Becoming His Muse, Part Three (24 page)

***

Through the windows of the bookstore, I can see that the room is packed. Shelves and tables have been moved aside for chairs, which are all filled. People stand at the back and on either side of the arranged chairs.

Logan stands at a podium reading from a stack of pages. This time there is no ashtray. There is no Fedora. There is barely any ‘act’. He wears a button-down shirt, untucked, and khaki trousers.

I see Lowell and Lisle sitting off to the side up front. I find a standing room spot back of the audience. Someone shifts over to make room for me. She whispers, “He’s reading from his new novel. It’s not out yet, but boy, is it good.”

I smile and listen. The audience is rapt as Logan reads — that’s one thing that hasn’t changed; he really can woo an audience. But the timbre of his voice, and his presence, are gentler and deeper now. He looks and sounds almost like a different man.

Every so often, he bites his thumb nail, a gesture harkening back to his smoking days. More often, he seems to reach for his hat, a movement he covers by running his fingers through his hair, which musses it up and makes locks fall over his eyes requiring more raking of fingers and, all in all, gives him a sexy, preoccupied charm. The arrogance is gone. A clear confidence and authority remains. While he used to feed off his audience’s attention, adoration, and the stroking and massaging of his ego, now he seems to respect them. As if he’s taking less and giving more. As if he’s no longer playing the role of the writer, but just being himself. Genuine and honest.

My stomach’s in knots as I watch him. My heart twists anxiously. He hasn’t seen me yet. I stay still and listen to the rest of the reading, as I’ve already missed most of it.

“
They stared at each other, panting and frightened. Liam lifted his hand, to imply a truce, but the movement made Anna flinch. The fear in her eyes cracked Liam to his core.
He
had done that. Broken and destroyed all that he loved in the world.

“
I’m sorry.” The words croaked from his lips.

She backed away from him. When she was far enough, she turned and ran. He crumpled to the floor, unable to watch her flee, unwilling to accept he was the cause.

He nearly died that night. Turned inside out by the tempest of his past, he roved an inward dark wood full of despair until he came to the edge of a cliff inside himself. He had no idea it was there yet he knew he had to step off it and free fall into oblivion. He did.

Waking the next morning was like birth. Wet, messy, painful. But there was breath in his lungs and hope in his heart. A most unfamiliar sensation. And he knew it was her. She had gotten inside him and lodged there in that pulsing place he thought he had locked away for good. That would be his penance. To carry her as hope in his heart forever, though he might never see her again.”

Logan sets aside the page he was reading. I wait for him to keep going, but instead he picks up his water glass, takes a sip, and waits. A trickle of applause starts in one corner of the room, and then it rolls like a wave picking up all hands in its path. I clap this time. I think I owe him that.

I remember when we first met, when I couldn’t be bothered to applaud, when his arrogant attitude irritated and appalled me, even while I could barely resist his seductive charm and persistent flirting. I smile now. He
has
changed, and so have I.

I now see a man I’ve loved and lost, a man I want another chance to love again. I know it will be messy and hard and there’s no guarantee I won’t get hurt again. In fact, it’s highly probable I will be hurt again, but I’m willing to risk that. I’m stronger now. I remember something he said at that first reading, about being willing to take risks and be hurt, about not being so afraid…

When Q and A starts, I wait for the ubiquitous question, and sure enough, someone says, “Where do you get your ideas?”

He smiles, more to himself than the questioner. “I used to have an answer for that. I used to say I had a fucked up childhood, which is true. Actually, I used to find a way to use the word
fuck
as often as I could.”

The audience laughs. Logan grows more thoughtful.

“Sometimes when a person asks that question, what they’re really asking is where can I get
my own
ideas. The best ideas come from the truth of your own life, and I hate to break the bad news, but the best ones often come from pain. You have to be willing to go into that pain, and that’s not pretty. So pain, truth, anger, they’re your blood-and-guts sources for ideas.”

As the audience is absorbing his words, he adds, “And if you’re really feeling brave, try tackling love.” He flashes a charming old-Logan smile.

