While We Were Watching Downton Abbey (9 page)

Her agent believed it could be “the book” that put her on some of the bestseller lists and had managed to negotiate a slightly better contract, which she insisted would be even better next book. Assuming her writing continued to develop. And her earlier books continued to sell.

Hmmm. Claire clicked on to her Amazon Author Central account to look at her BookScan sales numbers, which supposedly reflected 70 percent of all sales. Then wished she hadn’t.

Since she was already there, she clicked on both of her previous books to check Amazon sales and reviews.
Crap
. Her sales were stagnant here, too. Worse, some reader who didn’t like the name of one of her characters because she reminded her of someone she’d hated in elementary school, had given her a one-star review.

Forget it,
she scolded herself.
Get to work. Just focus on your characters and what happens to each of them.

Her gaze strayed to the refrigerator. At home—she stopped midword reminding herself that
this
was home now. Okay. Back in the house in River Run she would have had to walk downstairs to reach the kitchen. Here—in her
new
home—she could practically reach out and touch the refrigerator from her “desk.” She studied her diffused features in its stainless-steel door and tried not to think about the slice of cherry cheesecake inside it.

Fighting off the spike of hunger the thought produced, she reread her notes and made herself think about why her heroine was opposed to this marriage despite the secret attraction she felt to Rory Douglas. Had she been raised like a favored son and was therefore afraid of losing all chance of independence through marriage? Or maybe her mother and her sister had died in childbirth and she feared a similar fate?

This last made her think about Hailey away at college. The journals they’d given each other and what her daughter might have written so far in hers. The look on Hailey’s face when Claire had insisted on discussing STDs and birth control.

She forced her gaze back to the screen, but her brain was slow to follow. Plotting was definitely not her strong suit. Maybe she should call Karen or Susie? Or email them to see if they could do a conference call one day this week.

She was back checking email before she realized it. Once she was there, she began to type an email to her critique partners laying out some of the possible scenarios.

“No!” she said aloud even as she got up and walked over to the window so that she could see the traffic moving on Peachtree. “You don’t need your critique partners for this. You have a brain. Why don’t you try using it before you run to them?”

Leaning into the window, she spotted the big orange CB2 sign a few blocks north. If she took a break she could walk through the store, maybe pick up another desk lamp. This one was definitely not bright enough. She went back to the table and peered at the bulb. It was only a 45-watter.

Except what would she be taking a break
from
?

Back in the chair she reread her notes, added a few thoughts, then stared out the front window at the bright blue sky.

Maybe Rory was the one who objected to the marriage. Because he thought he wanted a more biddable wife? She groaned aloud and turned her head away so she wouldn’t have to look at the big question marks she’d just typed across the screen. A bird sang happily out on the balcony railing. Squinting, she tried to determine what kind it might be. She was still trying to figure this out when it flew away.

Her mind, which appeared to be as reluctant to settle down as the unidentified bird, flitted to last night’s screening and the lush beauty of
Downton Abbey
.

Her fingers moved on the keyboard and she was back on Amazon. Big bad Amazon, who was ruining publishing, putting bookstores out of business, and deflating the price of books in general. Not to mention making readers believe that an ebook should cost half as much as a printed book just because it didn’t have paper.

Her mental rant didn’t prevent her from typing the words “Downton Abbey” into the search box. A book titled
The World of Downton Abbey
popped up. It appeared to be written by Jessica Fellowes, niece of series creator, Julian Fellowes. The hardcover, which had received sixty-seven customer reviews and averaged four and a half stars, had lots of cool photos and background on the series, the time period, and the real stately home, Highclere Castle, where the series was filmed. As she clicked around Amazon informed her that customers who bought
The World of Downton Abbey
also bought
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle
, which was written by the current Countess of Carnarvon about an Edwardian-era Countess of Carnarvon.

Claire’s fingers, which once again seemed to be functioning independently of her brain, added them to her cart. Which was when Amazon pointed out that many of the customers who’d bought both of these items also bought the series on DVD.

