FebNoWriMo Excerpt - A Blog Exclusive!

Here's an excerpt from my new novel, A Double Yellow Line, for your viewing (vomiting?) pleasure.

(To set the stage: the book is a drama about a burnt-out personal success coach who gets reinvigorated after taking on a new and controversial client.)

Chapter 1

“So, when you jumped out of the bushes, dressed like a clown and blowing a stadium horn, you didn’t mean to scare her. You were just trying to show her that you love her.”

Blake Talbot’s lips were cupped in his palm as he listened, his relaxed posture supported by the armrest of the soft leather couch. He could feel Dr. Richards gazing at him over his glasses, and Blake sighed. A clock ticked quietly in the room.

This whole thing was ridiculous. Blake was one of Seattle’s hottest commodities. And his popularity on the national circuit was now growing quickly, with the release of his critically acclaimed book. He coached million-dollar athletes, singers, actors. Hot-rod CEOs of multinational companies. He was the best at what he did, and he made his living helping other people do their best. He had everything he wanted…the houses, the cars, the trips. He’d turned his life – and hers – into a personal Disneyland. The only thing he lacked was a wife that appreciated any of it. Or him, for that matter. It just goes to show that if you give a woman a mile, she’ll take you to the moon.

“Blake?” Dr. Richards prompted, interrupting the stalled air. “Have I got that right?”

The chill from Bianca, sitting next to him, was palpable, and Blake kept his gaze carefully away from her.

“I was being spontaneous,” he finally replied. It was almost as if he could hear his wife’s head shaking in disgust.

“Blake,” she said, “I don’t want spontaneous. I want dependable. Not surprises. Stability. Someone who takes the time to know me and actually gives me what I want. Not fancy, colorful baubles that only advertise how out of touch you are with our life.”

Blake rolled his eyes, and fought down the burning urge to get up and walk out. How could you give something to a woman who didn’t like anything? All she knew how to do was criticize.

“Wait a minute, Bianca,” Dr. Richards warned. “It’s Blake’s turn. So, Blake, you wanted to be spontaneous, to give her something nice. A trip to Paris, a couple fun days at Disney, and you were trying to create some fun for the two of you. Bianca, do you hear that from Blake?”

She didn’t say anything, and Blake wasn’t paying attention. He peeked at his watch. Five more minutes of this drivel. Then it was a quick drive on 90 across Lake Washington to downtown, for a brief lunch at Qwest Field with the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. The Hawks had won the division but lost the conference, and their fearless leader wasn’t feeling so fearless. Then after lunch was a quick pump-up session with a VP from Microsoft, some usual busywork at the office, and the rest of the afternoon was his. The weather was gorgeous, and Blake planned to take his boat out on the Sound with a few of the girls from the Seahawks cheerleading squad. They were a barrel of laughs, and they loved going out on the boat. He sure didn’t mind taking them. But he didn’t get to think anymore about it.

“Now, Blake, it’s your turn to notice Bianca,” Dr. Richards interrupted, then paused as he realized how far away Blake was. “Blake, would you look at Bianca, please?”

Blake kept his face passive as he brought his head around. Bianca’s stunning figure sat primly, properly on the couch. Her red hair fell straight down the sides of her narrow but fetching face as she looked at him. Her clothes fit her perfectly, the quality of the fabric undeniable.

“Bianca is trying to connect with you,” Dr. Richards continued. “But she feels like you’re checked out most of the time. Is that true?”

Blake looked at him. “I’m very busy,” he sighed. “Our lifestyle doesn’t come free. I can’t be there every minute of the day.”

“I’m not talking about every minute of the day,” the counselor replied. He spoke slowly for emphasis. “When you are with her…how present are you? How available are you to seeing and hearing her as she is?”

This guy was a joke, Blake thought. He couldn’t talk a dog into eating hamburger. Being a world-class success coach, Blake knew something about motivating people. And this guy had the uncanny ability to take whatever last, wilted frond of hope you might have inside and rip it right off the stalk. Sometimes you just had to be blunt with people like this. People like him and Bianca. No frills.

“Doc, let me tell you how it is. The only way Bianca knows how to connect is to criticize.”

Bianca flared. “And the only way you know how to connect is to mold people into your fantasy personality. You can’t accept people for who they are.”

Blake spun his face toward her. “I can’t accept people?! You can’t accept people! All day long, its, ‘this isn’t right, that isn’t right, you forgot this, sue that quack.’ I have done nothing but love you, Bianca.”

“Love me?!” she shrieked in astonishment.

“Love you and provide for you and give you the best damn life you could have ever imagined.”

“With a man I don’t even know,” she murmured to the side.

Blake threw up his hands. “There you go again. The moment I point out something good in your life, you knock it down. You know what your problem is, Bianca? You don’t want to be happy.”

She looked at him with amusement. “I don’t want to be happy…”

“That’s right, you don’t. You can’t tolerate one iota of joy in your life, because it’ll wreck your whole carefully constructed, grim-faced Boston propriety.”

Her face slid into disgust. “Oh, don’t you pull that lecture-circuit bullshit on me.” She looked at Dr. Richards, her palm held outward in the direction of her husband. “You see what I have to deal with? The man is so driven to make people better, he can’t love the people he’s with.” And before Blake could rebut, she threw another shot across his bow. “Believe me, Blake, I know how to have fun. But I live a lonely life in an empty house with a man I don’t know. You think I want more trips, more diamonds, more parties. More spontaneous clown costumes,” she added with naked contempt. “Yes, I liked your playful nature when I met you. I still do. I like to have fun too. But you just never take the time anymore to find out what I think is fun.” She locked his eyes with a glare. “You are not there for me.”

“Uh, we’re nearing the end of our time,” Dr. Richards said with a softness out of character with the argument. “What I want you to do, Blake, is to write down a list of five fun things that the two of you shared together when you were still in love. And then I want you to write down five things you would enjoy doing with her today. They can be the same things, but they don’t have to be. And Bianca, I want you to do the same thing. But don’t show each other your lists. Just bring them with you next week and we’ll see what you came up with. Ok?”

Blake stood up, faster than Bianca. The end couldn’t have come soon enough for him.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Bianca said.

Dr. Richards waved and smiled benignly at them as they left.

Blake strode three paces ahead of Bianca as they left the man’s office, anxious to get to his car and rocket across town to the stadium. Maybe he’d borrow a helmet and pads and go knock down a few linemen himself. Show those bastards how it’s really done. A little marital counseling is all you really need. Heck, maybe he could even get Coach Holmgren to add it to the practice drills next year. The Seahawks surely wouldn’t lose a conference game then. Or maybe they could rig the JumboTron to paint a picture of each guys’ wife on the opposing player’s face. The linemen would just naturally mow ‘em down. Blake walked quicker. He was on to something here.

“Do you mind waiting for me?” Bianca asked behind him with irritation.

His stride broke imperceptibly, but he kept going. He held up the face of his watch behind him, as if she could see it from that distance. “Late for a meeting,” he called back without looking. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Bianca stopped walking, and shook her head as she watched him leave.