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foggyfanfic · 11 months

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Love and Fury

Chapter Preview: Bruno spent a little more time than was strictly necessary making a comfy spot for Reina and himself, something he knew he was going to be teased about later. But gosh darn it, he had a hard week. He wanted to be comfy next to his… friend, and enjoy the company of his sisters and their boyfriends (or almost boyfriends in Félix’s case).

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Chapter 17 Letting Off Steam

Leandra sighed, staring into space while Bruno silently read beside her. It had been a long week. For everybody.

Cicero was getting handsy with her, and every time she saw him it felt like a sick game of tag where the penalty for losing was getting slobbered on by your least favorite person. She’d been able to avoid going anywhere private with him, so he hadn’t been too obnoxious, but even just the occasional pecks on the lips were too much for her taste.

On Monday, Bruno had given a farmer a vision that was supposed to be about crop wield, but ended up being a warning of an oncoming flash flood. Pepa had spent the rest of Monday and the first half of Tuesday trying to stave off the rain until the village was prepared, but the rain had just gathered at the mountain tops beyond her range of control. Instead of holding Tuesday market every spare hand was put to work opening the irrigation system up to absorb most of the excess water, and cleaning out the drains in the village streets, with Julieta standing by to heal any injuries incurred in the rush. When the flood hit, the village was thankfully prepared and Wednesday was spent at an impromptu party in Casita while everybody waited for the water to drain from the main road.

Leandra had done her best to help Bruno, Julieta, and Pepa as they in turn helped their mother host the unexpected event. She was vaguely aware that Agustín and Félix were also running around helping, but hadn’t had the spare time to see for herself, as she and Julieta had spent the entire time cooking.

Thursday morning was spent cleaning up the residual mud and debris left by the flood, then the market was opened and everybody rushed to pick up the groceries they hadn’t been able to buy before. Bruno hadn’t been able to join her at the stall since every farmer, gardener, and casual flower fan wanted to know how their plants would be affected by the flood.

The rush of customers had carried over into Friday morning, which was a mixed blessing as it meant Cicero only got snatches of conversation out of her before Bruno arrived, tired and grumpy and looking like he might kill Cicero just to make the world a slightly quieter place.

Exhausted as he was, Bruno hadn’t been able to muster up the embarrassment needed to prevent him from parking his chair close to hers, leaning his head on her shoulder and dozing through the late morning and early afternoon.

She had enjoyed the closeness, and especially the hope it gave her. When they both had more energy, she would try some light flirting and see how he responded.

Leandra was prepared to back off if he truly seemed uncomfortable with her flirting, but she was 80% sure he’d only rebuffed her in a misguided attempt at being loyal to Pepa.

Now, he was slumped in his chair, still leaning on her a little, reading his book. Well, she was pretty sure he was reading. His eyes were open and pointed at it, but he hadn’t turned a page in several minutes.

She sighed again.

“Tell me about it,” he muttered, then pinched the bridge of his nose, “ugh.”

“Ugh indeed,” she murmured, then yawned.

“Before I forget, Juli wants me to invite you to a picnic tomorrow,” Bruno closed the book and sat up straight to stretch. She winced sympathetically when his back popped in at least two different places.

“Picnic,” she also stretched, then pressed her arm against his to see if he would lean on her some more, “sounds great.”

“I said we should invite you guys over for a fun-filled afternoon of napping instead,” Bruno scratched at his chin, lazily, “but Pepa wants to play… a game. Of some sort. I forget. Whatever.”

“Picnic, game, nap,” she slowly leaned on him, “wonderful.”

“Ugh,” he said again, and when she leaned her head on his shoulder he wasted no time leaning his cheek on her.

“Very ugh.”

She wouldn’t mind going over to Casita and taking a nap in Bruno’s tent. That big pile of cushions he had was incredibly comfortable, throw in a blanket or two, maybe some light cuddling. She couldn’t think of a better way to spend her Saturday.

“At noon,” Bruno said, after they had been sitting in silence for ten minutes, “should have mentioned that.”

“Hmmm right,” she blinked lazily at the equally tired passerby, “where?”

“Um. The pools… what are they called…?” he waved a vague hand out in front of him.

“Starlit or Mirror?”

“Oh, right, Mirror Pools.”

“Mm-hm, Mirror Pools, noon, tomorrow.”

“Sí.”

Her eyelids were getting heavy. With a sigh she sat up straight and lightly patted her cheeks in an attempt to rid herself of her sleepiness. Bruno groaned at his new found lack of pillow and simply slumped over so he was draped across her lap. It didn’t look very comfortable, especially since his arms and head were dangling over the edge of her legs. Not to mention his hip was still resting in his chair and he was twisted at an odd angle so his chest lay on her thighs.

“You alright?”

“So. Many. Visions.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” she began rubbing his back.

“It’s not like-! Every single one was the same, so I mean, th-they weren’t hard or anything, because they were the same, all of them,” Bruno groused, dangling arms gesturing sharply, “and I told people that, it would get to their turn and I’d be like ‘some crops will need to be harvested later than we thought, but everything will be fine’ a-and then they’d be like ‘but what about my crops’ and of course I can’t be like ‘what did I just say?!’ I have to be all like ‘I did not see any food shortages so it's safe to say they’ll be fine’ and then they’re always like ‘can you check anyways’ and I want to say ‘aren’t you a farmer, don’t you know what your plants look like when they’re in trouble’ but I have to say ‘oh sure, absolutely, gosh what was I thinking, I would love to use my unworldly and very draining powers to watch your plants grow’. Ugh!”

Leandra frowned sympathetically and continued to rub his back, “That sounds very frustrating.”

“Oh, it is,” he grumbled, arms going limp again.

He lay across her lap until his spine started complaining then reluctantly sat up. Bruno wondered if he could convince Reina to come back to his place for that aforementioned fun-filled nap time. Did that sound like a come on? That definitely sounded like a come on.

But could anyone blame him if he missed nap time? Oh, to be young again.

After a bit of thinking, Bruno had decided that at least a part of what made the past week so difficult was that he didn’t get to spend any time with people he actually liked. Not that there was anything wrong with the assorted farmers of Encanto, but they never laughed at his jokes.

They never even seemed to realize he made jokes.

He missed the days when a storm would come and he would curl up under a blanket with his sisters and listen to the rain fall. Now it was all vision, vision, vision. And what’s that?! More visions!

