Great Big Beautiful Life(11)
“Ms. Ives,” Hayden begins.
“Margaret,” she says, with a wave of her hand. “Just Margaret. Or Irene. That’s what everyone around here knows me as. Swapped my first and last initials. Guess I should’ve waited until after the NDAs to cop to that.”
She winks at me, and some of my unease about this arrangement fritters off, as if by magic.
“Don’t you think it would be easier to just—”
“Maybe,” Margaret cuts him off, smiling all the time. “But if you want something done right, you don’t go with easy. I’ve thought about it, and this is how I want to do it.”
“And what if one of us just bows out?” he asks.
She stiffens at this, the humor leaching from her eyes. “Well, I’m not just going to choose someone by default. I want options. So if one of you drops out—which is of course your prerogative—I’m still going to finish this monthlong trial with the other, before committing to anything. If I like what you’ve done, we’ll go from there.”
“So you’re saying,” Hayden bites out, “that we could both put a month of work into this, and you might not even decide to do the book?”
I’m surprised by how blunt he’s being, bordering on combative, but the gleam returns to Margaret’s eye and the corners of her naturally pink lips turn up. “That’s the deal.”
For the first time since I sat down, his eyes flash to me. “All right” is all he says. Not a word more, but somehow his tone makes it evident what he means: not All right, I understand or All right, I’ll consider it, but All right, I’m in.
Margaret’s smile widens as she spins toward me. “Miss Alice, what do you think?”
I think it through, ask myself whether there’s any reason not to stick around a few weeks and shoot my shot.
Who am I kidding?
I would’ve said yes even if she wasn’t paying. I would’ve drained my savings and put my job at The Scratch on the line and stood on my head while doing the YMCA with my legs if she asked.
I would’ve done just about anything for this opportunity.
“I’m in,” I tell her.
She claps her hands together. “Wonderful! This calls for a toast!” She hefts her martini glass into the air. Hayden, visibly skeptical, lifts his rocks glass to join her, and right as I’m about to point out that I don’t have a drink yet, Jodi drifts out of the shadows to set a tray down on the table.
A silver coffeepot. A steaming mug. A saucer of creamer and a little white bowl of brown sugar cubes. And next to it, a stack of tabbed documents.
Contracts.
I take my mug and lightly clink it against Margaret’s and Hayden’s cups.
Margaret lets out a refreshed sigh after she sips. “Now,” she says, “who’s hungry?”
* * *
? ? ?
After dessert—lemon meringue pie—Margaret is the one to walk Hayden and me back through the house to the front door. Only a couple of lamps are still on, and there’s no sign of Jodi, lending a bit more credence to my theory that she’s on the clock when she’s at Margaret’s.
“Now, you’ve both got your paperwork?” she double-checks as she opens the door for us.
“Yep!” I brandish the folder she gave me, and Hayden simply nods. He barely spoke at dinner either, just sort of glowered at whatever he was eating. I don’t know if it was my presence, or if this is how he always is, but it’s hard to imagine a man like this coaxing Len Stirling’s breathtaking, heart-squeezing story out of him, let alone finessing it into the beautiful version I read.
Then again, I know better than most that you can rarely tell who a person really is, or what they’re going through, just from looking at the surface of things.
For all I know, Hayden came straight to dinner from getting unwelcome personal news or arrived on Little Crescent straight off a breakup. In my experience, it’s best to give people the benefit of the doubt.
“And your pie?” Margaret asks.
Now both Hayden and I lift our little Tupperware containers of leftover fluffy meringue in confirmation.
“Well then,” she says with a wink. “My people will be in touch.”
“I can’t wait!” I tell her, going in for a hug before I can think better of it.
Luckily, she reciprocates with a tight squeeze across my back. “More to come, more to come,” she promises, then turns, with her arms wide, to hug Hayden. Only, he’s already lifted his hand to shake hers.
She laughs a little, but takes it warmly, between both palms. “You two get home safe,” she says. Then: “Where are you staying?”
“The Grande Lucia,” I say.
Hayden’s eyes cut sideways toward mine, his mouth twisting down for a brief moment before he faces Margaret again. “Grande Lucia,” he bites out.
“Oh, good!” she says. “Glad you won’t be far from a friend, if you need one.”
I flash Hayden a smile. He doesn’t look over.
“Anyway,” I say brightly, “we’ll get out of your hair.”
“And you get that paperwork back to me, so we can get started!” She ushers us through the front door and waves as we make our way down the path toward the road, so I wave over my shoulder every few feet or so, a game of Southern Hospitality Chicken, both of us waiting to see who cracks first.