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Never Knows Best
A Story Written By
Chibichocobo and Still2twisted
The Introduction
“You are one of the greatest authors ever, Ms. Wallace,” the girl in front of the dark-haired, Asian woman crooned. “I must’ve read Song of the Devil twelve times! I’ve never read a book that many times before! You’re just so awesome!”
As with the ones that had come before the flighty, blond-headed girl in front of her, Heather Wallace put on her best smile and shook her hand warmly. It wasn’t as if she didn’t like her fans. It was quite the contrary actually. Heather absolutely loved and adored those who read the books that she wrote; it was for those fans that she actually wrote. Yet, some of them – much like the young girl in front her wringing her hands in both starry-eyed excitement and fear-clenching terror – were a bit…overzealous with their comments and feelings. It would sometimes frighten Heather to some small degree. Afterall, the only difference between fan and stalker were a few stray and unseemly thoughts that could pervert a mind into something truly terrible.
Shaking herself mildly, she returned her full attention to the slightly trembling girl in front of her.
“And who should I make this out to?” she questioned, opening up the front cover of a newly printed, hardback edition of her most recent novel, Dreamwalkers. It had been one of her most difficult books to write yet. The number of times that she typed up and then deleted chapters for it had to be some kind of record. But that was the price of perfection.
The girl almost squealed, but was quick to cover her mouth with both hands before anymore of the odd sound could slip out and embarrass her. Trying unsuccessfully to regain some form of composure that didn’t reek of ‘fangirl’, she straightened out her back and stood erect. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly and spoke as clearly as she could manage considering her level of excitement.
“Oh…wow, uh…could…could you make it…make it out to…to me…please?”
There were a series of small, but noticeable low laughs and snickers coming from behind the girl. Not that she seemed to detect, or pay attention to them, for that matter. She just stood there, smiling down at Heather as the older woman continued to gaze up at her expectantly. The slight laughter only grew louder.
“What is your name, dear,” Heather questioned lightly as she readied her pen. Her smile never dropped from her face. It had become practiced ease to maintain it.
The girl seemed to snap out of that trance she was in when those words reached her ears. Looking somewhat flustered, she began to wring her hands again as her cheeks turned a bright shade of crimson.
“Oh, um…I…I’m SO sorry,” she blurted out apologetically. “My name…is…it’s, uh…Wells…um, I mean Ashley. Ashley Wells.”
Heather just smiled broadly at the young girl and leaned forward partly to write out her name inside the front cover of the book.
“To…My…Greatest…Fan…Ashley…Wells…” she recited while writing out each word coming from her mouth with beautiful and careful precision. The blue script flowed expertly across the stark white interior of the cover, almost angelic in its appearance and execution. “…From…Heather…Wallace…With…Love. There you go.”
Closing the book gently, as not to mar the fresh ink, she handed it back to Ashley and again shook the girl’s hand. It was still trembling.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!” she exclaimed, emphasizing each expression of gratitude with a heavier handshake than the last. “I’ll never forget this day! Oh MY God, I can’t believe that the Heather Wallace just signed MY book! Wait until my friends hear about this! They’re gonna be SO jealous!”
Releasing her hand, the strange fangirl named Ashley turned away from Heather and practically ran out of the bookstore with a loud squeal of delight. It brought numerous looks of varying types from the line of people that the girl passed; some dubious, some dumbfounded, others just completely stumped and a few, somewhat amazed. Heather herself smiled. She had made the girl happy and, in the long run of things, that was all that mattered to her. Making people, making her readers, happy.
Glancing up at the next approaching fan, an older man who was carrying two of her books, she gave him a friendly grin and extended out her hand. His own bright smile again confirmed the reason that she’d taken up writing in the first place. It was always a sheer joy to know that she could bring such happiness, such a sense of passion to a group of people that she had never before met. It had never been about the money, only the desire to make people happy with her writing. It had been one of the many lessons that a truly inspirational friend of hers had taught her over the years that they had known each other. He had instilled in her the ideal to write from the heart and to do it for those who were to be her loyal readers. Money, he had told her in one of their last conversations online, was never the reason to become an author. To write for the sake of monetary gain only helped to ruin the purity of a person’s work. And she had taken those words of his to heart as she decided to write for the sake of writing, to write for the sake of those who would come to enjoy the worlds that she alone conjured with her imagination. As usual, the realization of what she brought to the fans of her writing made her heart swell with pride. It was a feeling that Heather never tired of.