Truly the greatest tragedy of their age.

“Should I bring anything?” Leandra asked suddenly, then when Bruno just stared at her in confusion tacked on, “To the picnic.”

“Oh, uh, drinks? A-and cups,” Bruno answered.

She nodded, “Picnic, noon, Mirror Pools, drinks and cups. Bien.”

They settled back into exhausted silence.

Leandra groaned and grumbled when the market started closing down and she was forced to stand and pack up. After a moment’s hesitation, Bruno got up to help.

“Gracias gaupo- I mean, Bruno,” she murmured as he handed her the sample cheese to pack into the insulated crate. After sitting out half the day, it wouldn’t be good to sell on Tuesday, but she could throw it in some arepas for Sunday’s lunch.

He bit his lip to keep from asking her to call him “guapo” again.

Leandra took note of his lack of response and spent the rest of the day debating what it meant. Did it mean he didn’t mind the pet name? Or maybe he did mind but didn’t have the energy to make a stink?

If she was any less tired the question would have kept her awake that night, but as it was, she went to bed early, and woke up late. She had dreamed, she knew she had, but all she remembered was sitting naked in the pool in Bruno’s cave, asking a rat what he wanted to be called.

Bruno’s dreams were a bit more vivid, featuring Reina napping in his bed, waiting for him, while he was forced to watch moss grow. He grumbled about it to Julieta as he helped her prepare the picnic food, (except, he left out the Reina bit). She patted him on the back.

“Maybe you can take a nap while Pepa plays whatever game Félix was going on about,” she suggested.

“Oh, the game was Félix’s idea, that makes sense,” he nodded to himself, then frowned at his sister, “a-and it’s not that I’m even all that tired now. Really, I feel great, it-it’s just… the principle of the matter. I can’t even get some sleep while I’m sleeping.”

Julieta had fondly rolled her eyes at his complaining, then sent him to find a wagon to carry everything.

They packed up a blanket and some cushions from his tent, as well as the food, then set out. Naturally, Agustín was waiting for them right outside the door, a bag full of pastries under one arm.

They ran into Félix, who was carrying a bag full of hackysacks and two boards with a big hole cut in each, on their way through town. Leandra met them on the path to the pools, carrying a basket full of dishware, some cups and three thermoses.

“Coffee, lemonade, and tea, respectively,” she told Bruno when he asked.

The pools were still a lot more full than usual, but they had no problem finding some dry rock between one pool and another to set up on.

Bruno spent a little more time than was strictly necessary making a comfy spot for Reina and himself, something he knew he was going to be teased about later. But gosh darn it, he had a hard week. He wanted to be comfy next to his… friend, and enjoy the company of his sisters and their boyfriends (or almost boyfriends in Félix’s case).

“Gracias,” Leandra said, as she handed him the plate full of food she’d prepared for him. He took it, and hers as well, as she lowered herself to the cushions he’d carefully arranged.

“Don’t mention it,” he handed her, her plate back, “I have spent way too much time on my feet this week to not be comfy.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Julieta grumbled, she was in Agustín’s lap, slumped against him as he poured some coffee for the both of them.

“Do you know how hard it is to hold back rain when your feet hurt so much you want to cry up a hurricane,” Pepa snapped, apparently lecturing the sky for giving her so much trouble.

“How would we possibly know that?” Julieta asked dryly, Pepa opened her mouth to retort, but Bruno cut her off.

“Good thing Félix was able to keep you company,” Bruno said, hiding his grin behind his own cup.

She sent him a glare as her cheeks colored, then turned to Leandra, “Hm yes, but it’s a pity you couldn’t come soothe Bruno’s headache for him.”

Bruno blushed, glancing at Reina who was exchanging grins with Félix. It almost looked like they were about to shake hands, or pat each other on the back. He was about to ask her what that was about but didn’t get the chance.

“I only wish I could have been there to help you,” Agustín told Julieta in a voice that probably wasn’t meant to be heard by the entire group.

“From what I heard, you helped plenty,” Leandra said, “or was that someone else Felípe helped off the roof of Casita?”

“It better not have been,” Agustín joked.

“Dearest,” Julieta asked patiently, “what were you doing on the roof?”

“Your Mamá almost caught me when I was sneaking out,” he explained with a sheepish grin, “then I got stuck.”

“For three hours,” Félix supplied.

“Eh, could have been worse,” Agustín shrugged, “didn’t get caught.”

Julieta shook her head and smiled fondly, “The things you go through for me.”

“Worth it, all of it,” he reassured her.

The couple kissed and there was a chorus of ew’s and one “Get a room.” Julieta responded by kissing her boyfriend harder.

They happily stuffed their faces for a little while, before Félix asked, “Did any of you have to deal with Señor Florence?”

Four loud groans almost drowned out Agustín asking, “No, why?”

“He was the farmer whose vision started all this,” Bruno said.

“Which apparently, in his mind at least, means he’s in charge of the whole operation,” Pepa rolled her eyes while Félix patted her back, “he spent the whole time trying to tell people what to do instead of actually, oh I don’t know, helping?!”

“I’m impressed you didn’t hit him with lightning,” Félix grinned wryly at her, “I wanted to and I don’t even have magic weather powers.”

“Oh believe me, the thought of zapping him was key in keeping the sun shining,” she sniffed “I can’t believe he actually tried to tell me how to control the weather! As if he would know!”

“He kept checking on my line of people and trying to decide who did and didn’t need healing,” Julieta complained, she stuffed a forkful of food into her mouth and chewed on it angrily for a little, then said, “which of course just held up the line. And made everybody irritable by the time they got to me. I tried telling him to leave my patients alone but he just huffed something about layabouts taking advantage of me or something.”

“I had to help my Pá get the goats inside before I could come help, right? So I do, then I come down to see what work was needed, and the minute I reach town he’s lecturing me about lazing around when there’s work to be done,” Leandra made a noise of disgust, “so then I was like, ‘why are you standing around lecturing people when you could be doing something useful’ and he started going on about how he’s trying to keep things organized.”

“Tell me this story ends with you punching him,” Pepa interjected and Leandra chuckled wryly.

“No, sorry, I just pointed out that if he was actually in charge of organizing things, he would know that the village’s herdsmen had to get their livestock to safety before helping.”

“What did he say to that?”

