The Writers Christmas Vacation

chapter 5

The cat Melissa's father had adopted for her was a calico kitten - about 6 months old. She was named Bella and great company. Bella arrived on December 20th.

Melissa was lonely despite the fact that she now had Bella. The day before, when her father called, Melissa refused to answer the phone.

She had nothing to say to him. Nor would she have anything to say for quite a while. She hadn't heard from him since before her mother's death. To add to that, he thought sending her a cat would help?

Well, actually it did help some. Melissa now had someone to take care of besides herself. It gave her a reason to focus on something other than her loss.

She was typing up her new story draft. Aliza had sent her the last three chapter with a lot of notes. When Melissa saw the email, she panicked - until she realized that everything would be just fine.

She had been working on the second draft of her story for two days. However, there was one problem - everything she typed seemed worse than the last draft she'd written.

She felt Bella brush against her leg. Then, the cat hopped up on her lap and meowed. Melissa smiled and petted Bella.

"Hey, Bella. Let's get out of here." Melissa lifted Bella off of her lap and put her down on the floor. Then, she went out to her kitchen. She was hungry and figured the cat probably was, too.

Melissa stood in front of her fridge. On it was a picture of her parents, smiling and hugging each other. It had been taken before Melissa was born, on their wedding day.

Bella yowled as if she was in pain. The animal was impatient when it came to meal time.

Melissa laughed and got canned food for Bella out of the fridge. "Here you go." She said as she put the food in Bella's dish.

The two of them ate their meal quickly. Satisfied, Melissa headed back to her office.

She changed her mind at the last minute though, and grabbed her coat from the hall closet.

"I'll be back soon." She told Bella, when she noticed that the calico was giving her a questioning look.

Off Melissa went. She was on a mission. Her agent didn't even know what she was about to do - meet with a publisher in town.

This was the best she could do after Melissa ended up missing the deadline for the last publisher. If this one didn't accept her, she would have only one choice - self publishing. But that would only be as a last resort.

As was usual, Melissa's phone rang at the most inconvenient time - right before she entered the publishing house. She looked at the caller ID - it was her agent.