But before she could say anything to the smiling, young man, another walked up quickly beside her. Taking a deep breath after realizing it wasn’t another fan who had tried to jump the line to reach her – if it had been, it would’ve been the third one today! – but her personal agent instead, Heather kept her hand extended and smile planted as she took the man’s and shook it leisurely. All the while, listening to her assistant as he whispered urgent words into her ear.
Without any warning, Heather Wallace’s face fell and her smile deteriorated completely. The pen that had been sitting idle in her hand slid slowly from her loosening grip, eventually finding its way to the wooden tabletop of the desk she was seated behind. It dropped against the wide surface of the table with a plastic on wood sound that only seemed to echo in her ears alone. Her eyes were wide with first shock and disbelief, then sadness. The skin on her face paled to an unhealthy shade of ashen white and slackened until it lost all of its original glow of life and jubilance. Her other hand was still in the man’s firm grip as it weakened and grew limp in my own. I thought that maybe I had squeezed it too hard in my excitement at meeting her. Afterall, it wasn’t every day you had a chance to meet the woman who inspired you to become a writer. However, in my haste and selfishness, in my close-minded pursuit of professional gratification from my literary heroine, I failed to realize one thing that I should have noticed right off the bat. That she was crying. There I was, grinning like an idiot and shaking her hand as warmly as I could manage, and there she was sobbing into her other. I felt like the lowest piece of trash there was. How could I not notice that the woman I had attended college for, the woman who I had given up a promising career in doing absolutely nothing and getting paid for it – my parents were very well off – and the woman who I had idolized ever since I read her very first book, was crying softly into her hand. And here I was still trying to shake her other one! Obviously, the manners that had been so painstakingly hammered into me by my parents had decided to take a momentary leave of absence.
A rough jerking of my car as I was guiding it down the snowy road pulled me quickly back to the realm of harsh and rude reality. Thinking of the past was fine, reminiscing of an indescribable event that had helped to shape the course of your life was great as well; but doing either while driving down a dark and obscure street that barely qualified for the name in the middle of winter in upstate Maine was not highly recommended. I gripped the well-worn steering wheel tighter than I had before and pulled it quickly this way and that to keep my beat up old Chevy Impala from careening off into the densely wooded area that lined the narrow road menacingly. Boy, was that the last thing I needed! This, among way too many others, was just another reason that the Christmas holiday was more trouble than it was worth. Especially to me.
Regaining a sort of loose control over my vehicle, I allowed myself to calm down and relaxed back into my driver’s seat. Pulling my foot slightly from the gas pedal, I let the car move forward with as little acceleration as I could manage. Not that this particular strategy was going to help me to get to my sister’s house any quicker. Not that I really minded, though. I mean, it’s not like I don’t love my sister. I do, I really do. It’s more like I can’t stand her husband. He’s such a chauvinistic bastard with the way he treats her, yet she continues to show nothing but support and loyalty to him. And don’t even get me started on those kids! If the five, large expertly wrapped boxes in my backseat weren’t reason enough to think of them as brats, then the fact that they expected everything to be handed to them on a silver platter was definitely more than enough. Hell, over half of my last royalty check from Twists and Turns of a Dangerous Mind had gone into making Leslie’s little ‘angels’ happy. Which only succeeded in making me pretty un-Santa like in comparison. So much for that ‘20 Corvette I had been eyeing. Honestly, I never should have agreed to come out to spend Christmas with her. But with everyone else shunning her because of her marriage to Richard – or ‘Dick’ as my father often loved to call him – and me being the only relative living near her, I really didn’t have much of a choice. Besides, I would’ve felt like a heel if I hadn’t have come.