“Something about being busy and having a lot of moving parts to take care of, he was walking away while he said it,” she shrugged, then turned to Bruno, “what’s your horror story?”

“Oh, I uh I was helping Mamá, you know, the person who was actually in charge of organizing everything,” Bruno said, “really he annoyed her more than me. She was trying to make sure the farms that were going to get hit the hardest got the most help, and he kept stopping in to ‘give advice’. Except- I mean, the advice he was giving? It was things that Mamá was already doing.”

There were various noises of disgust and second hand outrage.

“Yeah, I… I really thought I was going to have to help Mamá hide his body,” Bruno shook his head, chuckling ruefully, “I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her that close to snapping.”

“I bet I can,” Agustín piped up, and both Julieta and Pepa broke out into giggles.

“I sense a story?” Félix leaned over and grabbed a pastry from the bag Agustín had set in the middle of the blanket.

“Alright, so, in case you don’t know, Señora Madrigal is… well, it’s not that she doesn’t like me, it’s just-.”

“I don’t know what Mamá’s problem is,” Julieta cut him off, sighing loudly, “you treat me well, we’re happy together, you come from a perfectly good family. What more could a mother ask for?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the accident thing,” Pepa said, in the tone of somebody who had shared this opinion many times before, “Mamá is convinced that you’re just using our sweet, innocent Julieta to support your addiction to falling flat on your face.”

“Well, it is my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world,” Agustín replied dryly, before continuing, “so it was perhaps a year into our relationship, sí?”

“Sí.”

“Mamá was beginning to lose hope that Juli would come to her senses and dump him,” Pepa cut in.

Julieta cried, “I have come to my senses! Being with a man who treats me well is a very sensible thing to do.”

“You know what would be more sensible…?” Pepa exchanged a sly glance with Bruno while Julieta tried to shush the both of them.

“What about that nice Alejandro boy?” Pepa and Bruno said together, in what was clearly an impression of their mother, “He’s such a sturdy young man.”

“Uuuuuugh,” Julieta groaned loudly, “he’s fine, Alejandro is fine, but I don’t love Alejandro, I love Agustín. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to say that before she accepts it.”

“Better say it once a day for the rest of your life,” Agustín suggested, then gave a little shrug, “just to be safe.”

Julieta and Agustín got sidetracked in each other’s eyes, so Pepa picked up the story, “So! Agustín and Julieta have been together for a year and Juli invites Agustín over for dinner. And it’s incredibly obvious that there’s more going on here than just dinner, she’s making all of Mamá’s favorites-.”

“Oh! This story,” Bruno suddenly interjected, then blushed when everyone looked his way. Leandra saw an opportunity to enact Operation Testing the Waters and drew him close so he could hide behind her.

Félix raised an eyebrow at her and she raised one back, looking pointedly at his hand which was still on Pepa’s back. He shrugged as if to say “touché” and they both returned their attention to Agustín, who had reclaimed the narrative thread.

“The thing is, well, you know, Juli and I aren’t going to be young forever, and we’ve been together for two years now, and it’s not like we’ve never talked about the future,” Agustín said, “so of course, about a year in, I thought- we thought, ‘gee maybe we should start talking about marriage’.”

“Oooh,” Félix said, as he started to see where the story was going. Meanwhile Leandra turned to Bruno grinning and had to stifle her giggles when he winked at her conspiratorially.

“Sí, and you would think Mamá would be perfectly happy to see me married to the man of my dreams,” Julieta huffed, “so I make all her favorites, I spend the whole day buttering her up, AND talking up Agustín. Then dinner comes along, Agustín arrives, I’m ready for us all to sit and eat but Mamá is like ‘wait, there’s one more guest coming’.”

Bruno and Pepa snickered while Félix and Leandra made various noises of dread.

“There’s a knock at the door-,” Pepa rushed to say.

“Casita opens it with a loud ‘creeeeeeeaaak’,” Bruno jumped in, complete with sound effects.

“And guess who’s standing there with a bouquet of flowers?” Agustín finished.

“Alejandro,” Félix and Leandra said as one.

“So we proceed to have the worst, most awkward dinner in the entire history of food,” Julieta shook her head, cheeks turning red just at the memory, “Mamá spent the entire time talking up Alejandro while I was trying to do the same for Agustín. And well…”

“I just happened to notice that Alejandro was getting a bit self conscious,” Agustín rubbed at the back of his neck, “and I felt bad for the guy! None of this was his fault, right?!”

“I love you so much,” Julieta’s voice was filled to the brim with exasperation.

“So now both Mamá and Agustín are talking Alejandro up,” Pepa said.

“Which just made him confused,” Bruno pointed out.

“And finally Juli can’t take it anymore,” Pepa laughed and slapped her knee, “she gets up, turns to Agustín and yells-.”

Agustín, Bruno, and Pepa all said it at the same time while Julieta put her head in her hands, “Well if you like the man my mother chose so much, why don’t you marry him?!”

Félix and Leandra burst out laughing while the four who were there exchanged grins. When the laughter subsided, Agustín cleared his throat.

“But wait- it doesn’t end there,” he said, “Julieta rushed off and I knew I had messed up, so I went running after her. I apologized and explained myself, she forgave me and apologized for how the night had turned out. One thing led to another and…”

“And Mamá felt that she also owed Juli an apology,” Bruno deadpanned.

“Oh no,” Leandra gasped, putting a hand over her mouth while Félix sucked air in through his teeth.

“Oh yes,” Pepa said, “Mamá had finished out the dinner, apologized to Alejandro, gave Juli a bit of time to calm down, then went to talk to her.”

“Did she knock?”

“Sí, but only as a warning before she opened the door,” Julieta shook her head, “fortunately, by then we were just cuddling under the blankets but well, it wasn’t like we’d bothered to put our clothes back on. And of course, Agustín, love of my life, only made things worse by trying to be funny. What did you say, mi amor?”

“I-I was just trying to break the tension.”

“What did you say?”

Agustín grimaced, “I- and this was a joke, I wasn’t remotely serious, I asked her if she’d let me marry Juli if I got her pregnant first.”

Félix burst out laughing immediately but Leandra choked on her own spit and went into a coughing fit. Bruno rubbed her back until it settled. Agustín put his head in his hands, moving his glasses out of the way so he could rub at his eyes while he groaned loudly.

“Come to think of it, that would be the exact reason why we’re not married yet,” Julieta sighed, even as she twisted to pet Agustín’s hair.

