Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
In truth, I don’t think it will help. I’m just going through the motions, but it’s the story I’m telling myself for the time being. Until I have a better one, there’s no point poking holes in it. “I’m going to get this book to Mrs. Fletcher and see what happens. She seems enthusiastic, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“You should close down the office and sack me.” She takes a bite of her moussaka and looks me in the eye while she chews.
“You’re telling me you want to get fired?” I raise my eyebrows.
“No, but it’s a waste of money. If I was just your friend sitting opposite you, and not your employee, I’d tell you to get rid of me and close down the office. Honestly, I have no idea why I’m there anyway.”
“I guess I’m just…going through the motions,” I say, voicing the very truth I’ve so far only admitted to myself. “Doing what I should be doing.”
“Should according to who?” she asks, and I don’t have an answer. “Even if the book you’re working on doesn’t work out, you shouldn’t get yourself deeper into medicine. Find something else. Or write another book. A better one that will become a bestseller.” She shrugs like it’s the most logical and obvious solution, and I’m an idiot for not thinking of it before. Of course, I’ve thought about it. It’s just hard to follow through. To pull the plug and actually tell the world, I’m done with medicine.
“It’s like when I first made cheese souffle,” she says. “I thought they were done—they looked fantastic through the door of the oven. But when I brought them out, they completely collapsed. I took them out too early. Doesn’t mean I don’t love cooking. Doesn’t mean I never made cheese souffle again. Of course I did. And I did better the next time. It’s the same for you. You’ve never had anything published and you still love to write. If this agent can’t sell this book, write one another agent can sell. If you’ve found your passion in life, you can’t just give up on it.”
“And thank God you didn’t give up cooking.”
She laughs. “I have my uses.”
“So why didn’t you follow your passion earlier? Surely there’s a career in cooking, even if you haven’t gone to Le Cordon Bleu.”
She takes a sip of her wine, and I can almost see the answers scrolling in her mind. “It took me some time to realize I loved to cook. I started my last job when I was nineteen. I assumed I’d do it forever. I was never going to leave some employee to manage Shane. No one would have cared like I did. So I wasn’t looking for anything else. I suppose I didn’t realize I wasn’t doing what I was passionate about.”
Shane. It’s the first time I’ve heard his name, and even though I don’t know what he did to fuck things up between them, I already hate him. “Because you were passionate about him?”
She tilts her head, like she’s really thinking about her answer. “Because I wanted him to be happy. I wanted to please him.”
She sounds like she was his servant, not his girlfriend.
“Yeah, looking back, it wasn’t that I enjoyed the job—more that I felt that it was my duty,” she says. “It didn’t occur to me that there was an alternative.” She straightens in her seat. “I’ve never thought about it like that before, but it’s true—I felt I could make him happy by doing the job, and his happiness was more important than mine. And isn’t that what love is—putting their needs before your own?”
Other than a semi-serious girlfriend back when I was eighteen, I’ve never been in love before, so I’m not the expert. Still, I’m pretty sure that’s not what love means at all. “I don’t think it means sacrificing everything you want. Otherwise, don’t you just become their slave?”
She sets down her fork and sits back in her chair.
I nudge her leg with mine. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It wasn’t a criticism.”
She looks up and forces a smile. “I know. I’m just thinking.”
“Thinking?”
“You’re right. I sacrificed a lot. And it’s difficult to recall much he did for me.” She’s not talking to me. She’s talking to herself. I take another mouthful of food while she thinks. This moussaka is so delicious, it would be a crime not to.
“Tell me about your book,” she says, changing tack. “Can I read it?”
“Absolutely not,” I say immediately. The idea of someone I know reading what I’ve written is bizarre. “It’s a cozy mystery set in a hospital. The main character is a retired football player turned security guard.”
“And is he brilliant but entirely underrated?”
I laugh and nod my head. “Am I just writing a giant cliché?”
“Is there any blood and guts in it?” She wrinkles her nose and I want to pull her onto my lap.