The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara
Thirty-Eight
Alone with Celine, I’m still reeling from my first failed meeting, or meetings, with Ethan.
“Did I take Ethan’s room?” I ask, wondering when the embarrassments will stop tonight.
“Yes, but he’s fine.”
“You don’t think we should switch? I can take the other one.”
“Neh. Our parents’ bedroom has a bigger bed. He’ll like it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he lives here too?”
“Sorry. I thought you knew,” she says. “No worries. He’ll be back on the road soon.”
I want to remind her I won’t be here long either, but I don’t.
We take the food and wine outside. Ethan joins us and pours wine into three glasses.
“Here’s to us. All of us,” says Celine.
We all take a sip and then quietly nibble at pretzels for a while. They are good!
It’s awkward, and I feel like the third wheel; besides, I’m having a hard time looking at him without imagining what’s going through his mind. He, on the other hand, seems relaxed.
“How’s the new book coming?” asks Celine.
“It’s coming. I’m done with the first draft, going into revisions,” he says.
“Are you happy with it?”
“Am I ever?” he asks and laughs. “First drafts are not meant to make you happy.”
She turns to me. “My brother, the perfectionist. You know, Maya is also a writer.”
“You are?” he asks.
I gulp. “Journalist. It’s easier to commit to two thousand words than ninety thousand.”
“I always found short fiction much harder to write,” he says, and although what he says seems nice, it doesn’t come off that way. It comes off as patronizing.
“It’s not the same with non-fiction.”
He doesn’t insist.
“Maya also writes books but doesn’t have an agent yet,” says Celine.
I blush. Here he is, this successful author and I’m a nobody. And then I remember I don’t like this guy. So why would I feel embarrassed? He should be. He stole my story. I shouldn’t envy him; I should be pissed. On the inside. Because on the outside, I need to be all warm and friendly. I plaster a smile on my face.
“Maybe you can give Maya some pointers on how to go about finding the right agent,” says Celine. “You’ve been there.”
He nods. “All writers go through the same process,” he says. “You write, you edit, you write some more, you submit, you try again.”
Still fake smiling. Easy for you to say, I think.
“I don’t always have time for writing,” I say. The lamest of excuses. Everyone who’s not writing says the same thing.
“I saw a laptop on the kitchen counter. Is that yours?” he asks.
I nod.
“Why don’t you take it with you to Café Azure and when you have dead times, sit down and write? Even if it’s a hundred words. They add up.”
He turns to Celine. “Remember that’s what I did when we both worked at the café?”
“I remember,” she says. “I ended up doing most of the work, while you stared at an empty screen and said you were plotting.”
They both laugh.
“I’m more of a pen and paper type of girl,” I say.
“I see,” he says. “Even better. You can sneak that in pretty much everywhere.”
That seemed like a nice, helpful thing to say, but it almost feels like he’s doing it in a patronizing way. It’s like he’s trying too hard, instead of showing his true colors and being the difficult, uptight, and grumpy man I imagined. In reality, I bet he’s one of those people who looks down on everyone, convinced he’s better than all of us because he’s successful and thinks he’s some literary genius. Before I get my story from Alisa, which I’m sure he butchered, I should read one of his earlier books, since I paid for them, just to see how ‘genius’ they are.
“There’s this cool store on Ocean that sells fancy notebooks and pens,” says Celine.
“I saw it, it’s amazing but so expensive. I could never afford anything there,” I say.
He stares without a word and I’m so much in my head, I can’t even hide it.
I think it’s a mix of envy and hate, what I feel for Ethan Delphy. I hate him because he stole my story and had no business writing about me or that day, and envy because he knows Max, he knows what Max was thinking about that day, what he felt. I imagine them talking late into the night like I did with Alisa. And I suddenly feel exposed. He doesn’t yet know that I’m the woman in the book, but he’s going to find out, and when he does it’ll be embarrassing. He must know all about David, what he did to me; he must know about my insecurities, my feelings. I don’t like this and I don’t like him. Being this exposed in front of someone like him is the worst part because he strikes me as judgmental and I can only imagine the things he told Max. Maybe he advised him not to look for me. Oh, no, if I think that, I’ll jump at his throat right now.
I stare at him, trying to control my emotions. The silence is awkward.
“I heard you have a book coming out soon,” I say.
I wanted to say Celine told me, but if I can avoid lying, I’ll do it.
“I do, yes.”
That’s it. That’s all he says. Not offering any details. Getting information from him about Max is going to be even more challenging than I thought.
I have a feeling he doesn’t like me. He smiles and he’s accommodating, but there’s just something about him that makes me want to retreat in my shell like a turtle.
“Are you enjoying Carmel?” he asks.
“I love it,” I say. “It’s my kind of town.”
He smiles politely.
“Maya came here last year; she loved it so much, she returned,” says Celine.
“Is that true?” he asks, his tone still flat, polite, semi-uninterested.
I force a smile.
“You keep coming back and Ethan keeps running away from it.”
“That’s not true,” he says.
Celine rolls her eyes and starts laughing. “If you say so.”
Eventually, we all go to sleep. It’s late and tomorrow Celine and I have to be at Café Azure bright and early.