A Stiff Critique (2 page)

Travis opened his mouth, but Carrie beat him to the verbal punch once again.

“It’s difficult for me to judge a work of this genre,” she admitted, waving a hand in the air. “But perhaps a little more subtlety with the main characters would be in order. And a bit more development of the minor ones.”

Nan frowned and crossed her arms. This was obviously not the kind of feedback she wanted to hear.

“But other than these minor flaws, I would say that it is a very well-written novel,” Carrie added quickly. Carrie never has been slow on the uptake.

Nan nodded in agreement, her face relaxing.

“The story could use more intrigue, especially in the scenes with Dalton out West,” Slade threw in. He put his dumbbell down on the coffee table. “Beef it up. And give the guy more personal power. When he finds out who falsely accused him of thievery, have him meet the accuser man-to-man. Just because he has a woman waiting for him doesn’t mean you have to make him a wimp.”

Nan nodded again after Slade had finished, but there was a flush beneath the surface of her tanned skin. I didn’t think she really appreciated his advice.

“Oh, but I think Dalton’s incredibly sweet,” the woman wearing purple said. Donna. She seemed sweet herself, with her wide honey-colored eyes and masses of tangled black hair. Her voice was that of an enthusiastic child. “He has real integrity. I mean, he could, you know, like shoot it out or something, but he doesn’t. He comes back to be with the woman he loves—”

Slade snorted.

“But that’s real integrity,” Donna insisted, her childlike voice rising an octave higher. “To survive a trauma like that and retain your personal dignity. That’s incredibly appropriate, I think.”

“Maybe it’s appropriate,” pronounced Slade. “But he’s not a real man. And that’s where the real power of the novel is, giving the reader characters he can admire, characters he can identify with—”

“Might just be that most of Nan’s readers are she’s, not he’s,” Mave put in. She grinned. “Maybe they appreciate a more sensitive human being.”

“You’re no more an expert on what a
normal
woman wants to read than I am,” Slade told Mave dismissively.

I wondered what he meant. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to bother Mave much. She just tilted her curly gray head to the side and eyed him for a moment.

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not.”

Slade picked up his dumbbell and began pumping again. Up, down. Up, down.

“I only have one or two comments,” Russell Wu said into the silence. He had the voice of a classical radio announcer, low, rich, and soothing. “Your use of archaic language isn’t always consistent. And you repeat certain phrases too often.”

“Like what?” Nan demanded with a glare. Maybe Russell’s voice didn’t seem so soothing to her. Or maybe she was tired of criticism. I certainly would be.

“‘The bird called,’“ Russell answered mildly.

Nan’s nostrils flared. “The bird is symbolic—”

“That’s not the problem,” Travis cut in indignantly. I had almost forgotten him. “You’re all talking about these stupid little points. The real problem is that you set this story in the West at a time when the Native Americans were in their last death throes, and you never even mention their oppression! What the hell point are you making? What are you writing—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Slade interrupted. “This is a romance, not a serious novel. It’s entertainment.”

Travis wasn’t the only one scowling at Slade now. Nan had joined him. Not that Slade had noticed.

I watched as Nan took a deep breath, uncrossed her arms and bared her teeth in another smile. Why had she challenged Russell Wu, but not Slade Skinner? Maybe it was because Slade was the expert. Carrie said the thrillers he wrote were close to best sellers.

“‘Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art,’“ Mave pointed out. “W.R. Inge said that. He was the Dean of Saint Paul’s.”

“The quotation might have some relevance if we were talking about literature,” Slade fired back. “A romance novel is not literature. It’s not even a real novel as far as I’m concerned.”

I took a peek at Nan’s face. It was a battleground of conflicting emotions, though anger seemed to be winning.

The woman with the permed, black hair, raised her hand hesitantly.

“Yes, Joyce,” Nan said impatiently.

