3. Amanda

CHAPTER 3

Amanda

I wake up the next morning to Ana puttering around the kitchen and singing along to what sounds like an Estonian folk version of Mariah Carey's "Butterfly."

I groan and roll over, my head smarting a bit from the wine. It's been a while since I've drank a whole bottle. That whole first two weeks after the breakup, a morning hangover, and puffy eyes were pretty much routine, along with waking up among discarded tissues and melted pints of Ben & Jerry's, but I thought I was climbing out of the hole and finally getting used to being single. I guess not.

I check my phone, hoping to while away the time without getting up, but it's dead. Somehow I manage to drag myself out of bed and slip on my plush robe (it says "Hollywood Tower of Terror" on it—Alan bought it for me on one of our annual trips to Disneyland, something that hits me low in the gut, that pinch of knowing something you loved won't be a part of your life anymore). I sigh, trying to shake it off of me and then shuffle into the kitchen.

Ana is wearing my yellow apron and making pancakes, shaking her ample booty around to the song, which yes, is some weird foreign cover of "Butterfly." Odd how Mariah in Estonian is still very much Mariah.

She spins around, spatula raised like a microphone, and beams at me with squinty eyes overdone with mascara and purple eyeliner, her puffy lips stretched across her teeth. "Good morning, sweet one!" she says, giving another shake of her hips. "I'm making pancakes!"

"I can see that," I tell her, though when I walk over to the coffee maker and get a closer look at the frying pan, I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. "What are those lumps?"

"Oh, that is naeris and kaneel. Sorry, cinnamon. My grandmother's recipe. It's very good." She waves the spatula at the table. "Sit down, it's almost ready."

"I was just going to have my shake," I say, eyeing the cupboard where I keep my rice protein shake. It's bland, but it does the trick. I usually don't feel like eating a lot in the mornings.

"Sit," she says again. "You need your strength to hear all about my wonderful date!"

Ah, that's right. After I sent Blake the email last night, I ended up watching TV for a bit then passing out. I never got an email back from him before the phone died nor did I hear Ana come in last night.

"Okay, well, I'm going to need coffee for that," I say. I pour nearly the entire contents of the carafe into a giant mug that says Jamie Fraser's Sassenach on it, and sit down.

After a few sips, I start to perk up, and Ana slides one giant, fluffy yet somehow burnt pancake onto my plate. I poke it gingerly with my fork, a tiny puff of steam escaping like a bog of stench before smothering it in maple syrup.

"So how did it go?" I ask her, adjusting my ass on the seat to get comfortable. I'm going to be here for a long one. Good thing I don't have class until this afternoon .

Ana practically prances to the fridge and back to get orange juice before sitting down across from me.

"He was a very nice man," she starts off by saying. "Very nice. Not exactly what I thought he would look like but pretty close. Maybe three feet shorter."

"Three feet? That's a big difference." Especially when Ana is like six feet tall.

"Yes, he could look my boobs in the eyes, no problem." She pauses. "Also, he was bald. And Nigerian."

"Was he not supposed to be a bald Nigerian?"

She shrugs and keeps smiling. "He said he was from Saskatchewan, but I guess you can be both. And the picture on his profile is of a tanned man with lots of dark hair. But looks change."

"Sure," I say slowly, cutting off a piece of pancake.

"He also wasn't a teacher anymore. He was fired after he was caught selling drugs to the students."

"Oh my god," I say, glancing up at her. "How did you find that out? Did he tell you?"

"No, not really. The cops told me."

I put my fork down on the plate. She has my complete attention now. I'm immediately trying to figure out how to write this into my book, but with, you know, a fantasy slant. "The cops? How were there cops? What happened, are you okay?"

"Oh yes," she says. She nods at the pancake. "Try it."

"I will. Just tell me why you were consorting with the police."

"They thought I was a hooker."

Now I've heard everything. "And why the hell did they think that?"

She tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder. "Mister Nigeria thought that maybe that was something I would be interested in. We discussed it on the street corner, and I guess we looked suspicious."

I raise my palm. "Hold up, Ana, hold up. Are you saying this guy was a pimp?"

"No," she says quickly, almost defensive. "He's trying to be one. He said he needed a new line of business since he can't teach or deal drugs anymore."

