Chapter 12

"Oh, my God, it's really him!"

Will heard the exclamation halfway across the café as he crossed the room to where Claire, Libby, and a dozen other women were sitting around a joined cluster of tables. Each of the women had a book and a café beverage in front of her, and fourteen pairs of eyes were suddenly on him. There was an empty chair next to Claire, and he strolled over and sat down.

"Good evening, ladies," he said. The women all beamed at him, and there were some gasps when he turned towards Claire and kissed her.

"Such an honor to have you here with us tonight, Mister Liebkind," one of the women said, and the whole circle broke out in applause, low enough to be polite to the other café patrons, but loud enough to turn heads as far as the greeting card section halfway across the store. Even Claire applauded, smiling at him with that irrepressible spark of mischief in her eyes, and he smiled at the group and raised his hand to quiet down the ruckus.

"Please, call me Will. Thanks for having me this evening. I'm flattered."

They spent the next twenty minutes with a lively question-and-answer session, and by the end of it, he had the book club firmly wrapped around his finger. Most of them had never seen a well-known author in person, much less a Nobel Prize winner, and they made it easy for him to charm them. He had been hosted by book clubs before, although the ones he had accepted in the past were usually in well-to-do areas close to home, like upscale bookstores in rich towns on Cape Cod or the Vineyard, and ones in downeast Maine that drew plenty of seasonal traffic. He looked at his current audience, a dozen small-city women ranging in age from the late teens to the late seventies, and allowed himself a wry smile.

If Megan knew that I was doing a book club meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee, and without compensation at that, she'd try and have me committed just as a precaution.

Anne's new book was well regarded by the women of the book club. Will had not read it yet, which meant that his input on Europe on Ten Grand A Day was limited, and he mostly listened to the women sharing their impressions of the book. When Claire mentioned that Will knew Anne Barcza personally, he found himself at the center of attention once more.

"So that's why you laughed back at the bookstore when I mentioned her name," Libby said with a laugh.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I know Anne. She's a good friend. Owns a horse ranch not too far away from here, in fact—right outside Lexington."

They milked him for information on Anne for a while, and he shared a few harmless anecdotes, like her quirky habit of sharpening half a dozen pencils to a fine point before sitting down to do the writing of the day.

"Do you have any secret writing rituals, too?" one of the women wanted to know. Will briefly thought about making up something eclectic, like sniffing apple peels or putting his feet into a bowl of ice water, but then decided against it.

"Not really," he shrugged. "I just open the laptop and type away. I do have one firm rule, and that one I stole from Hemingway. It has served me well over the years."

The circle of women leaned in closer, undoubtedly eager to absorb this insider information from someone who was at the zenith of the craft.

"Always stop your writing in the middle of a scene, when you know exactly what's going to happen next," he said. "That way, you keep the momentum for the next time, instead of having to do a standing start."

He pushed back his chair and smiled at the group.

"Please excuse me for a moment, ladies. I'm going to have to heed the call of nature."

"We'll keep your chair for you," Claire smiled, and he blew her a kiss in response.

They're all nice enough, he thought as he stood at the sink and washed his hands. The book club had a uniformly high opinion of Anne, and Will knew that she loved to interact with the hundreds of clubs all over the country that were the mainstay of her loyal fan base. Acting on a sudden impulse, he took out his cell phone, and recalled Anne's phone number from his recent call list.

She's probably not even home, he thought, but Anne answered after a few rings.

"Hello, Will."

"Hi, Anne. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"Not at all. I was just reading a book and having some wine. What's up?"

"I have another favor to ask of you," he said. "I'll make it up, I promise."

"Your list of debts grows," she said. "I may insist on taking it out in trade, you know."

He chuckled in response.

"We'll figure something out, I'm sure. I'm out here at a bookstore sitting with a bunch of women who are all massive fans of Anne Barcza. They've been praising your latest tome to high heaven, and I was thinking they'd get a kick out of a little phone appearance. You'd make some fans for life."