“I wanted to say that I appreciate your story for its lack of violence,” Joyce told her slowly, her voice barely above a whisper. Her skin pinkened as she spoke. “That in itself is a kind of statement, with all the obsession with violence these days.”

Nan just stared at Joyce, unsmiling.

“That’s all,” Joyce finally added. “I can’t really comment on the romance angle.”

“No,” drawled Nan. She drew herself up straight in her chair. “I guess you can’t at that.”

Joyce’s skin went red to the roots of her black hair. Damn.

What was that all about? I was liking the idea of spending time with working writers less and less.

“Now, Nan,” Mave said, waggling a finger. “We all get a mite testy when we’re critiqued, but that doesn’t mean you can just ride roughshod over the rest of us—”

“Mave, will you knock off the folksy routine?” Slade demanded. “You grew up here in Marin just like I did and you had fucking well better—”

Travis leapt from his seat. “Don’t you talk to Mave that way!” he shouted. “Or I’ll—”

- Two -

“Or, you’ll what?” Slade cut in. He rose from his chair, dumbbell in hand and squinted his close-set eyes. “Tell me how politically incorrect my actions are?”

Travis’s mouth opened and disjointed words came sputtering out. “You—can’t—Mave—”

Carrie stood then too. She placed her small, round body between the two men and spread her arms like an umpire.

“You two cut it out right now,” she ordered, her voice low and firm. “Both of you.”

The order wasn’t up to her usual formal standard of speech, but it did the trick. Both men glared for a moment longer, then lowered their eyes simultaneously and returned to their respective seats.

Carrie sat back down, muttering to herself and shaking her head. I caught “ye gods and goddesses” and “damn fools,” but none of the other words in between. It was probably just as well, because Mave was talking at the same time.

“…is all right, Travis,” she was assuring the younger man. She leaned back against the cushions of the sofa and let out a braying laugh. “An old warhorse like me has heard plenty worse, let me tell you. Good golly, seems to me—”

“Well, this has been oodles and oodles of fun,” Nan interrupted. “But I for one need a break.” She stood and stretched, her fingers laced behind her head as she arched her back. It was quite a sight. Even Travis seemed to forget he was mad at Slade as he turned to stare at her.

Once Nan had everyone’s attention, she dropped her arms and asked, “Can we eat now?”

So we ate. Food was potluck and spread out on a long wooden table in the kitchen. There was lots of it and it all looked good. And better yet, most of it was recognizably vegetarian. I helped myself to a pasta salad studded with broccoli and almonds, green salad, French bread, marinated asparagus and Carrie’s homemade carrot muffins, which, on the way over, she had assured me were vegetarian. Then I added a scoop of my own Thai-style noodles. The other dishes might have been free of animal products too, but I was suspicious of the little brown chunks in one and the brown broth in the other, so I left them alone and carried my full plate back to the living room to join the others.

Travis was shoveling food into his face as fast as he could swallow, looking a little less gorgeous than usual as he did, but not much. In fact, everyone seemed to be packing it in. Well, not everyone. Donna had spilled something on her blouse and was busily shredding a paper napkin on it in an effort to scrub it away. Joyce was prodding bits of food with her fork but had yet to raise that fork to her mouth. And Vicky, whose emaciated body looked like it could use the food more than the rest of our bodies put together, was ignoring her own plate with its small serving of green salad to watch everyone else eat.

I opened my mouth to ask why she wasn’t eating, then realized it was none of my business. Anyway, I had a better use for my mouth. I was hungry. I broke off a piece of carrot muffin. The tantalizing scent of oranges and cloves wafted up to my nose.

“Well, Kate,” Mave said just as I was about to stuff the piece in my mouth. “Tell us about yourself.”

My stomach clenched. I set the untasted piece of muffin back on my plate unhappily.

“Oh, I own a gag-gift company, Jest Gifts—”

“Gag gifts?” Her gray eyebrows shot up above the violet rims of her glasses. “Holy gee, do you mean goofy things like whoopee cushions and joy buzzers?”