I blink, trying to absorb it all and come to terms with the crazy in the lives around me. First Rio, now her. "So then the cops busted you."

"Yes, but they believed me, of course. Well, first they thought maybe I was a Russian mail-order bride, but I was able to prove my beauty school and everything. I showed them my portfolio on my phone and I even offered to do one officer's makeup, but she said that would be against the law. They arrested Mr. Nigeria in the end because he had violated his parole."

"Wait, wait…I thought you said you had a," I make air quotes, " wonderful date?"

She grins at me, wiggling in her seat. "I did. Before all that happened, he took me out for dinner. I had the veal parmigiana. It was really good."

I slowly nod, trying to find the joke in all of this, but I know she's one hundred percent sincere. Which is sad. There's being an optimist and looking on the bright side of life, and then there's finding joy in a free meal because you haven't had that kind of attention in a long time.

"Well, that's good," I say, picking my fork back up. "At least you enjoyed yourself."

I pop the pancake into my mouth and take a tentative chew.

Very cinnamony. The syrup drowns out most of the weird flavor.

Then I crunch hard on something and pause, my gag reflex threatening me.

"Uh, what is this again?" I manage to ask, my hand coming to my mouth, the bits of pancake not sure if they should go down or back out.

"Naeris and kaneel. Turnip and cinnamon. Local favorite. Though I don't think I boiled the turnips enough, sorry."

I make a gurgling kind of noise in surprise but eventually chew and swallow. She's watching me as I finish it off with a big gulp of coffee. "Well, there's nothing worse than an overcooked turnip," I manage to tell her.

She nods emphatically.

"So," I say, pushing around the rest of the pancake and trying to eat around the turnip bits. "Do you think you're going to give up on online dating?"

Her head jerks back as if I've said something totally disgusting. "And where do you suppose I'll meet a man?"

"I don't know. Like a normal person, out in the real world."

She stirs sugar into her coffee and stares down at it with amusement. "Oh, sweet one. You're so young, you should know more about this than me. Why don't you give it a try? It has been some time since Alan, yes?"

I shake my head. "I don't have time for guys."

"Everyone has time for sex," she says, her eyes gleaming. "Especially boys your age who blast off like a rocket."

"Oh joy, what a pity I'm missing out." I get up and artfully throw half the pancake in the garbage when she's not looking. "Between hearing about Rio's adventures on Tinder and whichever dating site you're finding these Nigerian pimps, I'm quite okay with being my single self."

All right, that's kind of a lie, especially since I was having a pity party for my singledom last night, but I have to admit it's sounding more appealing than Rio and Ana's love lives. At least my company is predictable, and my growing collection of vibrators never lets me down, even though as I was replacing the batteries last week, one did fall off the shelf, smacking me right in the cheek. Try explaining that black eye to your mother.

I'm still feeling in a bit of a funk though so I get into my running clothes before I can change my mind. Normally I run to an ever-evolving playlist, but I fear if I wait for my phone to charge, I'll lose my nerve, so I head out the door and start running.

I feel like mixing it up this time, so instead of heading onto Beach Drive as it skirts Oak Bay and the multitude of coves and waterfront houses like I normally do, I head in the opposite direction, running through winding suburban streets past the spires of the Victorian Craigdarroch Castle which was built by a coal baron in the late 1800s, which strangely doesn't look out of place in Victoria.

Victoria has always had a British slant to it, one of the reasons why I, and so many tourists, find the city so charming. Even today, a typical spring day with mild temps and a gloomy sky, there's something quaint and refreshing about it. All the lawns are manicured with perfectly trimmed hedges and crops of blooming bulbs. There's a profuse amount of brick that you don't normally find on the West Coast, and street addresses are done up in gold lettering. BMWs and Audis and the occasional minivan dot the tidy curbsides.

After the castle I head down Fort Street which is lined with small shops and antique stores, dodging the usual bums and women pushing strollers. I've never understood those people who run through a city's downtown, especially when there are so many beautiful places that don't have wandering drug addicts and lights and traffic and endless people, but now I kind of understand it. It makes your run more of a challenge, like you're completing an obstacle course. It turns into a game, and I always have to win the game.

Usually when I run, I go my usual distance but never push myself to go further because running is already hard enough. But by the time I end up at the massive Empress Hotel that overlooks the harbor, panting, red-faced, and dripping with sweat, I realize that I've run six kilometers which is double what I usually do, and that's just one way. I didn't curse myself or my jelly legs even once.

