When I’d told NOB what time to meet, I’d accounted for the fact that his clock ran at least an hour later than everyone else’s, and he’d still managed to be late enough to throw off my day. This morning I’d dropped Anette’s costume off at Gil’s to find she’d left something with Xan for me. My ticket to her play. Peter Pan: “For Every Boy and Every Girl!”
The start time was 12:30 p.m. today, and Anette’s school was an hour away, meaning I’d have to finish here pretty quickly if I was going to make it. But I couldn’t leave without getting NOB to agree to send Monty some proof that he was writing. All week Monty had been holed up in the Ash, his go-to comfort place. The only contact I’d had from him were the increasingly hysterical messages about the script. I needed to send him something from NOB to calm him down—and to prove his faith in me wasn’t misplaced.
I tried to hand NOB what remained of my breakfast doughnuts.
“I don’t do carbs. Why are we meeting here?”
“You’ll see.” I made him take them from me anyway. “And live a little.”
He chucked the bag into a trash can under the bookstall, pulling a face as he wiped his hands. “So, on the meet-cute scale, from projectile-vomiting to dragon cocks, where does this one sit?”
A woman pulled her child away to another stall, ignoring my mouthed I’m sorry. I glared at NOB, who gave me a look that said he couldn’t have cared less. My phone buzzed. I knew who it would be without looking. Somehow the alert from Monty’s message came with an edge of hysteria.
MONTY: Can you look into how to sell an office? Might as well start preparing ourselves.
I put my phone away. “Hand,” I said. After a pause, NOB held out his palm. I gave him a small stack of business cards, keeping the rest for myself.
“Nice mittens,” he said, spotting them dangling from my sleeve.
I indicated his chapped fingers. “It’s function over fashion.”
“I’m well aware of where you stand when it comes to fashion.” He took a sip of his coffee as he peered at what was printed on the cards.
Evie WLTM you
He flipped the top one over. It had my number on the back.
“WLTM. Will. Losers. Text. Me?”
I pulled a face at him as I moved to the opposite side of the stall. “Would Like to Meet. It’s an old personal ads term,” I replied. I’d thought it was appropriate, given I was attempting to meet someone the old-fashioned way, without an app. “They’re for the books.” I made sure no one was watching, then picked up a water-damaged edition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I slipped one of the cards inside before snapping it shut and putting it back. I spotted Kerouac’s On the Road and put one in there too.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s the Fate meet-cute,” I told him. Shuffling along, I slid another card into a book with a sticker announcing it was a literary prizewinner. “I leave my name and number in random books around London, and if a guy happens to contact me after coming across my details, it must be fate. I’ll arrange for us to meet.” Providing he wasn’t a weirdo. I assumed there wouldn’t be very many who weren’t, but Jeremy had insisted I try it anyway. His love of John Cusack films apparently extended to Serendipity.
NOB seemed skeptical. “Sounds like your fate is to meet a bunch of perverts.”
I pulled a copy of The Iliad from under a pile of James Pattersons.
“Do perverts read the classics?”
“Exclusively.” NOB yawned. He downed the rest of his coffee and left the empty cup next to one of the many NO FLYERING signs stapled along the edge of the bookstall. I dropped his cup into the trash, looking nervously toward the hulk of a man who ran the stand. He kept walking between the bookstalls like a bouncer, glaring at anyone who dared to treat his business like a library.
“This is what I skipped my morning vinyasa for? I thought I was going to see a meet-cute in action. I’m not your lackey, Red. You need to up your game. We’re at the one-month mark, and somehow you still haven’t convinced anyone to fall for you. At this rate, that script is never going to get finished.”
It was the perfect opening. “I’m more concerned with it getting started.”
There was a pause. “Pay attention, Red.” He flashed those perfect white teeth of his. “We have work to do.” He picked up a tattered copy of The Da Vinci Code and put one of my cards inside before moving on to the next table. I tugged it back out of the pages.
“Red,” he admonished, catching me.
“What?” I asked, wide-eyed.
NOB smirked, selecting a book with an illustration of a woman on the front. She was bursting out of an impractically small bikini, and I wasn’t sure what the man dressed as a PI was up to behind her, but she appeared to be enjoying it. Private Intentions, the title read.
He smiled sweetly and pushed my card in. “Oh, we’re in luck. Sequels.” He locked his eyes with mine as he slid a card into each. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
It was time to hurry this along.
“That’s secondhand erotica, you know,” I said.
NOB wiped his hand on his coat. “And I’m done.” He turned his back to me and I quickly retrieved all of his cards before following him to the other stall.
“You agreed to send Monty some pages,” I reminded him, taking care to not sound as annoyed as I felt. When it came to NOB’s writer’s block, softly-softly was best. “That’s the deal.” His face darkened, but I was prepared for this. “Or,” I offered, “you could keep him happy if you just send him your idea.” Any good negotiator knows you don’t concede, you compromise. “If you haven’t come up with one yet, I can help. That’s what I’m here for, remember?” Come on, NOB, just admit that’s why you haven’t written the pages.
“I don’t need your help.” NOB wrinkled his nose. “Are you done looking for Mr. Pretentious yet? I have things to be doing.”
“Quit it,” I told him. He raised his brows over his glasses. “We are going to have an actual conversation for once. I’ve done everything we agreed. Now it’s your turn. Monty has been asking you for your pages, right? And he’s going to keep asking, if you don’t give him something to convince him and the producers you’re writing.” I paused. “And what do you mean, Mr. Pretentious?”
“What’s that book you’re holding?” NOB said.
I flushed. “Ulysses.”
The worst thing was, I knew full well that every book I’d stuck a card into was one of Ricky’s favorites. What am I doing? NOB shook his head, then tapped some cards into a bunch of YA books and a Beano annual.