Read Online Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen - Free Book Online Page B

than a fairy’s, which Ben would like.
    That year, Rose stopped writing and even researching altogether. Her genius husband joked that they should turn out some potboilers together, just to get themselves writing again (though he’d never stopped). “I’ll do a military thriller,” he said, “and you do a bodice ripper.” And back then, when things were still fun, he ripped her bodice right off and they celebrated their new idea.
    Only a genius could turn out a military thriller with the kind of military precision Fred did. He had obsessed over military strategy when he was a kid and he was putting it all to use now. As a joke, he sent his first manuscript,
The Pentagon Conscription
, to Holly, and she said that if he used a pseudonym she could sell it for six figures. She sold it for seven.
    Were the twins Rose’s way out of producing something equal to her husband’s output? She never did write that bodice ripper, needless to say. With twins, you don’t have time for anything. So now Fred Arbuthnot, certified MacArthur genius, was turning out thrillers under the pseudonym Mike McGowan. They were a little disappointing in terms of sales at the beginning; then the first in the series was picked up by Hollywood and rushed into production. It starred Christian Bale and almost bagged Keira Knightley her Oscar. Now they were casting the third installment,
The Benghazi Contraction
, this time with a colossal budget. All the book promo was done by texts and social media by Mike McGowan’s team—Holly had hired them all—and what made the movie tie-in edition even bigger was the fact that no one knew exactly
which
literary genius Mike McGowan was.
    Apparently Jonathan Safran Foer was furious that everyone thought it was he.
    Rose stood up and regarded her two creations. A good day’s work. And I didn’t overthink them. She hoped she’d see the wrinkly man again.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    Fred Arbuthnot reluctantly pointed his cursor to Turn AirPort Off and almost clicked. He had watched almost an hour’s worth of movie clips already, and was in danger of wasting his entire morning yet again. He was still adjusting to the household without Rose. As bad as things had been with them, he’d felt a giant ache when she wasn’t beside him last night. He had gathered up pillows and wedged himself into a feathery fort to get to sleep. Very childish.
    He only had to babysit the twins for a few more days before he took them up to his sainted sister-in-law’s house. Thank God. He was so in love with Bea and Ben but they were merciless. He had a break now—they were at the three-hour “day camp” across the street, run by two enterprising overachieving students from one of the local charter schools. He’d already completely revised the new manuscript to give the female foil more lines, more scenes, more depth. She was the only character in the book who was actually real to him. He’d better watch out or he’d get good reviews on this one.
    His new film deal included “meaningful consultation” on casting (after the misstep of Kate Upton as the cross-dressing scientist in the last film—luckily just a cameo), and at first he was willing to leave it all in the new director’s hands; Sam Mendes rarely made mistakes. He started watching audition reels of actresses reading for the lead—some of them so famous he wondered why they would even need to audition. He’d only taken a cursory glance at most of them. Until he started obsessing over one of them.
    God, she was beautiful.
    Fred knew that he didn’t really have a chance of getting Caroline Dester on the film unless the director wanted her there. His consultation was just a sop, to keep the producers aware that Mike McGowan’s name sold tickets and popcorn and to remind them that he was a celebrity himself, albeit an anonymous one. He’d learned on