With the seagulls wheeling overhead, I lean against the railing and stare down at the boats in the marina below, a few whale watching charters heading out hoping to spot our local orca pods. The tourists are all bundled in red raincoats that hang to their knees, chatting excitedly and taking pictures of everything, including me.

Against my better judgement, I wave at them, and they wave back before their attention turns to a seaplane making a very loud and low entrance onto the water.

I breathe in deep, my heart finally slowing down, and turn around to contemplate whether I should walk back or run back. I didn't bring any money, so I couldn't take the bus even if I felt like it. My mind during the run was blissfully blank, but on the way back I will have plenty of time to think. There's this anxiety, restlessness running through me lately, causing my gut to twist, my heart to kick it up a few notches, usually late at night. I thought it was attributed to being without Alan, but now I'm not so sure.

I stretch my arms above my head, twisting to the side, when I suddenly see something that makes me freeze.

It's Blake Motherfucking Crawford.

He's got his sunglasses on, aviators like all assholes wear, and is walking up the sidewalk with a neon yellow tote bag that says Crawford's Books. For some reason I'm focusing on the tote, which doesn't exactly go with his Converse shoes, black jeans, grey T-shirt, and black leather jacket. And as he walks toward me, seeming not to notice that I'm almost standing in his way, I'm putting two and two together. Is he somehow involved with the bookstore around the corner?

And there it is, the slight flash of recognition in his brows as they dart up, lines in his forehead deepening. Yet he keeps walking.

"Um, hello?" I practically yell at him, throwing my arms out to the side.

"Amanda," he says, stopping but taking two steps back. He clears his throat. "Nice morning." He says this so warily, like the sky is about to fall on us. Given the weather here, he's probably not that far off.

"Yeah," I say, wanting to bring up the email, but my eyes drift back to the tote. "You aren't by any chance related to Crawford's Books?"

"What?" He looks down at the bag and winces. "Oh yes. Yes I am. And I work there. That's my father who incongruously ordered neon yellow tote bags because he thought they would be more eye-catching."

"Hate to say it worked," I tell him, and part of me wants to chalk up the fact that his father owns one of my favorite bookstores as a plus to his character (also the fact that he dropped incongruously in a sentence), but my innate dislike of him won't allow it. Even though our conversation is going okay so far, I automatically lean back and fold my arms across my chest, on the defensive.

He nods quickly, and even though I can't see his eyes, I know they're darting all over the place. His hand goes to the back of his neck, rubbing at it, and he clears his throat, all signs of being uncomfortable. I would have thought if I ran into Blake outside of class he would have free douchebag rein with me, but maybe I've misjudged him .

"Did you get my email?" he asks quietly.

So he did respond. I nod, totally lying. "Yup."

His brows pull together. "Really?"

"So uh, where did you want to meet again?" I ask, taking a guess at what he could have possibly said in response.

He's still frowning, his head tilting slightly like he's appraising me. "The library…tonight…seven p.m."

"Right," I say, forcing a smile on my face. "Luckily I'm free."

"Yeah…well. I'm going to head to the store." He starts to walk off and then looks back at me over his shoulder. "So, you're sure about tonight?"

I give him a look. "I want to get this project over with as much as you do."

He licks his lips and nods. "Gotcha. See you then."

"Yeah, see you," I say, watching him walk off, my eyes briefly resting on his ass before I tear them away. Okay, so that was weird. He was the last person I expected to see and the last person I wanted to see, and yet he was acting like he was afraid of me. No jabs, no nicknames, no snide remarks. If it wasn't for the fact that he was acting so cagey, I would have said he was almost polite.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. Is it possible that I'm wrong about Blake? Maybe my email made him realize how much I mean business. I might have intimidated congeniality into him.

What I do know is I need to read that email, and so even though my legs and lungs are protesting, I start running back home.

Luckily it doesn't take long for my phone to boot up and for me to access my emails.

I click on Blake's reply without much thought.

I wish I hadn't .

