other writers in a different environment would spark some new ideas.

Right now he was willing to try anything.

He was about to text John when he looked up and saw Meredith / Awesome standing next to his table.

“Do you mind if I join you?” she asked.

“Are you off-duty?” He noticed her apron was conspicuously absent.

Weak joke, but she smiled anyway. Meredith sat and put her iced coffee on the wobbly table.

“Am I the crazy one?” she said.

He didn’t know how to answer that without getting himself in trouble.

Meredith sipped her coffee. “You saw that mom today, right?”

“The one with the three girls?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t think I was that out of line…” She put her coffee down and crossed her legs at the knee.

Eric hadn’t really been paying attention and couldn’t remember the details now. He recalled the mom being short with her kids and Meredith, very unwisely, stepping in.

“She was just disciplining them.”

Meredith looked at him from across her face. “Browbeating is more like it. Girls already suffer from self-esteem issues. Talking to them like that will hurt more than help.”

Eric said nothing. He got the sense she was always doing this: getting on some soap-box or another.

“You heard her,” Meredith said. “You know I’m right.”

She was angry about something and directing it at him. He couldn’t help but take the bait.

“I’ll bet that mother tells them five times a day not to color on tables. Today was probably the thousandth time she’s given that instruction. I can see why she’d get angry.”

“So you were listening.”

Eric put his palms up. “That was all I caught.”

“But there’s a better way to talk to children so they don’t grow up hating themselves. Because that’s just what the world needs.”

He said nothing. He really wasn’t in any mood to talk and wondered why she’d decided to join him. It was clear she didn’t like him. But maybe she was like that: she felt compelled to engage people she couldn’t stand.

He was just the opposite. He thought life was too short to hang out with people that drove you nuts.

He stood. “Well, I’ve gotta head out.”

“What are you working on?” She bobbed her chin at his laptop.

“Oh, this and that.” He loved what he did but hated discussing it with people. Writers were bores and he didn’t want to fall into that trapping.

“How is this and that going?” she said.

“It’s going.” He smiled and put his laptop away. “Just not sure where.”

She just stared at him, like he wasn’t allowed to leave.

“Okay, see you later,” he said.

“Meredith, who’s your friend?”

Barista - Chapter Seven

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7

 

“You need to stop outlining,” John said, between bites of his panini.

“I don’t outline.” Eric sipped his water. He’d taken two bites of his flatbread sandwich and had hated it. Seven dollars and thirty-six cents right down the drain. Or, said another way, he’d just wasted between three and four sales.

John finished his panini. He was a big guy, tall and broad, and looked like he could have gone for two more sandwiches.

“Okay, then you need to start again,” John said.

“But you just told me not to outline.”

“Exactly,” John said.

Eric was reminded of the many reasons why he’d stopped attending the local monthly writer’s workshop. He’d met John at the workshop (was it really five years ago?), and they’d developed a friendship over a shared love of books, movies and TV.

But this was just the kind of thing that drove Eric nuts. John had spent…Eric had no idea how long…writing his first book and wasn’t even halfway finished apparently. Most of the other people attending the workshops fell into the same boat.

The result? Three hour “working” sessions that always devolved into pity parties about why nobody could get any writing done, or, just as bad, the whole bunch of so-called authors who’d never finished anything gave each other advice and constantly bickered when one so-called rule conflicted with another.

Stephen King never outlines.

Ken Follett outlines for six months before writing a single word.

And on and on.

Eric had figured out years ago that you just had to figure out what worked best for you and do it your own way. And, most importantly, you had to finish the fucking book. If there were any rules about writing, that was one of them.

”How about the snowflake method?” John said. “Have you tried it?”

“Long time ago.”

“How about…”

John asked a million questions about his process, drilling down to the unimportant details like where he worked, what he ate before he started, what he wore, if he listened to music…

Eric was exhausted by the end of the lunch. And not full. “Thanks, John, definitely gave me some food for thought.”

