All morning, things felt strained between Libby and me. We’re caught in a feedback loop of vague bad feelings.
She’s frustrated with how much I work, and that’s creating distance. The distance has her keeping secrets. The secrets have me frustrated with her. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, keeping us locked in an invisible, unspoken argument, wherein we both pretend nothing’s wrong.
That hollow ache: You’re losing her, and then what was it all for?
As soon as the library’s automatic doors whoosh open, that delicious warm-paper smell folds around me like a hug, and my chest loosens a bit. On the right, some high schoolers lounge at a row of ancient desktop computers, their chatter muffled by the industrial blue carpet. I pass them and take the wide staircase to the second floor, and then the third.
I follow the row of windowed study rooms along the outside wall to 3C and find Charlie angled over his laptop, the overhead light off and diffused daylight pouring through the window to cast him in cool blues.
The room is tiny, with a steepled roof. A laminate table and four matching chairs take up the vast majority of the space.
For some reason — the quiet, maybe, or what happened last night — I feel shy as I hover in the doorway. “Am I late?”
He looks up, eyes darkly ringed. “I’m early.” He clears the gruff sleepiness from his voice. “I edit here most Saturdays.”
An enormous coffee from Mug + Shot sits in front of an open seat, waiting for me. I drop into the chair. “Thanks.”
Charlie nods, but he’s hyper-focused on his screen, one hand tugging at the hair behind his ear.
My phone vibrates with another message from Brendan: You girls still having fun?
Cords of anxiety slither over one another in my stomach. Libby texted me from the shop five minutes ago, so I know she has her phone. Which means he either didn’t text her first or she just didn’t respond.
Yep! I type back. Why? Everything okay?
Definitely!!! He’s really selling it with those exclamation points.
Maybe it’s time to resort to begging for answers.
For now, though, I fold that line of thought into a compartment at the back of my mind. It goes with surprising ease. “Did you need a minute?” I ask Charlie as I boot up my computer.
He startles, like he’s forgotten I’m here. “No. No, sorry. I’m good.” He runs his hand over his mouth, then stands and drags his chair around the corner, where he can look at my notes on-screen. His thigh bumps mine as he sits, and for a few moments after, there’s some kind of avalanche happening behind my rib cage.
I ask, “Should we start with everything we liked?” Charlie stares for a beat too long; he absolutely missed the question. “Oh, come on, Charlie,” I tease. “You can admit you like things. Dusty and I won’t tell anyone.”
He blinks a few times. It’s like watching his consciousness swim toward the surface. “Obviously I like the book. I begged to work on it, remember?”
“I’ll remember you begging until my last dying breath.”
He looks abruptly to the screen, all business, and it feels like my heart is taking on water. “The pages are great,” he says. “The perky physical therapist is a good foil to Nadine, but I think by the end of this section, she needs more depth.”
“I wrote that too!” I’m immediately self-conscious about my teacher’s pet I-just-aced-a-quiz voice when I see Charlie’s face. “What?”
He squelches his smirk. “Nothing.”
“Not ‘nothing,’ ” I challenge. “That’s a face.”
“I’ve always had one, Stephens,” he says. “Fairly disappointing you just noticed.”
“Your expression.”
He leans back in his chair, his red Pilot balanced over one knuckle and under two. “It’s just that you’re good at this.”
“And that’s a shock?”
“Of course not,” he says. “Am I not allowed to enjoy seeing someone be good at their job?”
“Technically this is your job.”
“It could be yours too, if you wanted.”
“I interviewed for an editing job once,” I tell him.
His brows flick up. “And you didn’t take it?”
“I didn’t do the second interview,” I say. “Libby had just gotten pregnant.”
“And?”
“And Brendan got laid off.” My shoulders tighten, locking into defensive mode. “I was making good money on commission, and taking an entry-level job would’ve meant a pay cut.”
He studies me until my skin starts to thrum, then looks away again; we’re caught in an endless game of chicken, taking turns losing. “How did Libby feel about that?”
“I didn’t tell her.” I turn back to my notes. “Next up, we have Josephine.”
After a beat, Charlie says, “Don’t you think she’d be sad you gave up your dream job for her?”
“She doesn’t exactly admire my devotion to my current job,” I remind him. “Now, Josephine.”
He sighs, giving in. “Love Jo.”
“Is she different enough from Old Man Whittaker, you think? I mean, old, crotchety person with no family?”
“I think so. We get depth to her character quickly, and her backstory, with the ex who drove her out of Hollywood, doesn’t ring any Once bells. Old Man Whittaker lost his family, but Josephine never had one to begin with. And besides, the discussion of how her being a woman dictated how the media and world treated her is kind of this book’s whole deal.”
“True,” I say. “And I love that, but it does bring me to my next thought. Maybe we should pull back on the reveal about her connection to the film industry until later.”
Charlie’s eyes take on a Mac spinning-wheel quality, like his thoughts are loading. “I disagree,” he says slowly. “What I’d prefer is if we didn’t find out why Nadine never became an actress until later. I think there’s opportunity for tension there. Like maybe when Nadine finds Jo’s Oscar, it comes out that Nadine originally wanted to act and Jo asks what changed her mind, and we get some foreshadowing.”
“Shit,” I say.
“What?” Charlie says.
“You’re right.”
“My condolences,” he says. “This has clearly been very hard on you.”
I start typing the update into my notes.
“Nadine shouldn’t have given up on acting,” Charlie says.
The words float there for a minute, an obvious trap. “She makes a lot of money agenting,” I reply.
“She doesn’t enjoy her money,” he reminds me.
I keep typing. “She likes agenting.”
“She loved acting.”
“I thought you were her biggest fan.”
“I am,” he says. “That’s why I want her to get her happy ending.”
“I don’t think it’s that kind of book, Charlie.”
His shoulder shrugs in tandem with a flick of his full lips. “We’ll see.”
Despite my carefully organized document, the way we move through our edits feels more like those days wandering the Central Park Ramble with Mom and Libby.
The document balloons and then we pare it down, Charlie pulling my laptop over to him to reduce four sentences into one, me pulling it back to thread through more compliments, until, hours into the process, I realize we’ve switched roles. Now he’s the one inserting praise and I’m the one trimming fat.
As he watches me, he murmurs, “I’ve just always wanted to see a shark attack up close. So much blood.”