CHAPTER 1

The waning sun awoke Drusila from the slumber that had cradled her moments before. She shielded her eyes with a delicate hand against the star’s fading, but direct rays. A bemused smile on her luscious lips, she pondered over the last several hours’ events.

Despite her nurse’s habitual protests, Drusila continuously swam alone in the lake’s tepid water. Fearing neither praise nor censure, she had bathed naked, never worrying if some irksome traveler dared traverse her corner. As the acres of stunning landscape and luscious valleys belonged to her father, seldom did anyone complain if she behaved in an untowardly manner. The uninhibited beauty indulged in the thrill her daring activity afforded her.

After her vigorous swim, Drusila had laid her tall, slender form against the dewy earth. Finding comfort, and exhausted by the exercise, she set off to nap, not bothering to re-dress. Rest was short-lived, for no sooner had a dream beckoned her mind that she felt the greedy caress of hands down her form.

“You irksome, little troublemaker,” a well-known voice chastised into her ear. “What will the neighbors say?” The young lady felt a body laid over hers.

“Pablo…” Drusila breathed, without opening her eyes, as her lover’s welcomed lips descended over hers.

“Pablo?”

My boyfriend, Elliot, calls out from behind, startling me from my feverish typing. “Wasn’t his name Horatio?” he asks, sidling over to the formica table where I sit.

“Yeah,” I reply, turning around from my seat to witness Elliot bearing his special grin. I so want to wipe it off his face.

“And before that wasn’t it Alabaster?” Elliot’s gaze shifts between the screen and my own eyes.

“So?” I shrug my shoulders defensively.

“If memory serves, I think he originally started as W-”

“Oh, be quiet and go away!” I wave my hand as if shooing a fly. “So I’m having a hard time giving my leading man a name.” I try to play it off as a minor distraction, but truthfully worry. A protagonist’s name critical to the development of a story, I must conjure the right one. I can’t name my hero Earl. Would a woman be swayed by a Mickey? I don’t think so.

“Yeah, and what will it be tomorrow?” Elliot heartlessly continues. “Malique?” Catching the scowl on my face, he grins wider and runs his hand against the back of my head. “Just relax, Erika. Eventually, it’ll click.”

Elliot always tells me to relax. I know he wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t always so uptight, and I excel in worrying.

I shake my head finding it difficult to pry his hand away from the base of my neck. Elliot and I share a physical, intimate relationship, which admittedly requires a lot of work if you catch my drift—towels and tissues abound a plenty, because I can’t bear the thought of…and Elliot’s a good sport about the whole thing... Anyway, when I’m really on edge, as I am at the moment, his affections serve as harassment on my mental being.

Paying no mind to my squirming form, Elliot continues his assault by adding a second hand, massaging my shoulders in a slow, methodological manner. He must sense I reach critical meltdown point, but appears determined to see me ride it out—his form of providing cognitive behavioral therapy to my numerous Obsessive Compulsive Disorder attacks. The man is an expert at handling me, in every sense of the word.

But at that moment, I shirk under his hands, his ministrations doing little to appease me. The male character’s name daunts my mood. When Elliot leaves, I can always go back and change it. I wish he’d leave now. Maybe I can give him a hint.

“Don’t you have somewhere to go?” I blurt, using about as much tact as a meddlesome mother-in-law.

“Be nice, babe,” he responds in a low, gentle murmur without any hurt or anger in his voice. “Curb those sarcastic remarks or I’ll be forced to resort to a more advanced degree of physical therapy. Did you take your meds?”

Tilting my head back, I view him almost in an upside down manner. My long, black hair slips down the back of the chair. “No. I’m sorry.” I release a sigh of acknowledgment. “I know I’m being a grouch. How can you put up with me?”

“Don’t you know I like playing doctor?” he answers, gently grabbing the top of my head with one hand and my chin with the other. Holding me steady, he brings several kisses down to my mouth. They’re warm and delicious…and, ummm...

Pablo? Marco? Terpsichore?

I can’t focus on Elliot’s attention, and I feel unfaithful thinking of another man, even a fictional one, while my boyfriend lavishes affection on me. Grabbing the sides of my chair I pull myself down, sliding away from his hands.

Even Elliot knows when enough is enough. Slapping his hands one against another as if done completing a task, he states, “All right. I’ll put my hands to proper use and finish changing the windows upstairs. I’m Mom and Dad would appreciate seeing glass instead of a gaping hole in their bedroom when they arrive.”

