“Thank you, Linette,” Nikos said.
Doris went to the counter. “Anything we can do?” she asked quietly.
Linette turned away from Nikos. Her shoulders slumped as she sighed. “Oh forkballs! I’d better hurry before Bill and Cassandra start World War III. Cassandra is doing the thing again.”
“Thing?” Joey asked, coming in the front door right then, Nikos and Mikhail towering over short Bird between them.
Linette smiled an absent welcome. “Cassandra proposes we start an online magazine, or a classy print one, or a poetry and fiction blog. And of course she’s to be the editor. If you ask me, I think it’s because Tomas just sold a poem to that snobby magazine she’s always going on about submitting stuff to, how hard it is to place anything there, if she can’t, nobody can, yadda yadda.” She sighed again, and pointed to the back room of the bakery, where the meetings always took place. “Go on in. The coffee is ready, though I should probably spike it.”
Godiva’s expression had shuttered, her black eyes narrowed as she led the way.
Years of learning to read a room full of people who might not speak her language caused Jen to scan quickly. Sure enough, here and there were the tight angles of people trying not to argue, though they wanted to. The writers had instinctively grouped themselves into two camps, exactly the way it had happened the previous times the subject of publishing a magazine had come up—though not all the same people were in each camp.
Everyone was talking in low, intense voices. On Cassandra’s side of the room, Jen heard a longtime member saying, “I don’t know why it always gets voted down. I know if someone just saw my poems—”
“My niece could do the illustrations! Everybody at her school says she’s a real artist—you’d never know she’s only in first grade!”
“—which are all hand-calligraphed, with the story behind each poem included, and I never send more than ten at a time, carefully selected. I figure surely one will ‘fit their needs’—”
“ . . .and there are so few short story markets. Not like thirty years ago! But I’m afraid this would be another non-paying gig. Everyone says ‘for exposure,’ but I’ve been so exposed it’s a miracle I don’t get arrested . . .”
And on the other side of the room:
“Not this again! I thought we voted it down once and for all.”
“ . . .it’s fine for the short story and poetry writers, but all of us writing novels are shut down before we even get started . . .”
“ . . . everybody’s taste is so different, but you know whose taste would be the only one considered, and she’ll surely fill half the magazine with her own poems . . .”
“Cassandra’s rich enough to buy her own print shop,” Godiva muttered. “Last time this came up, we told her to start her own magazine, but what she really wants is everyone submitting stuff to her, so she can pick and choose. She’s like the Bridezilla who lives for picking and dumping bridesmaids.”
Cassandra, a small woman with short, frizzy blond hair, approached wearing her usual clashing bangles and beads. She said in a chirpy voice, “And here is our resident best seller!” She sidled up toward Godiva. “Several of us are taking another look at our idea of our own magazine. I was thinking, if you started our first issue with an interview between your detective and—”
“Nope,” Godiva stated. “There are plenty of online zines popping up and failing. It’s a lot of work putting out a magazine, work that would take away from actual workshopping.”
“Not these days,” Cassandra cooed. “We have so many talented students from the university who have access to the most amazing software—”
“It’s an excellent idea,” Bill Champlain put in, as usual pushing himself into the middle of someone else’s conversation—especially if women were talking. “What it needs for success,” he stated, “is a professional touch. I could talk to my agent about it. Make sure we begin with professional standards. Before Mindy, my idiot ex-wife, selfishly bailed on me, she used to type all my work, but I still have the templates she used . . .”
“If this was high school, I’d know what to do,” Doris muttered. “Or even if I were still group leader. Where’s Linette? Still out front getting the food, I expect.”
Jen said, “I last saw her loading the trays. Doris, you used to be moderator. If this was an actual fight, I’d walk between the two leaders and try to bring things down a notch. Seeing as it’s our group, I think they’d take your influence over mine.”
Joey smiled at Doris. “Let’s give that a try.”
Doris opened her hands and said, “Hey diddle-diddle, right down the middle.”
She and Joey began walking between the groups, addressing people to either side. “How are you doing?” and, “Looking forward to your pages tonight. How much did you get written last week?”
Nikos sat down beside Jen. “I’ve used a similar technique when trying to defuse tensions. They are doing it well.”
Jen murmured back, “Doris is using her High School Teacher Voice on them. She only breaks that out when certain elements in the group start pulling the room into high school mode. It’s rare,” she added quickly. “They’re a great bunch. But you know, when you get a lot of different personalities in one place . . .”
“I do know,” he said softly. “So tell me more about what you write?”
She hesitated, then reminded herself that guilt was no longer an option. Yes, writing fantasy wasn’t saving the world, but it, like cake, had its place. “I tend toward adventures. With magic. I’ve seen amazing places all over the world, and I love imagining what-ifs.”
She hesitated, studying Nikos closely. His pupils had changed, and his lips parted. That was not boredom. Encouraged by this sign of his close focus, she rushed on. “I love the idea that the world, the universe, is far bigger than we can imagine. So I play in that pond. This new one . . . well, ho