Hey Sugar Tits,

I admit I didn't understand most of your email since you used all them big words and all. But heck, I like a woman who knows her right from her left. I can't promise I'll be a brilliant writer but I will promise to annoy the ever living fuck out of you every opportunity that I get. Seeing that I'll be monopolizing most of your time, because no I don't believe we should work on this separately, you better get used to my handsome face real quick. I can't promise you'll love it, but I certainly will. Maybe you can start doing me a favor and bringing a roll of duct tape to our meetings. I know you're probably too prudish to be tied up but it could come in real handy across your mouth when you start spewing all your high and mighty garbage. Then again, you are a girl and I've been programmed to tune most of your words out. We'll see.

Anyway, no need to use your pretty little brain as I already have several story ideas that I'm working on that you might like.

Cum for the T-Rex (a zany story about dinosaur sex and the women who go back in time to seek them)

Death by Farts (people die by hiccupping all the time and it makes the news, so why not this? Could be an investigative journalism piece)

Ms. Know-it-all and Her Lonely Life (could be your autobiography but I won't get presumptuous. Oh look, I know what that word means).

I'm sure you'll find at least one of these suitable.

Look forward to seeing you, tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the library. Be there or be square.

Wait, too late.

Blake.

I'm floored .

And then angry.

So very fucking angry.

No wonder he was acting that way earlier, he was probably expecting me to punch him in the face, and fuck, I really should have! Maybe gone for his overused nuts right afterward.

With my pulse thudding in my throat, I go back and read over the email I sent. Again, it's wordy, and yeah I was trying to make him feel like an idiot, so sue me. But it didn't justify his response whatsoever. And now, now he thinks that I just took it, that I'm totally cool with being addressed as Sugar Tits. Who does he think he is, Mel Gibson?

"Aaaargh!" I roar, bursting into the living room where Ana is sitting on the couch, totally engrossed with a soap opera that's been on since before I was born.

She cocks an eyebrow at me and it's only now that I realize she's at the "brow phase" of her beauty school, because it looks like two singed caterpillars have laid down on her forehead to die. I have a hard time staring at her eyes without my gaze drifting upward to the hairy, pencilled massacre.

"What's wrong?" she asks idly.

She means aside from her eyebrows.

I flop down on the couch next to her. "You know that asshole from my writing class?"

"Yes, the British babe."

I flinch, giving her a look of disgust. "Babe? What the hell are you on?"

"Percocet and vodka," she says cheerily. "Remember I met you after your class one day and he was there. Tall. Nice smile. Thick hair. A butt you want to bite." She clacks her teeth together.

My lip curls. "No." I shake my head. "He's not a babe or an anything except a fuckfart. "

"Fuckfart," she repeats. "New word?"

I sigh. "Yes, but don't use it, it's patented. Anyway, I'm paired up with him for the final project in Marie's class. I have to write a novella with him."

I expect her to make a face but she's still smiling. Must be the Percocet cocktail.

"Oh, this is going to be fun," she says, wiggling her fingers, her prismatic gel nails catching the light.

"No," I admonish her, twisting in my seat to see her better. "It's not going to be fun , Ana. You know how important this class is to me. He's some playboy who thinks he's on an extended vacation. He doesn't take anything seriously. His email is proof of that, and he's going to sink my grade. On purpose now."

She doesn't look as worried as I feel she should. I mean, she does realize that if I fail, she'll have to hear about it until she ends up moving in with the Nigerian. "Have you talked to your teacher? Or him?"

"Both. Kind of. I bumped into him on my run, but at the time I hadn't read his email yet. I was actually nice to him. Nice!"

She turns back to the TV, the adventures of Eduardo the doctor enthralling her once again. "Maybe it's good. Let you be the bigger character."

"I don't want to be the bigger character ."

Ana gives me an earnest look. "Do you want me to deal with him?" she asks in such a measured voice that I move back from her an inch.

"Uh no, that's okay." Whether she knows some old Soviet murder technique or just wants to yell at him while shoving her boobs in his face, I say hell no to her involvement.

"Suit yourself," she says with a shrug.

I head to my room and think about texting Rio, but she'll just tell me to pull up my big girl panties, put on some gangsta rap, and deal with it. I then think about writing the appropriate rebuttal to Blake, but I stop myself. He'll get an earful tonight at the library, and if he refuses to apologize or budge an inch, then I'm taking it to Marie with that email as proof.

