Chapter Twenty-Three
Zack
I spent the next couple days at home working on my book. After a quick run to Trader Joe’s on Monday night for drinks and snacks, I didn’t leave the house again until it was time to meet up with Kelli on Wednesday night. In the meantime, I sat at my desk eating yogurt and frozen pizza and struggling to outline my manuscript.
I had thought this would be easier than it was, and after a few hours of panicked frustration, I began to wish I had confided in Kelli about my secret project. I remembered an argument I’d had with a friend back in high school who wrote novels as a hobby and wanted to be a professional novelist. “Anybody could sit down and write a book,” I had told him. “How hard could it be?”
“If you think it’s so easy,” he said, irritated, “you ought to try it sometime.”
At the time I couldn’t understand what he was so upset about, or why he bristled when I said writers must be lazy because they just sat around all day typing whatever came into their heads. Now I almost wanted to call him up and apologize. Turns out there was a lot more to it than just sitting down and spitting out words onto a computer screen. I tried that, but after a few pages of incoherent rambling, I realized I needed to sit down and plan this thing out before I started writing. It probably wouldn’t hurt to run by Barnes & Noble and see if they had any books on writing books for dummies. I didn’t think Kelli would mind if we went by there after dinner on Wednesday.
“I thought this was supposed to be a vacation,” I muttered to myself as I downed the last of my Red Bull and glared at my screen with red eyes. “How do professional writers do this day in and day out without wanting to throw themselves out of a window?”
I picked up Kelli at her apartment on Wednesday at around 6:00pm. She was putting her earrings in when I tapped at the door and smelled strongly of perfume and apple-scented lotion.
“Come in!” she said eagerly, ushering me into the living room. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
There was a dude standing in the kitchen, and I figured it was either her brother she had never told me about or we were about to have a fight. But then I saw a woman just a couple years younger than Kelli, and with Kelli’s eyes, standing at the stove heating up vegetables in a skillet.
“You must be Kelli’s sister,” I said. “I want to say… Debbie?”
“Renee,” said Renee. “And this is my boyfriend, Max. Max, Zack was also in the Navy.”
“Oh, yeah? Where were you stationed?” asked Max, looking impressed and coming over to shake my hand. He had a firm grip.
“Recently, the Congo and Libya. Before that, we spent about a year in Liberia battling the leaders of a sex trafficking ring.”
“I fought in Afghanistan,” said Max. “Shipped out right after 9/11. My parents wanted me to go into music, but after watching the towers fall that morning in gym class, there was no way I wasn’t going overseas.”
“I hear that,” I said. “To be honest with you, I thought we’d have bin Laden in the bag by Christmas. Sometimes I can’t believe we’re still over there.”
“I thought we’d be leaving once we caught the bastard,” said Max. “I didn’t plan on getting involved in some other country’s civil war.”
We’d gotten so absorbed in our own conversation that I had almost forgotten the real reason I had come over. But just then, Kelli emerged from a back bedroom with her hair pinned up, looking like the deposed princess of a small European monarchy who had found a second career in acting. “You ready to go?” she asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I took her by the shoulders and waved bye to Max and Renee. “Good meeting y’all.”
“See ya around,” said Max.
We went out to dinner at Café Luxembourg on the Upper West Side, one of those bistro-looking places with a very old world, Parisian aesthetic. At one end of the room, a man was playing the violin while a couple of college undergrads wearing broad, black hats and vintage military jackets snapped selfies with their wine glasses. I ordered a Luxemburger with a side of frites (“I don’t know why they can’t just call ‘em fries,” I muttered) while Kelli ordered leeks vinaigrette, a quinoa salad, and roasted button mushrooms. (“I’m trying to eat healthier, okay?” she explained when she saw my bewildered expression). It seemed like the sort of place where her sister and Max might go on an anniversary, but I felt out of place, and I suspected Kelli did, too.
“So,” said Kelli, shrugging her shoulders awkwardly. “What’ve you been up to for the last couple days?”
There was no good way to answer this question: if I told her I was working on a book, that would raise all sorts of questions, and if I lied and said I hadn’t been doing much of anything, I would sound lazy. “Just running some errands,” I said finally. “It’s nice to stay inside and not have to go anywhere.”
“Isn’t it?” said Kelli. “Or at least, not having to go into an office. I’ve been trying to talk my boss into letting me work remotely. It would be nice to write my columns without having to leave my apartment, although knowing me, I would start to go crazy after an hour and end up heading out to a coffee shop.”
One of the great things about Kelli was that I didn’t have to struggle too hard to make conversation. I could say one thing and then sit back and listen to her talk about it for five or ten minutes. “I don’t understand this whole Parisian vibe,” I said, motioning to the exposed brick walls and the older couple behind us sharing an amuse-bouche. “If you want to visit Paris that badly, just go to Paris.”
Perhaps I had spoken more rudely than I intended, because Kelli looked hurt. “Do you not like it here?” she asked in a sad voice.
“It’s not that I don’t like it, I just think it should look more like New York.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve always loved about New York,” she replied. “The way it can integrate and adapt itself to just about any culture in the world. It’s like the Epcot Center of cities.”
“You just compared my city to the most boring part of Disney World,” I pointed out.
“Oh, that was always my favorite,” said Kelli. “Much better than the Magic Kingdom in my opinion.”
I threw her an incredulous look, as if to say, “What is wrong with you?”
After dinner, we bought gelato at a local gelateria and I asked if she wanted to visit Barnes & Noble. Kelli spent some time browsing the true crime section while I disappeared and returned a few minutes later carrying a plastic bag containing a couple of how-to guides on writing a memoir.
“What’d you get?” she asked in a whisper, like a librarian talking to a small child.
I felt hot shame creeping up my neck as I pulled the books out of the book. She read the covers, then turned to look at me with a quizzical expression. “Are you writing a book?” she asked.
I mumbled something about wanting to know how professionals like herself did it, but I could see she wasn’t fooled. She smirked proudly as she grabbed a Tana French novel off the shelf and headed toward checkout. I wondered vaguely as we headed out into the warmth of a late July night whether her love of mysteries was the real reason she had felt compelled to go out with me. I sometimes wished I could see the world through her eyes just for a day, just to know what it was she found so fascinating about me.
Not wanting to be late for work again, she asked me to drive her back to her apartment.
“We never did talk about the dinner on Saturday,” I said as we made our way through Manhattan traffic. “I guess I was enjoying my ‘frites’ so much I completely forgot about it.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” said Kelli. “I feel like everyone in that room is going to hate me, but I’ll go if you want me to. You’re probably the only person in the world who could get me to go in there after the things I wrote.”
“What you wrote wasn’t even that bad.” I pulled into a parking space and stopped the car. “And nobody in my platoon really thought it was. Most of the hate you got was from ignorant folks who sit at home watching the news because they don’t have jobs and they’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Well, hopefully none of those people will be there,” said Kelli with a grim smile. “If they knew I was coming, they would be lined up around the block in protest.”
“Haven’t people moved on by now? It’s been almost a year since that piece went to press.”
“Yeah, but every time there’s a new scandal involving a SEAL, Fox News distracts viewers by bringing it back up, getting them mad at the media, which in this case means getting them mad at me. Honestly, they don’t pay me enough for this.”
“Nobody pays you what you’re worth, babe.” I leaned over and kissed her, once, on the mouth. She looked slightly reassured as she said good night and climbed out of the car.