To our past stories

“In the past?”, Elizabeth Williams repeated in a tone that did not particularly imply that she found the twist to be incredible. “But why?”

David cleared his throat, taken aback by the unexpected question. What is that supposed to mean, he didn’t ask, and instead chose to let his eyes wander around the small office, just in case the cold, dead, empty walls would like to provide him with an answer.

“Well”, he started, horrified at how blank his mind was, “because it changes things, doesn’t it? Makes you consider the story from a different perspective.”

Elizabeth Williams raised an eyebrow and did not seem convinced in the slightest. She was seated straight in her chair, just across the desk, dressed in an expensive-looking suit that made her look ten times mightier than she ought to. She was only thirty-two years old, David remembered. Younger than him. He hated the condescending way she had to flip the pages of his manuscript, the skeptical frown that kept appearing on her face, as if his work was some cheesy novel written by an overenthusiastic teenage girl.

“A different perspective”, she echoed in a puzzled voice. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

David wasn’t sure what he meant by that either, yet that was the truth all the same, wasn’t it? That was the purpose of a twist: to make you sit back on your seat and take a breath and go “wow. I hadn’t thought of it this way. I didn’t see this coming.”. It wasn’t any deeper than that.

Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to give that answer to Elizabeth Williams.

“You see, Anna, the protagonist”, he tried, “well, she thinks that Jasper is doing all of this horrible stuff to stop something even more horrible from happening. She thinks it’s justified. But then, it turns out that it was all in the past. That it already happened – that it’s all just a quest for revenge.”

“Hum.”, said Elizabeth Williams.

“And so,” David continued, “the reader himself has to reconsider his own judgement of Jasper’s actions.” Good, this was good. He was starting to convince himself. “It is meant to force them to take a step back – along with Anna – and think hard about how we tend to caution things that are simply unacceptable. The goal is that they finish this chapter with the feeling that they have learned a very, very important lesson. Do you see what I mean?”

Silence answered him. Elizabeth Williams took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and looked horrifyingly close to pinching the bridge of her nose. David could feel himself shrinking into his seat as the seconds passed – and really, his seat was a black chair that was as uncomfortable as they came – not something one could easily shrink into.

After an eternity or two of silently flipping through his book with the occasional glance to the script, she sighed. “Listen, Mr. Peterson –”

“Call me David, please,” he prompted hastily. He had told her that from the beginning of the meeting, though she had simply ignored him. “My name is David.”

“Yes, I know.” She seemed openly annoyed now. “It is written on the very first page of your book: David James Peterson. However, I do not make a habit of calling my clients by their first name.” A stern glance. He could feel himself redden – though, god, she could have used a bit of cheerfulness. Everyone at his job called him Dave – and that didn’t stop him and them from being very professional when needed.

“So, Mr. Peterson,” she resumed. “I wouldn’t say that your book does not have any potential. There are some good ideas, and you write well. But with all the unnecessary drama, the useless plot twists and the shaky characterization… I do think that you wrote it without thinking very hard about what you truly wanted to say. Please come back to see us when you have reflected on that – we’ll be able to move forward much faster.”

She got up and opened the door with one hell of a fake smile plastered on her face. That bitch.

***

“Eliza!” came the booming voice just as she was getting her daily dose of caffeine at the vending machine. Elizabeth spun around, ditched her empty cup in the bin next to her and did her best to smile pleasantly at her boss.

“Mr. Peterson. What can I do for you today?”

Peterson had a warm smile on his round, red face, and he seemed to be almost hopping as he made his way towards her – an unusual sight for the sixty-year-old man who usually much preferred complaining about back pains. “I take it you’ve seen my son this morning”, he told her happily once he was in front of her.

Oh, dear lord. “I have indeed”, Elizabeth said. “He left about an hour ago.”

David James Peterson’s manuscript was an atrocious thing. The man was lucky to have magic with words, because good god – that plot of his was a crime against humanity. His so-called book would never have made it to her desk if not for his father owning the publishing house.

She tried explaining that to said father, but her words fell on deaf ears. Peterson walked her to the cafeteria, pretended to listen patiently as they paid for their food, and raised a hand to shut her up as soon as they were seated.

