Agreement? What kind of an agreement?
Before she could ask, Eddie was pointing at her. “Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. How’ve you been?”
“Fine. Great. I quite like life without adventurer’s spirit. Life is pretty good. Tell me—how are your parents doing? I haven’t seen them in years.”
Their parents had spent many vacations together—doing something exciting and thrilling. Maria had hated those vacations, everything from skiing to bungee-jumping.
Later, when she’d finally gotten up the nerve to tell her parents her true feelings about adventuring, they’d allowed her to stay behind, and she’d gotten to hang around at the cabin or the ski lodge or whatever lodgings were available. Life had become lovely. Finally, vacations she didn’t have to fear. She could curl up in an armchair with a book and hot chocolate, or sketch the scenery, or bundle up to build a snow army outside, or go for quiet walks and just let her mind wander.
She liked excitement to stay put inside her head. It was just the way she was, and she didn’t apologize for it any longer.
Eddie, on the other hand, had loved every minute of it. He’d come along on every single trip, and bit by bit Maria had become more and more irritated by the way her parents would look at him and then at her, as if thinking “why can’t she be more like Eddie?”
Almost unaware of what she was doing, Maria frowned. Eddie had always been perfect. The perfect son—only he wasn’t theirs. He was the boy next door, always brave and competent, laughing through danger when she was holding back tears, singing his way up a mountain while she was sweating and panting and wishing she’d been born to a pair of couch potatoes.
Her emotions had gone through a regular roller-coaster ride where Eddie was concerned. As a child she’d adored him when they were at home, when things were calm. She’d resented him during summer vacations when he’d been her parents’ surrogate son, the perfect one. She’d developed a huge crush on him in her teens, culminating in a mortifying incident when she was eighteen.
Since then she’d rarely seen him. He’d been away, adventuring all over the world. Her parents got regular postcards—always with a PS she’d come to depend on as one of the constants in life: Say hi to Maria for me.
“Mom and Dad are fine,” Eddie was saying. “They’re still in Egypt, no talk of returning anytime soon.” He tapped her shoulder. “But weren’t we talking about you?”
Maria crinkled her nose. “I’m boring, Eddie. Remember? Nothing remotely interesting about my life.”
Eddie was nice enough to chuckle, as if she’d made a joke instead of stated a fact. “Your mother tells me you’re working as an artist and a writer now.”
Maria felt like snorting. She could imagine just what her mother had said, and Eddie had probably done some heavy editing on her precise words. She glanced toward the kitchen, where she could now hear voices. “Did she actually tell you that? Did she say working?”
Eddie chuckled. “Not exactly. She might have phrased it a bit differently.”
“Yeah, I thought she might have. Well it is a job. Not a very well paid one, unfortunately, but I’ll get there. Meanwhile I work full-time at the library, too, and call it research.”
“You’re doing children’s books, right?”
“Yes. I started out illustrating other people’s books, but now I’m working on writing them as well. It’s a challenge.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Well, it’s not jumping out of airplanes or scaling Everest, but to me, it’s exciting and fulfilling.”
Already she was on the defensive. Why? There was nothing to defend. There was nothing wrong with enjoying a nice, quiet, calm, boring life. She wanted boredom. She craved boredom. She’d craved it practically from birth but been denied it far too long. She had no reason to make excuses for the way she chose to live her life.
But a part of her desperately wanted Eddie’s approval. Always had. His respect had been hard-won. Little girls generally had a tough time impressing older boys. It was for Eddie, more than for her parents, she’d struggled for so long, pretending to be another adrenaline junkie, although she hadn’t realized that until much later. But that was all in the past now. She had no reason to seek his approval. She didn’t need it.
“What are you working on now?”
She tossed her hair back and glanced toward the kitchen. She should probably go check if her parents had gotten lost inside the fridge or something. They could cook well enough, but they weren’t very good at practical things—indoor things. Like cleaning up after their gourmet cooking sessions. “Are you really interested?”
“Of course I’m interested.” He made that sound like a given. She relented, vowing to stop being so defensive.
“Well…it’s a fantasy story. You know, heroes and dragons and monsters and stuff.”
“Aha. You mean—an adventure.”
She scowled at him, then grinned. “Yeah. I guess. Adventures on paper—that’s excitement enough for me, thank you.”
“So you did discover your adventurer’s spirit after all.”
She stared at him, not sure if he was joking or not. Yes—that was one way of putting it. She liked working on adventures inside her head. As long as they didn’t involve actual heights or actual tarantulas or actual flame-breathing dragons, adventures were just fine.
She did have an adventurer’s spirit after all. One that was now pushing her relentlessly toward fictional journeys of danger and excitement.
Eddie had homed into that instantly, while nobody else had ever made the connection—not even she. How? She almost felt as if he’d invaded her private thoughts and feelings.
“How’s the book going?” Eddie asked, oblivious to her inner turmoil. She blinked, snapping back to reality.
“Okay. Not bad. Well, bad, but I know it will pass. It always does, eventually. I have most of the story down in my head, except for the very ending, and some minor issues.” She sighed. “Well, a huge issue, actually.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The hero. I can’t get him to materialize properly on the paper.” She looked at Eddie and frowned, trying again to picture Marius. Eddie raised an eyebrow in question and his face was superimposed on her mental picture of Marius.
Yes!
She clicked her fingers and frantically looked around for a pencil and paper. “That’s it!” She jumped to her feet and glanced around, as if a sketchpad were likely to materialize in her parents’ living room. She slapped a hand against the back of the sofa in frustration. “Oh, damn it, why didn’t I bring a sketchpad? Why don’t I ever have a sketchpad when I need one?”
Eddie chuckled. “Is this what a sudden burst of inspiration looks like?”
Her heart was actually beating faster in anticipation of finally getting Marius on the page. Didn’t she have a small sketchpad in her purse? “Oh, yes. Would you—?”
Her parents burst into the room, voices raised as always in an attempt to drown out each other, and it was too late to wrangle a promise out of Eddie.
Later, Maria promised herself. Even if she had to corner him after dinner and draw on paper towels with a ballpoint pen, she would take advantage of this. She was getting quite desperate for inspiration.
“Maria!” Mom said, hugging her. “Happy birthday, darling. Isn’t Eddie a nice birthday surprise?”
Oh,