"You attending reading circles now?" Anne sounded amused. "I hardly recognize you, Will. A year or two ago, you would have run screaming at the thought of having coffee with a bunch of bookworms."

"Yeah," he said. "I guess I'm growing soft. What do you say? Make those bookworms' evening?"

"Sure," she said, the amusement still thick in her voice. "I'll chat for a little while. You have a speakerphone, or do you want to call me back on another line?"

"I'll keep you on the cell. Just give me a second to walk back to the table."

When Will arrived back at the table and sat down, he placed his opened cell phone in front of him.

"Ladies, I have someone on the line here for you."

He hit the speaker button on his phone.

"Anne, meet the Friday Night Literature Club. Ladies, meet Anne."

There was a collective gasp from the circle, and Will grinned when he glanced at Libby and saw that her eyes were almost bulging out of her head with excitement.

"Good evening, everyone," Anne's voice sounded out of the speaker. "This is Anne Barcza."

There was a minor pandemonium as the women all voiced their excitement at once, and Claire reached for his hand under the table and squeezed it. He looked at her, and she smiled and mouthed the word "nice".

"Oh, my goodness," Libby finally said when the excitement had died down a little. "This is so amazing. Our best book club meeting ever."

The women laughed at this, and Will joined in.

Anne humored the book club for a full hour, asking to speak to each member in turn, and patiently answering questions. She seemed very much at ease with her audience, and Will admired her ability to make the discussion personal for each of her fans.

That's why she sells a blue million of those books, he thought. He knew that she personally answered every letter that reached her through her network of fan clubs, and a personal reply with an actual signature on it did more to secure reader loyalty than any number of form letters or book store coupons.

When Anne finally excused herself, the women gathered at the table thanked her profusely, and a look around at the excited faces and shining eyes on either side of him convinced Will that the surprise phone conference had been a great idea.

"That was a very nice thing to do," Claire said when they were walking back to their cars. "They'll be talking about today for the rest of the year. Did you see the look on Libby's face when you put Anne on speaker?"

"Yeah," Will laughed. "I thought she was going to pee herself, squirming in her chair like that."

"It was nice of Anne to humor them. I think she actually enjoyed herself."

"Oh, she did. Anne loves her readers. Never shrugs off a fan who asks for a picture or an autograph. I think she still gets a kick out of being recognized."

"And you don't?" Claire asked with a smile.

"Sometimes," he admitted. "It all depends. Would you enjoy getting hit up for a photo when you're shopping for groceries in jeans and a t-shirt, with a zit on your nose and no make-up?"

"No, I guess not. But I'd be nice anyway, just so I don't piss off my fans and give them a reason to spread the word about what a jerk I am."

"You do have a point there," Will conceded. "I should probably take a page or two out of Anne's playbook, huh?"

"You're doing fine," she said. "You charmed the pants off the girls back in the café."

"Yeah, well, years of schmoozing practice."

"Come on now," Claire said, and poked him in the shoulder with her elbow. "Why do you spend so much energy denying you're a nice guy when I know otherwise?"

"Habit," he replied. "I'm new to the whole 'nice guy' thing."

They drove over to Claire's place in separate cars. On the way, Claire made a changing traffic light just before it turned red on him, so he had to catch up. When he pulled onto the parking space in front of her house, she was waiting for him, keys in hand. He got out of Bob's truck, and then studied it for a moment while she watched.

"Is it growing on you after all?" she asked.

"This thing? Hell, no. Never was a fan of pickup trucks. I'd hate it even if it was brand new and not pushing two hundred thousand miles."

He nodded at the two-seat cabin of the pickup.

"I was just thinking. Bob's going to be in a wheelchair when he gets out, and even if we modify this piece of shit for him, there's no way we can get a wheelchair lift into it. Never mind that the lift would be worth three times the book value of that Dodge."

"So what are you thinking?" she asked, and the smile on her face told him that she had already guessed his line of thought.