“Well, now I know what not to do,” Leandra whispered to Bruno, although she was pretty sure Pepa heard her.

“Somehow, I don’t think Mamá would take you threatening to impregnate Julieta all that seriously,” Bruno retorted, apparently completely missing what Leandra was going for. She laughed anyway, because it was funny.

“So, your guys’ turn,” Agustín said.

“What? Our turn to tell an embarrassing story about you?” Leandra asked, grinning mischievously.

He rolled his eyes at her and said, “Actually I was thinking we might play Fuck, Marry, Kill.”

“I might take you up on that a little later,” Leandra told him, trying to communicate Operation Testing the Water to him through eye contact alone.

He must have picked something up because he glanced at Bruno then gave her a sympathetic look, “Just let me know.”

“I’ve never played that game before,” Bruno confessed.

“Agustín and I used to play it all the time. Of course, it stopped being fun when he kept picking Julieta for ‘marry’.”

“I like Julieta.”

“She wasn’t even an option half the time! He chose her even when we were doing fictional characters.”

“Details,” Agustín shrugged, then bent his head to kiss his girlfriend on the cheek. She blushed and giggled like a school girl.

“S-so it’s exactly what it sounds like, right?” Bruno asked her quietly, while Julieta and Agustín continued to flirt. Pepa turned to Félix and asked him about the game he’d brought and they were soon busy setting it up.

“Sí, you pick three people, preferably of equal attractiveness, like say… you, Agustín, and Félix. Then everybody has to decide who they would fuck, marry, or kill,” she turned more fully towards him, even though it meant sacrificing their physical contact, “if the three people you pick are equally attractive then it can actually get really hard to choose and people end up killing people for the weirdest reasons. Like with you three I have to kill Agustín because he’s already in a committed relationship.”

She was hoping he would take the bait and ask her whether that meant she would fuck him or marry him, which would give her the opening to list off a few of his more attractive qualities, but instead Bruno just nodded, “Makes sense. You can’t marry another woman’s boyfriend, but killing him is definitely ok.”

“Exactly,” she grinned, “so, you want to play?”

“Sí, Dracula, Victor Frankenstein, or the Wolfman,” he launched right into it.

“That ones easy,” Agustín interjected, “you marry Dracula. He’s rich.”

“But he also already has three wives,” Leandra argued back, “fuck Dracula, marry the wolf man. Sorry Victor.”

“You could marry and kill Dracula, for the inheritance,” Julieta pointed out.

Bruno nodded, “Frankenstein comes from a rich family so you could do the same to him.”

“The game isn’t called Pick The Most Lucrative Murder Victim, it’s called Fuck, Marry, Kill,” Leandra said.

“Sí, it is vitally important that you follow the rules, otherwise we’ll have nothing but anarchy,” Agustín gave them a faux serious face.

“Bien, marry Dracula, fuck the wolfman,” Bruno decided.

“Hmm, I’m going to go against the grain and marry Frankenstein, kill the Wolfman,” Julieta said, “I sort of want to know what effect my gift would have on the monster.”

They spent a while playing word games, frequently arguing over the rules. Pepa returned and Félix lured Bruno away to play a round of corn hole, which Agustín joined in on.

“Sooo,” Pepa said slyly, once the men folk were thoroughly distracted with their game, “Srta. Lopez, what exactly are your intentions with our sweet Brunito.”

“Oh good, I’m glad somebody noticed, I was beginning to think the constant physical contact was a bit too subtle,” Leandra sighed.

The two sisters giggled, Julieta glancing at the boys before saying, “Be patient with him, he’s not used to that sort of attention.”

“Really? I mean, I know he’s maybe not the most popular person in town, but… he’s just so pretty,�� Leandra shook her head, “I have a hard time believing I’m the first to make a pass at him.”

“You’re not,” Pepa reassured her, “but it happens pretty rarely and he usually doesn’t notice when it does. As you can see.”

Leandra drummed her fingers on the blanket, “I was being a little more forward before, then he said something that might have been a rejection, might not. I’ve backed off a bit, I don’t want to make him uncomfortable, but…”

“But it really seems like he’s into you too,” Julieta finished for her, “I had a similar problem with Agustín. I knew he had a crush on me, but I had a hard time convincing him that yes, I am flirting with you.”

“I remember that,” Leandra threw a wry grin at her friend’s back, “he was absolutely twisted up in knots trying to examine every little thing you said for hidden messages. Rosalie and I kept telling him you were flirting but then he’d be all ‘let’s not fall victim to wishful thinking’.”

Julieta laughed, putting a hand to her heart, “Aw my poor corazon. I’m glad I eventually got through to him.”

“Any advice?”

“I eventually gave up and just kissed him,” Julieta shrugged, “so if you want to make sure Bruno is comfortable with you making a move before doing so… maybe don’t do what I did.”

“If this carries on for too long, I’ll probably just ask him to clarify where his boundaries are,” Leandra said, then grinned at Pepa, “anyways, how are things going with Félix?”

Pepa smiled brightly, then frowned, then smiled a little sadly, “We’re taking things slow. I don’t feel-. I need a little more time before I jump into anything.”

“He doesn’t seem bothered with waiting a little,” Leandra pointed out.

“No, no he doesn’t,” Pepa agreed, the sun shining a little bit brighter.

“I like Félix,” Julieta declared it like a judge declaring a ruling, “I like the way he treats you.”

“Well, if he has the Golden Child seal of approval,” Pepa teased.

“He does,” Julieta stuck her nose in the air earning a light shove from her sister.

They were interrupted by a couple of loud peels of laughter from Félix and Agustín, while Bruno looked pleasantly surprised. Leandra smiled fondly at him and his shy little grin, dios it made her want to go over there and plant one on him.

They watched the men play for a while. Félix won, at least Leandra was pretty sure Félix won. Unless the object of the game was to lose the most hacky sacks, then Agustín won.

Either way, Bruno came in second.

“They do make a pretty picture,” Pepa said, eyeing Félix as he gave Bruno a friendly smack on the back.

“Oh definitely,” Julieta agreed, “not to brag, but I have definitely scooped up the most handsome man in the village.”

Pepa rolled her eyes, “Sure, sure, if you happen to be sexually attracted to twigs.”

“I’m going to win this argument,” Leandra said quietly, not bothering to repeat herself when Julieta accidentally spoke over her.