“Listen, Eliza,” he told her while engulfing his roast chicken almost all at once, “I hear you: the book’s not perfect. But that’s what you’re here for, aren’t you? Dave’s writing is fabulous – that’s the hard part, the part you can’t teach. Figure out the plot with him and it’ll be a hit.”

“We have tons of books that would be hits if I spent half the time I would have to spend on this with their authors. Remember A Prayer to the Devil? Give me two months and that book is a bestseller. I’m not saying that it would be impossible with David – I’m just saying it’d take me well over a year. It’s just not worth it.”

Peterson smiled. Elizabeth had to swallow down the sudden lump in her throat. Please don’t, she thought. Please don’t. I have so many interesting projects going on right now, great authors with a story to tell, and your son has nothing, nothing, nothing to say at all.

“You’re a great editor, Eliza, you really are. You have a gift for uncovering the gold in a story everyone else would have thrown to the trash. Do what you’re best at. Spend a year, two years, ten years on it, I don’t care. I know you can make a number one bestseller out of that book, and I want you to do it.”

He waited for them to leave the cafeteria before leaning in towards her ear and whispering: “Who knows what could happen should you succeed… I might be so impressed I train you to take over when I retire.”

***

She was so obviously being coerced into it it was painful. Quite a bit vexing, too. His book might have been a little cliché, but it certainly wasn’t that bad. He had a three act structure, somewhat fleshed out characters – he had a dedicated document for each of them on his laptop, for Christ’s sake – and a lot of surprising plot twists. Wasn’t that enough for her?

That day, Elizabeth Williams was wearing tight blue pants that hugged her thin legs, and an immaculate shirt. Her blonde hair was artfully twisted in a weirdly good-looking bun, and she was wearing a reddish lipstick that made her look like a college student. She looked insolently young. She looked like she was entirely inexperienced and never to be allowed to judge his book.

Especially this harshly.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with that goddamn twist”, he groaned. “Why do you even keep coming back to that?”

To be fair, she had printed out a long list of other things he would have to change – which apparently was his entire story – before addressing the topic. The list was laid out right in front of him, an ugly little document twenty pages long. She didn’t seem interested in any of the bullet points written on there – all that mattered was that “it was all in the past” plot twist, for some reason.

“Something about not throwing gold into the trash, even when it feels very tempting”, she said. “Lord knows we can’t afford that with your story.”

For the life of him, David could not figure out why his father described Elizabeth Williams as hands-down the best editor he had ever seen.

She flipped the pages of the manuscript again, seemingly reading some lines at random. She had given him back the script itself, saying that it was of no use since they would have to reshuffle it entirely. So really, without any guiding thread to the events of the story, he had a hard time seeing how she hoped to make relevant suggestions.

“Maybe –” he started, but she lifted her head at the same time and did not appear to care in the slightest that he was trying to speak.

“How did you get the idea for that twist? When did it happen, what were you thinking? Was it always meant to happen at this point in the story?”

He opened his mouth and found himself at a loss for an answer. Who cares, he wanted to say, but truthfully, he knew better than to ask that question.

How did he get the idea, anyway? David couldn’t remember. He had had to deal with so many elements at the same time while writing that he had forgotten why half of the contents of his book was there in the first place. He had made a document at some point, written out all of his ideas, and then he had fit them all into the story as best as he could. The result was pretty satisfying in his eyes.

Elizabeth Williams obviously did not share that opinion. He truly was unable to pinpoint the exact reason why it maddened him so much.

“I do think it was always meant to happen at that moment, yes”, he chose to answer. “I needed Jasper to become the villain, and up until this point Anna sees him as the love of her life or whatever. So that’s what the twist was about. It reveals Jasper as the bad guy – I already told you that.”

She tilted her head and looked at him straight in the eyes, something excited and heavy swirling deep within her iris. “So your twist was centered around time, and around information. It’s about how we construct and constantly reevaluate the people around us through the lens of their past, and yet it’s also about how we should learn to let go of the past instead of letting it define us.”

She fell silent for a beat, and then leaned forward, her eyes glazing in the cold light of her office.

“Why isn’t that the subject of your book?”

***

“Actually, I’m adamant about that twist”, he said. “It’s the heart of the book.”

