Jamie filled the silence. “I’m guessing that after more than twenty years, you don’t want the series to end, Bob, but it doesn’t have to.” He leaned forward, not noticing as his tie pressed against a tallow smear on the tablecloth the waiter had missed. “No one is going to complain if what was originally supposed to be your last book isn’t. Just give us a book. Any book. We can copyedit and get it out within eight weeks, like we did last time.”

“I’m working on it,” Bob said. “It’s going to be big, and big takes time.”

“Then give us the first half. We’ll put it out in two volumes.”

He made a face. “Just because they did that with the TV show doesn’t mean I can. That’s not how books work for me.”

They paused for the waiter to serve “hay-smoked beef and polenta parchment.” If Bob’s mouth was full, it gave him an excuse not to talk. So he kept doggedly eating as one plate replaced another. Gnocchi and cuttlefish and squab and lamb and finally dessert. The servings were small, and they ate with forks (a fifteenth-century invention that had originally been considered blasphemous, a rejection of God-made fingers), but the elaborate meal wouldn’t have been out of place at a king’s court. All it lacked was jugglers, a court fool, and staged pageantry between courses.

Finally, Bob leaned back with a groan. “Jamie, can I ask you a serious question?”

“Of course.”

“Are you trying to kill me? Are you thinking if I drop dead of a heart attack you could hire a ghostwriter?”

Jamie looked shocked, but was it an act? They must have considered what would happen if he died before finishing the series.

Once you started typing in the Google search bar, it would helpfully autocomplete the most-searched-for phrases. So Bob knew what words came to mind when people thought of him:

rm haldon weight

rm haldon sick

rm haldon heart attack

rm haldon age

rm haldon diabetes

rm haldon health

is rm haldon dying

is rm haldon writing

On Reddit and Goodreads and Amazon, fans posted they were worried about him. Opined that he wasn’t looking so great. That he was overweight. That he was sixty-one. That the way he was going, he might not be around to finish the series.

And, according to his fans, he owed them. They were angry he played video games. Resentful he watched basketball. Upset he went to movies. They didn’t want him to travel for conventions or research.

He’d even gotten hate mail saying he should be shackled to a typewriter until he finished the book.

Now Bob looked at the cable connecting him to the desk. It seemed they had gotten their wish.

BRIDGET

Something in Common