by Boo Walker
As they shared the bowl of olives and tortilla Española, Whitaker asked, “What is it you do outside of running the café, not that you have any free time? But do you have any hobbies?”
Claire popped an olive into her mouth and chased it with a sip. “I have a cat.” The wine had helped calm her, and she was enjoying herself again.
“Ah, you’re a cat lady. That explains a few things.”
She finished chewing. “I didn’t know it until I found him at the restaurant. It was love at first sight. His name’s Willy. One-Eyed Willy.” Claire could almost feel Willy rubbing up against her ankles.
Surprising her, Whitaker broke into an unabashed Sloth-from–The Goonies impersonation, saying, “Hey, you guys.”
Claire burst into laughter and covered her mouth.
Whitaker stuck his fork into the tortilla Española. “Who doesn’t know One-Eyed Willy? So outside of obsessing over eighties films and taking care of One-Eyed Willy, what makes you tick?”
With her laugh still lingering, she said, “Lately, I’ve been trying to reconnect with the beach. Bought a little place on Pass-a-Grille recently. I think it’s fair to say I’ve neglected the brighter side of my world since David died. It’s been a long three years.”
“I know what you mean.” He raised a hand. “My pain pales in comparison to yours, but I’ve had my troubles too. I’ve barely looked at the water in forever. It’s such a shame. We live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, but life can get in the way, and . . . and then you forget to take the time to appreciate the things that actually matter.”
How right he was. “Exactly, but I’m trying to find the magic again. And as far as hobbies, I used to be into photography. For a minute, I wanted to be the next Annie Leibovitz. But that’s gone to the wayside too. This is going to be my year, though.” She hammered the table, feeling a lovely sense of possibility coming over her.
Claire turned the conversation to him. “So what about you? Why the long two years? A divorce, right?”
Whitaker stretched his arms. “I guess the whole town knows.”
“You kind of did that to yourself, you know. You wrote a book and went and got famous.”
“That I did.” He put his hands behind his head. “Anyway, yeah, a divorce. A terrible divorce. Not like we were fighting. It was actually a gentle divorce as far as those are concerned. I guess you could call it a Divorce Light.” Claire didn’t laugh, so he tried to clarify. “You know, Bud Light. Divorce Light.”
Claire offered an aware grin. “I get it.”
“Anyway,” he said. “Let me pop the top on my Divorce Light and share a sip.” He made a whooshing sound, as if he were opening a can.
“Oh my God,” she said, shaking her head in near disbelief. “So if the joke doesn’t work, just keep trying?”
Whitaker lifted an imaginary can and then pretended to gulp it down. Then he crushed it and tossed it over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m earth friendly. That was a recycling bin behind me.”
Claire found herself laughing again, and it felt wonderful. “Not bad. Your routine could use some work, but I could see you being funny.”
In an instant, the curve of Whitaker’s lips reversed. “There was no fighting. I was checked out. She called me on it, gave me a yellow card. I ignored it. And then she was gone. I was so wound up in trying to write again, trying to express myself. When all I really should have been doing was loving her.”
Claire imagined Whitaker being a handful to live with, but a ton of fun, nonetheless. “You still love her?”
“Nah, it’s not like that. I mean, I love her as a person, but we’ve both gone in opposite directions. In fact, she’s now dating again according to the bomb of a text a friend dropped on me recently.”
Claire brushed her hair behind one ear. “How did you take the news?”
“Ended up lying to a kind woman who owns a café on Pass-a-Grille. Told her I had read her husband’s book, when in actuality I was suffering yet again from an old scar that doesn’t want to fade away. I honestly don’t know why it bothers me, but it does.”
“Well, aren’t we two wounded animals?” Claire said, raising her glass to him. “You actually make me feel better about myself.”
Whitaker raised his own stem. “I’m glad my decline can give someone else hope, almost like a seesaw. I go down, you go up. Maybe this whole thing I’m going through isn’t for naught.”
She enjoyed her wine and then, “A seesaw. I like that.”