She could order them right now and watch both previous seasons whenever she wanted. In case she had to miss a Sunday night. Or just couldn’t wait a whole week. It would be a treat to watch whenever she felt like it. In fact, she could probably download episodes from iTunes and not even have to wait for the mail. She clicked over to see and sure enough there they were.

But it felt like cheating. As if she were reading the last page of a book first instead of reading it in the way that the author intended; something that members of her book club had admitted to doing.

Claire shuddered.
No
.

The Amazon confirmation appeared in her inbox midshudder.

After her mini online-shopping frenzy, she tried to refocus her attention on the new book, but the characters and their motivations continued to elude her. For about thirty minutes she free-typed imagined backstory for both main characters and attempted to decide in whose point of view the book should start. But without her critique partners to bounce ideas off, her brain circled in a nonproductive loop. There was a reason brainstorming was a group activity. Doing it alone was sort of like cheerleading without a game or a crowd—you could shout really loud and jump up and down, but it didn’t accomplish much.

At noon she made and gobbled down a PB and J sandwich with a glass of milk, promising herself the cheesecake for that night’s dessert.
If
she completed at least the main characters’ sketches and committed to those characters’ backstories and motivations, she’d allow herself to eat the cheesecake. Yes, that was better. The cheesecake would be her reward.

At two thirty she admitted temporary defeat. Tucking the journal into her bag, she left her apartment with no clear destination in mind. Which was not at all surprising since her mind hadn’t been clear about much of anything but
Downton Abbey
for most of the day.

It’s all right, she told herself as she walked north on Peachtree where she cruised the aisles of CB2 before making her way toward Piedmont Park. Today might not have been the jackknife off the high dive and into the book that she’d anticipated. But surely now that she was a full-time writer there was nothing wrong with wading in slowly. When you had three-hundred-fifty-plus days of writing time left you didn’t have to maximize every available moment of every possible day, right?

She picked up her pace as she entered the park. But even as she sought to reassure herself, one of her critique partner’s favorite sayings echoed in her mind: “Writing time is like closet space. The more you have, the less efficiently you use it.”

That night, the character sketches unfinished, she ate the cheesecake anyway. Because she could. And because as Scarlett O’Hara so famously pointed out, tomorrow was another day.

* * *

DUE TO THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CLIENT BEING
wooed, Samantha had arranged an intimate catered dinner served in their dining room instead of at a restaurant or even one of the exclusive clubs to which Jonathan belonged. She would have preferred not to entertain on a Wednesday, which was jammed with committee meetings stacked around the weekly lunch with her mother-in-law, but it was the only night both the coveted client and his wife were in town and free. By the time Samantha got home late that afternoon, fresh flowers had been delivered and the caterer and his staff had begun to set up in the kitchen. She’d just finished dressing when she heard Jonathan arrive. “Be right out,” she called as she hurriedly opened the bedroom safe to pull out her jewelry. She was fastening the clasp on her bracelet and holding the pearl necklace Jonathan had given her for their last anniversary as she hurried into the living room. “Do you mind?”

She turned and lifted the hair off her neck. The pearls were cool and solid against her skin as he hooked the clasp then turned her to face him.

“Ready?” Jonathan asked her when the front desk buzzed up to announce their guests’ arrival.

“As I’ll ever be.” Samantha smoothed a hand down the side of her black cocktail dress.

“How was lunch?” he asked.

“Fine.” She dropped her eyes to double-check the drinks cart. She tried to be honest with Jonathan, but she was also careful not to criticize his mother—that was Jonathan’s prerogative. She lied only to keep the peace or avoid giving offense. But those lies were small and white.

“I hope you’re not letting her push you around . . .”

She’d been no match for her mother-in-law when she was twenty-one and had lost tons of skirmishes and a good number of battles. The only reason Cynthia hadn’t won the war she’d waged to dislodge the unsuitable and unwanted daughter-in-law was that Samantha couldn’t even consider defeat because she wasn’t fighting for creature comforts for herself as her mother-in-law had believed, but for a life and some version of family for her sister and brother.

