One Night (30 page)

“Let's just say it was a cleavage day.”

“Really?”

“Was on the way to audition for Hazel Bijou. Tried to get a part in a sci-fi movie.”

“Mom. Actress. Comedian. Dancer. Singer. Grifter.”

“And substitute teacher.”

“Is there anything you don't do?”

“I'm a Jackie of all trades, master of none.”

“Your name is Jackie?”

“My name is Jackie. My mother named me after Jackie O.”

“Jackie.”

“Yep. My name is Jacqueline Francesca Parker-Summers.”

“You've been keeping secrets, Jacqueline.”

“I'll tell you all about my failed marriage and Natalie Rose, if you want to know.”

“Then what?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?”

“I'm yours. Whatever you want, because I'm yours from the inside out.”

“I'll want to touch your beautiful dreadlocks again.”

“Oh, Lord. Then what?”

“You have more mints?”

“I have more mints.”

“Might get up the nerve to ask for another kiss.”

“You don't need a mint to kiss me. You can kiss me whenever you want.”

“Is this our sixth date?”

“Seventh. This is our seventh.”

Closer. Closer. Closer.

I glanced at my phone. It was 6:31
A.M.

He leaned over, kissed me like I was the love of his life, then said, “We could always . . .”

 

Who wants that perfect love story any way, anyway?

Cliché, cliché, cliché, cliché.

—Jay-Z, Ft. Beyoncé, “Part II (On the Run)”

Never had room service all night . . .

Never had a love affair so tight . . .

I've never felt a feeling so right.

—Maxwell, “Fortunate”

Psst. Hey, you. Yeah.
You
. All of you. Come closer. Closer. Closer.

Not that damn close! Pop a mint, please. Not calling any names, but pop a mint.

LOL.

Whassup, peeps! I was just reading messages and laughing as Hulu supplied background noise. My good friend-poet-mom-cook and Bajan extraordinaire Rebel Glam calls me Dickster. I think she started that at a poetry slam near the sea one night in Barbados. And up here in America, over in ATL, my buddy Carey calls my readers the Dickey Nuts.
Not easy having a surname like . . . mine. I think he in-boxed me that yesterday, and I'm still laughing. Actually, Bajan Rebel Glam in-boxed me after she finished reading
A Wanted Woman
. I have great friends and fans, but since my surname seems to inspire giggles and blushes in the West Indies, I'll just keep calling myself EJD, and I'll keep calling you guys my readers.

I keep hearing Snoop Dogg's voice in the back of my head saying, “
Dickey Nuts
.”

Let me get on with it. It's time to chat about the creation of
One Night
. Pull up a chair. I won't take long. Ready? Cool. Taking a deep breath. I had just finished writing a pretty intense novel,
A Wanted Woman
, an exciting tale that moved around the globe, destroyed a lot of property, reduced the population in the name of revenge, and probably had the most exciting heroine I'd ever created. On the heels of that wonderful madness, I wanted to create something smaller, less populated, a novel that used fewer locations. Did my best to leave out the guns. I did. I promise. I really tried. The start of this novel, the short con, was written (a version of it, that is) years ago, at least a decade back, and I think that initially it was how Dante was supposed to meet the original Scamz. Way back the idea was dropped, and the scene sat in my computer and had a party with other scenes still waiting for a chance to make it into a novel one day. Well, this particular scene sat on a floppy disk, the 8-track of storage, then was rediscovered and reentered into Word along the way. It changed from Dante (
Thieves' Paradise
) doing the con (using a heavy television) to Panther (a different version of the same character that ended up in
Naughty or Nice
,
Drive Me Crazy,
and
An Accidental Affair
) doing the con with a lighter flat-screen television. Technology changes with the times, but the con remains the same. Rocks in a box is still alive and making money as I type. After I had taken everyone on the wild ride from Florida to Memphis to California to Trinidad to Barbados with Reaper, I revisited that scene. Like I said, I wanted to write a tale that had few characters, preferably only two, and started writing the interaction between the two main characters. I fell into the
what if?
zone, and soon there was a rugged flow. I really enjoyed where it was going and decided to attempt to make the entire story take place at dusk and be done before sunrise. That was the concept. I hadn't thought about it at the time, but I've always been a fan of “talking” movies like
Before Sunset
and
Before Sunrise
starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (I haven't seen
Before Midnight
), and the way the tales move moment to moment and gradually reveal who the characters are. (I'm also a huge fan of tales that are done in less than three days.)

