I woke up late the next morning, remnants of that strange dream still lingering. It had taken me hours to fall back to sleep, and now I glanced at my phone and saw it was already almost eleven. You wouldn’t know it from the dark gray skies out my window, though, the sound of steady rain pelting against the glass. I felt a surge of homesickness for Pasadena, for sunshine, for my mother.
But I forced myself to get up and get dressed. I made a Nespresso in my room and while I drank it, I started to read through my mother’s copy of Gloria’s first novel—I’d tucked it last minute into my suitcase before I’d left. I’d never read Love in the Library before, but it was about two college students who met in the library and then went on to have a very steamy relationship. And it was the book that had skyrocketed Gloria to fame.
I read only a few chapters and then ventured downstairs, vowing to remember to eat today and not embarrass myself. I grabbed a granola bar from Tate’s snack pantry and brought it and my coffee into the dining room, where I found Will at one end of the table, a laptop and stacks of papers spread out in front of him. He glanced up when I sat at the far end, his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. I considered telling him about my strange dream, but his expression looked so serious I decided not to. Instead, I smiled and said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Not at all.” He put his glasses down on the table, rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I had a few emails to return, but then I was just sitting here thinking about...” He paused for a second and looked around, but the house felt empty, quiet. I assumed Gloria was writing and Tate had gone out to the store for her morning grocery run. “...what we talked about last night,” he finally said vaguely, tapping his fingers softly against the tabletop.
Was he referring to the picture on her desk? Or the fact that he believed his mother’s memoir was a lie? I unwrapped my granola bar and took a bite. I barely tasted it but kept chewing, knowing I needed to eat. “And did you come to any conclusions?” I asked him, in between bites.
He stared at me for a moment as if trying to decide how or whether to answer before he spoke. “Do you have some free time this afternoon to go somewhere with me?”
“I’m supposed to meet with Gloria between one and two, but then yes, after that, I have no plans.” Other than studying for the role, reviewing my lines and trying to snoop more. I was supposed to check into my hotel in Belles Woods in four days—shooting was set to begin in six, and when I thought about how unprepared I felt, nerves surged in my stomach and I put the uneaten half of the granola bar down.
Will shot me a half smile, before he stood and gathered his things. “Great,” he said. “Meet me here at two, then?”
In the second chapter of her memoir, Gloria gets married.
She and George eloped but she described the moment she became his wife as, so beautiful it was surreal. Rose petals suddenly fell on us, blanketing his white tux in a sea of red. Literal hearts falling from the sky.
This was the opening scene in the script, Gloria’s beautiful elopement, and then the story flashed back—and forward—from that point on.
Cam Crawford, the actor cast as George, was an up-and-comer, plucked off a short-lived Broadway revival of The Sound of Music, where he’d played a well-reviewed Captain von Trapp. We had yet to meet, or talk—I’d missed the initial table read because I’d come on so last minute. But Google told me Cam was tall, like George, with what appeared to be kind eyes. I tried to picture rose petals falling on his shoulders, the joy of love I would have to somehow bring myself to understand in order to act it out in this particular scene with him. Right now, any feeling resembling love felt far away, intangible.
And as I sat waiting for Gloria, I wondered, was this even real joy she wrote about, or as Will claimed last night, a lie? How had she really felt when she married George? Was her wedding the happiest moment of her life, or was that something else, something that could be explained further with the strange picture on her desk?
Gloria’s career initially took off after Love in the Library came out and she did an interview with Barbara Walters where she broke down crying over losing George, talking about how all the love she’d felt for him was what she’d channeled into the fictional relationship in her first novel. It was the combination of her real tragedy, and the deep unshakable love story she portrayed in her book, that had skyrocketed her to fame. But did any of that make sense if what Will remembered about her and George was true?
And now as I sat waiting for Gloria, I tried to reconcile Tom, that book’s main character, with the details in her memoir about George.
I heard the thump of Gloria’s cane approaching, and I looked up, and smiled at her. I expected the small frown she shot back in response and didn’t let her dour expression bother me today. She sat across from me, folded her arms in front of her chest and nodded at me to begin. The clock was ticking. I had exactly sixty minutes and I was certain she was counting.
I chewed on my bottom lip, gathering my thoughts before I spoke. I was desperate to ask her about the picture I’d found, but I knew I couldn’t risk letting her know I’d been snooping in her office. Instead, I’d try a different tactic.
“What did you think of the finale last night?” I finally asked her.
Her eyebrows shot up. I’d caught her off guard. “Excuse me?”
“Seattle Med. Tate told me you’re a big fan.”
Her mouth formed into what I could almost describe as a half smile. “That Dr. Ryan could walk straight into a romance novel. He sizzles on the screen.”
She was not wrong. Objectively speaking, Jase was electric as Dr. Ryan. It was why, in my opinion, the show had seen so much success. “I used to date him,” I told Gloria. “Jase, I mean. The actor who plays Dr. Ryan.”
She nodded, her expression unchanged. “Tate mentioned that.” I was glad again I hadn’t revealed anything to Tate when she brought up Seattle Med last night.
“We broke up when he cheated on me a few months ago.” I said it flatly, matter-of-factly, but the betrayal of it all still caused a tiny ache in the hollow center of my chest as I spoke.
“And that’s why stories are better than real life, Amelia.” She sighed dramatically. “All the most beautiful real men are self-centered jerks. But in books and on TV, we can write them the way we want. Make them gorgeous, kind and good lovers, to boot,” she added. There was a hint of something in her voice now, a glimmer of excitement, that almost reminded me of the Gloria I’d watched in the Oprah interview. I understood in this moment that she truly loved what she did, creating magical love stories that weren’t real.
“And Tom in Love in the Library?” I pressed her. “He was fictional, but he was George too?”
Gloria leaned over and picked up a small silver bell resting on the coffee table in front of her. She rang it and a few seconds later Tate darted in. “Tate,” Gloria said. “I’m feeling scratchy.” She ran her fingers slowly across her throat.
“One hot toddy coming right up,” Tate said breathlessly. “Amelia, would you like one too?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks.” The last thing I needed right now was whiskey in the middle of the afternoon. Though, I jotted the words hot toddy, day drinking and scratchy in my notebook.
“So then tell me about George,” I said to Gloria after Tate ran out again. “He was the love of your life, the inspiration for Love in the Library. He must’ve been different. Kind and real.”
Gloria didn’t say anything for a few minutes. She stared at her soft pink nails, until I noticed she had the tiniest diamonds embedded in the tips of both her thumbnails. Then Tate came in with her hot toddy on a tray. She handed the drink to Gloria, who took a slow sip. She nodded at Tate, a dismissal or a thank-you, and Tate dashed out.
Gloria took a few more sips of her drink before she turned back to me. “Yes. The man I loved was both kind and real,” she finally said. “But then he died.”
And I noticed the way she parsed it just so. The man I loved. Which didn’t necessarily mean she was talking about George.