"My daughter is coming up today," said Simon, over our morning coffee.
I looked up, surprised. I didn't think she was supposed to come until the dinner party, which was still five days away. Seeing this, he shrugged.
"The girl has a way of springing surprises on me. She's just like her father, I suppose," he added.
"So I guess I'm moving back to the guest house," I said with a sigh. The prospect disappointed me, but the last thing I wanted to do was cause trouble for Simon and his family. He nodded.
"It would be best. But she won't be staying in the house the entire time. She has a lot of friends in the area. I don't have any doubt that she'll spend most of the next few days visiting them, and staying away from her boring old dad and his boring old writing friends as possible."
"Boring writer friends?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Present, charming company being the exception, of course."
We got my things to the guest house and Simon left, heading to the airport to pick up Samantha. I knew he would be gone for at least two hours, possibly three, so for the first time in the long week since I had been there I fired up my computer and got to work on book number three.
I didn't expect to actually get anything done, and true to that I spent the first twenty minutes staring at a blank page in my word processer, wondering where I could possibly begin. Then, an idea struck. And then, another idea. My fingers started to fly across the keyboard, filling up that blank page, and I had already typed close to five-thousand words worth of my story when I heard a car pull up outside and moved to look out the window.
Simon got out of his car, followed closely by a woman around my age with very long and very straight black hair that fell straight down to her waist. She was wistfully pretty- like a fairy tale princess. For the first time, in a long while, I felt slightly self-conscious. I was wearing battered old jeans and a light sweater, my ginger red hair pulled up into a messy bun and black-rimmed glasses balanced precariously on my nose.
Not that I would be competing with her, I reminded myself. She was his daughter, after all.
And that was when, for the first time really, the age difference between myself and Simon really hit home.
"He's old enough to be my father," I muttered. "Older than my father," I corrected, thinking of my own beloved dad, dead in the ground at forty-five. And Becky was only a couple of years younger than me – a fresh, young twenty years old.
I went back to my writing, not wanting to interrupt their family reunion. Another two hours passed, and another few thousand words, when I heard a knock at the door and went to answer it. Simon was standing there, his arm around Becky's waist.
"Oh my gosh! It's really you!" she said. "I told my friends you were staying at my place for a little while, and they didn't believe me. We're all big fans!"
"Uhm..." I pulled the glasses off my face, offering her my hand. "So you're Becky, right? Nice to meet you."
Becky squealed, taking my hand and shaking it enthusiastically. Then she spotted my computer, with all those words splashed across the page. "Is that the next in the series?" she said, almost stammering with excitement. "Oh my gosh! Can I.."
"No. You can't read it," said Simon, putting his hand on her shoulder as if she would have darted into the room and looked if he hadn't stopped her. From the way she was bouncing on her heels, I thought that might be the case.
"Oh, come on. Just a peek?" she wheedled.
I looked at Simon and smiled. "Maybe I can show you my notes, later," I said. "But not the actual story. Nobody, even Simon, sees it until its published."
"Oh, all right," she said, not seeming displeased at all. "I wanted to come right on over, but dad said that you were busy. Are you going to come and have lunch with us?" she asked.
"Uhm...I'd actually really love that," said Simon. "Unless you're too caught up with your work."
"Not at all. In fact, I just came to a great stopping point," I said. I went to the computer, saving my work and closing it down. Then I followed Simon and Becky back down to the house.
Over lunch, I saw what Simon had said when he told me that Becky was very much like him, in many ways. She was a happy, cheerful person, and despite my original misgivings about spending so much time around her, when I was having an affair with her father, I realized that I genuinely liked her.
"I can't imagine doing something as awesome as you've done, at your age," she said as she tucked into her pasta primavera. "Even dad didn't publish his first book until he was twenty-eight."
"Twenty-seven," he corrected with a glare.
Becky rolled her eyes. "Whatever, close enough," she said. "You're going to be like...a legend," she said.
"I don't know about that," I said.
"Oh come on. Is it true that there's a movie deal in the works for the first book? That's what they're buzzing about on all the blogs."