“He isn’t a twig, he’s just tall. Look at his shoulders, those are not twig shoulders,” she crossed her arms.

“No offense, he’s fine, perfectly fine, but Félix, well… he’s fine,” Pepa picked up a pastry and used it to gesture as she spoke.

“Bruno is obviously the most handsome,” Leandra said, peacefully, unbothered by the look the other two women gave her.

“Félix is a very handsome man, of course he is, but look at Agustín’s cheekbones,” Julieta poured herself some tea then sipped it primly.

“Bah, look at Félix’s arms, those are fantastic arms,” Pepa bit viciously into her pastry.

“Bruno is obviously the most handsome, because!” Leandra paused to throw her companions a winning grin, “Nobody in town can compete with the beauty of a Madrigal.”

Pepa and Julieta giggled, rolling their eyes at her and shaking their heads, but eventually Pepa tossed her red curls off her shoulder and haughtily said, “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

“It is a fair point,” Julieta nodded, fixing her skirt.

“What’s a fair point?” Félix asked, suddenly appearing to grab the lemonade and three cups.

Pepa spoke loud enough for everybody to hear, “Srta. Lopez has pointed out that Bruno is the most handsome of you three, because there’s no competing with Madrigal beauty.”

“Oh come on hermana,” Agustín groused, “I walk away for ten minutes and you’re putting the moves on my girlfriend.”

“Watch out ami, I’ll take your girl, and your sock collection,” Leandra called back.

She heard Bruno quietly ask, “You have a sock collection?”

“I like colorful socks,” Agustín shrugged, then lifted the legs of his tailored trousers to show his mismatched, brightly dyed socks.

“Oh, very nice,” Bruno said.

“Now hold on, let’s not gloss over the fact that the girls are over here,” Félix put a hand to his chest in a big show of offense then hissed, “objectifying us.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Agustín put the back of his hand to his forehead, “I feel like a sack of meat.”

“I’m fine with it,” Bruno shrugged, “I-I think you guys are just bitter that I’m- that you’re not as pretty as I am.”

Félix let out a loud bark of laughter while Agustín faked a gasp, then pointed a finger at Bruno, “You take that back!”

“I’ll have you know I’m ten times as pretty as you are,” Félix fluttered his eyelashes.

“Hey, I didn’t make the call,” he held up his hands, “t-talk to them.”

“Sure, talk to us, tell us that I’m wrong about the Madrigals being the most beautiful people in town,” Leandra smirked. Pepa wiggled her fingers at the men while Julieta just rolled her eyes, chuckling.

Agustín pretended to wince while Félix shook his fist at Bruno, “You win this round hermano, but just you wait, I’ll be prettier than you yet.”

Agustín sat back down next to Julieta and whispered something in her ear that had her grinning happily at him, while Félix apparently gave up on continuing his game and rejoined Pepa. Bruno was the last to realize the game was over, he dropped the hacky sack he’d been holding and strolled over to his original spot by Leandra.

“Was it fun?” Leandra asked, while Félix and Agustín were busy flirting with Bruno’s sisters.

“Yeah,” Bruno shrugged, “got my hands all dusty though.”

Leandra saw an opportunity and jumped on it, “Let me see.”

“My… dusty hands?”

“Sí.”

“Alright?” Bruno drew the word out into a question, even as he offered her both of his hands. She took them in hers, pretending to examine them.

“Hm, which is your dominant hand?”

“Left, why?”

She dropped his right hand and turned her full attention on his left. Leandra bent over his palm, and traced a finger over the longest line, “Ok, so. This is your life line, and it tells me that… you’re going to have a career change soon.”

Bruno let out a surprised bark of laughter, drawing the attention of the other picnic goers, then sheepishly cleared his throat, “Oh really? I’m going to quit the Village Seer gig? In exchange for what, exactly?”

“Hey,” she looked at him through her lashes, pouting playfully, “Do you want to know your future or not?”

“Not really.”

“Hush, the magic is happening,” she turned her eyes back to his palm and traced a different line, “Hm, see this here is either your love line or your family line.”

“A real paragon of accuracy, aren’t you.”

“So! Either you’re going to get married five times-.”

“Five?! W-where exactly am I finding five wives?”

“I didn’t say you were marrying five different women, just that you’ll be married five times.”

“Why would I marry one woman five times?”

“Or. OR! It’s your family line and you will have, one, two… eleven babies.”

“Well then, those five wives will really come in handy,” he rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but laugh at her antics.

She smiled back, “I like your laugh.”

“O-oh?” he gulped, suddenly aware of how close she was, rather than giving him a verbal answer she just nodded, a gentle look in her eyes. A nervous giggle bubbled its way out of his throat and he fought the urge to grimace at how high pitched it was.

Slowly, she pulled her eyes back down to his hand, she turned it so that she could plant her palm against his, then went, “hmmmmmmm.”

“W-what is it?”

“You have really long fingers.”

“And?”

“That tells me you could probably play a musical instrument really well if you wanted to.”

He laughed again, “You’d be surprised. I mean, I’m fine at it, b-but I never spend enough time practicing.”

“Would you like to show me sometime?” Leandra asked, pitching her voice a little lower and leaning in a little closer, “I bet you’re better than you think.”

“Actually if you want to talk music, you should talk to Agustín,” Bruno said, then jumped when he heard Pepa break into a fit of laughter.

Slowly, he turned to look at the others and found everybody was still watching him and Reina, except for Pepa who was giggling helplessly into her hands. Julieta had her lips pressed together and seemed to be trying to communicate something to him through pointed looks alone. Félix and Agustín were giving Reina a sympathetic look, Félix leaned over and muttered something to Reina that almost sounded like “It was a good try”, then patted her on the back.

Bruno looked back at Reina, whose smile looked a little like a grimace to him.

“I-I mean, if you really want to-, maybe the three of us-?” Bruno tried, Pepa laughed even harder. He looked to Julieta, hoping he would spontaneously develop telepathy, but he still had no clue what she was trying to tell him.

Reina sighed, then she rubbed his back, making him feel slightly better about apparently missing something that was obvious to everybody else. At least he hadn’t offended her. She quietly told him, “I’ll explain when we don’t have an audience.”

“Por favor,” Bruno said, emphatically.

“No, no, don’t. I want to see how long it takes him to figure it out,” Pepa finally recovered from her laughter.

