Prude Page 6

  “Are you, now?” he jokes, and the spark in his eyes makes me think he is thinking something like, I bet I can turn you on again. But then his eyes soften and he is back to being Mr. Playful in no time.

  “Your next book. Do you already know what it’s going to be about?”

  “Hmm, yes, I started working on it yesterday. But I don’t have more than 5 pages.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s about two people who meet in Amsterdam.”

  “Are they potheads?” he asks, joking.

  “What? No! She is cutting ties with her past life. She’s just graduated college, and she doesn’t want to keep having her life orchestrated by her parents. She is a musician, but going through a bit of a crisis.”

  “Just graduated college. So it won’t be a young adult book,” he says.

  “No, it will not,” I say. “And I’m not sure I want it to be a new adult book either. The male character is a bit older than her.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. What’s his story?”

  “He is a well-known musician in the US. He is going through a divorce . . . also, he has writer’s block, but mostly it’s just the divorce bringing him down. And when they meet, he is kind of mystified by this very reserved girl who seems to have made Amsterdam her home.”

  “You know this can be whatever you want it to be. It could be new adult, contemporary romance, or we could just present it as a novel, plain and simple, without any other labels.”

  I like how focused and intense he gets when he talks about books. Some other people in the industry have a more lax attitude about it. I wonder if it’s because they never cared and this was just a job for them, or because they lost that spark. But the spark is here, alive and well in Ben’s eyes, and it stirs something inside of me. I love his passion. I almost regret stopping him earlier in the kitchen. Correction, I do regret stopping him. But in my head, after talking to Anya, I had already decided I was going to work with him, and I don’t want to complicate things. Plus, I don’t know if I could ever recover from him, really.

  After college, I don’t even recall ever seeing him with somebody or hearing he was in a relationship. Guys like that, they will crush your heart.

  I can’t go through that. I’m surprised that overall the evening turns out okay. We finish eating and talk about so many different things—books, music, movies. He says he needs to inspect my music collection. My one-bedroom apartment is less than a thousand square feet, and I have a wall just for books, CDs, and records. He teases me about my pop music collection and doesn’t believe me when I tell him it’s for research purposes. Really. I have to listen to cheery Top 40 stuff when I’m writing with a seventeen-year-old point of view in mind. They can’t all be into alternative bands. When he discovers I have every record ever made by The Clash, The Foo Fighters, Wilco, and Radiohead, my Top 40 tendencies seem to be forgiven. He insists on cleaning up the dishes, so we do it together.

  “So, if we are going to work together, I want to make a few things clear,” he says, all businesslike, while his hands are covered in soap bubbles, scrubbing a dish.

  “Okay.”

  “I know that other literary agents operate differently, but I have my own way of doing things. Most agents out there are very nonchalant about the authors they are representing. I want to read everything you write, want to be updated on your progress, and I think it would be helpful if you let me give you notes, if necessary. Bottom line, I want to try to work with you as much as possible so your book is the best it can be, since I’m going to be the one trying to sell it to a publisher,” he says, gesturing with one of the hands that is still covered in dish soap.

  I start laughing, thinking about the absurdity of this conversation happening in my kitchen.

  “What?” he asks, smiling.

  I shake my head and try to contain myself.

  “Sorry, but I never had a business meeting in my kitchen while washing dishes . . . but, going back to what you were saying, I agree, completely. I would prefer you being involved. That would definitely make me feel like you care about my work just as much as I do. I would feel weird if my agent was not giving me the most honest opinion. I want to be able to trust you.”

  “Okay then. I’ll send the papers over tomorrow.”

  Chapter 7

  BEN IS supposed to send me the contract, but of course, he doesn’t send it, he delivers it to me the day after. He comes up with the excuse of the contract and sticks around for a bit. I tell him I can’t sign the contract yet, that I have to have my attorney look at it. Instead of leaving, he convinces me to give him my first pages. He just sits there on the couch and starts reading. It’s early in the afternoon. I’m not used to having someone else in the house when I work.

  I turn around from my desk and ask him, “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”

  He barely lifts his eyes from the page.

  “Why, am I bothering you?” he asks, while petting Lupin on the couch.

  I should say a big fat YES, of course, but cannot bring myself to do that. He showed up wearing a beige summer suit and a white and blue gingham button-down with a blue tie. I don’t know why I like this outfit so much. I could just stare at him all day. I have never been into preppy clothing. He does what he does for living, and that’s why he has to suit up, but what I like the most is how these suits clash with his outdoorsy style. I just shake my head and turn back to my laptop.

  Needless to say, when he showed up, I was just hanging out in a black tank top and shorts, no make-up on. It would seem stupid to run to the bathroom and put make-up on, right? Forget it. I decide to pretend he is not there. I put my headphones on. I make myself focus on the screen and refuse to turn around to look at him. I actually start writing some more, and after a while, I’m not so aware of his presence anymore. When I’m ready for a break (I tend to lose track of time when I finally start writing and I get immersed in it), I take my headphones off, and I hear this low, guttural sound coming from behind me.

