Riding High in April: A Novel by Jackie Townsend

Author:Jackie Townsend
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SparkPress
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

NOVEMBER 2011—THREE MONTHS LATER

“THIS IS REALLY INTERESTING, Marie,” the Dane said, on a lounge by the pool, reading a copy of the book.

“To you and the three others who bought it.”

“I like what Stuart said about you in the acknowledgments section: ‘ghost author’—you sound so mysterious. When’s the book tour?”

“We used a small press and have little budget for PR. No book tour.”

The Dane sat up from her lounge suddenly. “You know what you need?”

Marie could only imagine.

“A book-signing party. Giorgio and I will throw it for you both. It’ll be grand. So many people will come, and it’ll be a great way to get the word out.”

“Vita has hired a new chief marketing officer who’s got some plans to give away the book at cloud technology conferences.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Doesn’t it?” Marie fake-yawned.

“UC Berkeley is going to do a cover spread in its alumni magazine. Whatever you do, don’t look at the reviews on Amazon. Stuart’s got a few haters, and they’ve decided to make their voices heard.”

The Dane lay back down. “Yeah, who am I kidding? Giorgio and I know no one in Singapore. Who would I even invite besides you? Anyway, don’t listen to those assholes. Let it go. It’s done. You did your best. Think of it like your baby, the baby you didn’t have, and now that baby is all grown up and you have to let her go.”

It had been more than a year since Marie had started working on the book for Stuart, long enough for her to be experiencing postpartum depression, but she hated that cliché. There was no void she needed to fill because she couldn’t have a child. Once she’d gotten over the instinct for a child, it was gone, never to have been there in the first place, manufactured inside her like everything else, seemingly—nothing but data, process, analysis, and information that she continually manipulated in her mind into some story. She was a machine not so unlike the machines that Stuart spent his every waking hour programming to do whatever he wanted them to do.

Marie dove into the pool and swam fifty laps.

Afterward, she clung to the side, catching her breath.

“Feel better?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do, now that your baby is out there getting shat upon?”

Marie, pulling herself out of the pool, said, “I was thinking of taking a Java programming course.”

After a pause: “Seriously?”

“I’m just curious if I could do it.”

“And what if you can?”

Marie thought about it for a moment. “Then maybe I’ll change the world.”

The Dane laughed, a hearty, wonderful laugh that became infectious. The two of them. It went on for some time.

“Seriously,” Marie said when things calmed down. “My trip to India, particularly my time with Professor Meena, has left me teetering, strangely, on the brink of some great hope.” She paused to stay a quiver in her voice. “Rich or poor, old or young, the Indians looked at me as if they really saw something. Like I’d existed in a past life or something.

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