“Not exactly,” I said, wriggling uncomfortably in my wooden chair. “I design and sell specialty items for different professionals—”

“Items such as shark mugs for attorneys,” Carrie put in, her dark freckled face lighting up in a smile.

“And shark earrings,” I added.

“Shark earrings?” Carrie demanded. “I wasn’t aware you were making earrings now. You’ve been holding out on me, girl. I will expect a pair of your best sharks at your earliest convenience.” She lowered her voice and winked. “If not sooner.”

“I’m doing earrings for all the professionals,” I went on, encouraged by her enthusiasm. “Toothbrushes for dentists, shrunken heads for therapists. That kind of thing. And I’m starting a whole new line of computer-nerd gifts—”

“Do you really make a living this way?” Slade asked. The sneer in his voice matched the one on his face.

So much for encouragement. I nodded and broke off another piece of muffin, hoping my face hadn’t turned too red.

“So, do you make good money?” Nan probed. She leaned forward, her blond pageboy swinging gracefully as she moved.

“Well, not really good,” I admitted. “After I get through paying manufacturing costs and employee salaries, there isn’t a whole lot left. But it’s enough for me to live on.”

“You’d better stick to selling real estate,” Slade advised Nan with yet another sneer. I wasn’t sure if that sneer was for me or for Nan.

“Your business must be incredibly fun,” Donna piped up. She had shreds of white napkin all over her purple blouse, but at least she was smiling instead of sneering. “And creative too. I mean, thinking up designs for all those shark earrings and stuff. You must have a real gift.”

I stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was teasing, then decided she wasn’t.

“It is fun—”

“Are you doing social satire?” Travis asked through a mouthful of food. His brown eyes burned into mine for a long moment.

“Well…” I hesitated. I had certainly never thought of my business that way before.

“Of course, she’s doing social satire,” Carrie answered for me. “How can you poke fun at attorneys and not be doing social satire?” She laughed, then said more seriously, “Kate’s also a beginning writer.”

“So, what sorts of things do you write, Kate?” Mave asked.

I tried to take a deep breath, but my chest felt too tight. I hated to lie, but I wasn’t willing to admit to writing poems right then and there, either.

“Kate writes short stories,” Carrie lied for me. My chest loosened. Then she added, “And poetry.”

Poetry? My pulse began to pound in my ears. Why the hell had she said poetry? I’d told her not to—Then I tried to remember. I knew I’d told her to say I wrote short stories, but had I specifically instructed her
not
to mention poetry?

“A poet!” Mave exclaimed before I could remember. “Well, bully for you, Kate. Not enough good poets around these days. How long you been writing?”

“Not long,” I mumbled, looking down at the food on my plate. It didn’t look delicious to me anymore.

“‘There is a pleasure in poetic pains which only poets know,’“ she quoted. She closed her eyes and sighed, before adding, “William Cowper.”

“Oh, great,” I said. I pulled my mouth into a smile in lieu of further follow-up. I had no idea what else to say.

The silence grew longer. And longer. Strangely enough, it was Slade who finally rescued me.

“Why does everyone bring vegetarian food?” he demanded. “A man needs red meat, red wine and red-blooded women.” He turned to Mave. “Bet you don’t know who said that,” he challenged her.

She wrinkled her already wrinkled brow a little further for a moment, then gave up.

“Who?” she asked.

“Me,” he announced, then hooted with laughter.

Nan was the only one who laughed with him. Mave chuckled a little, but no one else seemed to think Slade was very funny.

“What’s this?” he said, once he’d finished hooting. He speared one of the suspicious-looking brown chunks on his fork. “Tofu?”

“Seitan,” Joyce murmured.

“What the hell is seitan?” he demanded.

“A meat substitute made from wheat gluten—” Joyce began.

Slade put up his hand. “No, don’t tell me. Why you people seem to think there is anything inherently appealing in this garbage is beyond me…”