I gazed out of my snow-streaked front windshield as I leaned forward slightly. The once barely falling flakes of frozen white were now coming down with much more frequency than I would have liked to see. Great. As if it wasn’t already a pain in the ass to get to Leslie’s house because the icy, backwoods road, now I was going to have to try to drive through a heavier snowfall than was forecasted. Jeez, the roads weren’t enough? What, did God think I needed another challenge? I sighed mildly as I grabbed a well-worn piece of cloth from the passenger side seat and used it to rub the inside of the windshield free of the mist that was beginning to build from the car’s incredibly powerful heater. Too bad the defrost didn’t work half as well as it was supposed to. You’d think that with my status as a sometimes novelist and current job as a screenwriter/scriptdoctor, I’d be able to afford a car better than my near-dead Impala. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case with me. If it wasn’t me being merry old Saint Nick to Leslie’s pair of we-gotta-have-the-trendiest-most-expensive-stuff-there-is brats, it was me spending my hard earned money on bills and various other necessities. Whoever said that being a writer was money in the bank out to be drug out into the middle of an unpaved street and steamrolled until they were one with that road.
Tossing the torn piece of cloth back into the seat beside me, I tried to relax myself as I reached down and lowered the temperature on the heater. I was beginning to work up a sweat. Damn wool turtleneck. The thing wasn’t just causing an irritating itch to start just below the base of my neck; it was making it hard for me to concentrate on my driving. What a laugh it would be if I crashed into a tree or something because of a horribly, too thick turtleneck sweater that kept distracting me from the road ahead. Yeah, movie of the week material there.
A sputtering noise drew my attention away from those weird thoughts that were floating around in my head. Reaching down for the temperature switch on the heater, I pulled it back even further so that the noise coming from the vent was lessened enough for me to hear better. I straightened back up in my seat and regripped the steering wheel with both hands, and listened. But I heard no sputtering sound, only the sound of my hard, rubber tires as they pushed themselves into the wet, semi-frozen ground beneath my car. For another moment or two I kept my ears focused, trying to catch any odd sound that didn’t seem to belong. That was the last thing that I needed right now, car trouble – out here, in the middle of absolute, upstate nowhere. Yet again, I heard nothing but the powerful motor of my trusty, old Chevy Impala as it forced the girth of the heavy vehicle through the snowy backroads before me.
I relaxed again, or tried to anyway. Wonderful, now I’m worried about whether or not I’ll even make it to my sister’s house for Christmas. Man, I hate Christmas! It was definitely not my favorite time of the year! As always, it was just more trouble than it was worth. Sometimes it just made me want to cry with how much of a pain in the ass it could be!
Speaking of crying, I wonder why Mrs. Wallace was crying on that day I attended her book signing. She had looked so happy at the beginning, but as soon as that guy came up to her and whispered in her ear, she began to break down. I wonder what happened? It must have been something pretty bad because no one has seen or heard anything from her since then, and that was almost four years ago. I hope she’s okay. It would be a real loss to the world if she never came back to write anything else. Plus, she’s still so young, thirty-six years old if I did my math correctly. Jeez, she hasn’t even hit the prime point in her career yet! Why did she just run off and disappear without a damned trace? What in the hell could have been so terrible that it forced her to abandon her fans?
That dreaded sputtering noise returned, and unfortunately for me it didn’t go away this time. Leaning forward in my seat again, and a little more alert than before, I looked over the few gauges that actually still worked on my dashboard. Okay, oil’s good. Speed’s a snail’s pace, but that’s okay considering the roads. Engine temp is fine. Gas is…? What the hell…? Why wasn’t the damned gas gauge moving? I tap at the thick plastic face with my index finger. It still didn’t move, and worse it was reading that I had a full tank of gas! I groaned as the sputtering sound from my Chevy Impala weakening engine was accompanied by a slight jerking that indicated that I was to have a very long night ahead of me. Great. My freaking car was starving to death because I had unknowingly run out of gas. That damned gauge must have busted after I filled up the car at my last stop. And here I was thinking that I had more than enough gas to make it to Leslie’s house. So much for that idea.
