Page 38 of For My Finale
Chapter One
Emery Parker stared at the blinking cursor on her screen, willing the words to come.
They didn’t. Even when she muttered several elaborate and logically improbable curses.
She sighed. She’d been sitting at her laptop for two hours, and the document remained stubbornly empty, save for ‘Chapter Seven’ written at the top of the page.
“Come on,” she muttered, running her hands through her short, dark curls. “You can do this. You’ve done it before. It’s not like you’re a nobody. Emerald Pearl does NOT get writer’s block.”
But Emery Parker did.
She took a sip of her now-cold coffee and grimaced.
The words that had flowed so easily through her first eight novels were nowhere to be found today, and she had no idea why.
Her phone buzzed by her side, the sixth time in the last two hours, and she glanced at the screen to see Domi’s name flashing yet again.
“Not now,” she mumbled, silencing the call. Her agent would just have to wait, like the rest of the world would have to wait, for the next steamy installment from bestselling romance novelist Emerald Pearl.
Mind you, if they all knew that the woman behind the pen name couldn’t even make eye contact with the barista she’d been crushing on for months without knocking over a pile of paper cups and a rack of biscuits, they might feel a little differently about picking up her next book.
She pushed back from her desk and stretched. Maybe a change of scenery would help. She reached for her coffee mug, somehow knocking it with her elbow in the process. Dark liquid splashed across her keyboard.
“No, no, no!” Emery lunged for the laptop, frantically wiping at the keys with her shirtsleeve. The screen flickered, froze, and went dark. “No, come on, please, not now.”
She pressed the power button repeatedly, each attempt more desperate than the last. Nothing. Her meager progress, three false starts, six mediocre chapters, and a blinking cursor, were all gone.
“Fan-freaking-tastic,” she groaned, dropping her head into her hands.
Her phone buzzed again. She didn’t even look at it. She knew it was Domi again, probably threatening bodily harm if Emery missed another deadline. At this rate, she’d be lucky if she had anything to show by Christmas, let alone by next week.
Then, finally, the doorbell rang, which saved her at least from the temptation of throwing her phone across the room. She trudged to the door, half-hoping for a salesman that she could take out her frustrations on.
Instead, she found Jax, arms laden with takeout bags, a grin on her face, a pristine suit covering up the tattoos that Emery knew were lurking on her skin. The very picture of a solicitor. Well, at least until the shirt sleeves got rolled up .
“You look like crap,” Jax said, pushing past Emery into the flat. “Please tell me that’s not the same t-shirt that you were wearing when I came yesterday.”
Emery glanced down at her faded Pink Floyd shirt. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy avoiding Domi’s calls, from what I hear.” Jax set the food on the coffee table and began unpacking containers of Thai food. “She called me, you know. Apparently, you’re not answering.”
“I’m writing,” Emery lied, collapsing onto the couch.
Jax snorted and handed her a carton of pad thai. “Right. That’s why your laptop is dripping coffee onto the floor.”
Emery winced, glancing at her poor, abused computer. “It was an accident.”
“It’s always an accident, Em,” Jax said.
“Remember when you accidentally set fire to your kitchen when you were trying to impress that girl from your publishing house? Or how about when your bike accidentally got squished by a bus when you were trying not to look at that woman who works at the grocer’s? ”
“That was different,” Emery said around a mouthful of noodles. “First, how was I supposed to know that you can’t put metal in the microwave? And second, at least I wasn’t on the bike at the time.”
“Every adult human knows that you can’t put metal in a microwave,” Jax laughed, her bleached blonde hair falling across her face as she shook her head.
She pushed her hair back, revealing a small tattoo behind her ear that Emery assumed her law firm still didn’t know about, or else it would be covered in makeup.
“So, what’s going on then? Domi says you’ve been dodging her for weeks. ”
Emery exhaled and set down her food. “I can’t write, Jax. I just can’t. It’s like… the words are gone. For real this time.”
“Oh please,” said Jax with an eye-roll. “You say that every book. ”
“No, this is different.” Emery was adamant. “I’ve been staring at a blank page for days. What if I’ve lost it? What if Emerald Pearl is finished?”
“Drama queen,” said Jax, picking up a piece of tofu with her chopsticks. “You’re blocked because you haven’t left your flat for nearly a month. What you need is some real-life inspiration.”
“I don’t need real life. I need to finish this manuscript before Domi murders me in my sleep,” groaned Emery.
