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He nodded. “She does. She shares an apartment in Manhattan with a few other girls who are also models. They’re hardly ever there at the same time because they’re all traveling. She’s in Spain this week but she’ll be back in town end of next week and will be around for a few weeks before she heads out again.”
“So, do you just write from home?” Sophie asked. She thought it must be a great job, one you could do from just about anywhere.
“Sometimes. I do better in a coffee shop though. There are a few that I rotate between, depending on how busy they are. I try to write a little when I first get up, and then after lunch, I usually head to a coffee shop for the afternoon. It gets me out of the house and breaks the day up a little.”
“Is it hard to concentrate with people talking all around you?” Sophie asked.
“No. It’s like white noise. I just tune it out and it sounds like a background hum. If the conversations are interesting, I might eavesdrop for a bit.” He grinned. “Sometimes I get good story ideas that way.”
“That sounds fun. You probably get asked this a lot, but where do you get your ideas? I’m completely uncreative and totally impressed that anyone can create a story like that.”
Max grinned. “That’s the number one question that people ask me. I don’t know where they come from. They just come…sometimes when I read something in the paper or watch the news on TV or while I’m trying to write a different book. That’s often when another idea tries to get my attention. And in the shower or on a drive. Something about being relaxed and thinking about nothing at all seems to attract the best ideas.”
“That’s so interesting.” Maybe because she didn’t have a creative bone in her body, Sophie found it fascinating to hear about Max’s writing process.
“What do you do?” Max asked.
“I’m sort of in transition. I worked as a legal assistant and decided I want to try a new industry, so I’m doing some temping.”
“That’s a great idea. Have you liked anything yet?”
Sophie laughed and told him about her experience on the trading floor.
“That sounds rough. Those traders make a lot of money, though.”
“Money isn’t everything,” Aunt Penny said. “I think liking what you do is far more important.”
“Oh, I agree, totally. I feel very lucky that I get to make a living doing something I love,” Max said.
“Next week I’m going to an advertising agency,” Sophie said. “That should be a more creative environment, I think.”
“It should be. Might still be a bit stressful though. I have a friend that worked at an ad agency for a few years. The hours were intense. He didn’t have to be there until ten, but he worked most nights until ten or eleven. He couldn’t take it after a while.”
Aunt Penny shook her head. “That’s too much. What is he doing now?”
“He’s doing marketing for a tech startup with a few friends. They still work long hours sometimes but it’s because they want to. They love it.”
“The nice thing about the temping is that there’s an end date, no longer than two weeks at each assignment,” Sophie said.
“That’s good. Maybe you’ll land at a place you love and want to go permanent. That happened to a friend. He started out temping in the mail room at a financial company and they liked him. Now ten years later he’s a senior VP and has a really cushy job. I don’t know what he does, something in sales, but it seems like he gets paid to play golf with clients.”
Sophie smiled. “Do you golf?”
“Yes, but poorly. Do you?”
“No. Maybe one day I’ll try it.”
“Oh you should!” Aunt Penny said. “I used to love to golf when I was younger. There are women’s leagues and it’s a great way to meet people. I met some of my closest friends through playing golf at our country club.”
“Where was your country club?” How was it possible that Sophie didn’t know that her aunt played golf?
“In the Hamptons of course.”
“Oh, okay, that makes sense. You never golfed when we visited, so I didn’t know.” Every summer growing up, Sophie’s parents had taken a two-week-long vacation to the Hamptons to stay at Aunt Penny’s summer house there. It was a roomy Cape style house on the beach. Sophie hadn’t been there in the past five years though. Aunt Penny hadn’t mentioned it at all.
“Do you still have the Hamptons house?”
Aunt Penny nodded. “Of course I do. I’ll never sell that house. I don’t get there like I used to, but I rent it out now and it’s booked solid all summer long. It’s a good investment. I still keep one week free for myself though, usually in September when the crowds die down, but the weather is still nice.”
