Forget the Drink, Gimme the Bitch

And then he returned Chapter Five. Tracy was watching my face when the publisher's e-mail popped up on my screen, and when I opened the attachment and saw its impersonation of the Red Sea.

"What happened?" she asked, her eyes widening.

"E-mail from my publisher," I scowled.

"Already? You just got started!"

"No, this is an earlier novel."

She raised an eyebrow.

"The one I'm starting now is my fifth," I explained. "I'm sorry. I should have told you earlier. It's a part of my life I'm very protective of."

Her silence compelled me to continue.

"It's just private."

I was aware that I was sounding rather desperate.

"But that's where I got the money for all of this. I write novels about a pair of real estate agents. I'm Michael Conover."

There was nothing in her eyes. Not a hint of recognition.

"Okay." She nodded and turned back to her own screen.

"You wanna read one, maybe?" I offered after a pause.

"Not if it's something you want to keep private," she said without glancing over.

If she wanted to argue about it, I was ready: our relationship was too new; I hadn't told anyone, ever, other than my agent. But I realized now that my arguments all sounded shallow.

And as it turned out, I didn't need them anyway. There wasn't even a hint of reproach in her voice, as if it were completely up to me whether I shared this or any other part of my life with her. And now that was beginning to bother me. It bothered me that she wasn't upset that I had hid it from her. It bothered me that she wasn't interested in my work. And yes, it bothered me that she appeared never to have heard of me.

My pique didn't last long, however. Tracy was simply too full of life to permit me to sulk, even if she had no idea I was doing it. She fixed dinner that night, gulping from a bottle of wine she was using to prepare risotto. And she had brought some sort of electronic device that allowed her to plug her iPod into a set of speakers. I found that I was delighted to hear the sounds of Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing" filling the tiny house. I was even more delighted that she had decided to cook wearing nothing but a white T-shirt and a leopard-print bikini bottom. Watching her dance in perfect sync with the music as she cooked is still one of my fondest memories of that trip.

Next to the sex, of course. That evening we made love to the Temptations and the Miracles. Tracy was incredible, and the extent to which we could hear the music of each other's bodies was almost scary. Her chocolate overtones were as delicious and her aftertaste as piquant as anything else I have ever sampled.

The other highlight of the first week was the phone call from Tracy's sister. As a general rule, I hate all telephones, and although I do own a cellular phone, I had never once brought it with me to the island. I tend to take the same view of its interruptive intensity as I would of somebody repeatedly tapping me on the shoulder to get my attention. If someone wanted to get in touch with me, there was always my e-mail (although my publisher and agent were the only ones with the Michael Conover address that I regularly checked). Or you could leave a message with Doug the Postmaster down at the Bar Harbor Post Office. He usually remembered to give them to me when I came in.

And yet there I stood, letting Tracy's cell phone ring no more than one time before my Pavlovian training kicked in and I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, is Whitney there?"

It was a throaty contralto.

"Whitney?" I asked. "Um, I think you --"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "I meant Tracy. Is Tracy there."

"Oh. No, not at the moment."

She was upstairs in the shower.

"New boyfriend?"

"That's right." I smiled at the thought.

"So what's the story? You've got her tied up to the bed and gagged? Or has she got something else in her mouth at the moment?"

I've never been a big fan of crudity, and decided to repay her with something that might prove equally shocking.

"Right now she's sunning herself naked outside the back door of my cabin. Her beautiful, perfectly formed body is worshipping the sun and her incredibly long legs look almost as sculpted as the warm rock on which she's sitting while she watches the waves of the Atlantic Ocean beat relentlessly beneath her. I just thank God we're on my private little island because I love just watching her like this, her full, magnificent breasts rising and falling with each breath."

After a pause, I heard only a deep exhalation over the phone.

"This isn't her mom, is it?" I asked cheerily.

"No," the woman answered with a giggle. "Mama would be happy for her, though."

"Protective older sister?"

"More like jealous younger sister," she said ruefully. "How much of that was bullshit?"

