Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) (3 page)

Chapter 5

Once the conversation had trailed off and Hank and Grace passed around a sample of their new works in progress, we said our goodbyes and the three of them left. Normally I'd have climbed in my car and gone too, but today I decided that I'd be a good little writer girl, pull out my notebook and a cheap pen and sit my ass back down in my seat until I got enough words down on paper to call it the start of something.

I'd brute-forced my way into the last couple of novels I'd written, and I was hoping that I'd be able to do it again. To me, it was a bit like hypnotism, really. Everyone thinks it's bullshit. We're all so certain that the people sitting up there on the stage while some maniacally-grinning dude in a bow tie tells them that they're very sleep and that in ten seconds they'll think they're a fur seal, or whatever, but once the poor idiot starts crawling around the stage and clapping their 'flippers' together wildly, are we so sure? I mean, is it really possible that they're
all
plants from the audience? Wouldn't that mean that there were
thousands
of people walking around shopping malls, taking rides on busses and spilling spaghetti down their fronts that had secretly been involved in tricking the rest of us, only to keep silent about it and not spill the beans for the rest of their lives?

I doubted it.

Anyway, I stared at the notepad hard enough to burn a hole in it, and when that didn't work I let myself people watch for a while. Real life was usually a perfect place to steal stuff from. The hot little waitress just out of college could be a ballerina down on her luck, wiping tables and breaking her back for tips that kept her in dance shoes. The big guy that was sitting on his own in the corner could be an up and coming streetfighter, desperate to get away from the mob connections that had got him to where he was, eager to make the break from thug to legit contender.

Except I'd already written those stories. No, I needed something new. Something fresh...

"Working on the new masterpiece, I hope."

The voice was so close, the speaker so near that I couldn't help but give a little yelp as she grabbed my hand and started pumping it wildly in a handshake so ripe with exuberance I was fairly certain I'd have a severe case of RSI by the end of it. Without thinking, I yanked my hand back, my elbow hitting the empty glass my Long Island had been served in and sending it tumbling to the ground.

Predictably, it shattered into approximately six hundred million billion pieces with a force to rival the big bang itself, causing every head in the cafe to turn and look over at the offender.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," my assailant said. She was just a little thing, skinny and frail and hardly worthy of the treatment I'd already given her, let alone the glare I'd used to transfix her. "I recognized you from your reading last week, and I saw you with pen and paper, and..." She smiled at me beatifically, clearing expecting me to forgive her for her bullish nature.

After all, that was part of my job, right? I suppose I had some level of celebrity status, at least at the moment. However small and for however short a time, there were going to be people accosting me from time to time in public places, and I had better get used to swallowing my annoyance and grinning back at them.

For one bright, white hot instant, I saw myself for what I was. Ungrateful. Pretentious. This woman was a fan. If she and others just like her didn't buy my books, if they didn't devour my words on Kindles and iPads and in paperbacks, then I'd probably be over there with my pseudo-ballerina bussing dirty plates back to the guys who scrubbed them clean, hating my life and bitching and moaning about how my writing deserved to be read.

I was
unhappy
. I'd know it for a very long time, but having to force myself to smile back and a woman who was obviously pleased to meet me made me hate myself even more. After all, it's one thing to not be happy for a while. It's a whole different ball game when you're stuck at the bottom of a hole and you don't see a way to crawl back out, no matter how hard you try.

And I guess I'd given up trying, lately...

"I'm glad you came over," I said, doing my best to make it not sound like a lie. "And I'm sorry for being so startled. I was a million miles away, and I'm afraid I wasn't expecting to meet someone in a little place like this who had any idea of who I was."

"That's okay," she said, finally letting go of my hand. "I'm glad I got a chance to meet you, Miss Harmony."

I flinched at her using my pen name. The fans always did, of course. Nobody cared about little old Beth George, but even so it threw me for a loop. The woman's eyes were darting around, and I got my act together and did my best to make the situation less awkward for us both. "Would you like an autograph?"

"Oh, yes please!" she exclaimed, in an excited voice that would have told those just out of earshot that I'd just offered her the cure for cancer. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, that is..."

I shook my head, grabbing my pen from the tabletop. I wasn't using the notepad for anything else, that much was clear. "Who should I make it out to?"

"Gina Huxley, please."

I smiled. "How about just Gina, then? No need for me to be so formal, am I right?"

Gina beamed back at me. "Just Gina, yes please."

To Gina,
I wrote,
in honor of the day you saw me across a crowded room and our lives were forever changed
. It was hokey, sure, but all good romance was at least a little hokey. After all, nobody wanted to read about real life. At least, nobody who read my books did...

"How's that grab you?' I asked, turning the notepad around so she could read it.

You'd have thought that I'd penned a death threat, if you were only judging by the speed the blood ran from her face. Honestly, one second she was perfectly fine, and the next she was swaying on her feet like a kite in the wind, her flesh waxen, her face as white as a ghost.

"Is everything okay, Gina?" I waved the waitress over. She was already on the way with a broom and a dustpan anyway, ready to sweep up the mess I'd made when my ninja fan had revealed herself to me a couple of seconds ago.

Gina nodded. "Yes, yes... It's just..."

"What?"

Gina pointed at the notepad. "This is exactly true, Miss Harmony. Because of your kindness, you're exactly right. How did you know?"

I frowned, having no idea what she was talking about. I cocked an eyebrow and reread the inscription I'd written to her out loud. The important bit, at least... "Our lives were forever changed?"

She nodded again, this time with such force there was every chance her head would fall right off her body. "Yours will, at least. Just you wait and see!"

Chapter 6

I frowned ever so slightly. Was she trying to make some sort of threat? There were crazies everywhere, of course. Maybe I'd found the one that had a special place in her heart for me, and maybe she'd grab the fork from the table beside us and use it to try and gouge my eye out...

