Perfect Strangers

When Olivia walks into Estelle’s big corner office, Estelle is sitting behind her desk, dabbing at her eyes with a hankie and sniffling.

On the desk’s blotter, the manuscript is open to the final page.

Filled with sudden dread, Olivia stops short. In all the years they’ve known each other, she’s never seen her agent cry. “Please tell me you loved the book and those are tears of happiness. I’d hate to think I took the train all the way to Manhattan just so you could fire me in person.”

Blowing her nose into an embroidered handkerchief, Estelle waves her in. The motion makes her gray beehive wobble. “Sit down. Oy. Let me get myself together.” She blows her nose again, honking like a goose. Then she tosses the handkerchief into the top drawer of her desk, removes a mirrored compact, flips it open, and heaves a sigh at her reflection.

“You’ve wrecked my face. Look at me. I’m a raccoon.”

Settling into the comfortable leather chair opposite Estelle’s, Olivia smiles. “Could be worse. You could look like Alice Cooper. At least raccoons are cute.”

“Cute?” Estelle scoffs, swiping at her cheeks. “Don’t they carry the plague?”

“You’re thinking of squirrels.”

Estelle shudders, closing the compact and placing it back inside the drawer. “I can’t stand squirrels. They scare me. Those beady eyes and stumpy arms. They look like furry little T-Rexes.”

“Are we going to talk about the manuscript or your fear of cute rodents?”

With a dramatic exhalation, Estelle flops back into her captain’s chair, dangles her arms over the sides, and looks at Olivia with watery red eyes. “Yes, we’re going to talk about the manuscript. And I’m going to start by saying this: you’re evil! Evil, you hear me?”

Olivia knows this is good news. The more Estelle carries on about what an awful person she is, the more she loved the book.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

“Oh, gawd, what am I doing?” Estelle cries, jumping up from her chair. “I didn’t even give you a hug yet!”

She rounds the desk, teetering in sky-high heels. She’s wearing vintage Chanel—a pink suit today—three ropes of pearls, and her glasses on a chain around her neck. Even with the heels and beehive, she doesn’t reach five feet tall.

Olivia rises. They hug. Then Estelle pulls away, holds her at arms’ length, and pronounces, “You’re a terrible human being. How could you do that to me?”

“Don’t take it personally. I’m doing it to everyone else, too.”

Estelle throws her hands in the air. “When I got to the part where they’re in the garden in Provence and the heroine looks at the calendar, I thought I’d die!”

Laughing, Olivia, shakes her head. “I think you exaggerate more than I do.”

“I’m not exaggerating, you awful person. I literally gasped out loud. Then when she woke up in the psychiatric hospital, I screamed. Scared the crap out of my secretary. I almost peed my pants, and that would’ve been a real tragedy.”

She points at her beautifully tailored Chanel slacks. “If I had, I would’ve sent you the dry cleaning bill. You monster! And don’t get me started on the final chapter. That scene at the end where they’re reunited in the rain—Christ on a crutch, Olivia, if you hadn’t walked in when you did, I’d be lying facedown on the floor at this very moment, sobbing into the carpeting.”

Thrilled by her agent’s reaction, Olivia grins. “You’re really earning your commission right now, you know that?”

Estelle gives her a friendly push. “I should get a raise for the trauma you just put me through. Now sit down and let’s talk. I’ve got a few things I think we should address before I send it out.”

While Olivia sits, Estelle closes her office door then crosses to an elegant antique breakfront on the other side of the room. She swings open a cabinet on the bottom half and removes a bottle of Blanton’s and two crystal glasses. Closing the cabinet with a bump of her hip, she crosses back to her desk, sits, and pours two fingers of bourbon into each glass.

As she pours, she muses, “Do you know why I love you?”

Olivia thinks about it for a moment. “Because I make you so much money?”

“Ha. Yes, of course. Other than that.”

“I’m stumped.”

Estelle caps the bottle, sets it aside, and pushes one of the glasses across her desk toward Olivia. “Because you’re the only other person I know who thinks it’s reasonable to drink bourbon at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning.” She lifts her glass in a toast. “Here’s to day drinking.”

Olivia picks up her glass and smiles. “Drinking bourbon during the day doesn’t make you an alcoholic. It makes you a pirate.”

Estelle makes a squinty face and says, “Arrrggh!”

Olivia lifts her brows. “Is that supposed to be a pirate impression? Because it was awful.”