Bruno grabbed an arepa and threw it at Pepa who gasped dramatically then frisbied a tortilla at his face. This, because they were very mature twenty-six year olds, meant war. Julieta shielded Agustín, and occasionally threw anything that strayed her way back at her siblings, but otherwise stayed out of it.

When the food fight eventually ended, the six friends made a game of figuring out where all the food ended up. Most of it had landed in one pond or another and was already being eaten by fish.

“Do you think that’s ok? L-like it won’t hurt the fish, right?” Bruno asked.

“Juli made most of it, so at worst it’ll balance out her healing powers,” Pepa answered.

“Let’s pick up what we can anyways,” Julieta pulled a tortilla off a tree branch, “if we feed the wildlife it might follow us home, then Bruno will want to keep it.”

“Hey!”

“Señor Hissy Fit?”

“Bien, fair point.”

“A snake?” Leandra asked, brushing some dirt off an arepa.

“No, no, snakes eat rats, I would never,” Bruno shook his head, “a very grumpy tapir.”

Félix frowned, “This wouldn’t happen to be the same tapir that went on a rampage through the market fifteen years ago?”

The triplets all exchanged a look, then as one said, “No, different tapir. Coincidence.”

“Tell me everything?” Agustín asked Julieta.

“Later,” she whispered back, with a wink.

Bruno looked up from the croissant that was wedged between two rocks and found Reina pouting at him, a pleading look in her large brown eyes. He set his jaw, but crumbled almost immediately, sighing and nodding.

“Wait, hey now, if you’re going to tell those two anyways, you might as well tell me,” Félix protested.

Pepa gave her siblings a harsh look, “Now look at what you’ve done.”

Bruno shrugged at her apologetically. Julieta was unaffected, and as soon as they’d finished picking up the food and had started on the path back to the village, she launched into the story.

“Alright, so, it all started when Bruno, Pepa, and I were having a picnic…”

#bruno madrigal #bruno madrigal x oc #bruno madrigal x female oc #bruno encanto #Love and Fury

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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Book Review: In ‘A Warning,’ Anonymous Author Makes Case Against Re-election https://nyti.ms/36TvAau

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Book Review: In ‘A Warning,’ Anonymous Author Makes Case Against Re-election

The same official who wrote an Opinion essay in 2018 argues in a new book that the president’s contract shouldn’t be renewed.

By Jennifer Szalai | Published Nov. 7, 2019 Updated Nov. 8, 2019, 7:50 AM ET | New York Times | Posted Nov. 8, 2019

“Trust me”: It’s a tired cliché, a throwaway line, but when you first encounter it in “A Warning,” the new book by “Anonymous,” who is identified here only as “a senior Trump administration official,” it lands with a startling thud. Any revealing details have been explicitly and deliberately withheld to protect this person’s identity. Who is this “me” that we’re supposed to trust?

It’s a question that the anonymous author — who wrote an Op-Ed for The Times last year about resisting the president’s “more misguided impulses” — might have anticipated, given how much of the book is devoted to the necessity of “character” and to quoting dead presidents by name.

Not to mention this individual’s own conspicuous failures of judgment thus far. You don’t even have to take it from me; you can take it from Anonymous. “Many reasonable people voted for Trump because they love their country, wanted to shake up the establishment, and felt that the alternative was worse,” Anonymous writes. “I know you because I’ve felt the same way.” A mildly chastened Anonymous now seems to recognize, somewhat belatedly, that President Trump’s peddling of birtherism conspiracy theories and his boasts about grabbing women’s genitals might have constituted their own kind of warning — plausible evidence that Mr. Trump might not magically transform into the dignified statesman Anonymous so desperately wanted him to be.

Anonymous even admits that the thesis of the Op-Ed in The Times — the essay that led directly to the existence of this book, and was published just over a year ago — was “dead wrong” too.

Attempts by the “adults in the room” to impose some discipline on a frenzied (or nonexistent) decision-making process in the White House were “just a wet Band-Aid that wouldn’t hold together a gaping wound,” Anonymous writes. The members of the “Steady State” (the term “Deep State” clearly stings) have done everything they can, to no avail. Anonymous is passing the baton to “voters and their elected representatives” — only now the baton is a flaming stick of dynamite.

“A Warning,” then, is just that: a warning, for those who need it, that electing Mr. Trump to a second term would be courting disaster. “The president has failed to rise to the occasion in fulfilling his duties,” Anonymous intones.The book’s publisher and agents apparently referred to the manuscript as the “December Project,” though the publication date was moved up to this month when the House announced an impeachment inquiry.

“I realize that writing this while the president is still in office is an extraordinary step,” Anonymous says. In light of three years’ worth of resignations, tell-all books, reports about emoluments and sworn testimony about quid pro quos, this is a decidedly minimalist definition of “extraordinary.” How can a book that has been denuded of anything too specific do anything more than pale against a formal whistle-blower complaint?

It’s hard to look like a heroic truth teller by comparison, but Anonymous tries very hard, presenting anonymity as not just convenient but an ultimately selfless act, designed to force everyone to pay more attention to what this book says by deflecting attention away from the person who’s saying it. “Removing my identity from the equation deprives him of an opportunity to create a distraction,” Anonymous writes, referring to Mr. Trump’s compulsion for attacking his critics. “What will he do when there is no person to attack, only an idea?”

Anonymous has seen disturbing things. Anonymous has heard disturbing things. You, the reader, will already recognize most of what Anonymous has seen and heard as revealed in this book if you have been paying any attention to the news. Did you know that the president isn’t much of a reader? That he’s inordinately fond of autocrats? That “he stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information”?

“A Warning,” Anonymous says, is intended for a “broad audience,” though to judge by the parade of bland, methodical arguments (Anonymous loves to qualify criticisms with a lawyerly “in fairness”), the ideal reader would seem to be an undecided voter who has lived in a cave for the past three years, and is irresistibly moved by quotations from Teddy Roosevelt and solemn invocations of Cicero.

Plenty of people have preemptively criticized this book as an opportunistic grift, though Anonymous has announced a plan to donate a portion of the royalties to “nonprofit organizations that focus on government accountability,” including the White House Correspondents’ Association. Besides, everything in the text of “A Warning” suggests a dyed-in-the-wool establishment Republican. There’s the typical talk about American exceptionalism and national security. There’s the eternal complaint that President Barack Obama was “out of touch with mainstream America.” There’s a wistful elegy for “our budget-balancing daydreams.” Yes, Anonymous is happy about the conservative judicial appointments, the deregulation, the tax cuts; what rankles is the “unbecoming” behavior, the “unseemly antics.”