"I was thinking I should ask Christa to get the title for this thing, clean it up as much as we can, and then take it to the dealership to trade on something that'll hold a wheelchair."

"Do you think Bob's going to be paralyzed forever?"

"Hell, I have no idea. But look at it this way—if he walks again by this time next year, at least they'll have a new ride with a warranty, and not some rolling repair bill."

He looked at Claire and replied to her smile with a shrug.

"Erica told me that Bob spent the money he had saved for a new car on that addition over the garage instead. The way I see it, I don't have to go and trade that almost new car on a new one just like it. My accountant's throwing fits every time I do it, anyway. I'll use that money for a ride for Bob instead this year."

Claire walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek.

"For a man who's new at being a nice guy, you've mastered the skill remarkably fast," she said.

They went back to Claire's house, where she cooked up a quick meal. That term was relative in Claire's kitchen, of course. Claire never cooked with canned ingredients, and she rarely used frozen ones. This evening, her interpretation of a quick meal was beef stroganoff over freshly mashed potatoes.

"You're kind of subdued this evening," Claire remarked when they were sitting at the dinner table.

"Sorry," he said. "I have a lot on my mind today."

"Anything you want to share?"

He hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders.

"Sure."

He pushed aside the half-eaten plate of Beef Stroganoff and reached for his wine.

"I kind of snooped around in Bob's office today. There was a manuscript in one of his desk drawers, and I read it."

He took a sip of his wine.

"Looks like I've misjudged him, Claire. All that shit he's been writing to make money? I thought that was the best he could do. That manuscript in his desk drawer is Pulitzer Prize stuff at least. If I sent that to my publisher tomorrow with my name on it, they'd write the advance check so fast it would smear the ink."

"Oh, wow." Claire chuckled in disbelief. "That good, huh?"

"Yeah. Now I feel like a pompous prick for all those times I gave him a ribbing about that macho pulp he cranks out. If he sends off that novel, and it gets half the reception it deserves, I'll be eating crow for the rest of our lives."

Claire studied him for a few moments, smiling her amused little smirk that made the corners of her eyes wrinkle in a most appealing fashion.

"A little bit of that won't hurt you," she said finally. "Call it repentance. Besides, I hear that crow goes down okay with a dry red wine."

When Will got to the Liebkind house the next morning, Kate was there, packing her travel bag in the guest bedroom.

"Heading back to Maine, mom?"

"Just for a few days," Kate said over her shoulder. "I need to make sure the bills are paid, or I'll come back to a dark house with no phone or TV."

"And then you're coming back? That's a lot of money for plane tickets."

Kate finished folding the woolen sweater she was holding,

"Well, I don't really have a choice, Will. Bob and Christa are going to need all the help they can get when he gets home from rehab."

"Mom, they haven't even released him into rehab yet. Once they do, it'll be at least a month or two before they send him home. Claire and I are here in the meantime to help out."

"Don't you have bills to pay, too? What about your work schedule?"

"I pay my bills online, mom. And I can fly to the speaking assignments from Knoxville just as easily as from Bangor."

Kate sighed and put the folded sweater in her hands on top of the growing pile of clothes in her suitcase.

"Well, I suppose I don't have to come back right away, but what else am I going to do in Maine anyway? You're down here, and I'll just be going stir crazy thinking about how much more of a help I could be here."

"You don't want to fly to Maine and back every month," Will said. "Tell you what. You go home, but don't buy a return ticket to Knoxville yet. I'll come back up to Maine in a week or two for a lecture, and if you still think you need to be back here so soon, I'll pick you up and drive you down."

"Alright," Kate said after a moment of contemplation. "I suppose I don't have to be back here right away."

"When does your flight leave?"

"Tonight at six. I have to switch planes in Boston. They don't offer direct service to Augusta from here."

"No kidding," Will said. "You mean there aren't enough people in Knoxville who commute to Augusta, Maine?"

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A Bettered Life

Michael Lindgren

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