Write By Your Side

Chapter Two

Chapter TwoThe trip to Max's office in Chicago was a familiar one for Sam. Living and working in small town Golden Grove had its advantages, but crosstown access to his agent wasn't one of them. Good thing Max was such a die-hard Cubs fan and wouldn't stray more than fifty miles from his beloved Wrigley. Cruising east from the Mississippi was at least better than being cattle-driven into a plane for a knee-crunching hop across the country to New York City. Besides, this gave him a chance to catch up on a little of his audio-book reading.

Flipping through his smart phone's audio-book app, he caught sight of a familiar name. He nodded, lips pursed. He knew Ellie's new book was out. Someday he might actually read it, when he had the time. He'd bought it just as he always bought all her books. Not at Copperfield's in town, of course—no sense in people starting stupid rumors.

He glanced again. Nice cover. Big bold letters and the name Ellie Chambers in yellow. He kind of envied the thriller writers and their covers of silhouetted men running from huge explosions in some exotic country with onion-shaped roofs. The most thrilling thing about seeing a new Lottie Long cover was whether the swirly title font was pink or purple this time.

He touched the screen to enlarge Ellie's cover, careful to keep his eye on the road. A pulse-pounding thriller sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. He sniffed a laugh, thinking of his Lottie Long readers. Pulse-pounding for them might mean a premature heart attack.

Still, it amazed him how Ellie could write about tuxedoed spies killing bad guys with laser-guided scorpions, or whatever the current fad was. He still remembered her as the new girl whose blue eyes he had first locked onto between the shelves of the college library, looking for the same book. But then, she'd always loved a good story. Faulkner and Hemingway were just two guys she had to read in college before she could get back to her Tom Clancy novel.

He knew her career was going well. Very well, actually. Probably better than his, he had to admit. But he wasn't bitter. At least, he hoped not. Lots of guys might be if their ex-almost-wife was doing better than they were, but not him. Miss Lottie's royalty check was better than what most of his other writer friends were pulling in, and he was grateful for that.

He put the car into cruise. This stretch of 88 almost drove itself.

Ellie. He was waiting for the day when he'd see her in town on the arm of some guy. It would mean she'd finally found someone else. Someone who could give her whatever it was he couldn't back then. He'd been waiting for four years, but so far, she'd stayed arm-free. So far.

He'd expected her to move away after they broke up, back to Chicago where she grew up. But she'd stayed. It probably had something to do with her stubborn streak. She wasn't going to move—he should move. Well, he wouldn't be leaving, not as long as Dad was still here. And it was his hometown.

Or maybe she just didn't want to feel like she was running back home. He knew she didn't have the best relationship with her parents.

He remembered the first time he'd met them. Big new-money house in a North Shore Chicago suburb. Lots of bric-a-brac and other stuff in the front hallway he doubted ever got used. His mother would have said, “Who has time to dust all this stuff?”

Ellie's parents had peppered him with the usual questions, asking about college and career plans, gradually accepting him. By his senior year, he was one of the family, vacationing at Lake Geneva, sailing on Lake Michigan in a thirty-foot Hunter. The writing award he'd gotten that spring was just icing on the cake, a feather in his cap, or whatever other metaphor he was supposed to avoid using in his writing. Once Ellie's parents found out about the Penniman, they'd started calling him Hemingway, as if it were the funniest joke in the world.

He and Ellie had it all planned. She would work at Copperfield's bookstore and finish her senior year and her Mason Shaw mystery; he would work with his dad and spend every other waking hour working on the next Great American Novel: The Lady Phoenix. The Penniman Award had come with a healthy stipend that he'd planned on stretching out for a year.

Their plan caused more than a few puzzled frowns from Ellie's lawyer parents, who were hoping for law school for their youngest. The family footsteps. Sam and Ellie had assured them with shining, hopeful faces that it would all work out fine. Just wait. Trust us, you'll see.

The drone of the tires on the blacktop interrupted. Sam released a sigh and turned on the radio, searching for a decent station. Instead, he heard a very familiar voice.

“I mean, really, why should the men have all the fun?”

Oh, geez.

The voice went on. “I mean, just because you're a woman doesn't mean you're automatically relegated to writing romance or…or cozy mysteries or something.”

Sam felt the car accelerating. The knuckles on his hands were white around the steering wheel. He relaxed, slowed down. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…

“See, some authors think that writing page-turning books with an exciting plot is beneath them, that it demeans the great history of Dickens or Hemingway or whomever.”

Oh, excellent, well said. Please, impart more of your wisdom to us hopeless Hemingways.

“…most people don't even realize that Dickens wrote most of his books in weekly installments, almost like a TV series.”

Please, Ellie, do go on, he thought. I'm so unaware.

“He was just as much of a hack as Stephen King, or I, for that matter.”

He punched the radio off and leaned back, releasing another sigh. Such a sweet voice. Some of the memories were sweet, too, just not when it came to his writing, His gut clenched. Even across the airwaves, through the ether, a hundred miles away, she could still get to him.

Well, then some things never changed, he guessed.

A road sign flashed by on his right. Only about fifty minutes to go. He still wondered what was so important that Max needed him in his office in person, but he wouldn't say. Just that it was “vitally important to your career.” He shook his head again. What wasn't to Max?

He thumbed through his phone and chose his music app instead, setting it to shuffle. No Ellie would intrude there. Time to put her back into his past, where she belonged.

The road rolled on, blank and straight.