"Well..." I glanced over at Simon, surprised that I hadn't even thought to share this information with him. "My agent is in talks with Warner Brothers and Paramount right now. But I don't want to sign on the dotted line until the third book is finished."
"A movie deal," he said, nodding. "Very impressive. Our little Mona is really going places."
"So have you heard from Kate?" asked Becky, turning to Simon. "I feel like I haven't seen her in forever."
"You haven't seen her since Christmas," said Simon. "I called her on the drive over to pick you up. She's doing fine. They're going to be doing some shows in Tokyo, then Milan. After that she's doing an art show in New York before heading home."
"Mom finally bought her first Kate Chase original," Becky joked. "The long, blue gown she released on her winter line."
"Ah, good to see your mother is finally trying to catch a younger man," Simon joked.
Becky rolled her eyes, turning to me. "My mom is a total cougar," she said.
"My ex-wife and I divorced about five years after Becky here was born. Since then, she's dated every young model on the face of the planet. And she's the one who introduced me to Kate," he added.
"Your ex-wife introduced you to your current wife?" I asked, interested despite the subject matter.
"We're a weird family," said Becky with a laugh.
You have no idea, I thought, looking over at Simon.
"So hey," said Becky, "I was wondering if maybe you'd like to go shopping or something? I'm sure dad's showed you around here, but he doesn't know the sort of things a girl likes to see when she's on vacation."
"Uhm, sure," I said, then realizing just how long it had been since I went shopping with any of my friends, added, "that would be great, actually."
"Awesome! How about tomorrow afternoon?" When I nodded she squealed, yet again. "I'm going shopping with Ramona Blackburn!" she said. "How awesome is that?"
The next day I woke up bright and early. I missed the fact that I wouldn't get to share coffee with Simon, or indulge in the morning sex that I had gotten used to, but with that possibility taken away from me I instead settled down with my computer and started writing. I seem to have hit my writing streak – the words were flowing out of me, the story forming itself as if by magic on the page.
I thought an hour or two had passed, and was surprised when I heard a knock at the door to realize that it was already after noon. I made my way over, pulling it open to see Becky standing there in skinny jeans, high heels, and a flirty ruffled top. She looked me over, taking in my old jeans and university sweatshirt.
"I was writing," I said, in defense of myself. Becky laughed.
"Oh, no problem. But you might want to change. We're going Uptown."
"Ah. Right," I said. I stepped back, inviting her in. "Just give me a second," said, leaving the room. Then, realizing I had left the computer running, poked my head back into see her leaning over the computer. "No peeking!" I called out.
Becky groaned dramatically and I laughed. I went to my suitcase, picking out a nicer pair of jeans and a light blue top. Considering what my activities had mostly been for the past week, hardly any of the clothes that I had packed for my trip had even been worn. I slipped the clothes on and came back outside, surely enough to see Becky settled in front of the computer.
"Sorry! I couldn't resist," she said. Then she sighed. "The story is just...awesome. I can't even...wow."
"Thanks," I said, taking the computer back from her.
Then, Becky looked at me, her eyes widening. "And you're really pretty, too," she said. "You're so lucky. I have no talent and I'm nowhere near as gorgeous as you are."
"Are you kidding?" I said. "I'd kill for long, black hair like that. Everybody called me the leprechaun growing up. Then I got too tall and everybody called me the Jolly Red Giant."
"So do you have a boyfriend?" she asked as we made our way outside, following the path from the guest house and down to the driveway.
"Not right now," I said, thinking of Simon sitting up in the house and probably working on some of his own writing.
"Why not? You're rich, famous, and gorgeous."
I shrugged. "I guess I'm just too busy, now," I said. And I was surprised to find that, in a way, this was true. This had always been true, and was the reason I had never been involved in a serious relationship before in my life. After my dad had died, I devoted myself to my studies in college.
I was an all A student, top of my class. And then, during the one summer that I had had any time to myself, I had gotten the wild idea to start writing my book. Then it had been published, and I spent he long hot summer after my college graduation driving myself in my old, battered Toyota from town to town across the country, promoting it.
Then, somehow, the book had become famous, and the car rides had turned to airplane rides, and my life had really taken off.