“What am I, starring in a Broadway production of Pirates of the Caribbean? Obviously not. Acting isn’t my strong suit.”

She gazes lovingly at the manuscript, resting a hand atop. “Books are my strong suit, doll, and this one’s a gem.”

They spend a while catching up on their personal lives, then move onto business. They discuss the various editors Estelle is thinking of sending the manuscript to, how much of an advance she’s planning to ask for when they get an offer to publish it, and other details. After more than a decade long partnership, Estelle has successfully sold all of Olivia’s books. She knows this one will get an offer fast.

Setting her bourbon aside and turning to the beginning of the manuscript, Estelle puts her readers on her nose and references some notes she’s made in the margins.

“Let’s get to the important stuff first.” She peers accusingly at Olivia over the rims of her glasses. “When I gave you permission to put me into this book, I had no idea you were going to make me a seventy-year-old Jewish woman.”

Smiling, Olivia sips her bourbon. “You are a seventy-year-old Jewish woman.”

“Exactly!” says Estelle, exasperated. “Let’s take some literary license here and make me more like, say…Sharon Stone.”

Olivia laughs. “Oh, you want to be hot.”

“Extremely hot. In fact, Stone might be too old. A Charlize Theron lookalike’s better. No—who’s that youngest Kardashian, the billionaire? Make me look more like her.”

“It would be really stretching the bounds of credulity to make my agent be a twenty-something reality TV star, don’t you think?”

Estelle purses her lips. “I said look like her, not be her. And obviously we have to change my name. I’ve always wished I were named Seraphina. Let’s go with that.”

“Yeah, Seraphina’s a hard no, but I’ll think of another one. I just always use everyone’s real names as placeholders when I’m writing characters based on people I know. It makes the characters more real to me if their names match. I was going to change all the names after you’d had a look.”

“I realize that’s your process,” says Estelle, her expression sour. “But while we’re on the subject, you have to start naming your heroes something other than James. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is for me to read your first drafts knowing you’re writing about your James?”

“Why is that uncomfortable for you?”

“Hello? The sex scenes?”

“You can rest easy, because those are made up. I was simply using my imagination.”

Estelle looks unconvinced. “Oh yeah? Tell me that incident in the book store in Paris was made up.”

With a straight face, Olivia says, “The sex scene at Shakespeare and Company never happened.”

When Estelle narrows her eyes, Olivia smiles. “That actually happened at an indie bookstore in Queens.”

“I rest my case. And then there’s all the dirty talk. How am I supposed to look the man in the eye next time we have dinner knowing the kinds of things he says to you in bed?”

“I never should’ve told you I base all my heroes on my husband.”

“You don’t think I would’ve gotten a clue, considering all your heroes start out with dark hair, blue eyes, a cleft chin, and an Energizer Bunny dick? And they’re all named James? Be real.”

Olivia laughs. “Fine. I’ll change his eyes to green and give him a British accent. How’s that?”

“The British accent I like. Fits in nicely with the whole assassin thing. Very 007. What about his name?”

“How about…Edward?”

Estelle crinkles her nose. “Too Twilight. What do you think of Brock?”

Olivia nearly spits out her sip of bourbon. “Brock? Dear God. Where’d you come up with that?”

“I follow this hunky model on Instagram named Brock. The man has the most magnificent breasts.”

Olivia snorts. “I believe they’re called pecs, Estelle.”

“Whatever, they’re glorious.”

“Tell you what. I’ll write a Regency romance just for you with main characters named Brock and Seraphina. But I’m not putting either one in this book.”

Estelle waves a hand, ending that part of the discussion. “I know you’ll come up with something.”

She consults her notes again, flipping forward several pages until she stops and taps a manicured nail on a highlighted sentence. “Did you ever explain that tattoo on the hero’s shoulder? I’m assuming the black marks under the Latin phrase were a body count of all the people he killed, but I don’t think that was stated outright.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure. I definitely translated the Latin, but I don’t remember specifically clarifying about the marks. I’ll take another look.” Olivia sets her bourbon on the edge of Estelle’s desk, pulls her cell phone from her handbag, and makes a note about the marks.

Nodding, Estelle flips forward another few pages. “And the foreign language he spoke—once when they were having sex, and another time she overheard it in the background when they were on the phone—what was that?”

