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Genre: Literary Fiction
Words Count: 1,300
Rating: PG
Summary: Chapter One, after Meredith suffers an embarrassingly public collapse, her high-profile producer
boyfriend/boss orders her to take time off. In the midst of the argument, she finds the photo of a childhood
friend who could be the root of all her problems and the answer to all her questions.
Status: Entire rough draft written and edited, it's currently sitting in the endless revision loop because it's
too dang long to submit to publishers.
Meredith sank into the pliant cushions of the leather couch, wishing it would swallow her. With every step of
Jerome’s pacing, an oblong flag of light wavered over the piles of magazines spilled across the coffee table’s
surface.
Jerome still wore his tuxedo jacket, the dogwood bloom wilting in his lapel. He kept pushing his hands
through his hair, parting and re-parting it into neat rows as he spoke to yet another worried colleague on
her phone.
She tried to focus on the light rather than his telephone conversation. This was the fourth call since they
returned from the hospital, and she was tired of hearing him repeat the story, of how she slipped and hit her
head, of how he sidestepped her embarrassing over-indulgence on speed and champagne.
Her head was turbaned with gauze. Her skull ached with the throb of a gathering storm. Once the Vicodin
wore off, she knew she was in for a well deserved hell.
Jerome hung up the phone and sent it skittering across the magazines, where it clinked against his scotch
glass. He sat beside her, elbows on knees, his fingers steepled on his chin. For a moment, he was quiet. For a
man who spent his life in motion; Meredith knew to note these moments of stillness, even in her drugged
state.
“You’re working too hard,” he said at last.
“I fell,” she answered. “People fall all the time.”
Her phone rang; she reached for it.
“Don’t answer that,” he said.
“It’s my job.”
“And I’m your boss. Don’t answer it.”
After the third ring, the phone chirped twice. Voicemail. She slunk into the couch. She hated voicemail.
“You didn’t fall,” he went on. “You blacked out. Your phone rings incessantly, you’re handling so much for
the studio, and for me—”
“—It’s not your fault—”
“—Not saying it is.”
Her phone rang again; again she strained toward it. Jerome swiped it from the table and dropped it into his
scotch.
“Jerome!”
“They’ll call back,” he said, giving her his lopsided smile.
“My lists, my contacts, months of meetings and interviews—”
“—Unimportant.”
She turned on him. “Second unit begins principle photography Monday. You’ll be on location eight days,
then you have forty interviews between now and the re-release.”
“Not that again.” He was up again, pacing.
“It’s a big deal.”
“It’s crass.”
“People want to see it, Jerome. It’s your masterpiece.”
“Right. Reprieve: Re-mastered, re-packaged, regurgitated to the masses. Love, don’t deflect. It’s too much
for one person. It’s too much for ten. Let Naya—”
“—Don’t let that woman try to do my job—”
“—She’s good at it,” Jerome soothed.
“Not better than me. She manages the studio office, I manage you. For God’s sake, it was just a fall.”
In the foyer, his phone rang.
“Holy Christ,” he spat. He sprung from the couch. “Don’t move.”
He struck across the den and began to sing. Any small space of silence and he sang, Rufus Wainwright these
days, which was better than his Jeff Buckley phase: Heart-rending renditions of Hallelujah every day for
months. At least with Rufus, Meredith didn’t walk around feeling like an open wound.
She heard Jerome talking from what felt like a long way away. She leaned forward to examine her cell phone
half-sunk in the glass of scotch. A trickle of bubbles bled from its LED screen. All the information was backed
up, but still… it was her phone.
She fingered the nautilus pendant at her throat. The triangle of amber light had elongated across the table
by the time Jerome returned.
“That was Terry,” he said. “Reminding you to remind me of our racquetball match tomorrow. Honestly, we’ve
met every Thursday since 1989, is it necessary for him to call about it?”
Meredith arched a brow. It hurt.
“Really?” he said.
“You often forget.”
He joined her on the couch. “There’s more. Have a look.” He passed his phone to her. In the small window
under the Yahoo! banner was a thumbnail photo of Jerome.
“What’s this?”
“Your fall made the news.”
“Oh. Joy.”
“Shall I read it?”
Why did he bother to ask? He swiped the phone from her and read: “June 13, Los Angeles. Meredith Lakey,
treated for exhaustion and a concussion sustained from a fall at the Hearts and Hands for Africa charity gala
Saturday night in Beverly Hills. She was released from Cedars-Sinai Monday morning after an overnight stay for
observation.” He looked over the screen at her. “Lakey is the live-in girlfriend and personal assistant to
Jerome Snow, independent film producer of Snowbird Studios…”
“Give me that.” She snatched the phone, and caught his smile. “And don’t be so smug.”
She scanned the type to find the place where he left off, but the lines kept blurring to gray.
“I need a drink,” she said.
“No alcohol, doctor’s orders.” But he was up again, bound for the kitchen. “Something else? Anything you
fancy?”
“Tea?”
“There’s my girl.”
She wished again that the couch would engulf her. Not too terrible a fate: death by leather sofa. How would
Yahoo! News like that for a headline?