"She's actually taking a shower. But she does have full, magnificent breasts and incredibly long, sculpted legs, and a beautiful, perfectly formed body. And oh yeah, we are on a private island in the Atlantic. Shall I tell her you called?"

"Um, yeah. That'd be great. So who are you?"

Somebody in her family must have heard of me.

"Michael," I answered. "Michael Conover."

"The writer?" she shrieked.

"Exactly," I pounded my fist on the table in satisfaction. "Oops, I can hear that the shower's over. I better start lunch or she gets out the whip. Nice talkin' to ya, sis."

"Yeah, you --" she started to say, but by then I was already pushing the red button.

Tracy walked into the room wearing nothing but a towel around her hair and a pair of running shorts.

"I thought I heard talking."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Your phone rang and I just kind of instinctively answered it. Call your sister."

"Which one?"

"The jealous younger one?"

"I've got two," she said between her laughter. "Which one? And why was she jealous?"

"I was describing our little island retreat. And your nude sunbathing. Out on the rocks overlooking the ocean."

She raised an eyebrow.

"She didn't leave a name, though. She's the one who calls you Whitney, if that helps."

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow, and as far as I could tell, I had hit a sore spot. She quickly blushed and turned away.

"Which she calls you because...?"

"Could we please change the subject?"

"Sure," I said. "How 'bout some lunch?"

The phone rang again after lunch. Tracy picked it up, made a face when she read the number, and hit the "Reject" button.

"All right," she sighed. "Because it's my name."

"Whitney? That's a lovely name. Why don't you want to be called Whitney?"

"In high school all the kids called me White-nee. My dad was white, and I was a little too light and I studied a little too hard for the black kids, and I was a little too black and a little too poor for the white kids. So I decided I'd rather be Tracy."

"And when you went to college at . . .?"

"Princeton," she said, looking me in the eye.

I blinked first, and coughed.

"At Princeton, surely they wouldn't have. . ."

"No, but they would have asked me where it came from."

"And you would have told them?"

"It's an old family name," she said as her left eye twitched.

"What was that?"

"I still have it, right?"

"That little winking thing? Yeah."

"Tracy's little lie detector. My grandma -- my mama's mama -- used to whup me so hard when I lied that I still can't tell even a little white one now. So I try to not answer questions that I don't want to."

I nodded. She'd tell me when she was good and --

"I was named for the Playmate of the Month when I was born."

"Whitney Kaine!" I smiled.

She glared at me.

"I turned eighteen that month," I explained. "It was the first one I could legally buy."

"Do you know how much shit I would have gotten if they'd known I was named for some white hippie Playmate?"

I started laughing.

"Shut up." She threw her napkin at me. "Daddy didn't even tell Mama where he'd gotten the name from until I was five, and he was throwing it in her face on his way out the door."

"Honey, I'm so sorry. I'm gonna just forget I ever heard it, okay?"

She gave me a sideways glance.

"It won't cost me a blowjob?" she asked slyly.

I pretended to think about that.

"Maybe," I agreed. "Maybe a blowjob."

"How 'bout a blowjob on the rocks?" Tracy was smiling now.

"It doesn't involve ice cubes, does it?"

"No ice. But it will give me something to tell Debra Jo."

I hope Debra Jo enjoyed hearing about a 48-year-old man stretched out on the rocks overlooking the ocean while a 30-year-old woman knelt between his legs. Her running shorts and towel had been tossed aside, and her gorgeous ass was high in the air, waving a greeting to any fishermen lucky enough to come within view. Her breasts brushed the rocky surface beneath her, and her lips were alternately buried in my pubic hairs and pursed around the tip of my cock. I know I enjoyed it, almost as much as enjoyed spreading her legs on the same rock and diving between them. Although somehow I don't think the fishermen would have enjoyed my greeting quite as much. In any event, there weren't any to be seen either time.

We spent Saturday in Bar Harbor, hiking in Acadia National Park, bantering with the lobstermen who cruised into port with their catches, and eating seafood. Clams, lobsters, chowder, bisque, stew, rolls -- O, the lobster rolls: those giant chunks of lobster coated with mayonnaise and the smallest hint of spice and served over lettuce in a hot dog bun. We rolled back onto the boat and made a bed out of its cushions underneath the beautiful star-washed skies of Northern Maine.

