LITMIR.BIZ

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love affair led only to disaster and regret. This so-called diary suggested that a woman was missing out on a grand love if she didn’t throw caution to the wind and indulge in a sexual escapade. What about the loss and devastation, especially when the man had so much more power and privilege than the woman? Sydney had to prove that this diary was fake and that love affairs weren’t all rainbows and unicorns.

      “Sydney, why is it so important to you that this book be fictional?” Isabel asked as she sat down next to her. “You really questioned everything about The Secret Diary.”

      Sydney didn’t want to advertise her lack of judgment or the affair that had cost her her job and her reputation. Only one person in town knew the details of her inglorious fall from grace and that was her editor. She and Wendy had been friends since college, so when Sydney had run into trouble, the other woman had offered her a job and a place to lie low.

      “You question everything, Sydney. It’s why you got kicked out of our old book club,” Laura said.

      “I was encouraging discussion,” Sydney said. “And I got kicked out because I questioned the book selection process. It wasn’t transparent or democratic. Plus, the president of the club thinks I’m a troublemaker.”

      “You’ve been determined to tear this book apart,” Laura said. “Instead of analyzing everything, you should try reading a book for entertainment.”

      “You got kicked out of the other book club, too, Laura. You didn’t like what they were reading, either. Why were you part of the club, anyway?”

      “My mom made me. She put my name on the waiting list and she didn’t want me to turn down the ‘honor’ of getting invited to join the club. The Seedling Women’s Reading Circle has been going for decades and it’s a big deal. It’s practically a rite of passage in this town.”

      “I had no idea.” The reading circle hadn’t vetted Sydney or made her wait to join. They’d invited her when she first moved to Seedling. But then, she didn’t have a reputation like Laura’s—that they knew about, anyway. If the president of the book club had discovered her history, Sydney probably wouldn’t have been asked to join the club in the first place.

      “I think my mom and sisters worked behind the scenes to get me invited. They’re regretting it now. I’m the only Dawson woman in the family tree who’s been blacklisted from the reading circle,” Laura proudly added.

      “Well, now it’s not the only book club in town,” Isabel said. “There’s the Seedling Women’s Reading Circle and the Blacklist Book Club.”

      “The Blacklist Book Club?” This was the first Sydney had heard of a name for their impromptu reading group. “Is it because we read blacklisted books like The Secret Diary, or because we were blacklisted from the book club?”

      “Both,” Isabel said with a smile.

      “Perfect! I get to choose next month’s book,” Laura said. “And, oh—” she rubbed her hands together and gave a wicked laugh “—it’s going to rock your world.”

      “What about The Secret Diary?” Isabel asked. “Didn’t that rock your world?”

      “I love it, and you know why, Isabel?” Laura rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “You had the guts to recommend the book to the Seedling Reading Circle and you got kicked out because of it. That is the only reason I joined the Blacklist Book Club and read this book from cover to cover.”

      “It’s the reading circle’s loss,” Isabel said defiantly, as if the book hadn’t caused her trouble with her job or her good-girl reputation. “I love this diary. It changed my life.”

      “In what way?” Sydney asked. She had noticed a few subtle changes in the librarian recently. Isabel had always been the epitome of elegance and grace. She often wore tailored clothes in quiet colors, but these days she no longer wore cardigans and scarves to cover up her curves. In fact, she had also started choosing bolder colors and her shoes were downright sexy. “Wait a second. Are you saying it inspired you?”

      Isabel blushed and nodded.

      Laura gasped. “You reenacted a scene, didn’t you? The staircase one, I bet.”

      “I’m not telling you,” Isabel said as her blush deepened. “And lower your voice. We’re in the library.”

      “Who were you with?” Laura whispered fiercely. “I want details.”

      “I already said too much.”

      “This book really changed your life?” Sydney bit her lip with worry. She was trying to disprove the book, to show that the affair between Hazel and Ernest was fictional and no forbidden love could be that beautiful and life affirming. Hers certainly hadn’t been. But Sydney had never thought about the consequences of successfully proving that the diary could be fictional. Would Isabel retreat back into her shell? “How would you feel if you found out this diary is really a work of fiction?”

      Isabel looked away as she considered the question. “Disappointed,” she said. “Disappointed and betrayed. But I really do believe this happened. Hazel and Ernest are very real to me. What do you think, Laura?”

      “I believe Hazel and Ernest were real people, but did all those things happen to them? I don’t know. It could be...what’s it called? Artistic license. If Hazel didn’t do all this, she definitely fantasized about Ernest. Ernest may have been her muse more than her lover.”

      Muse. The writer had probably had a muse. Someone she knew but couldn’t touch. Sydney understood what that felt like. She glanced over to where Matthew stood on the other side of the room. How many times had she imagined unbuttoning Matthew’s shirt? She shivered as she daydreamed about dragging his clothes off and revealing his muscular body.

      “No, this happened. I’m sure of it,” Isabel argued. “She wouldn’t have risked everything by writing down her fantasies.”

      “Sure, she would,” Laura shot back, “if it was the only way she could explore the things she wanted to do.”

      Sydney pulled her gaze away from Matthew, her pulse skipping a beat. Maybe she had approached this diary challenge the wrong way.

      She sat up straight. Instead of making up Victorian-era characters she didn’t understand and couldn’t imagine, she should write down all the things she had dreamed of doing to Matthew Stone. She bit her lip as fragments of several fantasies crowded her mind.

      “We’ll discuss this later.” Isabel glanced at her watch. “Come on, Laura. We need to get back to work.”

      Work. Sydney flipped open her notebook and grabbed her pen. This idea could work. But she didn’t dare use Matthew’s real name. She couldn’t have it get around town that she had the hots for the mayor. She would be accused of showing favoritism to a man she had to report about in the paper.

      “Already?” Laura slumped in her chair and groaned. “When will this community service end?”

      “You only have a few more hundred hours left,” Isabel said in an encouraging tone. “They’ll go by fast, I promise.”

      Laura reluctantly stood and followed Isabel to the shelving carts. “All this for damaging my ex-boyfriend’s stuff when I threw it out my window.”

      “See you later, Sydney,” Isabel said. Sydney gave an absent wave as she wrote. In her mind, the buttons on Matthew’s shirt were flying off.

      * * *

      AS DORIS BROWN interrupted her tirade to greet one of her friends, Matthew glanced over her head and saw that Sydney was still at the table. Her writer’s block was clearly gone as she was writing furiously.

      He liked watching her work because she put her whole body into it. Sydney would tuck her tongue in the corner of her mouth if she was thinking about something. She’d flip, twist and push her curly brown hair. If she wasn’t muttering to herself

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