AN: Hey all! I know it's been ages since I've written anything, and I started this new story, but it's not completely finished yet, so updates will probably not be regular. Hope you'll forgive me for that. Decided that I'm going to do something complete AU this time, working with spare basics, so let me know what you think, okay?
Prologue
"One latte, please," I ask the teenager behind the counter and start fishing in my bag for my purse. I am supposed to have it here somewhere. Notebook, a dozen pens, small first aid kit, paper tissues, Blackberry, cell phone, newly bought books, I-Pod, photo camera, lipsticks, tampons, and finally, my money. Seriously, the things a girl has to carry with her these days…
Smiling a small smile at the girl, I hand her a five-dollar bill and a few minutes later I'm out in the snow again. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I moved to Chicago because I love this city; it's just the winters here that I hate. My entire family is scattered around the country, now I come to think of it, and my two siblings and parents are enjoying the warm weather somewhere in California. It's not that I don't like California, but I'm more a four-season person than a one-season one. Not that it matters. I go home often enough, so nobody is really complaining.
Dad was at first. Hated the idea that his little girl was moving half a country away, but he gave me the space anyway. Knew I really needed it. I look at my watch and realize that I'm already later than planned. Paula isn't going to be pleased. To be quite honest, I don't really care. My first book was a bestseller, and I stood my ground then. If Paula wants to re-write this second one… well, she going to have a hard time convincing me. Besides, she's just one person. I'm the author, you'd think that I know what exactly I meant when I wrote what I wrote. I'm not worried.
My cell phone starts to ring, and I dig into my bag again. One of these days I'm going to have to give up large bags and get myself a smaller one. "Hello?" I breathe into the phone.
"Nairi, where the hell are you? I've been trying to call you for like forever." That's my best friend Soraya. My very happily engaged best friend Soraya. My 'don't you think it's time to settle down?' best friend Soraya. "Why haven't you been answering your cell?"
I roll my eyes and swallow my sip. "Been a bit busy, Sor. I'm sorry. I'm on my way to see Paula." Soft, white snow starts to fall again and I lift my face up to the sky. I love the snow. Especially in early January. Don't really like the whole winter season, but I can't do it without snow.
Soraya sighs. "Iri, you didn't forget my party tonight, right? I so totally need you to be here." Tonight is her engagement / show-off party. It's Soraya's party to show everyone that she finally tricked one of Chicago's former most-eligible bachelors. And she needs me for support. Right. Not really something I am looking forward to. But I'm afraid that I don't really have a choice.
"I've got to see Paula first, Sor," I say. "You know I really have to. But I'll do my best to make it a quick visit."
"Promise?"
"Yeah, promise." Great, so now I have to run by my apartment as well, to change. If there was something else I wasn't really looking forward to, it's that. But, it's for a good cause. After tonight, it's only nine more weeks to the wedding, and then all this will be over. Or so I hope.
"Okay, good. Make sure you wear your red Prada dress, all right?"
Oh, no. I'm not wearing my red Prada dress. Not in a million years. Not tonight. "Sor, I'm not…"
"Please, Nairi. For me?" When Soraya asks me to wear a certain dress, and especially my red one, it usually means one thing. She's going to set me up. She wants me to meet someone.
"Look Sor, I understand that this is your party and all, but I'm not wearing my red one tonight. And you're not going to set my up with someone." This has been Soraya's game plan ever since we met in college, seven years ago. She dates with the cutest guys, and then she sets me up with their best friends. But not this time.
"Iri, please? You don't want to ruin this evening for me, do you?"
Right now, in this moment, I honestly don't care whether or not I ruin your party tonight. "I can't even promise you that I'm really going to make it, but I am going to do my best. Just don't really count on it."
"You just promised me that you'd try to make your visit to Paula a quick one." I sigh, fold myself into the backseat of a cab and close the door, giving the driver the directions.
"Yeah, I know, and I will. Just don't expect me very early."
"I wasn't going to. You're going to love him!" Oh god, here we go.
"Listen, Sor, I really need to go, all right? I'll see you tonight."
"Wear the red one, Iri. The red one." It's the last thing I hear Soraya say before I break the connection. Leaning back in my seat, I take the last sip of my latte.
Soraya and I met in our first year of college. Became roommates, and went through pretty much everything together. We hit of immediately, and quickly became best friends. Now we're seven years down the road, and Soraya is engaged, and I'm not dating. While everyone around is almost starting to worry whether or not I'm gonna end up an old maid, I just don't feel like dating right now.