I slowly turn the steering wheel and pump my brakes gently, bringing the car to a slide-free halt on the side of the country road. There was no sense in pushing the old girl any further tonight; she was pretty much finished. Bloody hell. Of all the times for me to run out of gas, it would have to be in the middle of fucking nowhere! Hah! I bet I won’t even get a signal on my cellphone. But, I had better check just in case. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a silvery, palm-sized square. It never ceased to amaze me how small these things got. Flipping it open, I quickly speed dial Leslie’s home phone. Unsurprisingly, that monotone voice coming from the small speaker mockingly confirmed my original thought. Yeah, I should have figured that. No signal. Damn, I knew I should have gotten the cell with that built in GPS tracker when I had the money to. At least I would’ve known where the hell I was at and how close I was to a town, or better yet, a gas station. Why in the hell did Leslie have to live in the freaking boondocks anyway? No, she just couldn’t live in an apartment like a normal woman. She just had to live out in the middle of bloody, freaking NOWHERE!!! Okay, I’ve gotta calm down and think. No sense getting even more worked up over this than I need to. Alright, let me see. The last time I filled the car up was in Philmore, and that was about…two…hours…ago. Shit, I’m screwed.
Man, it’s gotta be close to fifteen degrees or less out there! Not to mention the fact that it’s almost to midnight and that the only thing I have for warmth is this itchy turtleneck sweater and my heavy trenchcoat. And let’s not forget that the nearest gas station is about two hours, by car, behind me. Oh man, I’m looking at a five to six hour walk through the frozen wastes of upstate Maine! Mental note to self, strangle Leslie when I see her. Jeez, why don’t I just ignore her like the rest of the family does? If I had just gone and done that, I’d be at home right now, curled up with a good book in front of my electric heater instead of sitting here in a gasless vehicle. My luck just plain sucks.
I reach down and turn off my car, pulling the keys out of the slowly ignition. Sitting back in my seat, I stare blankly out of the front windshield and watch the snowflakes fall and collect on the hood of my Impala. They’re melting now, but as soon as the engine cools down, the hood of my car was going to draped in white. And when that happened, the car itself wasn’t going to be a very safe haven for me anymore. What to do, what to do. Crud, I’m still a good hour away from Leslie’s place, which means if I try to walk it’d probably take me anywhere from two to three hours to get there. Obviously, that’d be a lot better than trudging through the snow to get back to a gas station that I was last at about two hours ago. And a two or three hour walk is definitely better than a five to six hour one. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
Placing the keys in my hand into my pant’s pocket, I reach into the back seat and shove aside the neatly wrapped packages that were sitting on my trenchcoat. Pulling it into the front seat with me, I picked up my cell and put it in one of the oversized pockets. Sitting still for a moment, I take a deep breath and then lean over to lock the passenger side door; then I open up the glove box and search around the button that pops my trunk. Fiddling about aimlessly for a few seconds, I finally locate the elusive little button and push it. That subdued sound of the trunk opening touched my ears annoyingly. Why was it so annoying? Because it meant that I now had to get of the warmth of my car and step out into frigid air of a harsh, winter night. Sighing, I close the glove box and hesitantly open the driver side door. The cold air that slapped me in the face made me pull it shut again. Damn, it was cold as hell out there! Maybe sitting here in the car until morning really wouldn’t be such a bad idea afterall…
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a loud, knock on my window. What the hell?! Who in the hell would be out on a country road this late at night…uh, besides the dumbass that is me? The knock on my window intensified. I was beginning to get scared. My rear windshield was too frosted over for me to see if there was another car parked behind me. Jeez, did my luck always have to be this damn bad? Another knock. Alright, just keep yourself calm. You can handle this. Maybe it’s a policeman. Maybe one from Philmore. So why did I have such a bad feeling, then? Yet another knock. Okay, okay. Guess they don’t teach patience here in upstate Maine. But I’m not going to this dance unarmed. Reaching down quickly under my seat, I grab hold of an old tire iron that I kept around for all of those…special situations. Situations just like this.