“What you need,” said Jax, pointing at her with chopsticks, “is to stop hiding behind Emerald Pearl and actually live a little. When was the last time you went on a date?”
“Please don’t start with that again.”
“I’m serious,” said Jax. “Your books are all about passion and romance, but when was the last time you actually experienced either?”
“I write fiction, Jax. It’s not an autobiography.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” Jax leaned forward, blue eyes serious despite her teasing tone. “You’re writing about things that you’re not letting yourself experience. How many times have your heroines fallen madly in love at first sight?”
“That’s different,” Emery protested weakly.
“Is it? Because the Emery Parker I know can’t even order a coffee from that sexy new barista across the road without turning into a human disaster, let alone sweep someone off their feet.”
Emery threw a cushion at her. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Hey, I’m your best friend. If I don’t give you tough love, then who will?
” Jax said, dodging the cushion effortlessly.
“Besides, I didn’t just come here to harass you about your non-existent love life.
I actually came to remind you about your book signing tomorrow, which is why Domi has been blowing your phone up, by the way. ”
Emery blinked. “What signing?”
“Jesus, did you really forget?” Jax looked genuinely alarmed now. “The one at that bookshop in Notting Hill? The one that Domi’s been reminding you about for weeks.”
A vague memory surfaced in Emery’s writer’s-block-hazed brain. “That’s tomorrow?”
“Yes, Einstein. It’s at ten thirty. Please tell me you were actually planning on showing up?”
Emery winced. “Obviously, I was.”
Jax didn’t look particularly convinced. “Should I give you a wake up call?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” said Emery. “I’ve got this. It’ll be fine. Just a signing, that’s all.”
Her phone buzzed again, and this time she made the mistake of glancing at it. Domi’s text was a string of question marks and exclamation points, followed by: PICK YOUR PHONE UP OR I’M COMING OVER!
“I should probably call her back,” Emery sighed.
“Probably,” Jax agreed, gathering up empty food containers. “And while you’re at it, maybe give what I said a bit of thought. You can’t keep living vicariously through your characters, Em. At some point, you’re going to have to be the protagonist in your very own love story.”
Emery watched as Jax headed into the kitchen, wondering not for the first time how she could be so confident, so comfortable in her own skin. It was easy for her to say all this, she wasn’t the one who had to pretend to be someone else half the time.
The truth was that Emery Parker wasn’t the sophisticated and sensual Emerald Pearl that her readers imagined. She was just a clumsy, slightly awkward, mostly normal, kind of woman who happened to be quite good at writing about the sort of passion that she’d never actually experienced herself.
Her phone buzzed yet again.
I mean it, Emery. Call me or I’m sending out a search party. And by a search party, I mean ME.
She couldn’t help smiling. For all her dramatic threats, she knew that Domi cared.
Jax too, for that matter. They wanted her to succeed, to be happy.
They just didn’t understand that Emery didn’t know how to be the sort of woman who swept into rooms and turned heads.
That was Emerald Pearl’s territory, not hers.
She looked at her coffee-soaked laptop and sighed.
The small one-bedroom flat around her was chaotic.
Books were stacked precariously on every surface, research notes were scattered on the floor, and there were at least three half-empty coffee mugs on her desk.
She could afford a cleaning lady. She could afford a bigger flat.
She wandered over to the window, peering out at the bustling London street below. People hurried past, couples holding hands and friends laughing together, people living the kind of stories that she only wrote about. She pressed her head against the cool glass, her breath fogging the pane.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Jax was right. Emerald Pearl wrote about women who commanded rooms, who spoke their minds and followed their desires. Women full of confidence and grace. Emery Parker couldn’t command a goldfish.
In her books, heroines swept into ballrooms in flowing gowns, uttering witty remarks that made everyone fall instantly in love with them. The only word in that sentence that could apply to Emery Parker was fall. And her hair always stuck out at odd angles.
She traced an idle pattern in the steam her breath had left on the glass.
Tomorrow she’d pretend to be Emerald. She’d brush her hair properly, put makeup on.
She’d smile and chat and be as confident as her readers expected.
She’d sign books with a flourish and answer questions with authority.
Almost as if she hadn’t spent her last three Friday nights in a row eating ice cream on her couch instead of actually dating.
And maybe by tomorrow afternoon her laptop would be dry enough that it would consent to being switched on. That way, she could try to go back to writing about love, rather than actually having to find it.