Day Care Moms

 The book is available as an e-book on most e-bookstores. I'll introduce the other characters over the next week. Check out my website at www.dlnelsonwriter.com

Brenda Ainsworth

“Didn’t I tell you I need a break?”

“You did, but this assignment is too well paying, never mind that it will be fun. And never mind my commission will pay my mortgage this month and part of next,” Barbara Milton, my agent, says.

I laugh. We’ve worked together for decades. I know how she tries to sell me on assignments for different writing projects, especially those that don’t excite me.

Some have driven me half-crazy where if I ever see the people again with whom I worked, I would cross the street to avoid them. Yet, I’ve made friends with others I worked with. Luck of the draw, so to speak.

She found a publisher for my first novel, which sold a whopping 5,000 copies. My next novel sold fewer.

After that she concentrated on getting me non-fiction and ghost-writing assignments benefiting our pocketbooks and saving me from getting a nine-to-five corporate job. Everyone knows when you work in a corporate PR department it’s at least seven to seven or more.

I’d just finished ghosting a book for a prominent scum-bag politician. It paid in the six figures, the highest I’d ever made. His contract was two million. Because he’s such a scumbag, the book died, which pleased me. Also, new scandals from D.C. made his topic out-of-date.

Talk about win-win. I didn’t have to feel guilty that I put such drivel in the public domain and my bank account was smiling.

Because of that large payment, for the first time in ten years, I could ease up a bit. I’m imagining myself in the south of France for the next six months, pretending I’m part of the Hemingway-Fitzgerald crowd. Sure, I know they’re all dead, but there must be writers hanging around the Côte d’Azur somewhere.

“How much?”

I imagine Barbara at her desk in her home office, a cup of cold tea on her left and her desk buried under manuscripts. She, too, gave up corporate to work for herself. Whenever I go to New York, which is as little as possible, I stay with her. I’m a Boston girl through and through despite my love for France.

It was five years ago that I developed a hankering to live and write in France. I’d done an exchange in France my junior year at Boston University eons ago. I tell people I’ve a bit of French DNA that makes me long for baguettes, good wine and people-watching in cafés. The question was how could I pull that off?

“$50,000?” $50,000 on top of what I just earned will buy me time in France. My mind boggles. After years of watching every penny, I suddenly have economic freedom, at least temporarily.

I look out my window. I’d bought a handyman’s nightmare 15 years ago. I love the street called Wigglesworth, named after a doctor at Harvard Medical and located across the street from the school. I turned it into three flats. The rental money from two is paying off my mortgage. Now I can rent out my flat too. Hmmm. “Describe the project again and in more detail. Don’t chortle, I haven’t said yes.”

“It’s a project funded by a woman who caught her multi-millionaire husband cheating. Wants to show that women can do lots by themselves and even more if they band together. A they-don’t-need-men-when-they-have-each-other kinda book.”

Hmmm. “Gay or straight?” I don’t care one way or the other. I think of the line, some of my best friends are black: some of my best friends are gay. Some of my best lovers were straight. But it could make a difference in how I’ll write it.

“Straight as far as I know. She became friends with a Boston-area lawyer who’s adopted granddaughter is in daycare. The mother is also a lawyer. She has three friends with their kids in the same daycare, all single moms. They help each other out. You will focus on those women, their problems, their daily lives, the support they give one another.”

I suppose meeting four independent women could be interesting. $50,000. Still, Massachusetts is a lot colder and snowier in winter than the Riviera. “Any more information?”

Barbara continues. “No research. No limitations. Just interface with the women. I think a creative non-fiction approach will work best, don’t you?”

One problem I’ve had writing corporate stuff or some articles are limitations. Truth is relative and color is often left out. In creative nonfiction, I can create scenes, use dialogue. It’s almost as good as writing a novel.

Who am I kidding? When I wrote my two novels, I wasn’t in charge either. Ideas jumped into my computer. I want that to happen again when I’m in France. Maybe, I’m not being realistic, but I see France as a creativity period to nourish me.

I say nothing. I know silence drives Barbara crazy. I’m right. She has to break it. “I’ve been given a short profile of each of them. I bet you’d like them all.”

Some snowflakes drift by my bay window in front of my desk. Good God. Early November and snow? “Timing?

“Four months.”

After I finish the book, I could spend spring and summer in France. Even fall or maybe if I’m careful winter or longer.

“When do I meet my client?”

“You don’t. She’s too busy in New York.”

“I could fly down.”

“She doesn’t want a meeting, at least yet, but she’s prepared everything you need. I’ve emailed you a PDF of the contract and the profiles. You could start the first appointment next week.”

I give Barbara some more objections, but she knows I am going to say yes. It’s too tempting an assignment and the money is too good. I can put off France for a couple of months.

Damn it.