Rose is twenty-three years old with three successful, underground books under her belt. Her first, The Surreptitious Mr. Green is a best seller. She has signed more copies in the last hour than she has in all week. There are more people here than she expected, at least a dozen queued up and a few stragglers at the back hoping to catch her as she leaves later. There are questions about doing a reading; they would give anything to hear lines from Ms. Trate herself. Rose is enthusiastic about tentacles on the best of days, but she doubts she could ever meet the devotion of the people in this bar.

Penny Trate is a fitting pseudonym. Rose Lalonde hasn’t been Rose for a long time now.

Sometimes she misses it. She misses her friends. She misses class and homework. Her hands itch to fish into her purse for her phone; someone asks her about further books and all Rose can think about is texting Roxy with I think I would like take-out for dinner. She answers: “In the fall, perhaps.”
Her signature is a scrawl of PT with more loops than necessary. She chins a hand and smiles pleasantly. She tucks a long strand of faded lavender hair behind an ear and greets her next fan.

Rose writes out in the open. There is nothing better than hiding in plain sight after all. Her hair is pulled back into an abomination of a bun, and sitting just off her shoulders is a sweater that is far too big for her. She scribbles idly in her notepad, while sipping a cup of earl grey just as attentively (to add insult to injury, there’s milk in it too). There’s a news paper sprawled out in front of her that is getting most of her attention.

Perched on her nose are a pair of non-prescription glasses. She turns the page and scribbles down a few more words. This is hardly a literary masterpiece. It’s more of a nonsensical stream of ideas.
As someone approaches to clear away her two other cups, she offers a barely attentive smile.

She takes a long gulp of her tea and turns another page of her news paper.