It had been good to see John and he appreciated the guy’s eagerness to help, but in truth Eric hadn’t gotten much out of their discussion. What had he expected? He’d put the time in over the years and released five books, while John had been half-assing it on his semi-autobiographical literary, experimental novel forever.

He really just needed to get his ass back in the chair and write. Just write and write and keep writing until something good finally appeared on the page, then write and write and write until that something good was finished.

John said, “Oh, did you hear?”

“What?”

“Three of the authors doing the Allentown Conference this weekend bailed last minute.”

“Oh yeah?” Eric couldn’t be any less interested. Writers’ conferences were even worse than writers’ workshops. They usually ended up being one big circle jerk. Aspiring writers flocked to them and fawned over the published authors.

John said, “Yeah, we’re looking for replacements. Especially on our thriller…”

His voice trailed off. Eric used that pause in the conversation to make his move to leave.

“Well, thanks for your time, John. Let’s catch a movie this weekend.”

“Can’t, I’ll be at the conference. But I was thinking, you could fill in.”

“Fill in what?” Eric had stood already and picked up his tray.

“We need to fill the holes on our thriller panel the first day, and the plotting panel the next day. You could do that, right?”

“John, I’m flattered but…”

He couldn’t take a whole weekend off from writing when he was this far behind to attend a conference.

“The panels are only two hours apiece and we’ll pick up your hotel stay. It would be good for you to be around other writers and get out of your environment and be somewhere else. It’ll spark something. You can bounce ideas off other writers…other published writers, I mean.”

Eric hoped John hadn’t picked up on what he was thinking. “John, you’ve been a big help.”

John shook his head. “No, I haven’t. I know that. I came out here hoping to learn more about the way you do things to be honest. Because I just can’t finish my book.”

“How long have you been working on it?” Eric asked.

John ran his hands through his thinning blonde hair. “Five years now, ever since I finished grad school.”

Five years!

“John, maybe you should put it aside and try something else, something completely different.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He looked at his watch. “Shit, I’ve gotta get back to the office. Some of us do have to work still, you know.”

Eric smiled. But comments like this always pissed him off. Non-writers always just assumed writing was easy, that it wasn’t work. That all it took was sitting down for a few hours and cranking out a book on the first try.

But John should have known better. Especially considering he’d been working on the same book for five years and wasn’t close to finished yet.

Barista - Chapter Six

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6

 

Meredith looked up every time someone walked into the café, expecting Eric. She wondered why he was late and found herself making up stories why he might be. Perhaps he’d had a burst of creative energy last night, or maybe a date that had gone well…or maybe he was just on a relaxed schedule like all writers and just got up whenever he felt like it. Must have been nice.

Business was slow and she’d restocked the coffee for sale, refilled the magazine rack, and wiped the tables down after the breakfast crew left already. She was the only person working till two. During the quiet time, she had nothing to do but think. And her mind kept drifting back to The Hard Woman.

After reading the sex scene she’d gone back to the beginning of the book and read it cover to cover. It really was good, better than the three-and-a-half stars she’d doled out when reviewing it the first time. She considered revising her score on all the websites but that didn’t seem right. If she did it for Hanlon, she would have to do it for everybody else and she couldn’t go back and reread all three hundred books she’d formally reviewed in the last few years.

Besides, Hanlon might have been a good writer but he was kind of a jerk. Even during his awkward apology, he’d managed to be short and had ended up impatiently waving his hand in her face. She didn’t want to give the guy a better score because of how he’d acted. Maybe that wasn’t fair of her, but then again, dicks didn’t deserve to be successful. Only nice people did.

Rather than revise her rating, she’d emailed him last night. Which she was now regretting. All writers had enormous egos. There was no other group of people in the world that took eighty plus thousand words to tell a story and then expected to be paid for it.

She loved stories but authors were annoying. She’d gotten so many angry emails in response to her honest reviews over the years that she knew what they were really all like.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Alana asked.