Whitaker smiled at her appreciation of his comment. “I’ll try to keep my feet on the ground for you. Keep you up in the air.”
It took a moment for Claire to get his meaning. “No, what goes down must go back up, right?”
Whitaker slowly lifted his hands, palms up, and said with a calm delivery, “Then our seesaw shall defy odds and rise in balance.”
Claire had to give it to him. He had an interesting mind. She put a bow on the topic by asking, “All this struggling because you can’t figure out anything new to write?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“But now you have a story,” she said.
“That’s right. Now I have a story.” He took a long, slow breath and pinched his mustache. “And I’m scared to death . . .”
After a pregnant pause, Whitaker said, “You should pick up your camera again. It would be good for you. Do you have any work I can see? Judging by your amazing sense of style, I bet you’re more of an artist than you let on.”
She couldn’t help but get excited while thinking about taking photos again. “I still have a couple pieces here and there. Sold most of them at the café.”
Whitaker topped off both of their glasses. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I have a few open spots on my walls. Will you take a picture for me? I’ll buy it with the money I’m getting for this book I’m writing.”
She cocked an eyebrow, a smile playing on her lips. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“Can I ask one more serious question before we call it a night? And you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Claire felt more ready for his questions now, like he’d earned her trust. “Shoot.”
Whitaker asked his question as if he were touching a doorknob that might be hot. “How did David die?”
Claire nodded approval of the question. She’d spent enough time reliving that day that it wasn’t always a torture to explore. “A drunk driver. He was coming off 375 into downtown St. Pete. About four in the afternoon. A man driving a Honda Accord with a missing back bumper changed lanes without seeing David. Ran him off the road into a telephone pole.”
“Oh God, that’s awful. I hope the guy’s in prison.”
“For about five more years. God, if you only knew how much time I’ve spent hating that man. It’s probably a good thing he’s behind bars.”
Whitaker nodded understanding. “How did you find out?”
“David was supposed to bring someone by for dinner. Three years later, and I still don’t know who it was. I assume he was on his way to pick up the person . . . I don’t know. They never showed up. But I’d prepared all the fixings for fajitas and was waiting for them to walk in the door to fire the shrimp. They were supposed to be there at five, and I kept dialing him over and over while I waited at the dining room table.”
Claire could still remember that moment so vividly, her fingers jabbing the buttons on the phone, her eyes on the empty chairs. “Something didn’t feel right. I must have called him thirty times. Then there was a knock on the door. When I saw the chaplain’s white collar and the police officer standing behind him, no words were needed.”
Whitaker reached across the table and put his hand on hers. “I can’t imagine.” After a pause, he asked, “You never figured out who he was bringing to dinner?”
Claire shook her head. “No idea. I guess it doesn’t really matter, but it’s certainly always niggled at me.”
“Yeah, it would anyone.”
>
“And they found a Yankees hat with the tag still on it, which, if you knew David, was even weirder. He hated the Yankees—despised them. So why would he have a brand-new hat in his car? I guess it was for a client, but even so, I can’t see him supporting the Yankees in any way.”
Whitaker let go of her hand. “Doesn’t seem fair you’ve had to deal with these questions for so long.”
“Well, it’s not like answers will bring him back. I’m just trying to get by now.”
“I think you’re doing better than getting by. I’d be in a lot worse shape than you. So would most of the population. I think you’re a fighter and an inspiration.”
Claire thanked him. “I’m nobody special, that’s for sure.”
“I completely disagree.”
Miguel appeared, lightening the mood. Whitaker asked for the bill, and once Miguel had left, Whitaker asked, “Can we do this again tomorrow morning? I promise we will only talk about what you’re comfortable with.”
“It’s fine, really. It’s been a long time.” Claire was committed to doing whatever it took to help him finish the novel.
Chapter 18
GREEN LIGHT, GO
Strolling alongside Claire on the beach the next morning, Whitaker found himself in awe. It was truly sad how he’d let the Gulf of Mexico’s coast disappear from his purview in the past years. No, he might as well live in some no-name town a thousand miles inland. How dare he lose sight of the tropical beauty surrounding him.