Emboldened with my new resolve, I shower and get dressed and head to school to catch my back to back classes of Early American Literature and Journalism, even though I can't concentrate on a goddamn thing. When they're over, I've got two hours before I have to meet with Blake, and there's really no point in going home and coming back, so I take the time to get to the library early and do some writing of my own, on something that actually counts.

The Land of Tears and Bone is my fantasy novel, the secret pride and joy of my life, and a world where I'd rather spend ninety-nine percent of my days. I say secret because even though my family knows I'm writing it, they don't ask any questions about it and basically pretend it doesn't exist. Well, that's not true. The other day my mother asked if I was still writing about the occult. My mom goes a little nuts with her Christianity and thinks all fantasy novels must be derived from Satan somehow. Yeah, she's one of those people who thinks Harry Potter should be banned (and not because JKR is a garbage person).

My sister, Dahlia, has a little more interest, but she's busy living on a farm somewhere in the British Columbian interior, rarely has access to the internet, and she doesn't have a cell phone for various reasons, some of which I totally get. She's a bit of a nomad and a hippie, and honestly always has been, but don't think my parents weren't disappointed in her when she announced she wasn't going to university and instead running off with her tree-planting boyfriend I call "El Beardo." I'm still not sure what his real name is, but he does have one hell of a beard.

It doesn't really matter in the end. Most people I talk to don't take writing seriously. If I tell them I'm an aspiring author, they get that "yeah right" look on their face, which is usually followed by "good luck with that." Then there are the people I went to high school with, the kids I grew up with, family, friends, anyone from that crowd. Writing isn't seen as something respectable, and that's something they, and my parents, still firmly believe in. So, when I can, I don't mention anything about my work-in-progress and I gloss over the creative writing part of my degree.

Thank god for the people in my program because I can talk to any of them about writing and they get it. Maybe our aspirations are all different—Rio thinks it will be a hobby for her and wants to teach English overseas when her degree is over—but our fears are all the same.

Except for Blake. Blake is the enigma, the person who doesn't quite fit in. I feel comfortable baring my soul through the written word with anyone in that class except for him. It's like he's an intruder, someone to watch and spy and pass judgement without offering up anything of himself. That's not to say he hasn't written anything, but I truly doubt it comes from anywhere genuine. His work carries none of his soul.

The minute I step into the library, I exhale, closing my eyes for a moment to take in the familiar smell. There's a twinge of regret in my gut, and I wish Blake hadn't chosen one of my sacred writing places for our meeting, but I push on and ignore it. I go and find a table tucked away in the corner on the second level, and set myself up, opening my laptop, plus my one notebook for plotting and the other for world-building. The world-building one is a hell of a lot thicker than the plotting one. I get extremely carried away with the research aspect of the novel, and I have been filling up the tome for many years.

I haven't written for the last week, and while I'm eager to get back into it, I also stopped at a difficult part. I've written forty percent of the book and have hit a bit of a block. My character, Luthwen, is in the middle of his quest, and his ragtag group of characters, including a beautiful half-bird woman named Phenolope, are becoming integral to his journey…but I'm bored. There's a few scenes I have to go through before the first battle, and it's lagging. I know it's common for the middle of a book, but I haven't figured out how to keep my interest or the readers' that may one day read it, even though I've peppered the middle with exciting chapters.

Part of me thinks that maybe a romance between Phenelope and Luthwen could happen. It certainly feels natural, despite the characters butting heads. But I swore I wouldn't inject romance into this novel. First of all, far too many fantasies have them and they feel poorly written and unnatural, like they're thrown in there to keep the readers happy and not the author, or the authors think it will attract a whole new set of readers to their genre when it won't. Romance readers want romance, they don't want it with a plot about bird women and wizards and monsters that look like a giant ant crossed with a spider. They might not want it with a plot at all, so let's not pretend.

So I do what I always do when I'm stuck—research. That's probably why I've been writing this beast for two years. Every time I hit a road block I throw myself into something I can depend on. In this case, I get books about Greek mythology, the history of the Druids, and a Piers Anthony novel and bury my nose in them, getting as much inspiration and detail as possible while munching on garlicky kale chips and chocolate-covered espresso beans for sustenance (not at the same time).

I guess I'm so engrossed in reading rather than writing that time slips away from me. I don't even notice Blake until it's too late.

.