Olivia shrugs, setting her cell on the desk and picking up her bourbon. “I don’t know. Do you think it’s important? I was just thinking it was part of his whole mysterious vibe.”

“A sentence or two somewhere to explain it would suffice, just so readers know you didn’t forget about it. Maybe his assassin’s group only speaks Latin to one other, something like that.”

“Noted.”

They go back and forth like that for a few more minutes, until Estelle chuckles. “I noticed you made Until September a New York Times bestseller. Love the ambition, doll.” Then she sobers, looking up. “Oh, I almost forgot—your ex-husband can’t be the US Ambassador to the UN.”

“Why not?”

“Because he is the US Ambassador to the UN—and you turned him into an arms dealer. And then into a fat, cheating auto mechanic with an alcohol problem. He’ll sue you for defamation.”

“Are you kidding? He loves it when I put him in my books. This is first time I’ve used his real job, but he’ll still love it. The man can’t get enough of himself in print.”

Estelle wags a finger at her. “No can do. I know you and Chris are on good terms, but any publisher will insist you change it. The potential liability is too big.”

Olivia sighs. She knows this isn’t a fight she can win.

Scanning over more of her notes, Estelle continues. “The red pill/blue pill Matrix reference won’t need permission because you’re not directly quoting the film, and neither will the lines from Dostoevsky because they’re in the public domain, or the Rumi meet-me-in-the-field thing because he’s been dead for centuries. But you’ll have to get in touch with Simon and Schuster for permission to use the Hemingway quotes.”

“Already got it. They were really nice, too.”

Estelle nods, pleased. “Good to know. Okay, that’s all I’ve got.”

She closes the manuscript, picks up her bourbon, and smiles. “A book within a book. I love how you continue to stretch your own narrative conventions.”

“I was going to go full Inception and make it a book within a book within a book and have another ending after the lovers meet again in the rain.”

Estelle looks intrigued. “Really? What would’ve been the additional ending?”

“Us, doing exactly what we’re doing now.”

Estelle is confused for a moment, then her eyes widen and her mouth forms the shape of an O. “Yes. Do it! Margaret Atwood had three books going on at once in The Blind Assassin and it won the Man Booker Prize.”

“You think so?”

Estelle nods vigorously, her beehive bobbing. “Definitely. How long do you think it will take to write it?”

“Not long, considering it will basically be me transcribing this meeting and whatever happens for the rest of today.”

Estelle says, “Transcribing this meeting? I guess I’d better figure out something interesting to do then, hadn’t I?” She looks around her office, as if for ideas, but immediately gives up. “Nah. I’ve got nothing.” When she looks back at Olivia, a knowing smile creeps over her face. “Guess you and that hot hubby of yours will have to make up for it.”

“I thought you said reading about my sex life makes you uncomfortable?”

“It does, doll.” She laughs. “But what a way to end a book.”

They toast to happy endings and finish the rest of their drinks.

After lunch at Estelle’s favorite Asian-whatever fusion restaurant near her office, the two women part ways with a hug. Estelle returns to work, Olivia to the commuter train that will carry her home to the suburbs.

She works during the ride, reading her manuscript again on her Kindle. She makes a note to ask Estelle her opinion about how she addresses the audience directly as “you” several times, breaking the fourth wall and risking making the reader aware of the narration, and makes a few other notes to change this word or that.

Every time Olivia rereads a manuscript, something new jumps out that she feels needs to be changed. It’s a never-ending process. Every book she’s written has been published with something she’s still not satisfied with, but she’s learned over the years that the perfect book doesn’t exist.

Unlike the perfect man, who definitely does exist, despite what her character Edmond would have to say on the subject.

Olivia doesn’t know if it’s coincidence that she happened to be having brunch at that particular restaurant on that particular day with her girlfriends or if fate intervened on her behalf. All she knows is that she glanced up from her eggs benedict and found a gorgeous stranger staring at her from across a room full of people…staring at her with the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen.

Her heart beating painfully hard, she stared right back.

It wasn’t until her girlfriend nudged her with a laugh that Olivia realized she and the handsome stranger had been gazing at each other, mesmerized, for quite some time.

Every love story has a beginning. That was theirs. One look, one locked gaze, and they were both done for.

Until that magical moment, she didn’t believe love at first sight existed. She didn’t believe in soul mates, or happily-ever-afters, or something as idealistic as true love.

Because it’s childish to believe in a fairy-tales…until suddenly you’re starring in one.

