― Robert Galbraith
Juliet
Every writer has his nemesis and mine is a lovely goddess named Juliet Fields who seems to match me poem for novel until it gets to the point where I don't know if she's following me or walking in my footsteps.
Don't get me wrong, she's not a plagiarist but a rival who has an uncanny knack for channeling everything I'm thinking. I think she's blessed with the second regard and is either a medium or skilled telepath.
Whatever her gifting, she's the bane of my existence.
I'm sitting at The Coffee Mill at my usual table and Anton has already dropped my morning latte and I think I'm going to need another or maybe just get him to rig up an IV to give it to me direct. Yeah, it's one of those Mondays.
"You look like hell, Cole―haven't you been getting enough sleep lately?"
I look up into Juliet's angelic face. I have no idea how she looks so put together, so early in the day.
"Actually, I couldn't sleep―have a lot on my mind lately. Are you here to snoop on my latest book? I'll give you a hint―it's a mystery."
"Yeah, it's a mystery all right because you're blocked. You haven't written anything in a week. It happens―you come to the end of yourself and the creative juices just dry up. Maybe that's why you've been meeting with Shannon Holmes―trying to work out a film deal now that you can't go any further with your writing."
My jaw drops. How in the hell does she know what I've been up to? The girl's been reading my mail.
She's smirking and I'm smarting from the pain. I know I shouldn't take the bait, but hell, she just insulted me.
"I don't know how you know that but I'm not meeting with Shannon Holmes for a movie deal―it's a whole new venture and maybe that's what galls you the most, I'm going somewhere I've never gone before and you're frustrated because you can't follow."
"Hmmm, going somewhere you've never gone before? It sounds like a lame reprise of Star Trek. Why don't you write something original instead of copying me? Yeah, that would be boldly going into new territory in search of strange new worlds."
That's a bridge too far even for Juliet.
"Arghh! I can't deal with this now. Unlike you, I have a life and a book to write. Get your P.I. or your little spies to snoop a little closer. Believe me, Girl, even if you knew what I was planning, you wouldn't be able to imitate what I was doing."
She gasps in mock indignation and with a head toss displaying silken tresses, storms off into the January deepfreeze, the steamed up windows of the cafe hiding her stormy exit.
And yes, I feel guilty and strangely bereft, but console myself with the lame excuse that she deserved it. Still, I don't like to hurt people or things and I regret I didn't ask her to join me for coffee.
And no, I can't explain why I'm like this―I guess I just have to live with it.
I spend the next hour struggling to write even one line but come up with nothing. Damn her eyes, I inwardly swear, but even that tells more than I'd like to admit. Her eyes are silent like midnight snow falling in the woods―well, at least now I have a line for a poem...and an aching feeling inside me.
I get my stuff together to call it a morning and head home when my cell rings―it's Tobias, my agent.
"Hey Cole, hope it's not too early in the day to phone you. We checked out Shannon Holmes' proposal and it's a sound offer. They tried to reach you but you weren't home, so just letting you know―they want to schedule a production meeting for tomorrow."
"Full steam ahead, then?"
"Yeah, give them a call to confirm―they said 10 a.m. at the studio on Yonge Street. Hope it's a good meeting."
I hang up on Tobias and sit back in my chair staring out the cafe's bleary window. I don't know why I feel forlorn. It's as if I have a sense of some impending tragedy.
It's just a meeting―a chance to go in a way I've never gone before. Why does the unfamiliar always frighten me?
I try to shake off the feeling and tell myself this is an opportunity, not the ding dong of doom knelling my imminent demise. I struggle to break free of the melancholy but feel trapped as Hamlet on the rampart trying to convince himself the Ghost is not real and there'll be an end to the gloominess.
The problem is that respite hasn't happened yet and if anything, my angst has intensified.