Page 52 of People Skills

‘No.’

‘Okay, well, it’s just like a big boogie board. Hop on.’ For a second I’m worried he’s going to pull me up alongside him, but he slips off and I jump on. Or I try to. It takes a few goes, and I can see he wants to help me, but I resist him, making sure I am out of his reach, and I finally get on, lying on my stomach, and using my hands to paddle around.

‘Hey, I’m almost surfing!’ I say.

‘I don’t want to disappoint you, but most people consider waves to be a fairly important part of surfing.’

‘That is not the positive reinforcement I need.’

‘Wow, Charlotte, look at you, you’re surfing!’ he says, grinning.

I laugh, and paddle around for awhile before trying to get up and kneel on the board, but I fall off.

I surface, close to him, and we stand together in the water, almost up to our necks now, which is deeper than I like to be, but I feel safe next to him.

‘Do you think of The Deep when you’re in the ocean?’ I say.

‘I never think of it.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s pretentious and unfunny and you’ll hate yourself for bothering to finish it.’

‘You’re a bestselling author, one review can’t haunt you that much.’

‘I thought you were well versed in the neuroses of authors.’

‘I am, and I always think, toughen up.’

He looks like he’s going to splash me, but he stops himself.

‘I read the notes you left in it,’ he says.

I had left my annotated copy of it lying around for him to find like I did with The Bird House.

‘And what did you think?’

‘You were way too kind.’

‘I had plenty of critiques alongside the nice stuff. And I was being objective. It’s a good book.’

‘It’s not a good book. But the real problem is that when I was writing it, I knew it wasn’t as good as The Bird House. And I think that was my first problem: to realise that the best book I might write in my life, I had already written, and every book I might write after it would be a little bit worse.’

‘That’s a very defeatist take. And you’re equating good sales with quality. Every book is going to find its own readers. They’re not in competition with each other.’

‘What do they say? Thousands of people might read your work, but when you’re writing it, you write it for one specific reader.’

‘Who’s your reader?’

‘Me, I guess. And I’m a grumpy arsehole.’

I smile at him, and then splash him, without thinking.

‘Oh, what was that? Oh no. You broke the no-splashing rule. You know what that means?’ he says.

‘What?’

‘I get to dunk you.’