A big tell comes early on, when Anonymous reveals what “the last straw” was. It wasn’t Mr. Trump’s response to the right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when a white supremacist killed a woman and the president talked about “the violence on many sides.” It wasn’t even the administration’s separation of migrant families at the border. These examples might have left Anonymous appalled, but the truly unforgivable act was when Senator John McCain died last year and Mr. Trump tried to hoist the flag on the White House above half-staff: “President Trump, in unprecedented fashion, was determined to use his office to limit the nation’s recognition of John McCain’s legacy.”

Anonymous says that the president “deserves to be fired,” but that’s just the author indulging in a little rhetorical flourish; what Anonymous really means is that the president’s contract shouldn’t be renewed. Actively seeking to remove Mr. Trump from office, whether by invoking the 25th Amendment or pursuing impeachment proceedings, would be “bad” because “we can scarcely afford further disunion.” Mr. Trump, Anonymous says, should simply not be elected to a second term; only then can the country “undertake the arduous task of moral repair” and “restore the soul of its political system.”

Anonymous declares that this “American spirit” was best exemplified by the bravery shown by the passengers on United Flight 93, who rushed the cockpit on 9/11. We’ve seen Flight 93 used as a conservative analogy before — by another anonymous author no less, writing under the pen name Publius Decius Mus, who argued before the 2016 presidential election that “a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto” and consequently that voting for Mr. Trump offered the only chance for the republic’s survival.

That the same violent tragedy has been deployed to argue one point and then, three years later, to argue its utter opposite is, to put it charitably, bizarre. But then Anonymous, a self-described “student of history,” doesn’t seem to register the discrepancy. Nor does Anonymous square the analogy with an episode mentioned in the opening pages of “A Warning” — of senior officials contemplating a replay of the Nixon administration’s so-called Saturday Night Massacre by resigning en masse. The idea of doing anything so bold was floated within the first two years of the Trump administration, and then abandoned.

Toward the end of the book, an earlier quote from Mr. Trump kept coming back to me, unbidden: “These are just words. A bunch of words. It doesn’t mean anything.”

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Book by ‘Anonymous’ describes Trump as cruel, inept and a danger to the nation

By Philip Rucker | Published November 07 at 8:31 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 8, 2019 |

Senior Trump administration officials considered resigning en masse last year in a “midnight self-massacre” to sound a public alarm about President Trump’s conduct, but rejected the idea because they believed it would further destabilize an already teetering government, according to a new book by an unnamed author.

In “A Warning” by Anonymous, obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release, a writer described only as “a senior official in the Trump administration” paints a chilling portrait of the president as cruel, inept and a danger to the nation he was elected to lead.

The author — who first captured attention in 2018 as the unidentified author of a New York Times opinion column — describes Trump careening from one self-inflicted crisis to the next, “like a twelve-year-old in an air traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway and the flights frantically diverting away from the airport.”

The book is an unsparing character study of Trump, from his morality to his intellectual depth, which the author writes is based on his or her observations and experiences. The author claims many other current and former administration officials share his or her views.

The 259-page book — which was published by Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group, and goes on sale Nov. 19 — does not re-create many specific episodes in vivid detail, which the author writes was intentional to protect his or her identity.

At a moment when a stream of political appointees and career public servants have testified before Congress about Trump’s conduct as part of the House impeachment inquiry, the book’s author defends his or her decision to remain anonymous.

“I have decided to publish this anonymously because this debate is not about me,” the author writes. “It is about us. It is about how we want the presidency to reflect our country, and that is where the discussion should center. Some will call this ‘cowardice.’ My feelings are not hurt by the accusation. Nor am I unprepared to attach my name to criticism of President Trump. I may do so, in due course.”

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham derided the book as a “work of fiction” and its anonymous author as a “coward.”

“The coward who wrote this book didn’t put their name on it because it is nothing but lies,” Grisham wrote in an email. “Real authors reach out to their subjects to get things fact checked — but this person is in hiding, making that very basic part of being a real writer impossible. Reporters who choose to write about this farce should have the journalistic integrity to cover the book as what it is — a work of fiction.”

Earlier this week, the Justice Department warned Hachette and the author’s agents, Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn of Javelin, that the anonymous official may be violating a nondisclosure agreement. Javelin responded by accusing the administration of seeking to unmask the author.

The author’s Sept. 5, 2018, op-ed in the Times, headlined “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” depicted some senior officials as a bulwark protecting the country from the president’s reckless impulses. Trump denounced it at the time as treasonous.

In the book, the author repudiates the central thesis of the column: “I was wrong about the ‘quiet resistance’ inside the Trump administration. Unelected bureaucrats and cabinet appointees were never going to steer Donald Trump the right direction in the long run, or refine his malignant management style. He is who he is.”

The author describes senior officials waking up in the morning “in a full-blown panic” over the wild pronouncements the president had made on Twitter.

“It’s like showing up at the nursing home at daybreak to find your elderly uncle running pantsless across the courtyard and cursing loudly about the cafeteria food, as worried attendants tried to catch him,” the author writes. “You’re stunned, amused, and embarrassed all at the same time. Only your uncle probably wouldn’t do it every single day, his words aren’t broadcast to the public, and he doesn’t have to lead the US government once he puts his pants on.”

The book depicts Trump as making misogynistic and racist comments behind the scenes.

“I’ve sat and listened in uncomfortable silence as he talks about a woman’s appearance or performance,” the author writes. “He comments on makeup. He makes jokes about weight. He critiques clothing. He questions the toughness of women in and around his orbit. He uses words like ‘sweetie’ and ‘honey’ to address accomplished professionals. This is precisely the way a boss shouldn’t act in the work environment.”

The author alleges that Trump attempted a Hispanic accent during an Oval Office meeting to complain about migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We get these women coming in with like seven children,” Trump said, according to the book. “They are saying, ‘Oh, please help! My husband left me!’ They are useless. They don’t do anything for our country. At least if they came in with a husband we could put him in the fields to pick corn or something.”

The author argues that Trump is incapable of leading the United States through a monumental international crisis, describing how he tunes out intelligence and national security briefings and theorizing that foreign adversaries see him as “a simplistic pushover” who is susceptible to flattery and easily manipulated.