With a wink and a chuckle, her husband would later tell people who asked how they’d met that Olivia had thrown herself at him. The reality was the opposite. After the end of brunch when she and her girlfriends were leaving, the handsome stranger followed her out to the valet stand where she was waiting for her car. As Olivia’s astonished girlfriends looked on, he boldly asked her on a date—before even asking her name or introducing himself.

Actually, he didn’t ask. He demanded. “Go on a date with me,” were his exact words.

Because…bossy.

When she replied that she didn’t date strange men, he had a quick answer. “I’m not strange. Unless you like that, in which case I definitely am.”

He grinned. She laughed.

They moved in together two weeks later.

In all the years since, they haven’t spent a single night apart.

“Honey, I’m home!”

Olivia’s voice echoes in the empty foyer of their 1920s Craftsman, which they’ve been renovating since they moved in. It’s an endless project: as soon as one thing is fixed, another falls apart. But she loves it in the way one loves an old friend, all its eccentricities only adding to its charm.

“In here!”

She follows the faint sound of James’s voice past the living room and kitchen toward the back of the house. She should’ve known he’d still be in his studio. He usually doesn’t emerge until it’s time for dinner. Pausing outside the closed door of attached garage they converted to a work space, she lightly knocks then pops her head in.

James has his back to the door. In paint-splattered jeans, bare feet, and no shirt, he stands gazing at his work in progress, a canvas that stretches the entire length of the room and nearly to the ceiling. It’s a gorgeous abstract splash of colors, but in terms of sheer beauty, it’s no match for him.

His bare back is a masterpiece. And his ass…

James turns his head and looks at his wife over his shoulder. “That was a big sigh. Your meeting with Estelle go okay?”

She smiles. “The meeting went great. And I won’t tell you what the sigh was about, because I don’t need your ego getting any bigger than it already is.”

He grins, flashing a dimple in his cheek. “Yeah, I know. I’m irresistible. Get your butt over here and give me my kiss.”

Pretending to be stern, Olivia walks a few feet into the room and crosses her arms over her chest. “Excuse me, Romeo, but I’m not a dog. I don’t obey on command.”

James turns, sets his paintbrush on his messy work table, wipes his hands on a rag, and strolls toward her. His grin grows wider. His blue eyes sparkle with mischief. Reaching her, he takes her into his arms.

“No, you’re definitely not a dog, sweetheart,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. His voice drops and his eyes start to burn. “But we both know you do obey on command.”

She winds her arms around his shoulders and tries hard to keep the smile off her face. “Only in bed. Which we’re not currently in. So quit bossing me around and use your manners.”

He acts confused. “Manners? Not familiar with the word.”

He kisses her again, deeper this time, threading his fingers into the mass of her dark hair. When he breaks away several moments later, they’re both breathing harder. He murmurs, “And anything can be a bed. That couch, for instance. The armchair in the corner. The floor.”

Though they’ve made love on every piece of furniture in the room, the floor is a brand new suggestion. Her laugh is husky. “I’m way too old to be having sex on a floor, thank you very much. I could hurt myself. Break a hip. Bruise the peach.”

James takes a big handful of her ass and squeezes. “Guess we’ll have to find you a mattress, then, you geezer.”

In a swift, practiced movement, he bends and lifts her into his arms.

Laughing, Olivia clings to his shoulders as he strides out of the garage and into the house. “Wow, somebody ate their Wheaties this morning!”

“I missed you,” he says, heading for the bedroom.

“Missed me? I was gone for four hours! By the way, Estelle thinks I should name your character Brock.”

James sends her a horrified look. “Brock? Jesus. Is this new book of yours about a gay porn star?”

“No. Guess what I made you.”

On mutual agreement, James doesn’t read any of her books. If she’d write a novel that didn’t feature some version of him as the main character, he might, but unlike her ex-husband, he finds the idea of reading about himself too weird.

Gargantuan ego notwithstanding, he’s actually quite modest.

He says, “A rock star?”

“No, silly. I already did that.”

“Oh. Right. Okay, um…a race car driver?”

“Something hotter!”

“Hotter than a race car driver?” He sounds impressed. “I must be keeping my woman satisfied if she’s turning me into a fictional guy who’s hotter than a race car driver.”

Olivia rolls her eyes. “Just because you’re obsessed with Formula One racing doesn’t mean everyone else is, honey.”