And at exactly two minutes past midnight, I awoke from a sound wine-soaked sleep to find a hand gently pushing at my leg. I awoke to find Tracy staring northward, her mouth opened, her eyes wide, tears rolling gently down her face. It was the first time she had ever seen the northern lights, the aurora borealis. I had forgotten what an intense experience it can be. Eventually the bands of light drifted apart and disappeared, and we drifted back to sleep.

On Sunday we fell apart, without any warning at all. We made glorious love on the rocks as soon as we returned home that morning. With my cock still inside her, I couldn't resist one question.

"Did you ever imagine it would be like this?"

"Like what?" she looked up at me, her face glowing above its seemingly permanent smile.

"You know," I insisted. "We met in a bar when you called me an asshole. Did you ever imagine that we would be together, making love to each other?"

She paused, only half a beat, but it was long enough. Her smile wavered only a fraction, but it was enough.

"How could I have imagined that?" she asked.

It was a deflection, of the kind that she had warned me about. But why would she lie? Why would it hurt me to say no, of course I hadn't imagined it, I thought you were an asshole?

"Because the answer is yes," I whispered.

She nodded, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

"You knew it was me, didn't you?"

She nodded again.

So why?"

"Because I've read all your books," she said, wiping her cheeks with her hands. By now I had pulled out, of course, and was sitting Indian style on the rocks. "I fell in love with you through your books. I know you don't want to be recognized. Everyone knows that."

My animus to publicity was pretty much the only well-publicized thing about me.

"So how?" I asked, my voice growing colder each time I spoke.

"I went past Pablo's and recognized it from your book," she admitted with a harsh laugh. "As you said, how many Mexican-Irish bars are there? So I went in, and it was just like you described it. And then I started talking to Pablo."

"Pablo was in on this?"

She nodded.

"Were you actually unconscious the night I took you home?"

She looked at me and slowly shook her head.

I looked at her, and slowly stood up, brushing the sand off of my legs before I turned and walked back to the cabin.

I give her credit. She knew better than to try arguing with me. If she knew anything about me at all through my novels it was that I had little tolerance for all those liars I wrote about. She packed her things, and I took her back into Bar Harbor. Once she had all of her stuff on the dock, she turned and stared at me, a fresh set of tears streaming down her face. I pushed off from the dock and thrust the throttle forward. I didn't want her to see the tears streaming down mine.

For the next two days, I alternated between anger and despair. I didn't wash the sheets, because her scent still lingered on them, the smell of love. But when I found the cell phone she'd forgotten to take with her, I jumped back into the boat and strode into the Post Office. Whitney Scott, I wrote on the package, care of Pablo's Irish Bar.

On the third day, I hit rock bottom. I got an e-mail from my publisher, to inform me that my editor had been assigned to another project. I angrily questioned the decision, but with no answer. I rushed back to town, to use the telephone, but still without success. I had no idea why he had been assigned to me in the first place, and was given no clue as to why he had vanished.

I was given another editor almost immediately: Kristen. Kristen's first e-mail was drenched with gushing enthusiasm, and she returned Chapter Six to me in record time. It wasn't hard for her. Everything in it was great. Actually, everything was "super" or "awesome." It wasn't. It was good. But it wasn't awesome. And it wouldn't be awesome if I didn't have an editor I could argue with.

I gave up. I needed some time off. My own creative juices had dried up, and thinking about editing my existing book was useless when I felt like this. So I went back to town and summoned Angus to come get me the next morning.

"Shame about Miss Scott," he said after we'd been on the water for ten minutes or so.

"How's that?"

"Shame that nice Miss Scott had to leave."

"How do you know she -- well, she's not with me, obviously."

"She stopped by the house before she left," he continued, staring straight ahead. "Said she had to leave suddenly."

"Yeah."

"Seemed a might upset, though."

"Yeah."

That was also true.

"So, uh..." Angus began.

"Leave it," I said.

"Ay-uh."