I test it in my grip for a second or two, then I return to an upright position in my seat. The knocking out side my window had not stopped. Lowering my right hand to my side, and the tire iron with it, I take another deep breath and use my left to roll down my window. The icy cold wind that flowed through stole my breath almost immediately. Still, I stared out into the wintry night, trying to see who was pounding on my window like a maniac.
There was nothing there and my heart literally skipped a beat.
Okay, now this was really getting weird. It was beginning to resemble a page out of a Stephen King novel. My heart was beating faster than after I had heard the first knock. What the hell was going on? There…there had been someone knocking on my window, right? I wasn’t just…imagining it? Was I?
“HELLO!!!”
That was all it took for me to do two things. First, I screamed like a little girl watching a horror movie after her parents had told her not to. And second, in a momentary burst of self-preservation and stark, white-knuckle terror, I brought up the tire iron and smashed it into my half rolled-down driver side window in an attempt to cripple, maim or kill whatever had yelled that one, startling word to me. Glass flew everywhere and I quickly threw myself over into the passenger side seat to avoid it. Well, there went next month’s royalty check.
While I lay there in my unrelenting misery, bemoaning the loss of my window, a muffled, angry sounding voice screams out at me.
“What the…?! Are you CRAZY?!”
Sitting up very quickly, I raise the tire iron again and found myself facing a smallish figure with their head covered so completely that I could only see a pair of glittering eyes staring at me. My fear was gone in an instant – well, almost. But it had been replaced with my own anger as I glare at the reason why there was a pile of cold, frost-covered glass lying in my driver’s seat.
“Am I crazy?” I scream back at the figure staring at me through my shattered window. “YOU’RE one to talk! What kind of an idiot just walks up to a strange car and knocks on the window like some sort of demented police officer?! Why didn’t you just flash your high beams or honk your horn or something normal like that?!”
The wool cap and scarf-clad figure raised his arm and pointed a stiff, gloved finger at me.
“What the hell are you talking about?! I’m not even DRIVING a car you dumbass!!!”
Not lowering my tire iron, I just blink at the strange figure pointing his finger at me like a dressed for winter Death who had come to claim my soul. Not driving a car? Then how in the…
“Okay, wait a minute.” I say in a totally confused voice. “What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere without a car?”
The figure just drops his arm in frustration and turns away from my broken window in undisguised anger. He points again, only this time towards something that I can’t see through my hazy and cloudy windshield.
“Because I live down the road, asshole!” the heavily clothed figure exclaimed to me in that grating-really-bad-on-my-nerves muffled voice. “I heard your car sputtering out and dying while I was outside gathering wood for my fireplace. I thought I’d come down here and help you out, seeing as how you were having car trouble. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that I was trying to help out a goddamn NUTCASE!!!”
I was taken aback by the comment, and I could feel my face growing hot with anger again. Jeez, this guy just didn’t when to stop pushing my buttons.
“I’m NOT a nutcase,” I scream at the stiflingly clad person before me who was still facing away in a different direction. “YOU startled ME!!! Know what?! You’re gonna pay for that broken window, buster!”
Beneath all of that extra clothing, I could see that the figure was shaking his head in irritation. Well, that was good. Yeah, I’m being really smart about this, aren’t I? Here I am stranded out on a backwoods, country road, at least another hour away from my sister’s house yelling at the only person who probably has a phone in the whole tri-county area! Not a good way to make a first impression. Man, I really must be losing it! Oh crap, he’s leaving.
“Okay, okay,” I say, swallowing both my anger and my pride. Man, was that ever a bitter taste. “Forget the damned window. I’m…I’m sorry about my outburst. Look, I’m having a really bad night. And believe me, it’s not getting any better. So…so I would be happy to accept any aid that you can offer.”
The figure stops, then turns to glare at me with those exposed eyes. Then, without saying anything else, motions for me to follow him. I scrunch my brow up at him.
“But… Hey! What about my car?!” I yell out, after poking my head out of the shattered window of my Impala. The asshole doesn’t even look back at me, or slow down. Damn, what a jerk.