“Ooh!” I pop out from under my seat like a piece of bread from a toaster. “That’s right. Betsy and Bob are coming next weekend. I can’t wait to see them. It’s been over three months.”

Elliot shakes his head. “How could you forget they’re coming? You and Mom talk on the phone almost every night, and the two of you went crazy filling up Dad’s agenda. I’m surprised you aren’t taking him sky diving.”

I silently admit my guilt. Bob’s heart attack in the spring turned the man into an altered creature—a being reborn. At the tender age of sixty-six, he has decided to do all the things he missed out on when younger. Problem is, alone in Florida with just his wife, Bob can’t convince Betsy to do anything with him. The elderly couple also happens to be good friends with my sister, Diane, another person reborn since her divorce, but her doctor hours limit excursions. Now that Betsy will be around Elliot and me, she feels courageous. So far, our plans include an outing to a Great Adventures theme park, the Mohegan Sun gambling resorts, and to the Bronx to see the Yankees-Red Sox game. I don’t know how to manage that last one. New York City harbors bacteria worse than a trash receptacle…and a baseball stadium? Fifty-thousand plus people sitting together in tight confines, splashing their beers and popcorn around, doing the wave, spitting tobacco... God, I must be a sucker for punishment.

Watching Elliot’s retreating form makes me feel guilty. He offers sweetness and generosity, while I, the vicious poison-spitting cobra, go on the attack.

“Hey, Elliot,” I call to him.

He pauses in his stride and turns to face me. “Yeah?”

“Do you need help with anything upstairs? Would you like me to make you something for lunch?” Remorse can produce enough motivation for selflessness.

He shakes his blond head, a small smirk playing on his lips. “It’s all right. We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself hammering, or fall out a missing window or something.”

I make a face. “Do you really think I’m that incompetent and useless?”

He smiles deeply, the dimple in his left cheek tugging at my heart. “Not at all. We have different abilities. You wouldn’t want me to sit there and type for you—even though I think I could make one heck of a story.” He chuckles at the idea, a strange glint flickers in his eyes as I stare amused. The idea of Elliot dipping his hand into my projects entertains and charms. “And as for you adding to my handiwork upstairs…let’s leave it at that.”

I begrudgingly admit to my boyfriend’s wisdom. Elliot knows all about construction and engineering. I can’t even make a house with a deck of cards. “I think I should feel insulted by your fragment, but I have to concede to the truth of what you haven’t said.” I give him the smallest of smiles.

“I’ll come down in an hour or so and take you up on that lunch offer. Tuna fish sounds good.”

“Okay. Let me take a break from this. I can always clean the apartment.” I let my gaze rove about the living room, trying to spot every microbe and germ invisible to the naked eye.

Elliot arches an eyebrow. “Do you think more dust fell around the house since eight this morning?” He waves a hand signaling to the room. Before I can give an affirmative response to that statement, he quickly finishes. “The place is spotless.”

“I can clean upstairs.” The second I see his mouth open with a protest, I rush in with my defense. “I have to clean something, and while I do maybe I can come up with a new name for my character.” I lean over my laptop meaning to minimize the screen, but close out of the program instead.

“Oh, crap!” I complain.

“Now what?” Elliot calmly calls out. Yeah, that’s me. I live from one now what moment to the next.

“I closed the program without saving, which is weird that it didn’t ask me if I wanted to save.” Frowning, I tap at the laptop’s small mouse pad, praying my computer doesn’t have a virus. There was a super virus warning after all.  What if…? I don’t know what I’d do if parted from that special hardware. The last time the notebook and I separated was during my experimental new life phase in Florida with Diane. Longest two weeks of my life. I feel a dryness form at the back of my throat.

Elliot ambles over to glance at my laptop. “That’s probably because you hit the ‘Save’ button every time you type a new word,” he casually answers, shrugging his shoulders. Nothing ever really excites him. If he ever caught a super virus, he’d probably shrug it off. Our personalities at times mirror the Ying and the Yang. Of course, I’m the dark one.

As if to prove it, a deep scowl forms on my face. “Do you have to be right all the time?”

“It feels good on occasion.” He reaches for my bare hand, intertwining it with his own. He doesn’t do it for affection as much as he does it to bother me. Elliot watches my face intently as I purse my lips and squint one eye. There are moments I revel in his affection, and other times I just can’t take it; this is one of those moments.