He turns sideways to carry her through the bedroom door. “So you’ve already made me a rock star, a bodyguard, a Special-Ops badass, an Italian fashion tycoon, the head of a bourbon empire—”

“Oh, look who’s keeping track!”

He grins at her teasing tone. Stopping at the edge of the mattress, he sets her down on the bed, then stretches out on top of her. Smiling into her eyes, he says, “How ‘bout an astronaut? I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut. That’d be so cool.”

“Astronauts were cool in the fifties.”

“Brad Pitt’s gonna be an astronaut in his new movie.”

“Oh.” She can’t find fault in that logic. “Okay, maybe astronauts are cool. But what I made you this time is even cooler than that.”

He kisses her deeply, settling his weight between her spread things. She twines her fingers into his hair and melts into the mattress, sighing in pleasure.

“Tell me,” he commands, biting her lower lip.

She closes her eyes, reveling in the feeling of his warm mouth moving over her jaw and down her neck. He nuzzles her cleavage, inhaling her scent.

As he licks the upper curve of her breast, she whispers, “An assassin.”

James stills for a moment. “You made me a guy who kills people?”

She hurries to explain. “Only bad ones who deserve it. And no women or children. You have an iron-clad rule about that. And you’re also an artist who gives money to charities for victims of violence.”

That seems to satisfy him, because he unbuttons the top few buttons of her blouse and eases her bra aside so he can access her hardening nipple. “I’m so complex. Did I have any awesome tattoos?”

She gasps when he draws her nipple into the wet heat of his mouth, then giggles. In real life, he’d love to get a tattoo, but the man is deathly afraid of needles.

A nurse once told her that it’s always the biggest, baddest guys who get queasy at the sight of needles. Olivia finds the pairing of swaggering machismo and boyish vulnerability utterly irresistible.

It’s probably why she loves Hemingway so much.

“Yes, I gave you an awesome tattoo, honey.” She groans at the feel of his teeth scraping over her sensitive skin. “And a twelve-inch dick.”

Against her breasts, he bursts into laughter. “Twelve inches?”

“What? You’re almost that big.”

Incredulous, he looks up at her. “Uh, no. Thank you very much, I’m truly flattered, but I don’t have a foot-long cock.”

“Really?” Olivia frowns. “It feels like you do.”

He dissolves into laughter, resting his forehead against her chest and giving himself over to it for so long that Olivia starts to get irritated. “It’s not that funny!”

“Yes, it actually is.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re always griping about my huge ego, and then you go and say something like that.”

She says prissily, “Fine. From now on, I’m only giving you a tiny little Vienna sausage of a dick. Three inches at most. Satisfied?”

Alarmed, he raises his head. “Let’s not get carried away, now. A regular-sized dick will work fine.”

“If you think my audience is interested in reading about a hero’s ‘regular-sized’ dick, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Think.”

When Olivia only smiles at him, James says, “The correct phrase is, ‘you’ve got another think coming.’”

“So you’ve told me, honey,” she murmurs, her chest expanding with love.

He examines her expression. “Why do you have little red confetti hearts for eyes right now?”

She doesn’t tell him it’s because her real life is even better than fiction. His ego is already too big. She decides to distract him instead. “I was just wondering if we were going to try that beautiful sex jewelry you got me for our anniversary that we haven’t broken out yet.”

James’s smile comes on slow and heated. “The butterfly clamps? I thought you were worried they’d cut off circulation to your delicate lady parts.”

Drawing his head down, she whispers against his mouth, “I know you’ll take care of me.”

Their kiss is long and passionate. She writhes underneath him, rocking her hips into his erection, making small noises of need in the back of her throat. When they come up for air, James rasps, “Slow and sweet?”

“No,” replies his wife, reaching between them for his zipper. “Hard and fast first. We’ll save slow and sweet for the jewelry.”

His cock is hard and hot in her hand. She’s too eager to waste time removing her panties, so she simply pushes them aside and guides him inside her.

They share a groan then another kiss. Then, with his hands framing her face and his hips thrusting, James whispers into her ear, “Did you decide on a title for this new novel of yours?”

Olivia arches her back and closes her eyes. “Perfect Strangers.”

It’s a long time before either of them can form coherent words again.

When she arrives home from school several hours later, Emmie isn’t at all surprised to hear the sound of her mother and stepfather’s lovemaking coming from behind their closed bedroom door.