"Back to bed."
"I thought you were going to talk to me."
"You're not talking."
"You want to know what the book is about?" he asked moodily. "Alright, I'll tell you."
"Hush. You keep bugging me to know, so now you'll know. Be quiet and listen."
Ordinarily Stevie would have protested this gross inaccuracy. Since she had first asked him about his novel and he'd told her that writers didn't discuss their current projects, she had refrained from asking specific questions about it.
She usually referred to what he did in the vacant dining room, as his "work."
Now, however, she could tell that he was bursting to discuss certain aspects of it. Obediently she sat silently on his lap and listened.
"It starts out when the protagonist is just a kid, see?"
"Male or female?"
"Male."
"Figures."
"He had a very ordinary-"
"Does he have a name?"
"Not yet. Are you going to keep interrupting?
Because if you are-"
"I won't say another word."
"Thank you." He took a deep breath, opened his mouth, then looked at her blankly. "Where was I?"
"May I speak?" His glare threatened murder.
She quoted, " 'He had a very ordinary…'"
"Oh, yeah. He had a very ordinary childhood.
Mom, Dad, typical suburban-America upbringing. He'd always been good at sports.
All sports. But in high school, he concentrated on baseball. By his senior year, he'd won the attention of many notable universities, all vying for him. He picked one and got a scholarship in exchange for playing baseball on the varsity team."
"During his sophomore year of college, a minor league talent scout approached him and offered him a contract to go pro. It was as tempting as hell. Although his coaches, everybody, had told him that he had what it took to make the major leagues, he decided that he had better decline -much as he wanted to play-and go ahead and finish college, just in case this career in baseball didn't pan out."
"So he stayed in school, which, as the story progresses, turned out to be one of the wisest decisions he ever made. Since he wasn't particularly interested in any other field, he tried to find the path of least resistance to get through college.
He'd never been much of a scholar, too busy with athletics, you see."
"Science and math courses were a hassle for him, and he barely squeaked by. But he aced classes like English and history where he could b.s. his way through an exam. Friends told him that he had a way with words and a knack for turning a clever phrase. So, it seemed logical that he major in English and minor in journalism."
"By the time he graduated from college, he had an agent negotiating with three major-league teams. Under the misconception that he was invulnerable, he behaved recklessly, thinking that his future was one big bright solar system that revolved around him, its sun. He partied a lot.
There were lots of women, good times, fun and frolic."
Judd fell silent for a moment and stared reflectively at the blank sheet of paper in the typewriter.
"One of those seven-figure, five-year deals that dreams are made of came through for this clown. He was celebrating it with a group of friends. They decided to spend a weekend waterskiing."
Stevie rolled her lips inward, wishing she didn't have to listen to the rest of the story. But dynamite couldn't have blasted her off Judd's lap.
Apparently he desperately needed this catharsis.
He had listened on several occasions when she had poured her heart out. It was time she returned the favor.
"The lake had been formed by a new dam and hadn't completely filled up yet. Those kids were stupid to be skiing there in the first place. This fool was even laughing his head off when the boat approached the stump sticking above the surface of the water."
"Hell, he was invincible. Nothing could touch him. Or so he thought," he said in a flat, empty voice. "He decided that he could swerve around the stump without any trouble at all." After a moment, he added, "He couldn't."
The resulting silence was broken only by distant thunder. It rumbled ominously. The sky flickered with lightning; the breeze picked up.
But neither Stevie nor Judd noticed these changes in the weather.
"All his big plans were shot to hell," Judd continued. "One dumb move and the course of his life was changed forever. The seven-figure offer was revoked after the doctors told the team management that he'd never be pro material even if they did their best for his leg."
"He never got to play major-league baseball.
After a year of reconstructive operations on his busted tibia, he went to work writing about the sports he could no longer play."
It began to rain. Fat, splattering drops fell onto the flowers that Stevie had so painstakingly cultivated. Rain splashed against the open windows.
The curtains were driven into the room by the gusty wind. Lightning crackled and thunder crashed. The air turned noticeably cooler, a welcome relief from the humid heat.
Stevie was unaware of the storm, unaware of everything except Judd. She brushed back the strand of hair that had fallen over his forehead and smoothed out the frown between his eyebrows.
He gave her a twisted grin. "You won't want to read the book. I don't think it's going to have a happy ending."
"Why not?"
He slipped his finger into the neckline of her nightgown and slowly traced the edge of the material around the base of her neck. He did it without really thinking about it.
'For years after his accident, the protagonist was mad at the world, even madder at himself for screwing up his life. He went through the motions of living, but just like Rhett Butler, he didn't really give a damn. He worked hard at making everybody around him as miserable as he was himself. He got drunk often, slept with nameless women, picked fights."
"Fights?"
He shrugged, now toying with the buttons on her gown again by lightly plucking at them. "To prove to himself that the accident hadn't emasculated him. He wasn't a strutting jock any more."
"Athletic prowess has never been the true measure of a man."
"Sell that theory to your average American male."
She lifted her shoulder in semi concession, a move that caused his knuckles to make a dent in the inner slope of her breast. "How will the story end, Judd?"
"Ah, that's what's hanging me up. I'm up to the part where he finally settles into a well-paying job, which he goes through the motions of doing, expending as little effort as possible. He's got everybody but himself buffaloed into believing that what he's doing has merit. But what eventually becomes of this guy, who still resents like hell that he blew his one big chance in life?
'I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit," Stevie remarked in a soft, sympathetic voice. "It takes a tremendous amount of talent to turn out a newspaper column every day. Being prolific is certainly no small thing when journalism is your occupation. Your columns haven't always pleased me, but they're never stale or… What's the matter?"
He was no longer touching her with subconscious, intimate familiarity. His eyes had turned as stormy as the night sky. "Have I said this story is about me?"
His sudden mood shift stunned her. "Well, no, not specifically," she stammered, "b-but I… assumed…"
"The character in my book is dissatisfied with his life. Do I look like a guy who's dissatisfied with his life?"
He stood up, practically dumping her onto the floor. She staggered backward in an attempt to regain her balance. When she did, she glared at him with contempt and fury. He had told her his sob story, but when it came time to accept her compassion, he had turned stupidly, defensively macho.