The room is charmed, of course. He hasn’t lost his touch. He just uses it very differently, very lightly now. Another hand shoots up. He acknowledges the questioner, how asks,

“Is the character of Anna based on a real person?”

“Loosely, yes.”

Someone else in the audience blurts out. “Are you in love with her?

Logan searches for the interrupter, a smile pulling the corner of his lips. “The character or the person she’s loosely based on?”

The original questioner shrugs. “Either one?”

Logan lets the tugging smile fully form. “I love all my characters, even the mean, pathetic, or disgruntled ones, but I rarely love the people who inspire the characters. In the case of Anna, however, I do. I am very much in love with her source of inspiration.”

My heart skips a beat. Does he really mean that? I notice some of the women in the audience look a little disappointed.

Someone asks, “Does this person, the real Anna,
know
that you love her?”

A look of pain and regret sweeps across his face, but it’s fleeting. He takes a sip of water, blinks once or twice, and then focuses on the audience.

“I don’t know.”

Someone calls out. “When you give her the book. She’ll know.”

Several people nod and agree. Logan smiles at the camaraderie.

“Maybe. But remember, it’s just a story. It’s fiction.”

He’s right. He’s woven a powerful story that captures truth but isn’t fact. Stories aren’t supposed to be real. They reveal the hidden possibilities of reality if only it could be lived as poetry. I know he loves me not just because of what he wrote but because of how he let himself be rewritten by our love. I see that now. It’s in every look and gesture, in every small and large way he’s changed.

“If Anna were real and she knew you loved her, what would you say to her right now?”

I haven’t raised my hand, but as my voice carries through the room, as he hears the first few words out of my mouth, his eyes search the audience, roving rapidly, desperately, through the faces. When he finally spots me, he stares, almost disbelievingly. His cheeks flush — I have never seen Logan blush before. He seems ready to lunge as his eyes lock on mine, but then he takes in the sea of people between us. He would have to climb over some and step on others to get to me. He grips the edges of the podium, closes his eyes briefly. I see Lowell turn to the back. He catches my eye, smiles.

Logan opens his eyes again and says, “Anna isn’t real. She’s a character in my mind. I would have nothing to say to her.”

The audience seems to release a collected disappointed breath.

“But if Ava were here…”

Logan’s intense green eyes, their heat turned up now, lock on mine. I feel a shiver run up my spine. The woman who whispered to me when I first arrived catches his glance and looks at me with curiosity, but a moment later, she, and everyone else in the room, is listening to Logan’s words.

“… I would say that I fell in love with her the first moment our eyes locked, only I didn’t know it. I would tell her that it’s been the longest and most important journey of my life to come to that realization, even if I arrived too late. I would tell her that I’m finally ready to unlock my heart and risk sharing it with another. Correction:
with her
.”

The current between us is so palpable, so strong, I’m certain the crowd is going to part and we’ll run into each other’s arms and collapse in kisses, like in a movie. But this isn’t a movie, the crowd doesn’t budge, the moment swells and passes. I have been holding my breath and now I let it out. More hands raise with questions still to be answered.

Logan is a writer giving a reading. I am part of the audience. I blend back in and wait patiently as someone says,

“I’ve come to all your readings, read all your books, but this one is different. And you seem different now, too. Where’s your Fedora?”

An inner shadow darkens Logan’s eyes, but this too is fleeting. “I outgrew it. Threw it into the East River along with a host of bad memories. I imagine one of those giant lurking sturgeons is wearing it now.”

There are chuckles from the audience.

“In one of the passages you read, the character of Liam is pretty haunted by a dark past and he seems angry and violent. Does he end up a tragic character?”

Logan smiles, teasingly. “You’ll have to read the book to find out.”

He points to another raised hand.

“What’s the meaning of the title?”

“Same answer. Read the book to find out.” He winks.

Another hand goes up. “Your mother died recently, didn’t she? Did that affect your writing?”

“Parents affect every part of your life, whether they’re alive or dead. So yes. But this novel was finished before she passed.”

Another hand rises. “When will Stealing Stars be available to buy?”

“Lowell, can you answer that?”