Been a bit busy with promoting my number one bestseller, flying across the country, giving interviews and everything. Then I locked myself away to write my second book. So, no real time to date. When Soraya met Nate, she was convinced that he was the one, within the month. Turned out that she was right, eventually. Nathan plays with the White Sox, and that's why Soraya counts herself so lucky. It's something I understand. But I couldn't possibly live in those constant spotlights.
Being a writer has a lot of upsides: you're relatively anonymous, unless you've written at least a few bestsellers they are not a whole lot of people who are going to recognize you, and you can work on your next book in all peace and quiet. Nobody is really going to pay attention to you until your next book is published. I love it.
Soraya is the complete opposite of me like that. She craves the attention her engagement with Nate has given her. Can't say that I blame her. She's a pretty girl, and if she's happy with her life right now, I'm the last one to complain. Just as long as I don't have to live it. The cab pulls up in front of Paula's apartment, and I get out, pay the driver and smile at George who opens up the door for me. "Evening, Ms. Rabb."
I smile. "Evening, George."
"She's waiting for you," George smiles.
I smirk in return. "She always is, George."
The elevator takes an hour to get up to Paula's apartment and before I can even knock, the door already opened up. "Hi," I cheerfully greet my editor.
Paula glares at me. "You're late." Steps aside to let me in.
"Sorry about that. Soraya finally has her show-off party tonight, and my trip to the book store took me a little longer than expected." Bookworm, here. Read pretty much everything I can get my hands on.
Paula hands me my manuscript. The first thing that grabs my attention is that it's red all around. I sigh. "Paul, is there something about this that you didn't want to change?"
"There's a lot about it that I don't want to change," Paula says. "But there's also a lot about it that I do want to change."
Tell me something new. Seriously, is there a page that doesn't have a red mark on it?
"It's not that I don't like the concept, Nairi, but your first book was a whole lot better than this."
I roll my eyes at her. "This book is as much me as 'A Love Story' was, Paul."
Paula nods. "Might be, but something in your writing changed. Your readers want what they got in 'A Love Story'…"
"And that's exactly what they're getting."
"Is it?" See, this is why don't exactly love my editor. The girl is critical. Heaving a sigh, I open up my bag and put my manuscript in. "It is. I'll look at it, and let you know what I think."
This is war. It was the first time, and it will be now. Paula is trying to shape my story in the way she wants it, and since she's not writing it, she doesn't really get a say. Now, if there are any improvements I really have to make, I'll make them, but I'm not changing my plot just because she says so.
An hour and a half later, I'm standing in front of my apartment building, waiting for a cab. Wearing my new LBD. Nothing to posh, or to showy, but a simple, lovely, little black dress. It was a present from my Mom, who thought that I could use a new one.
High heeled black pumps, hair pulled up, simple diamonds earrings… I'm good to go. If it just would stop snowing, and that cab is supposed to get here… Soraya is going to kill me when I don't show up at all. By the time I got home, I already had four missed calls.
On the other hand, she's probably too busy with showing off Nate at this point. Finally, my cab pulls up, and I step up to open it. Almost get shoved aside by some guy in a designer suit, who is trying to get into the cab as well. I arch an eyebrow and clear my throat. What does he think that he's doing? "Excuse me? This is my cab."
The guy turns around to look at me. "Does it have your name on it?"
"It should." Stepping pas him, I get into the car. He follows and slides into the seat next to me. Gives the driver directions. Funny, he needs to go to the same street as me. The cab pulls up and we start our drive. Within five minutes, we're stuck in traffic. The guy is still looking at me. I turn my head from the window to where he's sitting. "Something you'd like to share?"
"Don't I know you?"
That's the worst pick-up line that there is on the planet. "Not that I know of, no." I shake my head and ignore my cell. Soraya. It's just her thirteenth call by now. She'll have to stick it out.
"Oh, but I do." This guy is pretty sure of himself.
"Really?" I smooth my skirt down and meet his eyes.
"You're Nairi Rabb, right? You wrote 'A Love Story'?"
Okay… That was not what I expected. So maybe being a writer isn't really as anonymous as I thought it would be. "Yes…"
"Right, that's you. Saw you at TV last year or something." As did half America. "Loved the book." He read the book? My eyes must've grown wide because he starts to laugh. "Surprised?"
"I believe the correct term is blown-away." I brush a strand of hair of my face.
"Why?" he asks.
"Well," I start, "you don't really seem the type of guy that would read a love story:"
He shrugs. "That's the first impression everybody gets of me. The outside doesn't tell you a whole lot about who I am."
