WRIT LARGE: Ch 6, Part 3
In this part, Lucas anxiously waits for Leann’s reply to his invitation while he breakfasts with Olivia and the boys. Olivia counsels him on how to approach Cathie Wood’s biography and agrees to accompany him to the poker game that evening.
After I have showered and dressed, I check my phone. Leann has not responded to my message. I locate her number, my thumb hovering over the green button – it is a more acceptable time to call – but although I should warn her that I have now taken the liberty of extending her brunch invitation to a poker game in the cigar lounge, I have no desire to appear desperate. After all, I am the one who has been holding back on accepting her into the Writer’s Guild; now the tables are turned, I can appreciate Leann’s impatience at my delay tactics. For a moment, I consider that she might deliberately be keeping me waiting, and instantly berate myself for viewing the situation from a tit-for-tat perspective. I am certain that is not Leann’s style. I will meet Olivia and the boys for breakfast and then, if Leann still hasn’t returned my call, I’ll try again.
It is only my mind that is already settling into the endless routine of thoughts, doubts, and questions – it is a writer’s lot, I guess.
They are already seated around a table near the pool. With the sunlight heightening the scene’s purest colours, the tablecloth glows white, Olivia’s hair has glints of copper, and the boys are fresh and bright and rosy-cheeked. I too feel scoured clean following my stint in the steam room. It is only my mind that is already settling into the endless routine of thoughts, doubts, and questions – it is a writer’s lot, I guess.
A server appears the instant I am seated and asks if I would prefer tea or coffee. I opt for a green tea – no point reloading my body with the toxins it has just been cleansed of, at least not until brunch when my need might be greater.
We are quiet while we contemplate the breakfast menu. I choose bacon and scrambled eggs. The boys opt for a mini fried breakfast minus tomatoes and mushrooms which I assume is because their grandfather is away on business and they are taking full advantage of his absence, and Olivia orders a full English, complete with two slices of toast and a pot of tea. I ask them their plans for the day.
“Swimming!” says the youngest lad. His brother watches him affectionately and I find myself wondering if they ever squabble over missing Lego parts or scribbles on last-minute homework.
“We’re going to the Gardens by the Bay this afternoon,” says the eldest. I comment that the super-trees are intriguing, and I have it on good authority that they can walk along a raised platform linking the trees, if they are not afraid of heights. “Do you want to come?” He shoots a glance at Olivia. “That will be okay, will it not?”
She nods. “Of course, provided Lucas has no alternative plans.” I confess to having been persuaded to take part in a game of poker this evening with the young Malaysian employees of the Genting Group, and my concern that my pockets might have been emptied and turned inside out by tomorrow morning.
“Ah,” Olivia sips fresh orange juice. “I may have played a teensy part in that invitation. I told them you would be staying tonight.” I tell her my more pressing concern is that I have extended the invitation to Leann, and she has yet to respond to attending brunch with me and Ms Wood. “Did you tell her about your epiphany?” asks Olivia.
“What’s an epiphany?” asks the youngest boy.
“It’s a lightbulb moment,” says Olivia, “one of those instances when everything slots into place in your brain and a solution presents itself as if a light has been switched on.”
I add that my own moment consisted of realising the perfect author to write Cathie Wood’s biography, which in turn would leave me free to concentrate on writing their grandfather’s life story whilst also adding another talented writer to my Writer’s Guild.
“What do you do at your Writer’s Guild?” asks Olivia. “Do you all sit in a circle, sipping tea from china cups and discussing your projects? Or am I completely off-track and you have a barbie on the beach with crates of lager and chicken drumsticks all round, chatting about whether anyone will ever write a shark novel to compete with Jaws?”
I laugh out loud and tell her that nothing will ever compete with Jaws. At the boy’s insistence, Olivia describes the movie to them, and I marvel, as always, that it is a movie that even these two young lads will one day have the pleasure of enjoying for the first time, and hope that they will also appreciate the novel from which it was adapted. Timeless classics. Like a Beatles song. Even these children will grow up knowing the lyrics to ‘All You Need is Love’.
I check my phone, something I appear to have done frequently during my visit to Singapore. Still nothing from Leann and I am frantically replaying our conversation in my head for a hint of her plans for the days following her arrival home. I had of course, assumed that her diary would be clear, or that she could rearrange her appointments to give me preference, but now I realise that was presumptuous of me.
“Are you worried that if Leann can’t come this morning, Cathie Wood won’t accept your proposal of another author?” asks Olivia. I say that she is most perceptive, and there is a niggling doubt in the back of my mind to that effect, but that I know Leann will be able to convince her. She is a writer worthy of the task, and there’s also the Writer’s Guild carrot that I’ve dangled in front of her face.
“Oh, Lucas,” Olivia smiles, “I didn’t have you pegged as a devious man. I guess that comes from writing plot twists and villains.”
Our breakfasts arrive. While we eat, we talk about the Writer’s Guild and how we champion and mentor rising star authors. We encourage the children to discuss their reading preferences and I am pleasantly surprised to learn that the eldest lad’s favourite book is The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. I tell him that when I read the book, I reached the final page and went straight back to page 1 to start over again.
Olivia clears her plate before the rest of us and orders fresh fruit to follow. I ask if she has always had such an appetite. “I’m the youngest of five children,” she says. “You learn to eat quickly, or you go hungry.” I check my phone, even though I have not heard it ring.
“Seriously,” says Olivia, “what will you do if Leann can’t make it? I have heard that Cathie Wood can be … persuasive.”
I tell her that I’m not panicking … yet. Cathie told me to choose a suitable writer if I were not available myself, and I must trust that she is a woman of her word.
“Hmmm,” says Olivia.
“Maybe you could beat her at poker,” suggests the eldest lad, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “Then she will owe you money so she will do anything that you say.”
I suggest that this would be a fantastic idea for someone who has a clue how to play poker, but for myself, I barely understand the rules, having only played with family who were mostly inebriated at the time. I don’t add that when you are playing with people who have eaten more than their weight in roast duck and had champagne for breakfast, it is far easier to cheat.
“It isn’t such a bad idea,” says Olivia. “People gamble stranger things, like their sports cars or their homes. You could gamble the biography.” She is smiling now, and I have a flashback to the way she looked at Cathie Wood during the firework display last night. “You win, Leann writes it; you lose, you do.” She shrugs.
I shake my head – she’s forgetting the most important aspect of this hypothetical bet. I can’t play poker.
“No, but I can,” she says.
