Mr. Personality (5 page)

“I’ll be excited to read the first pages you send me.”

Hearing the tiredness in Cynthia’s voice, Max asked, “How’s Nadine’s chemo going? Has she started it yet?”

“No.” Her worry for her sister clear in her voice. “For me, the waiting is terrible, but the doctors tell her she’s got a good prognosis. The lumpectomy was simple and the area is small. We just have to do a few rounds of chemo and we’ll have the thing whipped.”

Hanging up the phone, he heard again the silence surrounding him, ticking through the empty apartment. Normally, when he was working, he had no awareness of the sounds, or lack there of, in his home or the street outside. He heard his inner voice, the pull of characters who demanded his attention and screamed at him to put them down on paper.

Now there were only ghosts in his head, faded images too similar to the ones peopling his last project. Nothing called to him, no original thought, no wisp of an idea flickered or caught fire in his head. He needed to find the damn book before its absence killed him.

Drawn further down the hall, Max stopped in the doorway, staring at the blue-tinged light emitting from the computer’s video screen. Normally, the thing went black when not in use. He had no idea why the screen was lit now. Hell, he didn’t even know why they couldn’t make the damn thing stay turned off when it wasn’t in use, but he’d had too many technophiles stare at him blankly when he’d suggested it.

There it sat, the flat-screened display glowing, the box beneath the desk humming. Thousands of dollars in the latest equipment. Why couldn’t he do it? Just sit down like a million other writers—hacks and functional dabblers alike—and beat out his own words? His brother, Pete, did it. Sat in his drab little third-floor apartment and tapped words into the computer himself. As Ruth had said, apparently people did care about pampering African Violets.

Of course, Pete didn’t have a Pulitzer to live up to or a publisher waiting with a eight figure contract. His brother had a publisher and contracts, but there was no other similarity between them.

And how had Max let himself think of “living up to” the Pulitzer? Long ago when the thing had been put into his careless eighteen year old hands, he’d sworn to himself that he’d never let it
matter.
All that mattered was the work.

The work that wouldn’t come. The words that eluded him like renegade balls of mercury on a tile floor.

Max sat down in the typists’ chair, his hands splayed on his knees. The keyboard, just in front of him, held the letters and numbers he’d known since he was three. Just letters and numbers, no mystery there.

Why couldn’t he make this work? Maybe pecking out his feeble attempts at writing wouldn’t finish the book, but it might give him a breather from the idiots he usually had to tolerate. No more typists.

Then again, he’d always had someone to input his words. While the other kids in his advanced high school had been playing games and programming computers, learning to negotiate their way through the droid brains of the machinery, he’d had someone typing for him. Even in school. Genius had some rewards, after all. His parents had been the first to acknowledge this.

Funny. All these years it had never occurred to him to wonder how many people were fed by the machinery of his own productivity. Ruth and Cynthia and how many others would be drug down with him?

CHAPTER THREE

“Calm down, Claire,” Nicole angled her head to hold the telephone receiver to her ear while she unpacked her suitcase. “I’m not living with Max Tucker.”

“No, you’re just working for him. For free! Are you nuts! You sneak into his apartment—which you shouldn’t have done—to convince him to leave your dad alone and you end up letting him talk you into doing his typing! I thought you were convinced he was an antisocial iceberg.”

“He is.” Despite the frigid tone of his words, she couldn’t shake the image of him with that lost expression in his eyes. Like the kids she taught, the boys who swaggered with machismo cool, but down deep ached for connection. Sometimes she had to laugh softly at the thought of herself mothering these half-grown boys when she wasn’t but a few years older than them.

Not that she had any urge to mother Max Tucker.

“He sounds like a bastard!” Claire’s voice sputtered.

“He’s walled off somehow, like that really smart kid I had in my fourth period class last year. You know, the one who wasn’t disruptive, but who never really interacted with the other kids?”

“Hey, he made me an offer that gets dad off the hook,” Nicole kept her voice low. Even in a five-star hotel like The Archer, people could probably hear through the walls.

There was a long silence.

“What are you not telling me. You’re not the type of person to let yourself get blackmailed into something like this. What’s really going on?”

“Nothing!” Nicole wasn’t about to tell her friend about her gut-level intuitions regarding Max Tucker. She didn’t want to have her friend speculating about why she really took the deal he’d offered. Two birds, one stone. Get her dad off the hook…and maybe get the chance to make a difference. She was such a sucker. She needed to enter a program that helped do-gooders deal with reality.

She knew her thoughts sounded like a damned
Pollyanna.
She really didn’t want to discuss them with Claire.

“Look, I didn’t see any other way to easily get dad off the hook. He actually did commit plagiarism. I’m a teacher, for heaven’s sake. I hate plagiarism! Dad made a pretty serious mistake, but I don’t want him losing what’s left of his shirt because of it.”
“This case isn’t that big a deal. A competent lawyer could easily make the case that Alton just made a mistake and that he didn’t significantly profit from his actions.”

”Lawsuits can take years to get to court. All the time, Dad would be worrying. You may be comfortable with legal wrangling, but to us regular people it means massive debt and heartache. I’m not going to stand by and let my father go through that even though he did plagiarize.”

“No, you’ve just bartered yourself to get your father off the hook. You’ll be spending your time—long days and nights—with a world-famous author who just happens to be a pain-in-the-butt. Are you nuts?”