After the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, the author writes, Trump vented to advisers and said he would be foolish to stand up to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“Do you know how stupid it would be to pick this fight?” Trump said, according to the book. “Oil would go up to one hundred fifty dollars a barrel. Jesus. How [expletive] stupid would I be?”

The book contains a handful of startling assertions that are not backed up with evidence, such as a claim that if a majority of the Cabinet were prepared to remove Trump from office under the 25th Amendment, Vice President Pence would have been supportive.

Pence denied this on Thursday, calling the book “appalling” and telling reporters, “I never heard anything in my time as vice president about the 25th Amendment. And why would I?”

One theme laced throughout the book is Trump’s indifference to the boundaries of the law. The author writes that Trump considered presidential pardons as “unlimited ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards on a Monopoly board,” referring to news reports that he had offered pardons to aides.

As he ranted about federal courts ruling against some of his policies, including the 2017 travel ban, the author writes, Trump once asked White House lawyers to draft a bill to send to Congress reducing the number of federal judges.

“Can we just get rid of the judges? Let’s get rid of the [expletive] judges,” the president said, according to the book. “There shouldn’t be any at all, really.”

The author portrays Trump as fearful of coups against him and suspicious of note-takers on his staff. According to the book, the president shouted at an aide who was scribbling in a notebook during a meeting, “What the [expletive] are you doing?” He added, “Are you [expletive] taking notes?” The aide apologized and closed the notebook.

The author also ruminates about Trump’s fitness for office, describing him as reckless and without full control of his faculties.

“I am not qualified to diagnose the president’s mental acuity,” the author writes. “All I can tell you is that normal people who spend any time with Donald Trump are uncomfortable by what they witness. He stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information, not occasionally but with regularity. Those who would claim otherwise are lying to themselves or to the country.”

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How a Tell-All Memoir Made It Into Print

By Alexandra Alter | Published Nov. 8, 2019 UPDATED 7:36 AM ET | New York Times | Posted November 8, 2019 |

When the news broke last month that a senior Trump administration official had written an anonymous tell-all memoir about serving in the White House, criticism was swift, and unusually bipartisan.

President Trump’s supporters dismissed the book as a likely fabrication. Some administration critics chastised the author for hiding behind anonymity, particularly in the middle of an impeachment inquiry when career government officials are testifying publicly about perceived wrongdoing, often at professional risk.

On Thursday night, the critiques grew louder after The Washington Post obtained an early copy of the book, titled “A Warning,” and reported on its contents. Among the revelations: a discussion among senior officials who considered resigning all at once in a “midnight self-massacre” as a warning to the public of the president’s erratic behavior.

But with the release in recent days of damning transcripts from the impeachment inquiry, the events described in “A Warning” could be seen as overly general and less revelatory than those daily disclosures from Washington.

In a New York Times review, Jennifer Szalai punctured the author’s claim that writing the book was “an extraordinary step” toward informing the public about presidential wrongdoing.

“In light of three years’ worth of resignations, tell-all books, reports about emoluments and sworn testimony about quid pro quos, this is a decidedly minimalist definition of ‘extraordinary.’ How can a book that has been denuded of anything too specific do anything more than pale against a formal whistle-blower complaint?” Ms. Szalai wrote.

The White House was quick to condemn the book, dismissing it as fiction in a statement to The Washington Post.

“The coward who wrote this book didn’t put their name on it because it is nothing but lies,” the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, wrote in an email to the Post. “Real authors reach out to their subjects to get things fact checked — but this person is in hiding, making that very basic part of being a real writer impossible.”

“A Warning” is the latest and most unusual tell-all political memoir to emerge from President Trump’s administration, following books by former government officials like James B. Comey, Andrew G. McCabe of the F.B.I. and Cliff Sims, a Trump aide.

The anonymous author first caused a stir last year with the publication of an essay in The New York Times stating that many of Mr. Trump’s senior officials “are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” adding, “I would know. I am one of them.”

Plans to publish the book came together this year when the literary agents Keith Urbahn and Matt Latimer, co-founders of the Javelin agency, were summoned to meet with a senior member of the Trump administration.

The official claimed to be the anonymous author of a New York Times Op-Ed published last year that describes how administration officials were “working diligently from within” to frustrate many of Mr. Trump’s plans and ambitions.

Because the author’s identity was, and is, closely protected, Mr. Latimer and Mr. Urbahn had chosen not to shop around a book proposal and instead took the project directly to Sean Desmond of Twelve, a division of the Hachette Book Group. The author did not receive an advance for the book and has outlined plans to donate a substantial portion of the royalties to nonprofit groups supporting government accountability and press freedom, according to the publisher.

Mr. Desmond worked on the book in secret over the summer, and its publication was expedited once the impeachment inquiry got underway. The book is scheduled to go on sale Nov. 19, with a first print run of 500,000 copies.

Details, however, began to leak out shortly after its publication was announced in October.

Speculation about the author’s identity, motivation and current job title intensified as publication neared. (The author is listed on the cover as “Anonymous: A Senior Trump Administration Official.”)

This week, the Justice Department sent a letter to the publisher seeking identifying details, and asking for proof that the author had not signed a nondisclosure agreement with the administration and had not gained access to classified information.

“If the author is, in fact, a current or former ‘senior official’ in the Trump administration, publication of the book may violate that official’s legal obligations under one or more nondisclosure agreements,” Joseph H. Hunt, an assistant attorney general, wrote to Carol Ross of the Hachette Book Group.

In a response, Hachette said it intended to honor its commitment to protect the author’s identity.

Still, publishing a lengthy book offers many more possibilities for clues to the author’s name.

“The author is aware that their identity may be revealed as a result of this book,” Mr. Latimer said in an interview with The Times this month. “Every precaution has been taken to mitigate this possibility, but it’s still a real one and we all know that.”

In “A Warning,” the author offers a rationale for remaining anonymous. The writer claims to be protecting not just his or her identity, but to be preserving the impact of the book’s arguments by precluding the possibility of personal attacks by the president or his supporters.

“Removing my identity from the equation deprives him of an opportunity to create a distraction,” the author writes. “What will he do when there is no person to attack, only an idea?”

🍁📖🍂☕🍁📖🍂☕🍁📖🍂☕🍁📖

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