Page 20 of Fraud
“I’m a, uh…”Shit, what do I say?“An editor,” I finally blurted out.
It was obviously the wrong choice by the looks on their faces. The light, carefree smile Jane had been sporting suddenly went rigid as her keen eyes scanned me, searching for deceit.
“A technical editor,” I elaborated. “Mostly complex contracts, medical forms—that sort of thing. But I’m currently between jobs. Transplant from the East Coast.”
A collective sigh of relief was felt across the table as they both relaxed back into the booth.
“That sounds rather boring,” Kate announced.
The sound of her voice surprised me. I wasn’t sure I’d heard it since my dashing display of heroics.
“It does, doesn’t it?” I replied, wishing I’d picked any other profession. But, nope, it’d had to be technical editing, the most mundane job on the planet.
Or at least, I assumed it was.
I had a friend back in New York who was a highly successful technical writer. Those little manuals you’d find tucked inside the box with your new TV or phone? He actually wrote stuff like that. It was a harder job than it sounded, I was sure. Taking a tedious subject and making it…well, less tedious? It was probably why he drank.
But I guess he had a job. Unlike me—the ex-journalist who now stalked mysterious authors in small town America.
“It pays the bills, I guess,” I finally said, choosing the easy way out. No explanation needed. “So, what do you two do—to pay the bills, that is?”
A nervous exchange happened between them, so brief that it was almost unrecognizable. But I saw it—that moment when the two friends looked at each other, maybe realizing they hadn’t sorted this part of the ruse out.
“I’m in publishing,” Jane simply stated.
“And I work at the college here in town,” Kate said.
Nothing more was offered, but then again, I hadn’t given much to start with.
That needed to change if I was going to leave here with more than an impending hangover.
The trouble? I didn’t know how to interact with a woman like Kate.
She was the opposite of everything I sought out in a woman. Shy, quiet, and with so much vulnerability, I could almost smell it on her.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive or interesting.
I could see a raw beauty under those timid eyes, and it did spark a desire within me to see what lay beneath. Maybe a hidden secret or a disturbing past?
This was definitely going to take longer than I’d anticipated—if I wanted a good story, and I did.
No, I needed a good story—if I ever wanted my career back.
“What do you do at the college, Kate? Are you a professor?” I asked, turning my full attention to her.
She seemed slightly taken aback at first but quickly began laughing.
Both of them did.
I looked on, feeling clueless.
“Sorry, inside joke,” Jane said.
“Care to elaborate?”
Jane turned to Kate, who was still smiling.
I liked the way she looked when her face lit up. It was like a rose blooming. Unexpected, yet you couldn’t imagine it any other way.