She slid his phone onto the coffee table. “Well,” she concluded, “That article is about you. And they’ve
called you English again.”
He leaned on the bar. “English. Irish. Scottish. It’s all the same to you Americans.”
“Maybe you should bomb the news office,” she said. “That’d set them straight.”
“That’s the Irish, love. In the end, it’s not the brand of press we’re seeking.”
The triangle of tawny sunlight on the table had faded. The picture window in the dining room was a
rectangle of gradient blue—ocean, sky, space.
Jerome slid open the refrigerator door, which conjured his obese gray cat, Monty, from his hiding spot
under the bar. Meredith heard him talking to Monty the way a mother would coddle a toddler. She smoothed
her hands over the magazines on the table: People, Us, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Esquire. These
were Jerome’s guilty pleasures; he loved looking through them for articles and pictures about his friends.
Actually, he liked her looking through them for him. He rarely had time to read anything longer than the
synopsis of a script.
She pulled a copy of GQ into her lap and leafed through dozens of advertisements, the tick-swish of the
pages reminding her of windshield wipers in a storm. The glossy prints smelled of clay and fine paper and,
somehow, of rain. The images were disjointed, surreal — pieces of costumed bodies entwined in fur, in
feathers, in hounds-tooth check; flawless faces staring out, hollow-eyed and haunted.
As she drifted, mesmerized by the illusory images of the photographic frenzy, something real emerged — a
pair of familiar eyes that sliced through her self-imposed cocoon.
Gale.
Her hand went again, always, to the pendant at her throat.
Gale Brawley.
A storm of half-formed questions swirled in her head. She could think of nothing then, nothing but his name,
tumbling over and over into chaos.
She heard Jerome call to her, felt him pull her into his arms.
“It’s nothing,” she told him. “Babe, it’s nothing.” She let the magazine slide to the floor.
“Shall I call Dr. Kadie?”
“No.” Her answer was a gulp of air. “I was dizzy. Maybe more tired than I thought.”
“Poor lump.” He kissed her bandaged forehead. “Up we go, now.”
He led her upstairs and put her into bed, where she lay for a long time, fighting sleep and thinking of Gale.
She imagined the picture would dissipate like smoke, like he had thirteen years ago. She fell asleep in a
tangle of dreams, dreams of drifting, ever drifting, down a river to the sea, to the ocean and forever, her
arms unfurled, her drowned fingers swollen, and in the palm of each hand she held one half of an empty shell.
So what do you think?
Submit a review to let me know.
Words Count: 1,300
Rating: PG
Summary: Chapter One, after Meredith suffers an embarrassingly public collapse, her high-profile producer
boyfriend/boss orders her to take time off. In the midst of the argument, she finds the photo of a childhood
friend who could be the root of all her problems and the answer to all her questions.
Status: Entire rough draft written and edited, it's currently sitting in the endless revision loop because it's
too dang long to submit to publishers.
Meredith sank into the pliant cushions of the leather couch, wishing it would swallow her. With every step of
Jerome’s pacing, an oblong flag of light wavered over the piles of magazines spilled across the coffee table’s
surface.
Jerome still wore his tuxedo jacket, the dogwood bloom wilting in his lapel. He kept pushing his hands
through his hair, parting and re-parting it into neat rows as he spoke to yet another worried colleague on
her phone.
She tried to focus on the light rather than his telephone conversation. This was the fourth call since they
returned from the hospital, and she was tired of hearing him repeat the story, of how she slipped and hit her
head, of how he sidestepped her embarrassing over-indulgence on speed and champagne.
Her head was turbaned with gauze. Her skull ached with the throb of a gathering storm. Once the Vicodin
wore off, she knew she was in for a well deserved hell.
Jerome hung up the phone and sent it skittering across the magazines, where it clinked against his scotch
glass. He sat beside her, elbows on knees, his fingers steepled on his chin. For a moment, he was quiet. For a
man who spent his life in motion; Meredith knew to note these moments of stillness, even in her drugged
state.
“You’re working too hard,” he said at last.
“I fell,” she answered. “People fall all the time.”
Her phone rang; she reached for it.
“Don’t answer that,” he said.
“It’s my job.”
“And I’m your boss. Don’t answer it.”
After the third ring, the phone chirped twice. Voicemail. She slunk into the couch. She hated voicemail.
“You didn’t fall,” he went on. “You blacked out. Your phone rings incessantly, you’re handling so much for
the studio, and for me—”
“—It’s not your fault—”
“—Not saying it is.”
Her phone rang again; again she strained toward it. Jerome swiped it from the table and dropped it into his
scotch.
“Jerome!”
“They’ll call back,” he said, giving her his lopsided smile.
“My lists, my contacts, months of meetings and interviews—”
“—Unimportant.”
She turned on him. “Second unit begins principle photography Monday. You’ll be on location eight days,
then you have forty interviews between now and the re-release.”
“Not that again.” He was up again, pacing.
“It’s a big deal.”
“It’s crass.”