Moving as quickly as I can, I grab up my heavy trench and throw open my Chevy’s door. As I get out, I almost slip and fall on the frozen, mushy ground. I flail around for a moment or two before I finally get my snow legs to working. Oh DAMN do I hate winter! Turning my head, I look in the direction that the strange little man had traveled. I can barely make out his silhouette in the haze and murk of the falling snow, or his footprints for that matter. Oh great, now he’s trying to leave me behind. Next time, I’m just gonna keep my damned mouth shut.
Using the Impala’s hood for support and taking a very deep breath, I trudge out of the icy mud that I had been standing in and begin to walk in the direction that I had last saw the man moving in. I was halfway up the road when I remembered that I had left the trunk to car unlocked. Great, just freaking great. Now, not only will the presents for Leslie’s kids be gone before I get back, just about everything of value in my trunk would be too. Aw hell, who am I kidding? Why am I getting so worked up over this? I’m in the middle of nowhere. Who’s gonna steal that crap out of my car? Smokey the Bear? Everything should be okay until I get back. Well, except for my front seat which is probably gonna be covered with snow before I get back. Maybe I’ll get back before it happens. Afterall, I’m just gonna use this guy’s phone to call Les and have her send Dick to come and pick me up. I mean, it’s not like anything of interest is gonna happen to me out here.
With a heavy sigh – the thought of having to sit in the car with Richard for anything more than a few minutes always made me do that – escaping my lips, I continued on my less than perilous journey down the snow-covered road.
Before I could even knock, it swung open quickly and I found myself facing that strange, little man again. God, this guy was beginning to make my skin crawl!
“Well, it’s about time you got here,” he stated, voice still muffled my that damn scarf. “I thought I was going to have go back out to find you, since it was taking you so damned long. What’s wrong? Never walked a few yards in the snow on a ten-degree night?”
I can almost hear the laughter riding on the edge of his voice. And I didn’t like it.
“Well,” he says again, stepping out of my way. “Don’t just stand there dripping all over my porch. Come on in and stand by the fire to warm yourself up. Well, get a move on! You’re letting all of the heat out!”
Startled slightly by his rough words, I rush into the house and quickly scan the room for the fireplace. Spotting it in short order, I move over to it as I unfasten my trench and slide it off of my shoulders. The warmth of the small living room made my skin tingle as it melted away the chill of winter that had settled upon me during my walk to get here. Laying my coat across the stack of wood to the side of the blazing hearth, I hold out my hands and rub them together briskly. Man, was it ever great to be in warmth again! I almost feel bad about yelling at the old goat. Almost.
“Well,” I hear a voice say sarcastically. It sounds…different somehow. In a way that I couldn’t place my finger on. “Just make yourself at home. Is there anything else I can get you? Tea, coffee, some manners perhaps?”
I grunt out a laugh. Hmm, I forgot to add bitter to the ‘old goat’. No wonder he lives out in the middle woods alone. With tact like that, he’d make a lousy neighbor.
“Coffee,” I return with just as much sarcasm. “And a foot rub and a phone would be nice too. Oh, and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you make me some of those darling little teacakes? They sure would go great with that coffee you’re about to make for me. Thanks.”
I smirk to myself as I hear the rustling of clothing being removed behind me. Oh great, now I can finally see that ugly mug of yours. Not that I want to, mind you.
“You know what?” a distinctly female voice calls out. “You really ARE an idiot!”
I instantly freeze up. That was the difference I couldn’t put my finger on! It wasn’t a guy who had come to my aid. It was a woman! Great. Talk about something that I just didn’t need right now. A woman with a pissy attitude and an even worse disposition on life…and possibly even men. Jeez, I sure hope she’s not some kind of militant feminist. Wouldn’t that just be my luck?
“Look,” I lie as I start to turn around. “I didn’t mean what I said earlier, about the foot rub and all. I just want to…use…your…phone…?”
I’m pretty sure that my mouth had dropped to the floor. And if I had any less control over my bodily functions, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been the only thing. Standing in front of me, standing not only ten or so feet away, was the last person in the world that I thought I would ever meet in a place like this! It had to be a dream! It just had to! How else in the world could you explain Heather Wallace scowling over at me? Wait a minute? Scowling?