He loved the feel of the sand on his feet, the way the sharp shells lightly stabbed his pads like an aggressive pressure point treatment. He loved the salt water as it rolled over his ankles, the birds diving into the water, the herbal scent of seaweed drifting by, the light chop on a breezy day like today.
The woman beside him grew increasingly fascinating with each story and anecdote she shared, and he’d begun to understand her. Though she could be so quiet and in her head sometimes, he could feel the electricity that ran through her. The beach was indeed her domain.
“This is where I fell in love with reggae. Fourteen years old, listening to Bob Marley on the beach. When I’d leave my grandmother and return to Chicago, bracing myself for another brutal winter, it was a way to bring me back here.”
“I wonder if we ever crossed paths,” he said. “I was here all the time.”
“Possibly.” Claire pulled her eyes from the water and looked at him through her dark lenses. “So what new conclusions did you come to? You’re not going to bail on me, are you?”
“No, not now. I’m committed to giving this my all.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night, worried you might change your mind.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t sleep last night either. I read the book again.”
“Again?”
“Well, most of it. It’s really good. Needs some work, but the bones are solid. I was wrapping my mind around some of the larger issues. And I think the biggest is getting your blessing. I know this is David’s novel, and I want to respect his memory. But if I’m to take it on, I need to feel free to roam.” He stopped walking, and she did the same. “I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I don’t know how else to say this.”
Whitaker removed his Maui Jims, wondering how to best say what he was asking. “If I’m to write it, it has to be mine. In a sense, you need to give me the story. I can’t be second-guessing the muse, and I can’t have you second-guessing her either. I’m not saying I want to put my name on the book. But you have to let me take creative control. I can’t run every scene or change by you; I can’t work that way.”
Claire crossed her arms and looked back to the water, as if for approval. “I understand. The story will be yours. But I think both of your names should be on the cover.”
“I’d like that.” He looked at her. “I will put everything I have into it, Claire. That’s about as true as I could ever be to the story and to David.” Upon seeing her face light up, he said, “Here’s the other thing. I don’t want you telling anyone. Not yet. I don’t need the pressure. If for some reason I can’t pull this off, I need to be able to walk away.”
“It’ll be between you and me.”
Whitaker began walking along the tide line again, and she followed. “I woke up and almost shaved my mustache, some sort of step toward a new me.” As the words left his mouth, he heard David Crosby singing “Almost Cut My Hair.”
“Oh, you did? What prevented you? It might have been a wise move.”
“The fear that I might be morphing into normalcy.”
“Let me assure you, Whitaker. You are anything but normal.”
That made him smile, even if it wasn’t a compliment.
Whitaker dodged a fiddler crab and held up a finger. “I did shower—with soap—and then stretched and did a few push-ups. If you knew me well, you’d know that is a sign of a breakthrough. Me touching my toes is like Rocky carrying logs through the snow while training to fight the Russian.”
“I can definitely see the likeness.”
Whitaker held up a curled arm. “You can’t see them right now, but there are muscles here.”
She pinched his bicep. “Yeah, I think you might have left them at home.”
A little girl ran by chasing another girl with a bucket of water.
Whitaker said with a straighter face, “You’ve given me a gift, you know. Something big.”
“Bigger than your muscles?”
Whitaker looked down to his bicep. “Believe it or not.”
After a laugh, Claire turned serious again. “It’s David’s gift to both of us. I wish you’d gotten to meet him. I think you two would have been friends.”
“It would have been an honor. To win you over, he must have been one of a kind.” Whitaker didn’t mean to be overly sentimental, but it was a touching moment for him. He could only be honest.
They turned back once they’d reached the Don CeSar. Umbrellas were popping up left and right, sun worshippers readying themselves for a lazy day of reading or simply watching the people and the boats pass by.
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 thro
ugh 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.