Read Online We Are Here by Michael Marshall - Free Book Online Page B

Talia seemed to believe David had breached a citadel—like one of the characters in her forever-in-progress novel, perhaps, a book David really, really did not want to read—therein defeating the dragon who had guarded the How To Get Published Spell. Instead of something they could enjoy gossiping about, it had become a matter on which Talia wanted clues . She wanted to be sold the magic potion that put you onto the bestseller lists forever and stopped people from seeing you as just that big, noisy woman who had way too many cats.
    David would have given her the secret if he knew. He was not a selfish man. The problem was he didn’t have a clue what it was, and on mornings like this he almost wished he were back where he had been six months ago.
    “So!” Talia bellowed, hands already in motion toward his customary drink. Her tone was partly due to the coffee machine doing something hectic, but mainly because she habitually addressed people as if across a field and against a heavy wind. “How many of those bastards you caught in your net today?”
    David shrugged mysteriously. He knew Talia would interpret this as coyness over how many words he’d nonchalantly hammered out that morning, instead of realizing it meant None. No words at all .
    She laughed raucously. “You dog.”
    They chatted, Talia filling him on some “consultant” she’d met on an Internet forum and passing on the advice he’d granted her, which—as far as David could tell—was total nonsense. When she told him, in hushed tones and all seriousness, that the guy had revealed it was best not to sign submission letters on the grounds publishers employed teams of graphologists to divine the worth of your manuscript from tells in your signature, he had to cough to cover a laugh—a desire that quickly faded when it became clear this asshole had gotten Talia to PayPal him a hundred bucks before he handed up this and other pearls of wisdom.
    “You know what, Tal?” he said. “I’m not sure about that. Can’t see them doing that when it’d be simpler to get an intern to flip through the manuscript.”
    Talia looked at him. “Could be.”
    David wasn’t sure she meant it. It seemed to him she might actually be saying, Yeah, and what do you care, big shot? You’ve already got it made .
    But the moment passed, and David realized that envy was something he might have to get used to. In time, that seemed possible. The problem was going to be convincing himself he deserved it.
    He’d been intending to take the drink home to consume virtuously at his desk, but as he turned from the counter he realized he couldn’t face it and headed to a table instead. He’d carried a notebook all the time since he was thirteen years old. He could sit and think and jot bon mots . Be that kind of writer. Live the lifestyle.
    Right. Except it turned out the lifestyle … kind of sucked. He didn’t mind spending every day by himself. He’d always been a solitary person (or, as his father had once put it—to his face and in public—“a total loner geek”). Since giving up his job, however, he’d written fifteen pages all told. When he’d been writing at the end of eight hours of wage slavery that had seemed okay. As the product of fifty full days’ labor, it was not.
    There was another problem, too.
    What he’d written wasn’t any good .
    His first novel had been about someone rather like David. An everyman forging a life in a small town, blessed with big dreams and a bigger heart. The raw material had come easy, but it had taken two years and seven drafts to make it feel like he’d written it. The characters were well drawn and mildly interesting things happened to them and there was a crisis that got semiresolved and some people lived happily ever after while others did not. Nobody was expecting it to storm the bestseller lists when it came out in six months’ time, but it was the kind of book that genteel reading groups might take to and David’s editor