“I’m just working with him for a few weeks. Nothing more. What does it matter that he’s rich and famous?”

“You told me yourself you think he’s attractive.”

“So what if he’s good-looking? He’s also cold and unemotional and…troubled. I’m not going to forget that. He wouldn’t
let
me forget. You should have heard what a bastard he was with the women who showed up to apply for this job. It’s no wonder he has a hard time keeping a typist.”

“And yet you’re working for him.”

“Only to get my father off the hook and only for six weeks. Besides, he doesn’t get to me the way he did to those women today.” Sure he was attractive, in a biting sort of way, and, yes, she found intelligent men sexy, but she wasn’t about to succumb to this one.

“The other women were wimps. I’m not going to dissolve into tears when he says something nasty about my typing.”

“Maybe not, but you just make sure you don’t ‘dissolve’ in any other way. Guys like him are used to getting their way and, from the sounds of it, you’ll be working ungodly hours in his apartment, just the two of you. Fatigue could leave you in a weakened condition, willpower-wise. This is a lousy idea.”

Nicole’s laughter held confidence. She couldn’t envision Maxwell Tucker finding any successful approach to get her into his bed. He was attractively intelligent in a cerebral knife-wielding way, but she wasn’t easily led astray. “I’m fine, Claire. This is just business. No hanky panky. He doesn’t even act interested in me and I’m sure as heck not interested in him in that way.”

“This guy is an amazing writer. You told me so yourself and you’re a sucker for smart guys. Just make sure you don’t do anything more than word processing for him. Be careful. You’re far too inclined to think the best of people.”

“You’re surely not implying that I can’t hold my own? Please.”

Claire was silence on the phone for several skeptical seconds. “Don’t be too sure you don’t ‘interest’ him. I mean, why else is he asking you to work for him?”

“Because he can’t get anyone else. Apparently, he’s got a really bad reputation with the employment agencies.”

“He’d have to be a pervert or something not to be able to get help and even perverts get people to work for them. A rich guy like that can always afford a lackey, no matter how big a bastard he is. I’ll bet money he makes a move on you.”

“I’m not sixteen.”

“No, you’re an idealist and that’s worse.” Claire’s voice was severe. “You’re also inclined to tunnel vision. When you get an idea into you head, you don’t know when to quit. You’re really good with your students, but let’s be realistic. Max Tucker isn’t your usual misunderstood youth. You have a sometimes unrealistic positive outlook that makes you over-estimate your neighbor’s good will!”

“Don’t worry.” Nicole smiled. She knew her weaknesses. As long as he kept locked up behind his sarcasm, she’d be more than able to control any romantic inclinations and she wasn’t nursing that big a savior complex, no matter what Claire thought. Her career had taught her to mix a good dose of realism with her optimistic tendencies.

* * *

“What does it matter what margins you use?” Max said, impatience in his tone. He stood beside the computer where Nicole Cavanaugh sat.

“Well, I could just start typing it any which way.” Her words were tart. “But I’m guessing your publishing house has rules for manuscript preparation. Don’t you have any clue about how this needs to be typed?”

“I employ people to handle the typing so I don’t have to think about those kinds of details. The people at Haskell Publishing will be happy to get whatever I give them.”

Nicole Cavanaugh rolled her eyes. Her scorn prompted him to say, “The usual
rules
don’t apply to me.”

Maybe that
was
arrogant, but it was true, he reflected with a tinge of bitterness.

“So I’m just supposed to start typing? Single spaced, using any weird font I like? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“You can call Haskell, if you want.” How the hell was he supposed to know about margins and fonts? He’d never
had
to know. “Call them and tell them you’re working for me. They’ll give you whatever you need.”

Picking up his yellow pad, he left the office.

Behind him, he heard her mutter something about needing her head examined, but he wasn’t tempted to laugh at her absurdity. Now that the typing issue was resolved, he was left with nothing but the blankness of his thoughts and a deadline looming ever closer. He had to somehow find this damned book.

The typical rules didn’t apply to him and his work, he knew. They never had. Some people might envy him that, but few knew the downside of perennially high expectations. All his life, he’d known what others required of him. He required the same of himself. Incredible insight mated with incisive prose. Nothing less.

Only now, with his gut clenched, he expected to turn the faucet of his thoughts and get no more than the coughing, sputtering sound of
dry.

Still he had to strive toward it. He couldn’t let go of his whole world without a fight.

Max climbed the polished wooden treads of the stairs leading to his bedroom suite. The landing on the staircase possessed a broad, low window, its mahogany sill wide. It was here he placed himself, leaning back against the window embrasure.

Something about this particular place had always focused his thoughts. Like a prism receiving light and separating it out into deep, pure bands of color, while sitting here at the window, his thoughts connected and spread out into the shapes and structures of his novels. At least, they had in the past.

Two years ago when he’d signed this contract, he’d indicated little about the content of the book. It had been years since an editor even suggested the need to approve his story ideas. Cynthia had complete faith in his instincts. Whatever he offered up, Haskell published gratefully. Only now he—

“Oh, that’s where you went.” Nicole mounted the stairs, her curious gaze falling briefly to the yellow legal pad on his lap, his Pilot pen idle in his hand.

“What?” He knew his irritation was clear.

“Where’s your phone book?” She tilted her blond head, looking at him expectantly. “I need Haskell’s number. I looked for an address book or something, but—“