Patti M. Walsh

By Deborah E. Garofano, Guest Contributor

Come to think of it …
We writers can be savvy when we set our minds to it.

She breezed into the bar of my favorite restaurant on a steamy July afternoon perfect for lounging in the pool or, in my case, on an all-too-familiar bar stool in air-conditioned comfort.

Laptop opened on the bar in front of me, I was sporting several days of stubble which complemented my casual island-guy attire; that is to say, I was wearing a lightweight fishing shirt with the sleeves rolled up fashionably, a pair of cargo shorts almost as old as I was, and flip-flops. I was nursing a draft, having decided that lately, I’d been paying more attention to the beer I was drinking than to the keyboard. Since writing was my bread and butter, I’d come to the intelligent conclusion that if I didn’t type more than I drank, I might have to go thirsty.

We writers can be pretty savvy when we set our minds to it.

“Excuse me,” the lady said as she approached Cassie, the day bartender who tolerates my grumpiness when the words don’t flow. “Do you know anyone who can change a flat?” Flyaway wisps of blonde curls escaped from her wide-brimmed straw hat and circled like lazy moths around her pretty face, rosy from the summer heat.

Cassie being Cassie, she raised her eyebrows and looked at me, a known bachelor and a sucker for a pretty face. Who was I kidding? The newcomer had me at “Excuse me”.

I straightened up and assumed my best knight-in-shining-armor look, a challenge to pull off in flip-flops. “I got a guy,” I volunteered helpfully.

“Oh, thank you!” she said. “I’m not from around here, and I don’t know anyone on the island.” Primly, she removed her hat, coaxed her golden hair into place, and smoothed her flowery sundress. She settled into a squeaky barstool two seats away from me while I gestured to the barkeep to bring her an iced tea. I thought it might be a good omen that the polish on her fingernails was the exact color of the peach I’d sliced into my cornflakes that morning.

I reached for my phone, pressed a number on my Favorites list, and swiveled my back to her as I waited for a friend to pick up. “Hey, Joey,” I said into the phone. “I’m over at the bar. You got time to change a flat tire for a customer?”

“Sure!” he shouted above the din of his auto repair shop. “Slow day. Be there in twenty minutes; how’s that suit?”

I swiveled back to face her and tried not to stare as one lovely teardrop of sweat trickled down and disappeared into her modest neckline. I looked at her hopeful face and noted the lack of a ring on her left hand, and my heart made a split-second decision. “Make that an hour, and you’ve got yourself a deal,” I said and hung up before he could ask questions.

“He’s real busy,” I said to her, “but I convinced him to break free in an hour or so.”

I was rewarded with a smile of relief so genuine and unforgettable, I thought I might wordsmith it into my novel right after I wordsmithed her into my life. At the very least, I wanted to imprint this random encounter in my memory banks in the “forever” file.

I took another sip of suds and angled my body towards her. “What brings you to the island?” I asked conversationally.

She clinked my mug with her own. “I’m a writer,” she said. “I’m participating in a book signing at a local bookshop this weekend. It’s my first book, and I think I’ve got a case of newbie-writer nerves.” She smiled apologetically, took a sip of her iced tea, and continued. “I’m here to ensure I can find the store so I won’t be late Saturday.”

Small world, I thought to myself. “You wrote a book?” I asked. “Congratulations! What’s it about?”

The corners of her mouth turned up, and she projected that smile we authors wear when we have a book in the hopper. By the time we’ve completed fifty full-manuscript edits and typed the proverbial “The End”, we’re ever so glad to scrape it off our plate and into the publisher’s hands.

“It’s a children’s storybook. I wrote it for my niece and nephew, but I passed the manuscript around to some of the mothers in my Pilates class and got some good feedback. So, I thought it might be marketable, and I self-published. My first book,” she repeated proudly. “What about you? Do you read much?”

Nonchalantly, I reached behind me and closed the cover of the laptop to hide the novel I’d been writing—that is to say, I’d been struggling with for the past three weeks. Not many women fangirl on a cranky semipro ball-player-turned-famous-writer these days, but one can never be too cautious, and I wanted this to unfold organically.

“Yes,” I replied. “I read a lot. Crime fiction mostly, although I’d enjoy paging through your book.”

Beaming, she reached in her handbag and handed a copy to me, biting her lip and watching my reaction closely as I skimmed through it. Nice cover, well formatted, cute pictures with bright colors. It looked sellable although it’s not my genre, nor had I made it a practice to review other writers’ work. I had enough trouble penning my own.

Joey got her tire changed about an hour later, and by that time we’d made proper introductions, I’d commented appropriately on her writing style, and I’d convinced her to stay and have dinner with me at the restaurant. Over fried calamari, spicy fish tacos, and island craft beer, I did my best to impart some knowledge of who I was and what I enjoyed in life without revealing my profession. I used vague phrases like “semi-retired” and “used to play a little ball”, but staying relatively anonymous took some serious maneuvering and elicited perplexed looks on her part.

After dinner we crossed the street to the beach and strolled onto the sand just in time to watch a sunset so brilliant, she accused me of orchestrating it as a romantic culmination of our evening together.

I laughed and gestured to a cordoned-off area in the sand dunes. “Over there is where the sea turtles hatch,” I said.

“Have you ever seen them?” she asked.

“Yep,” I answered. “The females return to the beach where they themselves hatched and lay their eggs. The eggs sit in the sand for about two months. Did you know that the temperature of the sand determines the gender of the babies?” I continued. “I’m not sure how, but that’s what they say. The warmer the sand, the higher the chances the hatchlings will be females. Then when the eggs hatch, they hustle down the beach to the water,” I added. “It’s like watching a herd of mini mustangs stampede on a tiny scale.”

I think she was impressed because she asked intelligent questions and oohed and aahed appropriately.

Afterwards we sat on the dunes watching gentle waves kiss the shore as daylight faded and screaming gulls swooped overhead, seeking protected rooftop sleeping quarters on the high-rises that lined the beach.

“It’s so peaceful here,” she sighed as the shimmering golden orb flattened and slipped below the horizon.

“That it is,” I answered smartly.

“Do you live here on the island?”

I gestured down the beach to a row of houses, my eyes resting on the one that was mine, a decent bachelor pad on Millionaire Row with tall windows mirroring the fiery sunset. “Down that way,” I said vaguely.

I wasn’t about to tell her that I owned oceanfront on a strip of pricey real estate. Too much too soon could scare off someone I was liking more with each passing minute, and I was savoring the casual, friendly banter of a budding new friendship.

Once back at her car, she thanked me for dinner. Her face lit up when I promised to come to her book signing.

“Oh, would you?” she asked, eyes hopeful. “I don’t know if anyone else will show up, and it’d be great to see a familiar face.”

Little did she know on that fateful day that she was going to fall in love with a New York Times bestselling author and the headliner at her book signing, a confirmed bachelor who had the smarts to bend the rules when the right one came along.

And little did I know I was going to merge my library with hers and marry her the following year, long about the time the mini mustangs were making their mad dash for freedom.