Lowell stands and lays out the calendar of release and locations for future readings and signings. Logan steps back from the podium, sits on a chair. Or I think he does. I’ve lost sight of him now. Maybe the Q and A is over. Lowell’s fielding questions now.

I’ve been feeling hot and claustrophobic ever since he looked at me. I need some fresh air. I pick up my bag and wrapped canvas. Before I sidle back toward the front door, the woman who first spoke to me touches my arm lightly.

“Are you Anna? Or rather, Ava?” I feel a flutter of panic. “It’s okay,” she whispers, laying a finger across her lips. “I won’t spill your secret.” She hands me a card. “I’m Mickey Dell, a reviewer for the New York Times. “I have a hunch the story behind the story is even more interesting than the book. If you ever want to talk, call me.”

I take her card, smiling and nodding, but all I want is to get out of that crowd and into the cool night air.

Outside, a full moon is rising over Manhattan. I take a deep breath and feel overtaken by a feeling of being exactly where I’m supposed to be. Or almost.

“Ava.”

I turn and see Logan leaning against the bookstore’s brick wall, his hands in his pockets. How long has he been watching me?

“What are you doing here?” he says, looking at my bag, the canvas tucked under my arm.

“I made my choice,” I say quietly. “You said the muse chooses. I made my choice. It’s you.”

He steps forward. “But your family… your degree?”

“Mostly sorted out.”

He raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to explain, but I didn’t come here to explain. I came here to look into those deep green eyes again, to find out where I belong.

“Are you surprised to see me?”

“Very.”

“Happily?”

He finally lets himself smile. He takes a step toward me.

“This is real, not a dream?”

“Yes, it’s a dream. My dream. And it’s real.”

He leans over, gives me a long slow kiss, and it’s a kiss that binds this dream to reality.

“Did you mean what you said back there?” I whisper when we part, ever so slightly, to take a breath.

“Every word,” he says, looking deep into my eyes.

I step away, onto the curb, and hail a cab. He smiles. “Are you a New Yorker now?”

“It’s my dream, isn’t it?”

He takes my bag and canvas and we climb into the back seat. As soon as the door is closed, he takes me in his arms. Every part of me wakes up and tingles with pleasurable relief.

He gives the driver an address and then his lips are busy on mine. It feels as if we’re kissing for the first time — as if everything just beginning—and it feels like the last time, too — as if something huge has just ended — and, in the middle, we’re kissing there, too, and it’s an eternal, sweetness that gives strength to all the beginnings and endings still to come.

When the taxi brakes and sits idling at the curb, we’re still kissing. The taxi driver clears his throat, but we don’t stop, until I realize I don’t want to kiss anymore, I want to tear Logan’s clothes off and feel his skin against mine.

“We’re home,” I whisper, pushing him away, and I wonder at my chosen words when I’ve never set foot in his apartment.

Logan blinks as if he’s waking from a dream. He pays the taxi fare and we get out.

On the stoop he taps in the code, which he repeats out loud for me, and then he hands me a key. “For the apartment door.”

“A key for me?”

He nods.

“It’s not too soon?” I say.

He shakes his head. “I’m just glad it’s not too late.”

He opens the outer door and leads me to the elevator.

Going up, he looks at my bag and says, “How long can you stay?”

There is a flicker of anxiety in his eyes, and I’m not sure if he’s worried I’ll stay too long or not long enough.

“As long as you’ll let me.”

He grins. “Then this bag is much too small.”

***

I hesitate when he opens the door, but only for a moment. Crossing this threshold, I know I’m stepping out of one life into another, but I no longer feel as if I’m pushing past my limitations; instead I feel the thrill of jumping headlong into my potential.

Logan is inside and he looks at me still standing in the hall.

“Have you changed your mind?”

I shake my head.

The wood floor creaks when I step inside. The hallway is lined with books. On one shelf I see his grandfather’s pipe. The hall leads to a living room with bay window overlooking the street. Logan’s desk sits in front of the window. His grandfather’s leather chair sits in front of a wooden fireplace. Everything is a mix of old and new, and— I take a deep breath — it all
smells good
. It smells like Logan. Like home. The home I didn’t know was mine until I found it.