He always left and did his grocery shopping while the maid was at the cabin, but one day, something was different. The cleaning supplies had been put back in different places, and the air smelled of perfume. Cheap perfume. Like the kind young girls just out of high school wore.
He tracked some mud through the cabin intentionally, and booked an cleaning extra session. At the last minute, he baked some cookies and left out a casual note.
When he returned from shopping, he found the most charming response scrawled on the notecard, from the young woman who'd been cleaning.
She would be perfect as the young woman who got kidnapped in his first novel.
In the name of his research, he continued to leave notes for her, getting gradually more flirtatious, until at last he was so ashamed of himself, he stayed behind at the cabin to apologize to her in person. He was probably gross and old to her, thirty-two and not in the best shape thanks to all those hours eating in front of the computer.
To his absolute surprise, this girl, Lexie Ross, seemed to like him. She wasn't judging him or keeping him at a distance. Perhaps it was because she was from a small town, or because she was young, or because life had finally allowed something good and pure into his life to balance other things out, but Lexie seemed interested in him.
He had no intention of seducing her when he asked her to type for him. He only wanted to be in the same room, to share the same air, with this sweet, innocent-looking girl.
Thanks to her help, he wrote the opening pages of his first novel, and seeing those words on a page was like seeing the thawing cracks on a frozen-over pond in the spring; the progress filled him with hope.
He didn't know quite how it happened, but they were kissing, her youthful lips like fruit in his mouth. They were in the shower together, and then they were on his bed, skin and against skin, bliss against bliss.
On top of her, he felt like a tiger, and when she cried out in ecstasy, he knew heaven.
At the point of no return, she cried out a danger warning, and he pulled away. She milked him, then, and he flooded her stomach as he came, and it felt even better than he could have dreamed.
She never came back after that one day, and he got an earful from her boss. The older woman assumed that he'd been f**king Lexie every time she'd been there for cleaning.
Glumly, he said into the phone, "I wish."
She slammed down the phone in response.
For months after, he thought about using his resources to track her down. What would he say to an eighteen-year-old girl? The age gap was too great.
Because he was thinking about age differences, he thought about his first love, and his first time, with Brynn.
At the time, their age difference had been a canyon, but now it was almost nothing at all. They were practically the same age.
He went to the computer to see if he could find her phone number.
She was listed, under her married name.
Part 3: Book Club
Tori
The plane from Montreal had a rough landing, and I caught a glimpse of panic on one of the flight attendant's faces, so naturally I thought we were about to crash and die.
You'd think that in the moments before my demise, I'd have some clarity of thought-some idea about what I was supposed to do next in my life. My heart pounded, and in my mind, I felt the crunching of twigs under my feet as I ran-ran from Smith, or from that moose I'd encountered my first day in Vermont. If we'd crashed, my final mortal thought would have been, what is the plural of moose?
We landed, and as the small plane taxied through the network of runways, I had three more thoughts:
I'd never been so hungry in my life.
I had nowhere to wear a necklace as fancy as the one Smith had hidden in my purse.
My mother was going to be pissed I didn't even get an autographed paperback for her.
Inside the little airport, I hit the fast food counter and ate a big, greasy burger, plus fries and a milkshake. It was the first junk food I'd had in weeks, and I could feel the nitrates and preservatives filling me out and bringing me back to my old life.
I went outside to hail a cab, my stomach already distended with regret. Instead of giving the driver the address of my apartment, where nobody would be waiting for me, I had him take me to my mother's.
There was a party going on at her house, and I would have turned right around, but the cab's red taillights were blinking away down the street. The sun had set during the long drive from the airport, and I could see the ladies of my mother's book club through the sheers.
The door was unlocked, as usual, so I let myself in.
My mother waved me over to the table. "Victoria! You're home early!"
All six of her friends peered up at me with curiosity. One of her friends said, "Spill the beans, girl. Who was this author you were working for? We're all dying to know."