NovelConcepts

The Greatest Story Ever Written - Part 5
                                                                    Judy Meadows taking over for Rebecca Grace
               

So Nick’s mother knew he was writing romance. And she wasn’t laughing at him. She even seemed to find his writing to be…well…interesting. Wow.

But now she was standing in front of him with her hands on her hips and that FBI interrogator’s expression he remembered from his teenage years. “So what are you doing with Clarisse Heartfelt’s purse?”

Clarisse, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, cleared her throat. She said, “Start with the truth, kid. I’ll think of something.”

Nick kept his eyes on Clarisse as he began his explanation. “Well, I was talking to Clarisse after the convention…”

His mom raised her clenched hands to her chest. “Oh my gosh, you met Clarisse Heartfelt?”

“Yes, mom, and she was really nice.” Well, that was a fib.

Clarisse grinned. The expression on her usually arrogant face almost did look nice. “Tell her I gave you the manuscript. Tell her it was my dying wish that you should finish it for me. In fact, you can tell the whole world that. It’s entirely plausible, you know: you were seen with me when I was dying. Someone probably even took a picture of you bent over me with your lips on mine.”

“Okay,” he said doubtfully, and he passed that explanation on to his mom.

Amazingly, she accepted his story. “I can’t believe you met Clarisse Heartfelt and she actually entrusted you to finish her last novel. Wait ‘til I tell Theresa.” She went off to call her sister, and Nick headed for his room.

Clarisse beat him there. He found her sitting on the edge of his bed when he opened the door. “Good job,” she said. She had the pink bag with her. She opened it and began spreading papers out on the bed. “Okay, now we have to get down to work. We have a novel to finish.”

“What do you expect me to do? You’ve written dozens of novels without any help from me.”

“Yes, I have, and they were darned good ones too, but it seems that, since my unfortunate demise, the keyboard no longer recognizes my touch.”

“Oh, yes, I see… So you want to dictate the rest of the story to me?” That wouldn’t be too hard.

“Well, yes, I’ll be doing some of that. But parts of the book are eluding me. You may be the perfect person to give me some help.”

“Me?”

Clarisse took a deep breath and let out a longsuffering sigh. “Yes, you. I’m having trouble infusing my hero with the kind of passion my readers expect. He’s not my usual rich, handsome, alpha guy. This one is good-looking—which you are too, by the way, except maybe for that schnoz of yours—but he’s kind of meek and nerdy like you. I need you to describe the deep, passionate feelings and thoughts that are coursing through you when you’re fumbling through an encounter with a girl.

Nick blushed. She thought he was handsome. But she also thought he was a nerd and that his nose was too big. Well, she was right about the nose… Come to think of it, she might be right about the nerdiness too.

She thought there were deep, passionate feelings beneath his social awkwardness. Were there?

Clarisse stretched out on his bed while he read a scene in her manuscript that described when the hero, Dexter, met the heroine, Becky.

“Well, yes, Dexter is a bit stiff,” Nick said when he finished. “He doesn’t talk much.”

“Right.” Clarisse sat up and pierced Nick with an intense gaze that seemed to be trying to reach into his brain and pull out a few paragraphs. “Let’s see if we can get him talking. Describe for me what a nerd like him would have felt when the wind took Becky’s hat and he ran after it and came back and placed it on her head.”

“Oh jeez, I don’t know.” He was picturing Ronnie in the role of Becky. He saw Ronnie’s blonde hair blowing in the wind and remembered the happy sparkle in her eyes. He imagined her looking up at him as if he really were a hero, not just a geek who’d managed to catch a hat. He had no idea what he’d say; he’d probably be tongue-tied. He’d just want her to keep smiling at him like that. Surely anything he said would shatter the mood.

Clarisse had asked what he would feel in such a situation, and the truth was he didn’t know. He said, “I’ve never analyzed how I felt at a time like that.

”

“Well, you’re going to have to start.” She walked across the room and picked up his cell phone from the desk. She held it out to him. “We need to get you a date. Go ahead, call someone. Call that sweet little blonde from the hospital.”

“You mean Ronnie?”

“Yeah, that one.”

He took the phone in one hand and stuck his other hand into his pocket to find the scrap of paper with Ronnie’s phone number on it. “What am I supposed to say?”

Clarisse threw up her arms in a gesture of surrender. “Cripes, kid, you’re hopeless. Didn’t she tell you to call if you wanted to talk about ‘things’? Ask her to dinner. Tell her you’re still struggling to get over my death or something.”

“I guess I can do that. But if I call her and if she agrees to go out with me, you have to stay out of it. I’d like some privacy while I’m getting to know Ronnie.”

Clarisse rolled her eyes. “Oh for chrissake, kid, this is research. I have to come with you. And who knows? Maybe I can give you a few tips on how to win a girl’s heart…”

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Who wins? Does Clarisse go with him on the date (choice A) or does he talk her out of it (choice B)?

Voting ends Tuesday night at 11 pm.