I walked into Pablo's that night.

"Has she been here?" I asked him.

He shook his head sadly.

"Gimme a drink," I mumbled. I made my way over to my corner booth and sat there while he poured. After he delivered the drink, he waited while I sipped. And spit the contents over the table.

"What the hell is this, Pablo?"

"Bar scotch," he answered. He gave me a big grin.

"Who the hell drank all the Tim?"

"If you let that girl go," he lectured, "Tim's too good for you."

"Fuck you, Pablo." I took a long gulp, letting the foul stuff burn my throat.

"Fuck you, too, Andy," he said cheerily before heading back to the bar.

I sat there nursing my bar scotch, pondering mendacity. My attitude was a little hard to reconcile with my efforts to disguise my own identity. Suppose, for example, Tracy hadn't actually known who I was. When I let her know, months from now, wouldn't she would get angry that I had hid it? Of course she would, and with good reason. So why was I so upset that she had deceived me? She hadn't even lied to me, after all, like I had to her with my "I'm retired" line. And how should she have tried to meet me? If she'd asked me if I was Mike Conover, I would have told her that no, I wasn't. Can I get back to my drink now, please, if it isn't too much trouble, lady?

Damn. I hated being wrong. I pushed the half-empty glass away and started to leave.

"Andy!" Pablo yelled at me as I neared the door.

I turned. He wasn't seriously going to charge me for that scotch, was he?

Something came flying at me and I managed to catch it. Her phone.

"Tell her I said hello," he smiled before returning to work.

"Yeah," I said, to myself more than to him. "I'll do that."

Tracy and I didn't make love that night. By the time I finished apologizing to her, and she to me, we were both exhausted. We slept in her bed, her body curved into mine, and it was probably the best I've ever slept. The next morning, we resumed our vacation routine as if we had never interrupted it. I dragged my laptop out of the car, and we set ourselves up on her kitchen table. We took turns sneaking glances at each other, doing our respective work in silent harmony.

The work was anything but harmonious, though. I read Chapter Six over, knowing that it was going to be very hard to make it sound as good as the first five chapters did. In an effort to try to do it myself, I decided to give them a reread to see if I could gain some better insight into his editing.

"Is something wrong?"

Tracy's concerned voice interrupted my reverie.

"My editor dumped me," I sighed. "And the new one is obviously some girl fresh out of college. Everything was wonderful. My old guy was a curmudgeon but he knew what he was doing.

"What makes you think he was a guy?"

"Like look at this." I pointed at the screen. "When he got finished editing my description of Pablo's it was like he had actually been there. I'm sorry, I just talked right over you. What was your question?"

I looked up at her and saw the hesitancy in her eyes, an almost fearful expression that was perfectly in keeping with the soft voice that followed.

"I asked what made you think your editor was a guy?"

"Honestly," I said with a laugh, "I don't know. It's just . . ."

I looked back down at the screen, and I realized just then that I had never set any scene of my earlier novels in a Mexican Irish bar. This was the first time I had ever described it. And the only people who had ever read this particular description were me and my editor. William Tecumseh Sherman.

Whitney Tracy Scott.

Well, goddam.

I looked up again at Tracy's face, the worry now clearly showing on it.

I pursed my mouth, looked down at the screen, and then back at her.

"This deception of yours," I said as coldly as I could. "You could almost describe it as mendacious, couldn't you?"

Her face relaxed. Her reply was immediate.

"Are you callin' me a liar?"

I was laughing so hard I actually fell off my chair onto the floor. By the time I pulled myself back up, Tracy had fetched a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"You look like you could use a drink," she said.

I put my hand up to stop her.

"Tracy, my love, I tell you what. What do you say we just forget the drink...?"

My thanks to my editor, Hermit, who in no way, other than his attention to detail and commitment to excellence, resembles Whitney Tracy Scott. At least I don't think he does. 'Cause that would be a real bummer to have been working with him for this long and not know that.

And of course, my thanks to SweetWitch, without whose good humor and loving support I would not have gotten this far as an author, let alone had the nerve to propose a contest like this one.