Obviously not, no. "I'm impressed." I really am. I meet people who have read my book everyday, but somehow this feels different. I just can't put my finger on it.
He offers me his hand. "Eljin Carr."
Right, so now everything about this guy is exotic. Even his name. No, I'm not blind. He's filling that designer suit, probably a Hugo Boss, out perfectly. Dark hair, dark eyes, strong jaw line… He could probably be a model. "Nice to meet you." I smile.
Eljin smiles back. "I'm honored to meet you, Ms. Rabb. The way you wrote that love story was downright brilliant."
Keep up those compliments and I'll start to blush. It's no big deal. Just did something that I love to do. "Not brilliant. Good, maybe, but not brilliant."
"Of course it was. The way you let Jessica and Lawrence meet and build something together was perfect. I envy you, Ms. Rabb."
He envy's me? "Why would you do that?"
"Because you seriously nailed it. From their first meeting to their wedding, to Lawrence finally going back to his old home with his family… The way you described it… Like you had been there. Just as if you'd seen it happen."
Not all of it, but most of what you read; yeah, I was there. I saw my Dad go back to his old house back in California, trying to figure out what had really happened. Trying to see if he could somehow fix what had happened between him and his parents. I can still remember the smell of the old mansion. I remember Mom standing close to him, and the three of us back against the car.
Eljin must've seen the far away look in my eyes, because he calls my name. "Ms. Rabb? Are you all right?"
"Nairi, please. Nobody I know uses Ms. Rabb." I take a deep breath. "So you really thought that I'd seen all of that happen?"
Eljin nods. "It takes a lot of reading between the lines, but, yeah, I really think that you've been there." He studies me for a moment. "You really have seen it happen, haven't you?"
"Not all of it," I softly admit. "But I've watched my Dad try to make up with my grandparents, standing in front of that damned house, being completely torn. I'll never forget the look of complete defeat on his face, when Mrs. Rabb just turned a cold shoulder on him." Why am I telling this to a complete stranger? I started to write that book because I wanted some kind of closure, because I somehow wanted to honor them with it. Not to open up old wounds.
Eljin frowns. "It's your parents' love story?"
I swallow hard and nod. "Yeah, it's my parents' story. There are only a handful of people on this planet who know that, and that is how I want to keep it. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone."
Solemnly, Eljin nods. "Of course not." He leans back in his seat. "Your parents' story. Wow."
When Mom first finished it, she called me, crying. "Iri," she said, "thank you. Thank you for writing that. Thank you, for making sure that it won't be forgotten."
I cried so much when I wrote 'A Love Story'… After a while, my tears were up. Not that it's a completely sad and depressing story, because it's not, but there were so many emotions involved that I let the book be for a few months, to visit home and get back to myself. To get more information, too. Because I knew a lot, but I didn't know everything. Not that I really wrote everything; I wouldn't do that to Mom and Dad.
They've been together for like forever, and I hadn't really talked to them about this, so there was no way that I could let them go through all that again. It was hard, writing 'A Love Story'. I had to change a whole lot of things in the time table, in my parents' professions, my siblings' names, where we lived… I worked with spare basics. And yet, at the same time, I was writing a story that I wanted to tell. A story now told.
Eljin softly touches my shoulder. "Are you okay?"
I look up and see that we've arrived. Soraya's party is in there. "You're also going to Soraya and Nate's engagement party?"
"I was," Eljin says. "Now I'm not so sure I want to go." He offers me a small smile.
I sniff. "I wasn't really looking forward to it, either," I confess.
Nodding, Eljin leans over to the driver and gives him new directions. "Do you mind if we go for a cup of coffee somewhere else instead?"
Do I mind? Can't say that I do. Usually, I can talk about the story as if it's just a story. As if I don't know the people I wrote about, as if I made everything that I wrote, up. Then why can't I do that, now? Because Eljin (that's still Mr. Carr to you, Iri) seems really interested? Because he somehow seems genuine? Or because he is just a complete stranger and he doesn't really know me? Don't they say that it's easier to talk to strangers? Maybe that's it. He's just an ordinary stranger who's willing to listen.
Just a few minutes later, we're sitting behind a cup of coffee in some diner, where we're totally out of place in, dressed up and all, and I don't know where to begin. Eljin (we're officially on first-name basis, now) doesn't say anything. Gives me all the time to think. To get my act together.
Right now, it's time to tell the real love story.
TBC