  As I turn, I see him, stretched on my couch, the pages I gave him resting on his chest, and Lupin on his lap. Asleep. And snoring. A low, contained, snoring sound. It’s kind of cute. I grab my phone and take a picture of the cute guy in my living room with my cat. I look at the clock and it’s three fifteen in the afternoon. I get up and stand close to him, looking at his face. He has no idea I’m hovering over him.

  He really is deeply asleep. His face, so beautiful when he is animated talking about something, is equally beautiful when resting. I almost want to place my lips on his lips. The same lips that kissed me last night. I think about last night’s kisses and a shiver of pleasure runs through me. I want to kiss him again. This is bad. I should wake him up and send him away.

  Instead, I decide to go take a shower and get dressed.

  We end up having a late lunch. He is embarrassed about the whole nap thing, and it’s completely adorable. I always see him acting like a man, and I love when his boy side comes out. It’s irresistible. He explains that he had been reading manuscripts all night after leaving my apartment and didn’t get much sleep.

  “I could have totally taken advantage of you. You need to be more careful,” I say jokingly.

  “I probably would have liked it,” he replies cheerfully, without missing a beat.

  “Hmmm, maybe next time.”

  And once again, I’m the one that starts the flirty banter, and I don’t even know why. Well, of course, deep down I know why. It’s because I like him. I can’t say it isn’t true. We spend the whole evening together and we even go to the movies. We watch a French movie we both want to see. This is definitely more than “keeping it professional,” but it’s not necessarily romantic either, right? I am thinking of it as just “hanging out.” We are just hanging out, as friends. I actually wouldn’t mind it. I don’t have that many friends in New York; Cora was probably the one I saw the most.

  When I do think of Cora, it’s always accompa
nied by a gigantic what the fuck happened? All these years, I honestly thought we were good friends. Now I keep wondering if we were just friends because of circumstances. A friend would have made a more serious effort to talk to me, right? Then again, she did leave me a voicemail. Maybe I should return her call and see what she has to say. But I’m not sure I’m ready to see her yet.

  Fortunately, Ben distracts me from my thoughts by putting glasses on. I look at him, surprised. I had never seen him wear glasses.

  “You wear glasses?” I blurt out.

  “I’m nearsighted. I’m going to need them or I won’t be able to read the subtitles, and you’ll have to translate the movie for me.”

  “Or I could just read the subtitles to you.”

  “Yeah, or you could do that,” he says, watching me intently with his cute glasses. They are the clubmaster style popular in the sixties, just like the ones Harry Crane wears in Mad Men.

  He touches them nervously and says, “Do I look bad?”

  No. You don’t look bad at all. You look so damn handsome and there is no way in hell you don't know it. That’s what I want to say. But I’m too tongue-tied to say anything, so I just smile and shake my head no.

  Throughout the week, more dinners and lunches follow. On Wednesday we cook together again and watch a movie at my place. I do most of the cooking this time, and he just plays assistant. On Thursday, we have lunch together after I tell him I have the signed contract for him.

  Every day I give him pages I have written, and if he has any notes, he writes them to me afterwards. We have seen each other almost every day since last Saturday. I’m trying not to overanalyze things. Any girl in my position would, I’m sure. We are just working together, we are just hanging out. Nothing more.

  We aren't going on dates, and as a matter of fact, I pick him up on Friday before we go to a book release party together. He was serious—he literally lives three blocks away from me. He asks me if I want to come up and we have a drink before heading out. His apartment is slightly bigger than mine, and it’s filled with modern and sleek furniture combined with some things that have a more rustic feel.

  He has a studio filled with books, manuscripts and whatnot. On a shelf I see a few pictures of him and his mom, a beautiful blonde woman who doesn’t look a day older than forty. Then I see a picture of him and Mr. Hunter. Hmmm, that’s only slightly weird. I know they are friendly, but why would he have a framed photo on his shelf? It looks like the picture had been taken on a golf course.

  “Sorry, I was just looking around. I’m always curious when I see someone else’s apartment. I didn’t know you and Mr. Hunter were golf buddies,” I say, when he finds me staring at the picture.

  He looks a little uncomfortable and tries to downplay it.

  “Yeah, we have been playing on and off. He has been teaching me, but I’m not very good. I should practice my putting more. Maybe I should try to play some when I’m in California and Oregon next week.”

  “Yeah, I know a little about that . . . my dad’s a golfer. Of course, he lives in Florida. It would be stupid not to play there. There are so many nice courses! And I hear there are a lot of beautiful ones in California too. You should totally try to make it happen. Are you going out there to surf too?”

  “Yes, I will definitely try to make that happen. Although I need to go out there for work. I’m going out there to meet some writers. Some are already clients, and some are potential ones.”

  “And it’s just a coincidence that you are in fact going to two states where you can actually surf?” He laughs and says, “That is definitely not a coincidence. But I really do have to see some writers and meet some people.”