Pulling my hand away, I squeak, “Medication?”

Elliot smirks and walks to my kitchen counter, reaching for the small plastic bottle containing my freshly refilled Zolofts. “And don’t worry. Even if the program didn’t save your revisions, the only change I saw was your hero transforming from the suave European Alabaster to Latin Lover Pablo.”

“Stop teasing,” I accuse.

“Who’s teasing? I’m being extremely objective.” He hands me a glass of water to ease the pill’s travels down my throat.

“Did you wash that?” I ask skeptically in reference to the glass.

“Drink, Erika,” he orders, and I quietly submit. I take my medication and return the glass to him.

Walking back towards the sink, he calls over his shoulder, “You don’t give me enough credit. You should be glad I support your writing. Any other man might have developed Computer Envy.”

I laugh at the notion, and thinking aloud, ask, “Is that anything like Freud’s Penis Envy?”

Now it’s Elliot’s turn to laugh, his deep chuckles filling the room. He reaches me and kisses the top of my forehead. “I wouldn’t trade you, Miss Seals, for any OCD-free gal. Who else can boast about writing a novel and keeping such a tidy abode, while validating company contracts from the comfort of her home?”

I smirk. “Don’t forget, I’m a graduate student now. Speaking of which, I have to read the next chapter in my Contemporary Creative Nonfiction textbook.” My stomach churns at the idea. Who thought of such a course, and more importantly, why did I sign up for it?

“Ah, yes, and soon-to-be Miss Erika Seals, M.A.”

“Well, not quite soon-to-be. Maybe in two years.” Hopefully, my other ambitions won’t sidetrack me. Still uncertain if my move to return to grad school was premature, I suffered a rare moment of confidence under hypnosis—aka, Diane’s insistence—and registered at Hartford University. My sister has more faith in me than me.

“Stop interrupting. Miss Erika Seals, M.A. with her Masters in Creative Writing.”

I quietly gaze up, waiting for him to finish.

“Okay. I’m done.”

“What good is having a master’s degree when I can’t think of one stupid name?” I wail.

“Can’t help you there. If it were up to me his name would be Cal or Tom or Jake, something simple and easy, but you with your historical pieces, what can I say? By the way, I meant to ask you something about your stories. Why do you make your guys talk on for pages and pages about their feelings? Real men don’t speak that way.”

Maybe they should. Glancing away from him, I refrain from responding.

Either oblivious to the slight inflicted or merely ignoring the wounded expression I’m almost positive flickers across my features, he continues his nit-picking banter. “And what about taking five pages to discuss lace and jewels and sequins? I understand what you’ve told me about detailed descriptions, but I think I read something like, ‘Lady Richards’ pearls gleamed in the soft lamplight, resting as opulently and sumptuously as their great estate did, testifying to the vastness of their wealth. But the pearls were only one display of the magnanimous something, something ...’ It’s a bit much, don’t you think? Couldn’t you just say she was rich as attested by her mansion and jewels? But then again, I’m not a girl. So what do I know?”

“All right. Let’s go upstairs.” I abruptly change the topic, marveling how well Elliot knows my story. That, coupled by the name thing starts to make my head spin. I know I’ll feel better once I mop the wooden panels of the Becks’ upstairs abode.

We make our way towards the door and Elliot holds it open for me when I realize I’ve forgotten something. Turning back to the kitchen, I reach into my dresser drawer and pull out my pair of yellow cleaning gloves.

“Now I’m ready.”

~*~

The mess in Betsy and Bob’s home staggers me. Sawdust litters everything, clinging from every wall, picture frame and knick-knack. Finding myself ill prepared, I run back downstairs to get a handkerchief for my head, and a facemask for my nose and mouth. Armed, I’m set to tackle the debris much like a professional linebacker would take down his opponent.

“Why didn’t you cover the floor with plastic or an old sheet?” I question through the mask, though my words sound muffled and far away.

Elliot doesn’t hear me. He chooses that exact moment to use his power drill, drowning out my words with the loud whir from the electric tool. Thankfully, he has only two more windows to mount.

Deciding there’s no point to start cleaning while he works, I open the door and air out the place.

I gaze at the late August sky boasting a perfectly clear day, so clear in fact, I can see the white round shape of the moon lingering in the background. The low humidity and calm winds make the picture serene. Betsy’s spring flowers have long wilted, but the hardy mums I planted bloom beautifully, their soft purple and rose radiating in the sunlight.