“People want to see it, Jerome. It’s your masterpiece.”
“Right. Reprieve: Re-mastered, re-packaged, regurgitated to the masses. Love, don’t deflect. It’s too much
for one person. It’s too much for ten. Let Naya—”
“—Don’t let that woman try to do my job—”
“—She’s good at it,” Jerome soothed.
“Not better than me. She manages the studio office, I manage you. For God’s sake, it was just a fall.”
In the foyer, his phone rang.
“Holy Christ,” he spat. He sprung from the couch. “Don’t move.”
He struck across the den and began to sing. Any small space of silence and he sang, Rufus Wainwright these
days, which was better than his Jeff Buckley phase: Heart-rending renditions of Hallelujah every day for
months. At least with Rufus, Meredith didn’t walk around feeling like an open wound.
She heard Jerome talking from what felt like a long way away. She leaned forward to examine her cell phone
half-sunk in the glass of scotch. A trickle of bubbles bled from its LED screen. All the information was backed
up, but still… it was her phone.
She fingered the nautilus pendant at her throat. The triangle of amber light had elongated across the table
by the time Jerome returned.
“That was Terry,” he said. “Reminding you to remind me of our racquetball match tomorrow. Honestly, we’ve
met every Thursday since 1989, is it necessary for him to call about it?”
Meredith arched a brow. It hurt.
“Really?” he said.
“You often forget.”
He joined her on the couch. “There’s more. Have a look.” He passed his phone to her. In the small window
under the Yahoo! banner was a thumbnail photo of Jerome.
“What’s this?”
“Your fall made the news.”
“Oh. Joy.”
“Shall I read it?”
Why did he bother to ask? He swiped the phone from her and read: “June 13, Los Angeles. Meredith Lakey,
treated for exhaustion and a concussion sustained from a fall at the Hearts and Hands for Africa charity gala
Saturday night in Beverly Hills. She was released from Cedars-Sinai Monday morning after an overnight stay for
observation.” He looked over the screen at her. “Lakey is the live-in girlfriend and personal assistant to
Jerome Snow, independent film producer of Snowbird Studios…”
“Give me that.” She snatched the phone, and caught his smile. “And don’t be so smug.”
She scanned the type to find the place where he left off, but the lines kept blurring to gray.
“I need a drink,” she said.
“No alcohol, doctor’s orders.” But he was up again, bound for the kitchen. “Something else? Anything you
fancy?”
“Tea?”
“There’s my girl.”
She wished again that the couch would engulf her. Not too terrible a fate: death by leather sofa. How would
Yahoo! News like that for a headline?
She slid his phone onto the coffee table. “Well,” she concluded, “That article is about you. And they’ve
called you English again.”
He leaned on the bar. “English. Irish. Scottish. It’s all the same to you Americans.”
“Maybe you should bomb the news office,” she said. “That’d set them straight.”
“That’s the Irish, love. In the end, it’s not the brand of press we’re seeking.”
The triangle of tawny sunlight on the table had faded. The picture window in the dining room was a
rectangle of gradient blue—ocean, sky, space.
Jerome slid open the refrigerator door, which conjured his obese gray cat, Monty, from his hiding spot
under the bar. Meredith heard him talking to Monty the way a mother would coddle a toddler. She smoothed
her hands over the magazines on the table: People, Us, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Esquire. These
were Jerome’s guilty pleasures; he loved looking through them for articles and pictures about his friends.
Actually, he liked her looking through them for him. He rarely had time to read anything longer than the
synopsis of a script.
She pulled a copy of GQ into her lap and leafed through dozens of advertisements, the tick-swish of the
pages reminding her of windshield wipers in a storm. The glossy prints smelled of clay and fine paper and,
somehow, of rain. The images were disjointed, surreal — pieces of costumed bodies entwined in fur, in
feathers, in hounds-tooth check; flawless faces staring out, hollow-eyed and haunted.
As she drifted, mesmerized by the illusory images of the photographic frenzy, something real emerged — a
pair of familiar eyes that sliced through her self-imposed cocoon.
Gale.
Her hand went again, always, to the pendant at her throat.
Gale Brawley.
A storm of half-formed questions swirled in her head. She could think of nothing then, nothing but his name,
tumbling over and over into chaos.
She heard Jerome call to her, felt him pull her into his arms.
“It’s nothing,” she told him. “Babe, it’s nothing.” She let the magazine slide to the floor.
“Shall I call Dr. Kadie?”
“No.” Her answer was a gulp of air. “I was dizzy. Maybe more tired than I thought.”
“Poor lump.” He kissed her bandaged forehead. “Up we go, now.”
He led her upstairs and put her into bed, where she lay for a long time, fighting sleep and thinking of Gale.
She imagined the picture would dissipate like smoke, like he had thirteen years ago. She fell asleep in a
tangle of dreams, dreams of drifting, ever drifting, down a river to the sea, to the ocean and forever, her
arms unfurled, her drowned fingers swollen, and in the palm of each hand she held one half of an empty shell.
So what do you think?
Submit a review to let me know.