Hyacinth (Suitors of Seattle) (2 page)

Lawrence was wearing his usual brown vested suit that she had seen him wear many times to the library.  She found herself wondering if he had purchased many of the same suit, but she didn't ask. 
She wasn't certain she wanted to know, honestly.  He never smelled foul, so she assumed he had several.  She took her coat from the hook by the door, and he took it from her to help her into it.  She almost protested that she'd been able to put on her own coat for years, but she realized he was trying to be gentlemanly by helping her with it.

He offered her his arm as they left the house, her mother calling after them, "Have her home early
, please!"

Lawrence gave a quick nod.  "I'll be certain to do that, Mrs. Sullivan."
  He smiled at the older woman. "Would ten be an acceptable hour?"

At Mary's nod,
he closed the door, turning back to smile at Hyacinth.

As soon as they were away from the house, she said, "You don't have to help me with my coat, you know.  I know we're just having dinner to talk about writing."
  She'd rather they stayed totally honest with the reason they were together, and he didn't even try to pretend they were a couple or that he was interested in her as a potential bride.

Lawrence gave her a look of surprise.  He'd been certain she'd see through his ruse when he asked her out to talk about writing.  Every other woman he'd known, which honestly hadn't been many, would have told him to just be honest about what he wanted.  "I like helping you."

Hyacinth gave him an odd look as he helped her up into the small two seated buggy.  He took the reins in his hands and started the buggy down the street.  "Did your mother mind you coming out with me?"

Hyacinth shook her head.  "No, I don't think so.  She's a little concerned about our age difference, but that's all."
  She shrugged, dismissing her mother's concerns.  Mary tended to worry over every little thing, and her daughters had learned to ignore it.

"How old does she think I am?" he asked, surprised. 

"Well, she knows that you courted Amaryllis for a bit."  Hyacinth looked down at the bag on her lap that contained her notebook.

"I wouldn't call what Amaryllis and I did
courting
.  We were more...friends than anything else.  I'm only twenty-seven." 

Hyacinth smiled.  "She won't keep us from being friends, then.  I'm certain Mother thinks you're interested in me, and I didn't explain about our mutual interest in writing.  I hope you don't mind."

He shook his head.  "Of course, I don't mind.  I like knowing there are some things that you confide in me."  He grinned over at her in the darkness.  It was December, and it got dark earlier than usual.  He was thankful the street lights had been lit.

She looked down at her hands, blushing slightly.  She hadn't thought of what she'd told him that day as confiding in him, but she guessed it was.  There was no
one else who knew who she was a writer.  "Sometimes I think I need to tell someone or I'll burst."  She took a deep breath.  "I'm mostly done with my novel, but I'm really not certain what I should do with it once it's finished.  I mean, I could always just let it rot away in my dresser drawer, but I don't think that's what I want.  I'm not looking for fame or fortune, but I think my story's good and someone somewhere might want to read it."  She hoped he didn't think she was bragging by saying she thought it was good.

"I'm sure it's wonderful.  May I read a bit of it so I can talk to my publisher about it?"

She shook her head adamantly.  "No, I just need your help with the process.  Do I just contact a publisher directly?  Or how do I do it?"

"Well, I make my agent do all the legwork for me.  I just send him my finished manuscript and he shops it around.  At least that's what I did at first.  At this point, I'm writing a series of Western novels, and my publisher knows they will purchase the next one each time.  Once you've had your first book published, the others do become easier."  He stopped the buggy and jumped down, tying off the reins before walking around and helping her down.

Hyacinth took a step back from him as soon as her feet hit the ground.  It felt...strange to be so close to a man when she never had before.  He offered his arm to her, and she took it, walking into the restaurant with him.  "Mr. Bennett, welcome back!  I see you brought a beautiful young lady with you."

Lawrence smiled at the host.  He ate at the restaurant a great deal more often than he ate at home, because he liked to watch people.  Every person he met somehow became a character in one of his books.
It wasn't deliberate, and he never really copied a person exactly, just a little piece here and another piece there.  All the strange little traits he saw added together could make up a very interesting person. 

"Could we sit back in a corner somewhere?" he asked.  Usually he preferred to sit off to the side of the main dining room where he could see everything that happened around him.  He knew there was a quieter corner off to one side, though, where he would be able to talk to Hyacinth more easily.

Hyacinth felt funny letting him hold the chair out for her.  No one had ever done that for her, except maybe when she was a child.  She sat in the chair and did her best to act as if she'd had men perform the service for her all the time.  She looked down at the menu on her plate and sighed.  This was the nice restaurant in town.  The fancy one.  She'd been to the diner many times with her sisters, but never to the nice one.  There were restaurants associated with the hotels and saloons in town as well, but this one was the one for a romantic evening.

Waiting until he'd seated himself, she nodded down at the menu.  "What's good here?"  It was as good of an opening for conversation as she could come up with, having no real idea how to talk to a man.  Of course, she could later put her heroine in the same position, so maybe this would help.  She could imagine herself in love with Lawrence...yes, that's what she'd do.  He wouldn't mind her chatting with him as if she was in love for research would he?

Lawrence smiled.  "I love the pot roast, and the pork chop.  I also like the fried chicken."

Hyacinth smiled at him as sweetly as she could muster, thinking back to the way Rose had always smiled at her beaux when they'd come to court her.
  She thought she did a pretty good job of imitating her eldest sister.  "You just pick for me, please.  I'm sure I'll like anything you choose."

Lawrence grinned at the girl beside him, thrilled she was showing an interest in him.  "I'll do that then.  Is there anything you don't like?"