The summer went by with excruciating speed, and I spent a lot of its lazy days inside typing, or doing company work. Thank goodness for Elliot, who forced me to socialize and interact more with the outside world, taking me to the shore, mountain climbing, and to some of his baseball games.

Soothed by the peaceful afternoon, I momentarily forget about my writing woes and tilt my head back to catch the energy from the bright, warm rays. It works with plants. Why can’t it work for me?

The sound of the mail carrier’s car brings me out of my yoga-like meditation and I smile at Mr. Fillman, who has brought the mail for years according to the Becks. The couple and he are great friends. They’ve had each other over for dinner and have visited one another at their respective vacation homes.

“Good afternoon, Miss,” Mr. Fillman calls with a tip of his hat in true gentleman fashion, one of the few remaining of his time.

“Hey, Mr. Fillman,” I greet in turn, my modern lingo reminding me of the differences in our generations.

Mr. Fillman smiles, his thin lips revealed under the heavy white mustache. “How are Betsy and Bob?” He always inquires after the owners of the house, even if he meets with the same answer.

“They’re fine, thank you. I spoke to Betsy last night.” I near the small mail truck while Mr. Fillman shuffles through the pile of letters, bills and magazines. “They’re looking forward to their trip up here.”

“Good. I look forward to seeing them. Until then, send them my regards. Here you go, Miss.” He hands me quite a stack, a heavy manila envelope making the base of the pile. Knowing what lays inside, my hands begin to twitch in anxiety and impulse.

“Will do. Thank you, Mr. Fillman.” My greeting is meant to be cheerful, but instead my voice tightens and wavers.

The friendly old man drives off to the next house, and I quickly glance down at the yellow packet, recognizing the handwriting with my name on the front. I should as it’s my own. The agents returned my manuscript. Certain it includes some standard rejection letter inside, my heart tears from within.

For weeks I slaved indoors revising Escarpment’s Delight. Even the title underwent transformation; it’s new heading, The Count’s Glorious Legacy. I focused more on the plot: the battle of wills between the protagonists, downplaying the sex, upgrading the romance. I studied the agency’s particular submission guidelines. I underlined for italics, double-spaced between lines, used twelve-point font and left hand justification. I included a query, a synopsis, and marketing statistics. What more do they want, my blood?

Why? Why do I even bother? I have a promising second job as a freelance writer for a mental health magazine writing blurbs about anxiety attacks and my OCD experiences. So I’m not a good romance writer. I used to think my lack of experience of everything intimate and practical was my downfall, but since passing that hurdle, I assumed my writing would reflect greater plausibility, but no. It seems I just can’t write a good novel.

I take several large swallows to keep the tears at bay, tossing the unwanted manuscript on the wicker chair of the front porch. Returning into the house, I place the rest of the mail on the coffee table, but not before arranging the letters in size order.

“So what do you think?” Elliot calls, as he finishes hanging the remaining elegant wooden double pane window. I look at the newness of the clear, sparkling glass, impressed at my boyfriend’s skill. At least one of us does something well. Though I can’t express praise in words, I work up a weak smile.

Elliot’s proud look immediately disappears. Peering carefully at my face, understanding crosses his features. “You’ve heard from an agency haven’t you?”

I nod. Having been through several of these rejections before, he knows how frustrated I become after each rebuff.  You would think I’d have thicker skin by now.

Filled with sawdust, he places a dirty hand across my shoulder, the muscle instinctively tightening. “Take the rest of the day off from your project. When I’m done here, we’ll go out. It’s a nice day and I don’t want you to think about anything novel related. So what’s-his-name better be out of your mind.”

I assent with a nod and pull away, turning to clean-up mode. When really depressed I give the activity my all. After this, the house will shine. An hour is spent sweeping, mopping and dusting, and I do feel better. Another half hour is then spent making myself decent, while Elliot does the same.

Returning upstairs, I find Elliot sitting on the wicker chair waiting for me. My unopened returned manuscript sits watchfully in his hands.

“You left your story out here.”

“You can put it through the shredder, in a recycling box or burn it in the fireplace for all I care. I don’t want to look at it.” And in fact, I don’t. I make it a point to fix my gaze anywhere but on the tainted manila envelope.

Elliot remains quiet as he stands placing the manuscript back where I left it and leads me to his vehicle. I give my head a toss and try not to think of the discarded package. If they don’t want it, neither do I.