“It is not”, Elizabeth said, fuming. “It’s the weak link of the story, that’s what it is. Cut it, and your book will be –”

She cut herself short when David started smirking. God knew he didn’t need any more flattery boosting his ego after his very first novel ended up at the top rank of the world’s bestsellers – thanks to her picking up that pile of fuming garbage – yet even she had to admit it: that book was good. That book was so good that she found herself grasping at straws trying to find something constructive to tell him.

Because “Look at you, David. Finally figuring out what you truly want to tell the world, and doing so as beautifully as ever” was definitely not going to cut it.

“Cut the twist. And I might consider editing and publishing this for you.”

He smiled. He had teeth so white and so straight it was unfair, and a twinkle in his blue eyes that made him look much younger than he truly was. When he shook his head, she forgot for a second whether she wanted to scowl at him or kiss him.

“The twist is the single most important part of the book, Eliza.”

She pushed her empty cup of coffee away, and waved discreetly at a passing-by waiter to indicate she wanted a second one. David’s lips curled, but he didn’t comment on her unholy consumption, just looked at her with serious blue eyes that seemed to say there was more about this than met the eyes. She tapped on the wooden table with her painted nails and raised an eyebrow.

“You should find another most important part of your book, then. Because the twist is getting cut. It doesn’t flow with the rest of the novel as it should, and besides, you've already used it. It was all in the past, really? That was one of the main plot points of your first novel. Did you think I’d forgotten that? I basically wrote that plot myself!”

He rolled his eyes.

“Just look around you, Eliza. What do you see?”

She didn’t look – she knew perfectly well where she was. “I see a restaurant”, she answered. “Warm and distinguished. They serve the best sea bream fillet in town – which is probably why we’re here, seeing as it’s my favorite dish. You must have really wanted me to be in a good mood though, because it’s horribly expensive.”

“I wanted to impress you”, he said. The world came to a gentle stop, and Elizabeth found, stupidly, that she couldn’t look away from his hopeful face. He was beautiful. She knew that already – but still. Sometimes it just hit her, like that, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“I first brought you here three years ago, do you remember?”

She remembered.

“I wanted to impress you back then,” David said, “and I want to impress you now. Just give me a chance, Eliza. Some things are… some things are just meant to be. You know?”

She knew.

Yet she also knew that the last time she allowed herself to fall for him, the distance and the stress had broken them – the long tours to other countries, the tired phone calls at one in the morning, the events she herself had started to attend as head of the publishing house after Mr. Peterson had retired and left her in charge, the side remarks about sleeping with an author you’re publishing.

“It would be too complicated, David. You know this. We both do. We tried, and we failed.”

“So we try again”, he said. “Sometimes something happens, and just repeats itself, over and over, on and on, endlessly. Sometimes something happened, a long time ago – say, three years, out of my hat – and it’s just doomed to happen again. Sometimes the past is the present, Eliza, sometimes the two are one and the same and there’s just no discerning them. I love you. Three years ago, I loved you just the same.”

Truly, Elizabeth didn’t need much convincing. Otherwise she wouldn’t have bothered to show up in the restaurant on the front porch of which David first kissed her, and she wouldn’t have bothered crying through his book and taking responsibility for editing it personally even though she had been upgraded and released from that function several years prior. She knew it, and he knew it, and she didn’t intend on giving in just yet.

“If your theory is correct, then your whole plot twist thing is useless”, she charged instead. It was a game they played, the two of them, and she saw the hint of a smile in David’s serious, passionate eyes. “So why are you clinging to it so harshly? It’s dragging your book down.”

“My book is about you. I wrote it for you. I wrote it because of you. I wrote it with one point in mind, and that point was the past, our past, becoming our present again. It’s not dragging the book down, Eliza, it’s the very central part of the story. Discovering that it was all in the past. Discovering that it doesn’t matter.”

“If our past is our present and future, we’ll try again. And then we’ll fail. Is it worth it?”

“To find you again? To have to go through all the stages on your bitchy, holier-than-thou persona before you allow me back in again? To hate you and admire you and love you again?”

He smiled.

“How could it not be worth it, Eliza?”

Outside, she heard the rain start falling, tumbling harshly on the paved streets and the thick sunshade of the restaurant. The sound was soft, soothing, and it felt like maybe a new beginning – or a turning back.