Hyacinth shook her head.  She'd always been willing to eat just about anything.  "Nothing."  She waited as he chose what he wanted, desperately wanting to ask him about his writing.  She'd read one of his books back when he'd been courting Amaryllis, although, she wasn't certain she could really call what they'd done courting.  Amaryllis had been in love with Alex before, during, and after her short courtship with Lawrence.

Lawrence closed the menu and reached out to take Hyacinth's hand in his.  Her look was one of astonishment for a moment, and then her face settled into its normal passive look.  "So tell me about your writing.  I know you didn't just decide one day when you finished with school that you were going to start writing every day.  When did you start?"

Hyacinth thought about the question for a moment, contemplating how to answer him.  She was startled that he'd asked her the very question she was going to ask him.  Maybe it was a normal question for writers to ask one another.  "I think since the first day I realized that the letters I'd been practicing writing formed words I knew that someday I wanted to write something people would want to read.  I've read so many things because I had to, but I've had very little time to read just because I want to.  Now that I'm out of school, I'm trying to change that.  I'm writing as much as I can, because I love it so much, but I'm making certain I take time to read as well."  She loved losing herself in the world of storybooks.  She and her sister Amaryllis had that in common.  Some of the others enjoyed reading, but they all preferred people to books, except maybe Hyacinth and Amaryllis.

Lawrence nodded. "Keep reading.  I think of reading as a way to fill the space that's emptied with all the writing I do.  That may not make much sense...."  He frowned for a moment, trying to think of a better way to describe it.

"I think I understand.  You mean that it's like you have a finite number of words that you have inside you, and once you've written them all, you have to replenish them with more reading?"  She'd never thought of reading that way, but it made a lot of sense to her.  When she spent a lot of time writing and little time reading, the words were harder to write.

"Exactly!  I'm so glad you understand me even when I'm not being very articulate."

Hyacinth shook her head.  "You're a published writer.  Are you admitting you're not always articulate?"  Was that even possible?  She'd always put writers on such a high pedestal and wanted to emulate them.  Could they be just like everyone else?

He laughed softly.  "I don't know why people think that writers are so articulate all the time.  I'm not.  I work hard at writing
which is why I can be articulate there.  Talking to someone I don't have as much time to ponder my words."  He shook his head for a moment.  "Sometimes it really annoys me that people think writing is so easy.  Honestly?  It's hard work!"

She nodded. "I'm discovering that.  I thought that when I had time to write the words would just flow from my pen, and I'd finish a book in just a few months, and I'd be done forever."
  The opposite had proven true.  The more time she had to write, the less easy it seemed to be for her.

He nodded.  "Do you know I've even had people tell me that I should pay them for
their ideas?  It's crazy to me.  I mean, no matter how good the idea is, I have enough of my own.  Ideas are not the hard part of the job.  It's the hour after hour of sitting, pen in hand, writing the words that come to mind, and then having to go back and cross off some of the words, because you realize later they made no sense to start with."  He sighed.  "It's a long hard process, and people think it's easy for me."  He shook his head, wishing writing really was as easy as others believed it to be.

"It's still not?  How long ago did you have your first book published?"
  Hyacinth had believed writing would get easier with time.

Lawrence smiled.  "I was still at school when I wrote my first book.  Honestly?  I don't know how it ever got published.  It was more about my idea of what the West would be like than what it's really like.  The publisher should have laughed in my face.  Instead, they gently helped me change the parts of my book that made no sense into something that was readable. 
The book was published when I was just nineteen." He leaned back in his chair.  "I've gotten better over time.  My style is more polished, and I do a much better job at researching my characters, but the work is still hard work and just as slow."

Hyacinth did some quick mental math.  Eight years ago.  He'd been a published writer for eight years.  She thought about that while the waiter took their order, setting a glass of water in front of her that she quickly picked up and sipped from.  After the waiter left, she asked, "So how long does it generally take you to write a book?"

He shrugged.  "Anywhere from nine months to fifteen months, depending on how much research I have to do.  I've found the best way to research something is to go to the source, so I have done extensive traveling throughout the West to talk to different people, look at different Indian tribes, and observe how things are done in various places."  He took a drink of his own water, watching her over the top of the glass.  "Thank God for trains.  Imagine how long it would take me to get from one place to another by covered wagon.  Modern transportation has made my job so much easier."

She laughed.  "I know!  You know, they say that soon automobiles will be everywhere.  I've seen photographs of a few of them, and they don't seem all that safe to me, but I love the idea that they could go anywhere, even without a track!"
  Her eyes lit up at the idea.  Of course, the idea of traveling in an automobile was as much science fiction to her as any Jules Verne novel.

He nodded.  "I was in Germany a few years ago, and I was able to see a couple of the automobiles there.  They're just amazing."  He shrugged.  "They seem like an awful lot of work to use, though.  I think we'll be using horses for many more years to come."

Hyacinth thought about his words for a moment and then shook her head.  "I'd bet that by the time either of us has a grandchild, motor cars will be in almost constant use."  She shrugged.  "Horses will still be used to plow fields, I'm certain, because inventors never seem to think about the work that the common man does."

"Oh, I don't know about that!  You certainly do have an imagination, though.  It's a good thing to see in a writer."
  He beamed at her, as if her imagination was something he'd personally had something to do with developing.

Hyacinth mad
e a face, feeling like he was patronizing her, and she wasn't about to put up with that.  "I do have a brain, you know."

Lawrence squeezed the hand he still held.  "There's no doubt in my mind of that.  You seem like a very bright woman.  I think you can do just about anything you put your mind to."