It's been a long day, so I'd better hurry up and get to thanking people.

I always have to thank the people at Dutton. Brian Tart, here's another one. I hope it's worth the killing of a few trees, a thousand times as many downloads, five movies, and ten sequels.

Much love to my editor, Denise Roy. Once again, thanks for the great edits.

You're awesome. The story has wings.

Emily Brock and everyone in publicity, thanks for all the hard work and making the tour for
A Wanted Woman
a great success. Time to do it again!

Matthew Daddona, same to you: a million thanks for helping keep this boat afloat.

To my wonderful copyeditor, JoAnna Kremer, you are truly (awesome* Pi)^5. I mean that. You have really helped smooth out this bumpy road. Speaking of bumpy roads, shouts to Barbados!

I just glanced at the time on my MacBook Pro, and it's 9:34
P.M.
I'm on the bed, and
The Good Wife
season 2, episode 14 is playing in the background as I call to mind all the rest of the wonderful people who took part in this journey. The Dicksters. LOL. Still laughing. Laughing at Carey, too.

Pilar V. Arsenec, thanks for the wonderful interview on the last novel, and thanks for reading about the “Love Birds,” as you affectionately called them. You read page after page as the scenes were being created and changed, as I added, deleted, and shuffled everything around. You read the original, much longer version.

Same to you, Jacqueline Bouvier Lee at Books-A-Million. Thanks for the support. I think you were the first to read the complete version, the version before this final edit. Thanks for your time and your interest in this project.

Jackie Parker-Summers (JPS) and the man from Orange County thank both of you ladies for being both beta-readers and flies on the wall, and not calling the front desk when JPS became a little too spirited through the night.

No one has read this, or any book that I've written, more than my agent, Sara Camilli. Thanks for being there since the nineties. Time flies when you're writing books and traveling. Tell Ray and Stephen I said thanks as well! How many novels before I get to one hundred? Need to write faster. Trying. But well, there's Netflix and Hulu and Facebook and Twitter and. . . . Kidding!

To the readers who have been hanging out with me as bookstores opened and closed, as we moved from bricks and mortar to the digital age, to all of you who have been here since the days when people wrote letters and mailed them to one another with those things called stamps—thanks for sticking around. Many hugs to you and yours. And to the ones who just discovered my work, welcome aboard, and thanks for giving this kid from South Memphis a shot. Riverview Elementary, Middle School, Carver High, U of M, shouts to all of my peeps. Dreams do come true. Stay motivated. Hope you enjoy the ride, be it long or short. I hope you enjoyed reading the novel you're holding in your hand, be it made from what used to exhale oxygen, or as decoded 1s and 0s on your handy-dandy electronic device.

Thanks for taking the time to come and support me on the book tours.

Hope to see you on the next one. Until then, see you on Facebook, Twitter, and wherever we go next.

To all the writers out there, put your butts in the chair. Write. Write. Write. No excuses.

And in case I forgot anybody, it wasn't intentional. So break out the pen and let's make sure you're included with the usual suspects. This novel wouldn't be possible without the help of ____________________________________________. They stayed up with me at night, made themselves available on Skype and Facebook, and brought me green tea to start my day.

Peace and blessings from a member of the '06. Ice, ice, baby.

Carolyn's only son signing off . . . still laughing at Rebel Glam and what Carey said . . .

Eric Jerome Dickey

Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 10:25 P.M.

73 degrees, 0% precipitation, humidity 50%, Wind 3 mph

Back in the USA;
Latitude
: 33.800057;
Longitude
: -84.517211

Gray shorts, faded sky-blue Argentina T-shirt, clean-shaven, fresh conservative fade, and shoeless.

Dickster is leaving the building.