Meredith looked up from the counter. She hadn’t even heard her friend approaching.

“Who?”

Alana gave her the look.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Alana held the look.

“How old are you?”

“Did you go back and read one of his sex scenes?” Alana asked.

Meredith felt her face grow warm. “No.”

“I do.” Alana smiled. “And I did.”

“You did?” Meredith didn’t know why she was shocked. Alana was just as voracious a reader as she was, and she was not prudish. “Was it any good?”

“It was okay. A little tame for my tastes.”

“Not everybody is into bondage.”

“Bondage? That’s tame.”

Meredith chuckled. “You have a one-track mind.”

“Two tracks: books and sex.”

Meredith shook her head.

Alana said, “Seriously, where is he?”

“How would I know?”

“You haven’t seen him today?”

Meredith shook her head.

“I hope you didn’t scare him off, like you do everybody else.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means.”

“That happened once.”

“Twice.”

“You can’t count the guy that was yelling into his cell phone.”

“Actually, I wasn’t. So that’s three times.”

“Wait—”

“Take it easy, I’m just half-kidding. But, seriously, if you see him, could you shoot me a text?”

Meredith looked at her friend suspiciously. Alana was forever trying to set her up, and Meredith feared she would try to do just that with Eric Hanlon. Another writer.

“Why?”

Alana batted her eyelashes. “Why do you think?”

“Alana, I’m not interested.”

Alana burst into laughter. “Not for you! I’ve given up trying to set you up.”

Now Meredith was really confused. “So why would you—”

Alana said, “I could show him a thing or two in the bedroom and then maybe he could write about me. That would be hot.”

“Alana…you can’t date Eric Hanlon.”

Alana frowned. “Who said anything about dating?”

“No, I mean, you can’t…whatever with this guy.”

Alana smirked. “And why not, Meredith?”

“Gross. I don’t want to date him. I mean because he’s a jerk.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I’ve seen him every day for the last two weeks, so I know a little about him. And yesterday he was a dick to me.”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that. He was just asking for something other than coffee and you insulted his French pronunciation.”

“Who the hell—I’m going to kill Lindsey.”

Alana smiled. “And so what if he’s a dick? Most guys are.”

“I don’t get you sometimes.”

“I don’t get you most of the time.”

Barista - Chapter 5

GET BARISTA FOR A BUCK

5

 

Eric woke at ten. He’d stayed up late again because years ago he’d read somewhere that deep exhaustion actually spurred creativity. It was that or get drunk, and Eric kept his drinking to a minimum. In college he’d come dangerously close to having a problem.

He looked over the five hundred words he’d typed last night after reading an old news story about some guy from Philadelphia who staged car accidents, got the so-called victims to treat with the right doctors and therapists, then billed the insurance company. It was a great opening to a novel.

Or so he’d thought.

The writing was crap, calling the main character two-dimensional would have been an insult to the dimensions of length and width, and the opening should have been exciting but instead it was just all internal shit the guy was thinking or feeling. He’d written barely five hundred words and he’d already lost the plot. Usually that took a bad writer a solid fifteen to twenty thousand words, but Eric had somehow managed the feat in the course of an hour’s worth of writing.

Time to call Guinness so they could update their Book of World Records.

He saved the Word document and moved it into his Could Be Made Good folder.

“I’m blocked,” he said. “Totally, completely, fuckatively blocked.”

He got up, stretched, put on some sweats, paced. Paced some more. How could this be happening now?

Eric took off his sweats and jumped in the shower. Usually he got a lot of ideas in the shower because it was the closest thing to sensory deprivation he could find. Just him and the hot water. No phone, no TV, nobody talking through the walls of the apartment, no cars, no emails, no books, no porn, nothing.

He got out of the shower with exactly zero new ideas.

Eric put his sweats back on, found a semi-clean t-shirt, and put on some socks. He didn’t want to leave the house until he had a clear plan of what to do.