“Yes,” she says with all of the emotional impact of one of those preprogrammed toy robots, removing the scarf completely from around her neck. She pauses in her words as she walks over to a coat rack in the corner and hangs it there. “It’s me. What more do you want?”
Well, that certainly was a buzz kill. I’d been waiting almost all of my life to meet my literary heroine face to face; hoping, wishing and praying for the opportunity. To say the least, this is not what I imagined it would be like. This is more what I imagined talking to my ex-girlfriend would be like.
Heather just stares at me. I stare back. I can’t help it. I’m in complete and total awe. This was the woman that I idolized. This is the woman who made me want to write. This is the woman who…
“If you’re going to vomit,” she spoke out suddenly, moving away from the coat rack after pulling the wool cap off of her shorthaired head and hanging it there along with the scarf. “The bathroom is down the hallway and on the left. Clean up your mess when your finished.”
…had just told me to clean up my puke from her bathroom floor when I done. Not exactly the conversation topic that I’d been fishing around for.
“Uh…yeah, heh…yeah your right,” I stammered stupidly as I run a nervous hand through my damp hair. Wait a minute. What was I saying? “Uh…I mean, no…that is to say that your not wrong…what I’m trying to say…is…um, I…don’t…have…to…”
Oh yeah, that came out well. Three years of Public Speaking gone down the crapper in less than three seconds of conversation. Jeez.
“That’s good to hear,” was all she said in return. All I could do was continue to gape at her. I really couldn’t help myself. Realizing this, she turned to face me again. “Look, all of this hero-worship is great. But if you’re going to keep staring at me like that for the whole time that you’re here, I’m going to put you out on my front porch. Besides, I don’t deserve it.”
She…she didn’t deserve it? How could she say such a thing? What was wrong with her? Was this the woman I had spent my entire life idolizing?
“You…you do deserve it,” I say to her as steadily as I can manage. “You were one of the youngest authors ever to get published. You’re a role model to any kid out there who wants to be a writer. You’re the reason I became a writer. You deserve that and –”
Her sharp and biting voice cut me off brutally.
“I told you that I don’t deserve it! ANY of it!! And if you can’t get that through your clouded, little hero-worshipping brain, then you may as well just get the HELL out of my house!!!”
And with that, my heroine, the woman who had so inspired me, turned on a heel and stormed off down the hallway. A few seconds later, I heard a door slamming shut. I just stood there in stunned silence at what she had just told me. She didn’t deserve it? She didn’t deserve any of it? What in the hell was she talking about? Why was she shunning all of her fans and living out here in the middle of nowhere? What had happened to her? What had changed her so much? What in the world could make her so bitter and hateful?
Slowly, I lower myself onto the edge of a rocking chair sitting a short distance from the fireplace. Well, what was I gonna do now? Originally, I just wanted to use the phone to call Leslie and get Richard to come and pick me up. But…now, I don’t know. I have to figure out what made her leave everything behind. It all happened on that day of the book signing, that’s when it all started. I’m sure of it! Whatever it was that her agent had told her, that was the catalyst for her disappearing from the public eye. I have to find out what it was. I just have to know! And I won’t be leaving this cabin until I do…
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT CHAPTER…
Anyway, I was inspired but I needed a subject for the lead role. So, I chose to use Chibi. That was also the reason why I decided to ask her to aid me with this little project. There were certain chapters that I did not wish to write because she would be able to handle them much better than I would. Why? I can’t tell you, it would ruin the fun and surprise of the story if I did. Well, maybe not…
But anyways, I just wanted to get a word in before I posted this. The next chapter will be coming in about a month or two due to both my and Chibi’s other projects. If you find that you like this story, then I truly apologize for the wait. If you don’t like it, well then the wait shouldn’t really matter to you. LOL! Feel free to leave commentary, reviews and critiques.
Until the next chapter!
Thanks for reading,
Terryll Preston, still2twisted of FictionPress fame…