"Huh?" I said, the height of articulateness, as usual.

Gina just shrugged, tearing the paper from the notepad. "Thank you for this. Truly."

"It's okay." I probably should have said something more, and as Gina turned to go, I worked out what it was. "Hey, have you got a couple of minutes?"

"Sure."

I smiled. "Would you mind sitting down with me then, so I could pick your brain for a little bit?" After all, how many chances was I going to get to interview a diehard fan about what
she
wanted to read next, right when I was drawing a blank?

Besides, Gina sure thought it was a great idea. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree and she pretty much threw herself into the chair across from me.

"Great," I said, and then to the waitress, "Two more Long Islands, please." Maybe most places would have challenged me on the order, especially after the fate I'd just shown the last glass they'd given me, but I spent too much time in Cafe Sands for them to quibble about little things like sobriety.

She hurried off to make them, leaving a little pile of broken glass on the ground to collect later. Now
that
was exactly the sort of priorities I liked to see... That girl would go places, if she kept that sort of thing up.

"Now," I said to Gina, dragging the notebook back across the table, the autograph and her oddness at what I'd written only a minor bump in the road now, compared to the chance to get ideas straight from this horse's mouth. "You were exactly right, actually. I
am
working on my next book. This is the very first day I've started, actually, and I'm afraid I'm stuck. So, let's get right down to it, shall we?"

Gina nodded enthusiastically.

"Gina Huxley," I said, hovering my pen expectantly over the blank page in front of me, "what do you want to read about next?"

"Oh..." She said, her hand coming up to cover her mouth in what I'm sure was going to get put into the dictionary as the illustrative example of shock, once the photographer got here and got his lights set up. "Oh, I don't know!"

I shrugged. "Just the first thing that pops out of your head is fine. I'll take what interests me and ditch the rest, so no hard feelings though, okay?"

"Oh, it isn't that," Gina said. "I just don't want to be wrong, you know? I mean, you've been doing so well, and just imagine, if you wrote a book about a billionaire who comes out of retirement and decides to show Wall Street a better way to make money. You know, he could be all rich and powerful to start with, but fall for the sassy female attorney the government sent to investigate his business dealings."

I nodded, writing down every word she said in a quick version of shorthand I'd picked up over the years. It wasn't a bad idea, not at all. There'd have to be some twists and turns, some tweaking around the corners to get around all of the clichéd stuff that was flooding the market, but the concept had legs, that was for sure.

"Nice," I said, smiling to myself. "I'll dedicate it to you, Gina. Just look for your name in the front of the book, right after the title pa-"

"Or what about," she blurted, cutting me off in her exuberance, "a book about a macho Werebear who seeks the isolation of the Far North, though the duties of his clan call for him to associate with humans once again?"

"Well..." I said. Paranormal romances
were
huge, but I'd never written one. They'd always seemed like so much work. You had all the pain of making characters people loved, and on top of that you had to build a new world around them. Right now, I could write about a horse and nobody would need me to describe it all that well. We all know horses, but if I wrote something like she was suggesting I'd be stuck reinventing the wheel.

Still, it wasn't a
bad
idea. Maybe it wasn't for me, but that didn't mean I had to be a bitch about it. I wrote it down underneath the billionaire one.

"I like it," I said truthfully, feeling it grow on me a little. "Got any more?" I asked, before she could cut me off again. I could tell by the gleam in her eye that she
did
have something else to say, and when I shut my mouth and got out of her way, she said it.

"Yeah! How about a badass biker romance! Tattoos and motorcycles and revenge. He's back to rejoin the club that drummed him out once they found out he was working with the cops, but the club doesn't know the full story. He needs their help now, and the only way he can convince them he's the real deal and not some boy in blue is to rekindle the love affair he had with the President's daughter."

I bit my lip, seeing flashes of scenes. Bikers
were
sexy as hell, that was for sure. At least, the ones in books and TV were. The real bikers I knew weren't anywhere near as hot as the ones in my head, but that was okay. I was writing about a perfect world, after all, one where a man could step off a Harley and become a sex god all in one motion.

"You know," I said, grinning from ear to ear. "That may just be the best one yet."

"Thanks," she whispered, blushing.

I lay the pen on the paper and pushed the notepad away a little. "Have you ever tried your hand at writing something like this? You've certainly got a knack for coming up with the goods."

She shook her head. "Me? Never! I read a lot, that's all. There's always ideas bubbling away in this brain of mine, but this is really the first time anyone paid attention long enough to hear them, that's all."

I made a face, trying to decide if I'd be taking advantage of her if I actually did write any of the stories she'd just practically lay at my feet. "How about this, then?" I said, tapping my finger on the paper. "You write down your phone number, or your address. Even your email. Whatever way you're comfortable with me getting into contact with you again, I want to have it. If and when I use one of your ideas, I'm going to take you out for dinner. Agreed?"

In truth, if I struck it anywhere near as big with one of these plots as I had with the last few books, I'd give her a sum much more than the cost of a meal, but I had the feeling if I said that she'd shake her head politely and try to make her escape.

Some people have to be tricked into being thanked properly, and I had a hunch that Gina was one of them.

"Okay," she said, after hesitating for a couple of seconds longer than I thought it would take her to agree. She picked up the pen, wrote down a phone number, and then gathered her stuff together. "I should be going, really. Leave you time to write your next masterpiece, and all."

"
Our
next masterpiece, you mean," I answered, holding out my hand to shake hers. "It was lovely to meet you."

"And you!" She shook my hand quickly and then hurried out of the cafe.

And just like that, my muse was gone as fast as she had arrived.