  He sees me looking at the pages on his desk. They are some of the ones I sent him yesterday. He pauses for a moment. “The pages you gave me, they were good. Of course, it’s still a first draft, but I like where it’s going. Remember that there are no limits to what you want to write. You can be the writer you want to be. Take this as an opportunity for you to do something completely different.”

  “Thank you. I’ll try to remember that,” I say. I’m smiling, and I can’t hide the fact that I’m kind of touched by his words.

  We leave soon after, and we have a pleasant time at the book release party catching up with some common friends. We haven’t been there thirty minutes before I spot Cora. She sees me right away too, standing at the buffet while Ben is off talking to someone. I was hoping she would pretend to be busy talking, but instead she comes straight for me. I never even listened to her voice mail. I wasn’t ready, honestly, and I have been preoccupied.

  “You haven’t returned my calls,” she says curtly.

  “Hello to you too,” I say, bitter. “I was going to, but I have been entirely too busy writing my new book. You know, the one we could have talked about last week, if you hadn’t started bashing my writing.”

  There is a look in her eyes that I can’t quite place. Regret? Yeah, right.

  “Look, I really need to talk to you. I know you are upset about our conversation last week, but I’m still your friend!”

  Ugh! She really does have some nerve. I fold my arms and say, “Really? Are you my friend? I don’t understand what kind of game you’re trying to play here, but last week, my friend was nowhere to be found. I just talked to this cold business bitch who really looked like my friend. The Cora I knew was nowhere to be seen!”

  Ben suddenly appears behind me.

  “Hello, Cora. How are you?” he says with a tone in his voice I’m really not used to. It’s cold and detached, and he doesn’t even pretend to be pleasant, which is so unlike him. She looks stunned, and he doesn’t even wait for her to respond when he says, “Prudence, let’s go, I want you to meet somebody.” He places a hand on the inside of my elbow, trying to take me away from her. Cora notices the gesture right away.

  “So, you two are together now?” she asks in a bitter tone.

  “No!” I reply, and at the same time Ben says behind me, “It’s none of your business!”

  “That is so typical of you, Ben! I should have known this was going to be your next move.”

  What is going on between the two of them? I have never seen such animosity from Cora towards anyone. I look between them and the realization hits me.

  “I never knew that you two were . . .” together. In some form, in some capacity, at some point in time, something went down between these two. I look at both of them, but they both act like they don’t know what I’m talking about.

  I turn to Cora and say, “We are not together.”

  However shitty things have been lately between us, she used to be a good friend of mine, I owe her that much. I turn to Ben, but he says nothing, his jaw taught and his expression impossible to read. Cora reaches out to me.

  “It’s not what you think, Prudence.” Then she chuckles and adds, “You know what, it doesn’t matter, anyway. Bye.”

  She turns around and says, softly and almost pleading, “If it’s not too late, please call me.”

  If it’s not too late to mend things. Well, in a way, it is too late.

  “Don’t listen to her,” he whispers in my ear.

  I turn to face him and give him a death stare.

  “I should have known . . .” I start saying, but he cuts me off, trying to downplay it.

  “It was a long time ago. After a party. We were drunk and I thought she knew we were just messing around. I wasn’t interested . . . afterwards. She has been bitter ever since. I have never promised her anything.”

  I huff. It’s not an impossible story to believe. It’s not like I haven’t been down that road either. You sleep with someone you like and start thinking you might have something, but it’s all one-sided. She never said anything about him though. Not that I expected her to. Cora is the kind of girl who keeps a good amount of things to herself. Unfortunately, I was never like that. I have always been an open book. Even now, I’m so easy to read, Ben knows exactly what I’m thinking.
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br />   “Come on, go ahead, say it. I can almost see the cartoon dialogue bubble coming out of you head.”

  “You think you know everything, don’t you?”

  “I never said that. But your expression is giving you away. Come on, say it,” he says in an amused tone.

  “Fine! This is exactly why I’m not sleeping with you,” I say, poking him with my finger.

  “Yeah you told me that, like, four days ago. I thought you had forgotten about that by now,” he says, teasing.

  He smiles seductively and leans over, his face just a few inches away from mine.

  “But see . . . now, that statement makes me think you are still thinking about it.”

  “Nonsense!” I turn my face to hide my blush. For some reason, when I’m around him, the stupidest things come out of my mouth.

  “Are we done here?” I’m so ready to call it a night.

  “Not yet. Come on, let’s work the room,” he says, extending his arm out for me.

  Working the room is an understatement. We talk to so many people of the publishing company hosting the party, that by the time we step out of the cab in front of my building, I’m exhausted and yawning.

  “Have a good time on the West Coast,” I say, almost whispering, bidding goodbye.

  I close the distance and I hug him, and strangely it’s not awkward. It feels good, like a good hug between two friends. Yes, friends. I let go of him, but he doesn’t; he keeps holding me by the waist and kisses me on the cheek. I let out a sigh, mostly out of surprise. Just the touch of his lips on my cheek makes my skin red and hot. He is still holding me by the waist, and I want to wrap my arms around him again and not let go. I can’t even look at him after that small, innocent kiss, but I feel him looking at me, trying to read the reaction on my face.