An Unfinished Story(62)
Using Staff Sergeant Jack Grant’s analogy, Whitaker felt like he’d spent all this time building a giant mansion, only to find out the foundation was made of cards.
And Lisa, the Queen of Hearts, had knocked it down.
Chapter 25
THE NATIONAL TREASURE
Whitaker collapsed onto the houndstooth sofa face-first. How was it that he had fought so hard recently to overcome the struggles of a decade of washed-up-writer syndrome, only to be toppled with a crappy reminder of how bad of a husband he’d been? How bad of a person, really. Claire had probably saved herself a lot of heartache by stopping his advances. Who was to say he was any more put together now?
With his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall, his mind danced clumsily through the years of marriage. He flashed back through all the smiles they’d shared, and each memory stabbed him like the barb of a stingray, each stab leaving venom to poison the bloodstream. He’d been nothing short of an asshole.
He recalled the day she’d sat him down and given him the first of several gentle warnings—warnings he didn’t take seriously. “This is your wake-up call, Whit.”
He saw himself on that day, shaking his head, assuring her that he was focused on coming back, that he was inching back, grasping with everything he had. “I swear to you, Lisa, give me a little bit more time. I can see the end of this nightmare. Let me get this next story out, and I’ll be back. It will be about us. I just can’t let this career I built slide.”
“What you don’t see, Whitaker,” she’d said, “is that you’re trying too hard, and you’re thinking too much. Let’s focus on us and having fun. I have a feeling you’ll get your stories back.”
She was right, but he wasn’t listening.
The worst of life strikes you when you’re at the top, Whitaker decided. Because at the top, everyone and everything was out to get you.
He found himself imagining the surgeon, who must have family up on Martha’s Vineyard. As much as Whitaker wanted to put a hit out on him, he hoped the man would treat her with the love and respect she deserved, doing what Whitaker had failed to do.
It wasn’t heartache, was it? Had he a choice of Claire or Lisa, he’d choose Claire. No doubt. So why was this news so difficult to process? Because of the failure and the rejection, the lonely bed he’d made for himself. Whitaker Grant might be a great writer, but he was a terrible lover. And what mattered more than love?
If for nothing more than to have some company, he flipped on a cable news channel. Then he opened his Facebook on his phone. He typed Lisa’s name in the search bar and found her. He clicked on her profile page and realized that she had unfriended him. This unfriending was something new, because he had recently stalked her. And it felt like she’d cut the head off their relationship. Like all the years they had shared together didn’t matter anymore. The total elimination of everything they had ever had.
Crossing into new territory, Whitaker went to several of her friends’ pages and poked around. He scrutinized a few shots of Lisa, but he saw no indications of a new man in her life. Thankfully, he didn’t see a surgeon from Martha’s Vineyard running across the beach in slow motion in his scrubs, his stethoscope poised in his right hand, ready to test the beat of Lisa’s happy heart. Whitaker stopped to look at his lost redheaded lover with friends at the Grand Prix in downtown St. Pete in March.
For a flash of a moment, he recalled the day he and Lisa had attended the Grand Prix together. The morning before the first race, Lisa had found a review online calling him a “national treasure.” Though Lisa had spent the day laughing at the comment, he’d ridden his high horse for weeks. Today, he would have been happy with anything close to such a lovely designation. He would even have found delight in something more mediocre. He’d even take “neighborhood treasure” at this point. Whitaker Grant, the “crown jewel of Gulfport.”
The next morning, Whitaker finished brushing his teeth and looked at himself in the mirror. In his father’s voice, he spat, “Private Grant, are you a typist or a writer? Get. Your. Ass. In. That. Chair. Now.” He saluted himself and then followed his own orders.
Returning the laptop to the desk, Whitaker sat down and worked his way to the document. He had to get something out, even if only a few words. He looked at the picture of David and tried to tap into Claire’s dead husband. “Please share your story with me,” Whitaker said. “I’m here, ready to type, but I don’t know where I’m going.”
Whitaker lifted his fingers above the keys. “Let’s go, David. Give me something to work with.”
No words came. Not even letters.
His fingers waited above the keys like a dog ready to chase after a ball the owner had no intention of throwing.
Something was missing.
Whitaker tried desperately to remind himself that every single writer on earth faced these demons. Even Hemingway hated himself sometimes and hated writing and doubted every single word in every sentence.
The best writers, though, they trudged through it. Whitaker sat up again, trying to muster the energy and faith needed. With his fingers at the ready, he tried to make a choice. That was all writing was in the end. Choices.
He couldn’t type one word. He couldn’t make one choice. He couldn’t hit the ball.
Claire walked barefoot in the wet sand, searching the heavier patches of shells for sharks’ teeth. Her camera hung from her neck, the memory card nearly full with the shots of her rediscovered passion. This was her special place, to be on the beach, walking in the rays of the rising sun, an abundance of life dancing all around her.