is there a reason?” she asked quietly.
I’d been asked the question at least a hundred times over the years, and I usually responded with something like I think books should reflect real life, but this time I took a second.
“No tragedy, if that’s what you’re asking.” A smile tugged at my lips. “Typical middle-class family. Dad was a mechanic. Mom still is a teacher. Grew up with barbecues, Mets games, and an annoying sister I’ve grown to appreciate. Disappointed?” Most people were. They figured I had to have been orphaned or something else equally horrific.
“Not at all. Sounds pretty perfect, actually.” Her voice dropped off.
“With the writing, I step into a story and the first thing I see about a character is their flaw. The second thing I see is how that flaw will lead to redemption…or destruction. I can’t help it. The story plays out in my head, and that’s what goes down on the page.” I moved back and leaned against the edge of my desk. “Tragic, heartwarming, poignant…it just is what it is.”
“Hmm.” I could almost see her considering my statement with that little tilt of her head. Her eyes would narrow slightly, and then she’d nod if she’d accepted my thought. “Gran used to say she saw the characters as fully fleshed-out people with complicated pasts, set on a collision course. She saw their flaws as something to overcome.”
I nodded like she could see me. “Right. She usually used whatever their flaw was to humble them while proving their devotion in the most unexpected way possible. God, she was the best at that.” It was a skill I had yet to master—the successful grovel. The grand gesture. My stories always came just shy of it before the chance was yanked away by the bitch we called fate.
“She was. She loved…love.”
My eyebrows rose. “Right, which is why this story needs to preserve that,” I blurted, then grimaced. A breath passed, then two. “Georgia? Are you still there?” The click was coming any second now.
“It does,” she said. There was no anger in her tone, but no flexibility, either. “This story is about love at the heart of it, but it’s not a romance. That’s the whole reason I gave it to you, Noah. You don’t write romance, remember?”
I blinked, finally seeing how big the divide between us was. “But I told you I would write this as a romance.”
“No, you told me Gran was better than you at writing romance,” she countered. “You promised you would get it right. I knew it needed a poignant ending, so I agreed that you were the man for the job. I thought you’d come the closest to capturing what she really went through after the war.”
“Holy shit.” This wasn’t Everest, this was the moon, and the whole situation was caused by crossed wires. Our goals had never been the same.
“Noah, don’t you think if I wanted this book to be a romance, I would have told Christopher to find me one of his romance writers?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that in Colorado?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I did!” she snapped defensively. “In my foyer, I told you that the one thing you couldn’t do was give them a happy ending, and you didn’t listen. You just tossed back a cocky ‘watch me’ comment and walked out.”
“Because I thought you were challenging me!”
“Well, I wasn’t!”
“I know that now!” I pinched the bridge of my nose, searching for a way forward when it looked like we were at an impasse. “Do you honestly want your gran’s story to be sad and mournful?”
“She wasn’t sad. And this isn’t a romance!”
“It should be. We can give it the ending she deserves.”
“With what, Noah? You want to end her real-life story with some happy piece of fiction where they’re running toward each other in an empty field with their arms outstretched?”
“Not exactly.” Here we go. This was my chance. “Picture her walking a long, winding dirt road lined with pine trees, calling back to the way they met, and the second he sees her—” I saw it all play out in my head.
“Holy mother of all that’s cliché.”
“Cliché?” I nearly choked on the word. Even being thought of as an asshole was better than cliché. “I know what I’m doing. Just let me do it!”
“Do you know why I keep hanging up on you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“Because nothing I say matters to you, and it keeps us both from wasting our time.”
Click.
“Damn it!” I snapped, carefully setting