It had been a month since he’d put anything out. Over the last four years he’d built a small, but respectable following by writing quality books at night after a long day’s boring work, self-publishing those books electronically, and keeping the prices of his novels low to encourage readers to give the new, no-name guy a try. At first, the sales had trickled in but over time he trended up and, after a decade of writing and saving money and learning his craft, he’d decided to take the plunge.

By quitting the day job.

It had made perfect sense at the time. His income from writing hadn’t quite matched his working income, but that was okay. In fact, that was incentive. He had written to deadlines his whole life and knew if he could devote himself fully to writing fiction, he would be able to produce twice as many quality books in the same amount of time, if not more. Eric didn’t aspire to write literature and scoffed at the idea of penning the Great American Novel. The professors who decided what was good and what was not from the tenured safety of their ivory towers were well-meaning, but ultimately dead-ass wrong. There were all kinds of readers and all kinds of writers.

Eric didn’t want to write the next Gatsby or the next Stranger or even the next Catch-22. In fact, he knew he didn’t have any such thing in him. He wasn’t that kind of writer. But he knew he could write page turners. And more importantly, loved to write page turners.

It was the perfect time to quit his job too. He’d just paid off his car, the healthcare exchanges were operating so he could get reasonable insurance, and he was still living in his first apartment so rent was cheap. Eric knew how to live low on the hog. He got his books mostly from the library, didn’t have cable, and had no one but himself to worry about.

It all made perfect sense.

But of course the plan assumed he wouldn’t get writer’s block.

His last day at work had been two months ago. With his hours suddenly his own, he’d set the lofty goal of writing one book per month for the first year. He had no idea if that kind of pace was possible but figured if he didn’t reach Mars, at least he’d get to the moon.

The idea was to build up a “backlist” of titles to give readers on the interwebs many different ways to find him. The more virtual shelf space he had, the greater chance he’d get discovered.

Of course he’d already blown his first deadline, today marked his second month in this great self-publishing experiment, and he had no idea what he was going to write about next.

He plopped down on his sofa and went online. First thing he always did was check his sales on the sites. Yesterday had been a slow one and this morning there wasn’t much activity.

From there he checked to see if there were any new reviews of his five thrillers. Only one: somebody had left him two stars because they found his second book too violent.

The second book, of course, was a mystery set in the world of underground mixed martial arts fighting. Which was all spelled out in his product description of the book. How the reader hadn’t expected a lot of violence was beyond him.

“Awesome fucking review,” he said.

The word awesome made him think of Meredith from the bookstore. He couldn’t believe he’d almost asked her out last night. A date would have been a painful disaster. He was glad he’d clammed up.

From there he checked email. Readers occasionally messaged him, which was really fucking cool, especially when they wrote to ask about the next book.

The usual spam and automated crap he got all the time.

Except for one email.

It was from christie17, but the user’s account didn’t reveal any other details. He opened the email.

Mr. Hanlon – I reread The Hard Woman last night, which is saying a lot. I rarely reread these days because there are just too many new books I want to get to. It is really good, even better than I remembered. The relationship between Janey and Craig was really interesting…and hot. It was so real that I figured you had to draw on some life experience for it…anyway, just wanted to drop you a quick note. I know you’re busy working on the next book, probably. Which will be out when?

Eric was humbled. He thought his books good but hadn’t ever thought of them as re-readable. He hit REPLY:

christie17—Please call me Eric, and thanks for writing! I loved the Janey-Craig dynamic but never thought I did it justice…anyway, to answer your question vaguely: yes, I modeled their relationship on personal experience. It’s really a boring story so I’ll spare you the details ;-) Hard at work on the next book and hope to have it out

He had almost written this month. But was that even a possibility? He didn’t want to piss off a fan by blowing a deadline.

next month or the month after. Thanks for reading.

He tried to go back to writing but again couldn’t get anywhere. Maybe it was time he stopped acting like a hermit and bounced ideas off somebody else. He called his buddy, John, and asked him to meet for lunch.

At someplace cheap.