“Who, me?” Samantha teased looking up into her husband’s blue eyes, which could be harsh and commanding like Cynthia’s but which could also be far kinder and gentler. His blond hair was sun streaked from the long summer days out at the lake house and the hours on the golf course. His nose was long and aristocratic. A flare of the finely wrought nostrils served as an early warning sign of displeasure. Right now at the end of summer a light smattering of freckles banded the bridge of his nose. She liked the look; it made him so much more approachable. “Not a chance. Well, maybe just enough to keep her happy.”

His eyes darkened as he looked down her décolleté. “Maybe the elevator will get caught between floors. Or they’ll decide that they’d rather go back to their hotel and have sex than have dinner with us.”

She laughed nervously. Despite twenty-five years of sleeping with this man she was still surprised by the visceral reaction his desire caused in her. But then he was the first and only man she’d ever actually had sex with and she supposed it had become a Pavlovian response. “I thought you said they were in their seventies.”

“And your point is?” he asked.

The doorbell rang.

As it turned out seventy was apparently not too old at all.

Victoria and Andrew Martin were tall, lean midwesterners with a plainspoken manner and a shared sense of humor. Andrew had made a fortune in newspapers and radio stations and been smart enough to sell his most profitable holdings at the peak, before the new technologies began to supplant the old.

“Have to make way for the new,” he said with a smile as they drank cocktails and nibbled on passed hors d’oeuvres. “But I must admit I’m very relieved that I can just enjoy all the new without having to compete with it.”

“Andrew’s always had impeccable timing,” his wife said in an amused, but loving, tone. “He was smart enough to swoop in and convince me to marry him right before he went to Vietnam.”

“You have to know when to swoop,” Andrew said. “Been married fifty-one years now. When you know something’s right you can’t waste time dillydallying.” Andrew Martin looked at Jonathan. “It seems like you knew the right woman when you met her, too. How long have you two been married?”

“Twenty-five years,” Jonathan said.

Samantha shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She suspected their courting and resulting marriage would be a severe disappointment to the Martins, who never seemed to move too far from each other. Even now they were holding hands on the sofa.

“Not everyone’s lucky enough to fall in love for a lifetime at such a young age,” Victoria said.

“No.” Samantha smiled but was careful not to look at Jonathan. “Not everyone’s that lucky.”

“Well, I know it’s an old-fashioned notion.” He addressed himself to Samantha. “But I like doing business with people who understand long-term commitments and partnerships. I’ve been with my old lawyer almost as long as I’ve been with Vicky.” He said his wife’s name as if she were still a young girl he couldn’t believe his good fortune in snaring. “But the old coot up and died on me. Wasn’t all that impressed with his son; the boy’s had way too much handed to him. A friend of mine here in Atlanta told me about your husband.” He smiled. “I’m glad we found a time for the four of us to get together. I trust Vicky’s people instincts. After all, she had the smarts to pick me, right?” He laughed heartily. Vicky rolled her eyes. Samantha wasn’t sure she’d ever seen someone in their seventies do that. She tried to picture her mother-in-law doing it and failed miserably.

“Yep. Still can’t believe she said yes,” Andrew said. “Why, the first time I told her I loved her I was shaking in my boots so hard I was afraid she’d hear my knees knocking. I wasn’t absolutely sure that she felt the same way about me.”

Jonathan laughed. She watched his face as he shared a story about shaking in his boots the first time he had to argue a case in court and neatly changed the subject. He didn’t look at all like what he was: a man who had married someone out of pity and gentlemanliness and without any talk of love at all.

It wasn’t that the word had never been used in the ensuing twenty-five years, but it was a word that they used with extreme caution in public and on important birthdates and holidays. Or conversely with no caution; as in right before, during, or after an orgasm, which Samantha suspected shouldn’t count at all.