Page 4 of No Words

“Jasmine’s right,” Lauren gushed. “I totally love cats. And reading. The Kitty Katz series was so inspiring to me that I decided I wanted to become a writer myself!”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really? That’s great.”

“Thanks! In fact, I’m writing my own book.”

“She totally is!” Jasmine nodded emphatically enough to send her braids swinging.

“Great,” I said, taking another sip of my drink. Myfreedrink!

“Girls.” The flight attendant approached. “We’re going to be making our descent into Little Bridge in a few minutes, so I’m sorry, but I need you to return to your seats.”

“Awwww!” The girls were not happy, especially Lauren. “I was going to ask for a selfie.”

“Well, you can get one with me at the book festival,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be better than one here on the plane? The lighting here is not exactly optimal.”

“I guess.” Lauren continued to look crushed—or about as crushed as a twelve-year-old with perfectly clear skin and rich parents could.

But if Kitty Katz had been her favorite series way back in grade six, Lauren had to be older than twelve. It was so hard to tell how old girls were these days. With all the makeup tutorials out there on YouTube, showing them how to expertly blend bronzer into those hard-to-reach crevices, most of them looked old enough to be in college, or even graduate school.

I felt a prickle of guilt over Lauren’s disappointment. Shemay only have “used to” like my books, but at least she’d liked them once, and she’d recognized me without my festival badge, the one I’d been urged repeatedly to wear in every communication from the library staff, so that I “could be identified as soon as possible” by the festival’s volunteers, whom I’d been told would be waiting for me at baggage claim.

“We can do a selfie now if you really want,” I said, in spite of all the glares I was getting from my fellow first-class passengers. They didn’t like having their sacred space invaded by teenagers from coach.

All of them except Dark Knight, my seatmate. He, I noted, was grinning.

“If you make it quick,” I added, for the sake of the unhappy travelers around me.

Lauren gasped with delight and quickly hunched down beside my seat. “Say Kitty Katz,” she cried, holding her phone high above both our heads.

“Kitty Katz.” I smiled up at her phone. She’d decorated the case with stickers of a Korean boy band. These girls really were adorable.

CLICK.

“All right, girls,” the flight attendant said, clapping his hands. “That’senough. It’s time to go back to—”

But the girls weren’t ready to go anywhere.

“Are you doing a panel with Will Price?” Jasmine asked.

I almost choked on the refreshing mouthful of screwdriver I’d just taken. “I’m sorry,what?”

“Will Price,” Jasmine said. “You know, Will Price, whowroteWhen the Heart Dies? He’s going to be at the festival, too.”

“Um, no.” I shook my head with enough force to cause the end of my ponytail to swat Dark Knight in the shoulder. “Sorry,” I said to him, because of my hair.

“No problem.” Dark Knight was still smiling, watching my exchange with the girls like it was a lot more entertaining than his movie.

To the girls, I said, “No. I mean, no, I’m not doing a panel with Will Price because Will writes adult novels and I write children’s novels. And also, Will isn’t coming to the festival.”

Jasmine blinked at me with her perfectly made-up eyes. “Yes, he is.”

“No, he’s not.” I smiled at her to show that I meant her no ill will. I don’t usually argue with children—I’m actually rarely around them, except for my super’s daughter, Gabriella, who takes care of my cat, Miss Kitty, for me when I’m away. But I had been assured multiple times by my agent on this point, and Rosie was never wrong. “Will Price isn’t attending this festival. I know he owns a house on Little Bridge Island, but he’s in Croatia right now, on the set of the film of his latest book.”

His latest piece of sentimental garbagewas what I wanted to say, but I didn’t, because it’s rude to bad-mouth a fellow writer’s work (out loud), something Will Price had evidently never been taught, since he’d felt free to bad-mouth my work to one of the most highly circulating newspapers in the world.

“No.” Jasmine was holding firm. “Will does have a houseon Little Bridge. Well, technically, amansionon aprivate islandoff the coast of Little Bridge. And hewasin Croatia filming the movie version of his latest book,The Moment—”

“Oh my God.” The girl in the vest looked like she was about to have an out-of-body experience right there on the plane. “You guys.The Momentis my favorite Will Price book of all time. When Johnny finally tells Mel the truth—that he’s loved her from the moment he first saw her—and that the reason they can never be together is because he’s the one who—”