a good plan. And it worked until I got to the kitchen, looking for something starchy to help me regain my inner balance, and heard Posey talking.
“Go ahead and explain it to him. Maybe he has some ideas for better execution.”
That definitely sounded like she was setting him up, but all he could do was stumble along the conversational mine field until he figured out an escape route or blew himself up.
“I was drunk,” I said. “You say things when you’re drunk that—”
“You peed off most of your buzz by the time we ended up in bed. It was a good plan. Tell him.”
My head was starting to spin now. Confusion and panic were adding to my hangover and paranoia.
“What? Bed? Did we—”
“No. We watched TV and I kicked you to the couch when you kept snoring. Now tell him the plan.”
“That’s really not a good idea.”
“See, I told you,” Farmington said. “He’s all talk and bravado in workshop but when given a legitimate chance to do something with his work, he crumbles into a—”
“You really want to hear this?” I asked. “I don’t get it. What are you trying to do to me?”
“To you? I want to do this for you,” Posey said.
I took the insulated Disney princess mug of coffee Posey offered me and sat down at the kitchen table. The kitchen was the oldest part of an old house occupied mostly by students without the skill or desire to provide proper upkeep. The chair wobbled when I sat down and it was enough of a jolt to make me wonder if, instead of hung over, I was still drunk.
“Let’s say we do this,” I said. “How do you suggest we start?”
What was I even saying? Why would Farmington be part of his own kidnapping? They had to have an angle and damned if I couldn’t figure out what it was. I needed to get out of there and get my head clear and see if I could shake anything helpful loose on my own turf.
“I have to go to work,” Farmington finally said. “Maybe you two can—”
“Tell him about the first story,” Posey said. “The one you told me last night. You know, Murder Boy.”
“Story?”
“For the collection. You know. For your thesis.”
“Ohhhhhhh. My thesis. I thought you were talking about the other thing.”
The dominos were beginning to fall and I could feel clouds lifting from my head as the file drawers in my brain that had been knocked loose slid back into place. We were talking about writing, not kidnapping. Apparently at some point during the evening I had confessed to Posey my secret passion of wanting to do a short story collection instead of a novel for my thesis project along with my plans for a boozily plotted kidnapping scheme. Wait, had I just ruined the plan before I even knew what it was?
“What other thing?” Farmington asked.
“Nothing,” Posey said. “Like he said, he was drunk.”
“Yes, Drunk,” I said. “Drunk…”
“If we’re going to work together,” Farmington said to me. “You’re going to have to increase your verbal skills.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Wait. Really? You want to work with me on this.”
“Make that your verbal and your listening skills.”
Farmington kissed Posey on his way out of the house and I sighed deeply and then Posey smacked the back of my head.
“What the fuck?” She said.
My head grazed the coffee cup in front of her, sending it rolling off the table and crashing to the floor, which added an extra layer of ringing in my head.
“You could have blown everything.”
“I wake up and the first thing I see is him standing over me with a water bottle?” I said. “Excuse me for being a bit off.”
“I was trying to help you and you almost got both of us—”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Do we really need to go through this again?”
“Again?”
“Last night. We had a long discussion about your goals and dreams. You cried a lot and threw up a bit. That’s when you told me about the story collection and how you hate writing books with plots and want to write little stories of character.”
“That sounds like something I would say...”
“And it sounds great. Great for you, because it’s just the sort of thing Parker likes and good for him because, between you and me, his career’s kind of in neutral and he could use an exciting book like this to generate some buzz for both of you.”
“So you’re out to help him, not me?”
“I’ve got to get to class, but—”
“Class isn’t in session is it? I thought we were done with classes. I hope I haven’t—”
“It’s one of those two week mini semesters. Part of it meets here and then part of it meets up at a ski lodge in Traverse City. Parker’s coming with me, so you two should get as much done as you can in the next day or so to set the foundation. Come back over here around five and I’ll make dinner for all of us and some wine and you two can work while I pack.”
They both then left me alone on the couch to deal with what had just happened. I was happy, until I started thinking more about it. Thinking has always been a weak point of mine. While my own hyper-self-awareness gave me my strength as a writer, it was a double-edged sword that routinely led to paralyzing panic. In this case it led to more vomiting. And then a shower.
I WAS at a table in the university library writing when Parker Farmington found me. Rather, I was doing what passed for writing in my special world. After typing a few words in the open document on my computer, I switched over to Twitter and tried to build my brand. It was a nice place for a socially backward guy who was good with words to build connections in the crime fiction community without creeping anyone out. I managed to ride the line between clever and offensive for a while before typing something stupid and deleting it. Then I typed a few more words before Googling recent book deals. I was always hoping to see a rash of books sort of like the one I was working on but not too similar so I wouldn’t be accused of piggybacking. I padded my total word count for the day with an inane dialogue sequence I was sure would later be deleted and was about to shut down my laptop when Farmington sat down across from me.
“The only reason I agreed to your inane little plan,” Farmington said, “is because I need Posey to keep her mouth shut about our relationship.”
“Because sleeping with your teaching assistant is creepy and against the rules even if you’re the same age?”
I
