Feast Read Free

tried to figure out how I had gotten off the main road. Two pickup trucks flew past me—must be rush hour up here—before I was able to pull out again.
    “So, anything yet?”
    “Simon, I haven’t even unpacked yet, so, no. Nothing.”
    I crammed my half-eaten granola bar in my pocket. The map crinkled across the steering wheel as I backed the SUV out onto the two-lane highway, the narrow blacktop spine of this little mountain village.
    “No worries, Maddie. You’ll get your mojo back soon. I know it—”
    He meant it, I know he did. But we both also knew that if I couldn’t break through my writer’s block soon, my career would be over.
    “I didn’t really call to talk about that, though,” he said. “It’s just that, well, I didn’t want you to hear about it on the news—”
    “Simon, if you’ve got something to tell me, just say it. I mean, my life already sucks, right? How much worse can it get?” I said, waiting for my agent to say something. For a moment, I thought I had lost his signal.
    “Simon?”
    Then I saw the cabin up ahead and I felt a sense of relief. It didn’t last long.
    “He got married, Maddie. Yesterday, in Las Vegas.”
    I slowed to a stop in the driveway of the cabin where my parents had taken me on one last holiday, where they fought and drank and made love like teenagers, trying desperately to hang on to the love they thought they had.
    “Maddie?”
    I got out of the car, opened the door for Tucker.
    A chill autumn wind cantered through the trees that surrounded us. Much too cold for October, it howled against my light jacket. I knew that I should have felt some emotion, but in reality everything felt flat and hollow.
    “Did you hear me?” Simon asked.
    “Yeah,” I answered, my voice cracking. “So who was the lucky girl?” My ex had plenty to choose from. Hollywood was just one big dating smorgasbord for a director of his caliber.
    “Lacey.”
    I sat on the front steps of the cabin, the air in my lungs coming in short staccato puffs. Meanwhile, the dog loped across the grass, frolicking with Tucker. They chased each other, my son pulled the German shepherd’s tail and the dog turned, leaped through the air, giving Tucker a big sloppy kiss right on the nose. Both of them laughing, mouths open, tongues hanging out.
    A kiss.
    Wasn’t that how it had all started? Wasn’t that what I had seen in the tabloids, month after month? My ex with his tongue down my best friend’s throat. A photo taken when I’d been on a movie set in Romania. Back when I and the rest of the world were pretty sure that I was still married. Had been for eleven years.
    Since then I hadn’t been able to write, couldn’t even come up with a decent character. It felt like somebody had crept in during the night and stolen all of my ideas.
    All that was left was a blank page.
    And an empty bed.
    “You know, I’ve heard rumors about that town you’re staying in,” Simon said, breaking the silence. His tone was suspiciously upbeat. “It’s supposed to be filled with inspiration. All the Hollywood writers used to go up there, back in the seventies, whenever they . . .” He paused. He’d unwittingly crossed back into dangerous territory.
    “Whenever they ran out of words?” Nobody but another writer could fully understand the terror of the blank page. There had to be therapy groups for what I’d been going through.
    “The reporters are hunting for you,” he said then. “That’s why I called. I thought I should give you a heads-up, before one of them tracks you down for an interview or something. Look, I’m sorry. About it being Lacey, I mean.”
    I stood up and walked away from Tucker, cupped my hand around the phone, instinctively lowered my voice. “They deserve each other,” I said with a long sigh. I cradled the phone on my shoulder and rubbed my hands together. Maybe it was going to snow. I wondered whether I still had the tire chains for the SUV or if they had ended up in Dan’s