An Unfinished Story(50)
When they returned to his car, Whitaker said, “I’d better get to work.”
“Yeah, me too. Will you keep me posted?”
“You know it.” Whitaker considered hugging her but offered his hand instead. “I’ll be in touch.”
“No time like the present,” Whitaker said to himself, sitting down at his desk and setting the composition books at his side. He was indeed scared. Anxious. And an emotion so distant that it seemed almost foreign was rising inside him like lava from a dormant volcano. He felt excitement. As he’d driven home from the beach, he could barely wait to get started. Not typing. Writing.
Opening up the first book and setting it down next to his laptop, he started a new file. As he saved it, he saw the graveyard of unfinished Microsoft Word documents buried in a file called Open Projects. Maybe he would finally close a project this time.
Whitaker formatted the document, titled it, and typed the first line. He smiled. Something told him that he was starting something big. His instincts hadn’t spoken to him in such a way since Napalm Trees. It was a good stab at a first sentence, at least nothing to tweak quite yet. He kept going, adding a few lines here and there, ideas that seemed to come out of nowhere. Whitaker couldn’t quite see Kevin’s house west of the Tamiami Trail in Sarasota, so he brought out the setting more. Growing up only an hour away, Whitaker knew Sarasota well enough.
As he typed, Whitaker felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience, his fingers dancing across the keys, the fingers of a robot racing to enter lines of computer code that might save the world, the line between him and David and reality and fiction blurring.
A phone ring stole him away from his work. The ring wasn’t necessarily loud, but to Whitaker it was as loud as the fire alarm he’d gone into battle against nights before. He pulled back from the computer. He noticed sweat under his arms. The screen was full of words. He looked around, and another chill ran through his body, inching up his spine. He stuck his arms out to stretch and took in a giant breath. What had just happened? Whatever it was, it felt good.
Deciding to ignore the call, he went back to work.
Finally, he looked at the clock on the wall. Three hours had passed.
Whitaker returned to the document and scrolled up. Pages and pages of words. He could feel the muscles in his forearms weary from the chase. He’d done it. He’d found her.
He’d found the muse.
“Where in the world have you been, my sweet lady?” he asked, the hairs standing up on his arms, tears rushing to his eyes. “Don’t leave me again.”
Sex was the only feeling he could compare this to, and it was the kind of sex you have when the whole world lights up around you, a million fireflies dancing in the dark, your partner a sorceress of delight, a long steady climax of unbridled joy. The drug he’d missed finally coming back. A fix of the finest order.
Whitaker looked down at the terrazzo tile floor. And he imagined seeing something nearly transparent—almost like a snake skin—but it wasn’t serpentine. It was the skin of the typist. The writer had finally shed the unhealthy skin of the ego that had been holding him back. The typist was no more.
Chapter 19
THE DUSTY CAMERA
One afternoon a week later, after leaving Whitaker’s house for another interview, Claire drove back to Pass-a-Grille and returned to her bungalow excited about finding her camera. She’d learned on a dated film camera, back in Chicago when she was working her father’s diner during the day and taking college courses at night, but she’d upgraded to a digital camera with the rest of the world once she’d moved to St. Pete. What were the chances it was charged?
With Willy curiously staring at her, Claire eagerly rifled through the closet in the second bedroom until she found her camera bags. Three of them. One with the body and her favorite lens, and then two other bags full of other fun lenses like her fixed 100 mm and her wide angle. Bringing all three bags into the living room, she plugged one of the batteries into the wall and spread her camera equipment out on the dining room table, relishing in the world of photography she’d left behind.
Claire reached for her computer, deciding it would be a good time to do her scheduling for the coming week. To everyone’s surprise, she’d not been working herself to the bone. Not that she was letting things slide, but she was no longer the person responding to emails three seconds after receipt. She wasn’t ordering food and alcohol well before it was needed. Her life’s motion was becoming a bit more “just in time,” as opposed to “doesn’t hurt to stay ahead of things.” Apparently, Leo’s South wouldn’t burn down if she took a few hours off here and there.
After the battery had charged for an hour, she looked out the window, and her heart fluttered, seeing the golden hour approaching. What a perfect time to get back in. She prepped her main rig, finishing by twisting the hood onto the lens, and rushed toward the water. It was the last day of February, and the cool late afternoons had a San Diego feel about them. But spring was certainly coming. Reaching the dunes dotted with patches of sea oats, she was pleased to see a rather empty beach, at least her stretch.
An older man with a curve in his back was moving along the middle of the sand working a metal detector. She’d always wondered if people ever found anything worth the search. A couple sat in chairs facing the water with cocktails in their hands. She smiled and waved when she saw one of the mascots of Pass-a-Grille. “Hi, Kenny!” He had the deepest tan in town and strolled up and down the beach strutting his fluorescent pink or green mankinis.