35. “Norwegian Wood”

35

"NORWEGIAN WOOD"

THE BEATLES

I raced home from league on Tuesday with just enough time to meet Mr. Rizzo.

When I met him on the driveway, he was making notes on a clipboard, but he looked up as I approached. He was wearing shorts, a golf polo, and leather driving shoes with no socks and his thick, close-cropped light brown hair had apparently not gotten the same memo as his prominent midsection that he'd reached middle age. And while I could have been bowled over by a feather to learn he had not been a forward on an Olympic rugby team, his light brown eyes were kind, and reflected his easy smile.

"Mr. Rizzo, I'm assuming? I'm Paige."

"Please call me Frank," he said in an accent reminiscent of the ‘Da Bears' SNL skit. He thrust his enormous bear paw out toward me for a proper greeting, and I shook it as heartily as I could with my own doll-sized hand. He felt a little like home, and I realized this was probably why my uncle had clicked with him as well. There's something about that accent that takes you right back to the midwest, no matter where you are in the world .

"I was just counting your non-street parking spots. I have six in my notes from when I was here before. I was really hoping your uncle was going to get that B I have tons of family from Chicago that would have loved to stay here."

"Any chance one of them wants to write a book? They might still have a chance."

"They'd write a phone book to have the chance to stay here. Shall we?"

We made our way to the back door where Roxy was high-pitched barking to be let out so she could meet our guest. "Brace yourself."

"I love dogs. Let ‘er rip!"

After Roxy had thoroughly inspected our guest and found him to be woefully underprepared in the tennis ball department, we were able to go in. We walked through the areas of the house that would be open to the retreat guests while he made notes. It went quickly, and we were back on the driveway within thirty minutes.

"It looks as if your uncle made a lot of improvements since the last time I was here. I don't see anything that would cause a problem, so once your application comes through, I should be able to fast-track it. We have a thirty-day period for local residents to file any grievances, but once that period is over, I'm confident you'll have the green light from us."

My shock was probably written all over my face. I had not expected that part of the process to go so smoothly. But I knew I still had a little while to wait before I could start celebrating. "We just signed the papers to transfer the title, so I can get the application filled out today and drop it off for you tomorrow. How often do residents have grievances during this process?"

"Not very often. If we do hear something before the next meeting, I can give you a heads up so you can try to smooth things over ahead of time. "

"That would be wonderful. Thank you for handling your inspection so quickly. I expected this part of the process to take months. Now I need to get moving on everything else."

Frank laughed and shook his head. "Luckily, I had been here before, so we already had a file open. And it's my pleasure. I'll be in touch."

Once he left, I realized it was barely twelve-thirty, and I still had the entire day ahead of me. I headed to my office to prepare for my meeting with Caleb the next day.

By the next morning, I had not only finished plugging my outline into the plotting software, but I had developed my characters, printed them out, highlighted the most important parts of their personalities and characteristics that I wanted to make sure I focused on in my story, and I also had a proposal ready for him to discuss him coming in to teach a few sessions during my retreats.

Peggy was busy with a young reader who had a stack of books so tall in front of her on the counter, she couldn't even see over it. I caught her eye as she was explaining the limit to the budding bibliophile, and I gave her a conspiratorial wink. I was again set up and ready to go in 'our' meeting room when Caleb arrived. I had some butterflies flitting around every time I thought about talking to him about teaching a retreat session. I was wary of asking too much of him when he was already helping me out so much already, but I knew I needed to suck it up and ask anyway. He had been such a great resource to me and I knew he was the perfect choice.

Caleb arrived right on time (as usual), took a sweater out of his backpack, and put it on over his t-shirt. "It's always so chilly here. I don't mind air conditioning, living in a climate like this, but it doesn't have to rival the temperature in my refrigerator. "

"No kidding," I said, wishing I were better prepared for the arctic-chilled meeting room.

He took his laptop out of his backpack and set it on the table. "Tell me how the week went."

I was positively beaming. "I got so much done. I feel like I'm ready to start writing, but I wanted you to look it over to make sure. My fingers are itching to get started."

"That's so great to hear! Let's see what you've got."

Caleb was silent and thoughtful as he paged through my binder full of character profiles and my printed outline.

"This is excellent work. How do you feel about it?"

"I feel like my story is in a really good place. It feels solid. I'm sure I'm going to have some plot holes and I'll need to add a lot after I get through the first draft. But just feeling as if I can get through a first draft is incredible."

"I completely understand. There's nothing better than getting through all this work and writing ‘The. End'."

I could feel the tears welling up behind my eyes. "I can't wait to get started."

We spent about thirty minutes scanning through the outline. He showed me where the obvious chapter breaks were and what each of my three acts would include. After that, we took a look at my characters, and he made some suggestions for additional scenes I might need. I took notes as he spoke, picturing him imparting this wisdom onto my retreaters.

Caleb continued flipping through my binder, nodding and tapping his pen on the table. "This all looks solid, Paige. But remember, as you go along, you're going to find that you need to add or delete scenes, or maybe add a character or two, or change their personality, change what they wear, or give them some kind of funny quirk or nuance that you hadn't thought of at this point. But that's the nature of storytelling. Things are going to change and evolve as you go along. If you consider that part of the adventure, then you will embrace these changes, because they will only make your story better. How much time do you have over the next week?"

"Well, the planning for the writers' retreat is turning into a part-time job. There is actually something that I wanted to talk to you about. I hesitate to even bring this up, because you have already been so helpful, and I don't want to keep asking you for more and more of your time…" I trailed off, hesitant. "One idea that I had was to offer some professional development sessions for the attendees."

"That would be a great idea! And who did you have in mind?" he said with a wink, picking up on the nervous energy that pulsed around me like a Vegas nightclub.

"Grace, one of the women helping me put this together, has published six books and is working on her seventh. She's offered to teach a few sessions, and I'm really hoping that you would be willing to do what you've done for me during a few sessions."

His eyes lit up. "I would love that. Is lunch involved?"

Relief flooded through me. "Absolutely! As much as you want. Take home leftovers. How much would you charge for each session? I want to pay you for your time, and I want to make sure I'm pricing the retreats appropriately."

Caleb laughed. "Does seventy-five dollars and a muffin per session sound fair?"

"More than fair. You could probably even get away with two muffins."

"You've got a deal. If you tell me when and where I will be there. Helping authors find their hidden talents and strengthen their writing is what I'm meant to do right now, and I'd be happy to help you."

"You're amazing. I can see why you and my dad are friends."

"Next time you talk to him, tell him I said hi, and he'd better give me a call when he comes into town." With that, he stood up and packed his laptop into his backpack, followed by his carefully folded sweater. "Shall we say a week? You'll have at least six thousand words by then, I imagine."

"I'll be happy with six thousand words. It's more than I've been able to write so far," I said, feeling hopeful about completing this goal for the first time since I'd given up on the first book.

By the time we walked out of the library, I had a clear direction for my book—and my life. That feeling would last until I reached the back of the parking lot.