The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [86]
“Oh yeah,” Melony said, “but your dream is writing, isn’t it? And surely writing must be part of Ralston’s own dream. How could it not be? He’s an international bestselling author, for Godsake. No one put a gun to his head. He must love his work.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Andrew told her. “I don’t like working for him. He uses me and that’s all I do now. It pays the bills and I’m just fine living here. Until I can....”
“Until you can write something for yourself again...?”
Andrew felt suddenly restless, squirmish, uneasy and wary with this. Was she hinting at his personal life just then, his personal track record, could she know his intimate history, had brushed up on these things since their introduction to one another Friday? Or had he disclosed to her some disconcerting bit of information that Friday night that since then memory could not summon?
“I can’t write for myself anymore,” he found himself saying. “I just do what I do, and I live my life here. It’s a good life, actually.”
“Something’s not right here,” Mel told him in response, agitated, pressing further to the point. “Back up a minute. Tell me again, how exactly do you make a living?”
Numerous questions sprung from the inner wells of Andrew’s suspicions. Didn’t he make that clear to her? Surely he couldn’t have hinted of the truth during their discussion the other night! And why is she concerning herself so, over his income? Is her business hurting for a buck, is she spying around for the next great score with a good-looking guy and a notable meal ticket? Like Jessica, Ralston’s girlfriend, perhaps? Or is she behaving like the journalist, asking questions for media, while not really maintaining a personal interest in him at all?
Say it isn’t so!
“I’m sorry,” Melony told him and reached a hand out to his across the corner of the table that they shared. Andrew was quite oblivious in his momentary lapse of frustration. “I’m just asking. I’m curious. Maybe it’s the journalist in me. I wanna know more about you. It’s plain to see how working for Ralston Cooper upsets you so. You want to be a writer in your own right, and he just gets in the way. Doesn’t he? I’m sorry.”
Mel said nothing more than what she’d meant to and she knew nothing of the deep secrets kept between Andrew and Ralston. She was only too aware of other secrets even more unsaid and she would find her way towards them, regardless of how wrong or unfair it was beginning to seem. The interview was proceeding rather wel, and she was confident enough to request another brandy. Yet she had obviously struck a nerve in Andrew and it felt good to know she could ease whatever upset him outright and re-establish a bit of friendly trust between them both, as a good interviewer should.
But there was an element of mutual understanding growing here, haunting her with the realization of the obvious things they together held in common, of how the two of them had burrowed their careers into the unsatisfying comforts of two opposing mock-mentors, who each separately dictated the lives of Andrew and Melony to their highly successful demands, all the while denying the two of any success of their own. And to top it all off, one mock-mentor had virtually built a career upon pursuing the mysteries of the other.
And here was Andrew and Melony, on a date in Andrew’s apartment, the servile followers of two celebrity icons who wouldn’t be what they were today if it weren’t for what Andrew and Melony had done for them.
Andrew appeared to understand her, to accept her apology. Melony was beginning to understand all too well. She tamed herself from being so outwardly nosey. She had another forkful of wonton.
Andrew was absently busying himself with his chop sticks, toying with his soy-sauce-saturated chow mein. He was trying to read her, wondering what she was all about, but by now it was curiosity and not suspicion, which drove him to it. Mel was comforted to pick up on this, trying