“Well, that’s one of the big questions, isn’t it? Hope. Despair. Maybe a little more despair inGatsbyand a little more hope inGreenLight. But also, for me, seeing it makes me think about Angela. So it’s also… grief.”
The green light was about hope and despair, which were opposites. Plus a dash of grief. She was being vague, and she fully expected Jack to call her on it. But he only said, “Mm,” and tightened his arm around her.
“How’d you get it there?” she asked. “Did you just go up to them and say, ‘Hello, stranger, may I affix a green light to the end of your dock?’”
“The place was all closed up—clearly a vacation spot—so I just went ahead and did it.”
“Sneaky.”
“I’ll retrieve it before we leave. It’s just a portable light I attached with a zip tie.”
They sat in silence for a long time, Blair thinking about how far she had come in the last few months. Could she ever have imagined, that night her parents arrived, that someday not that far in the future, she’d be sitting by a lake in Minnesota, looking at a literal green light while location scouting forGreen Light?
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about that last night in LA.”
“What about it?”
“Why did I let you see me in one of my states? Why did I show you what was happening?”
“I’m not sure you had any choice. I barged in.”
“But you already knew that there was something wrong with me, didn’t you? Even if you didn’t know exactly what it was?”
“I suppose I did.”
“That must have been because some part of me wanted you to know, right? Which must also have meant some part of me wanted you to help me. Had known youwouldhelp me.”
“I’m not sure I did, though. I just left.”
“You were my security blanket. Human contact that felt safe. Once you were gone, I had to face the fact that I couldn’t have a semireclusive writer living in my pool house full-time, so I’d better figure out a way to get some human contact, some help, in other ways. From other people. So youdidhelp.”
Jack didn’t say anything. Blair wasn’t sure what she’d expected.I’m glad I could helpwasn’t really Jack’s style. He didn’t do trite social niceties.
No, he canoed across a lake and installed a green light on a dock on the other side, and she would take that over trite social niceties any day.
Chapter 28
The Pop Shop
Blair took off on Allie’s bike the next morning, and Jack paced the cabin with Warm Caffeinated Liquid and brooded.
Something Blair had said yesterday had him on edge. It was such an inane thing on which to fixate. If he’d wanted to obsess over something Blair-related, there were more reasonable options. Her trying to give him too much credit for helping her that last night in LA, say. It was more than he thought he was due, but that was her prerogative.
Or her telling him he should have opted out of the early-morning icy swims with his dad. The idea that he’d had that power all along was disconcerting, but she was, ultimately, right.
No, what he was fretting about had just been a throwaway line.
I had to face the fact that I couldn’t have a semireclusive writer living in my pool house full-time.
It had been a joke, intended to be self-deprecating. But when she’d said it, something had risen inside his chest, had lunged toward the idea.
It was absurd, the idea that he could live in her pool house forever.
Worse: that maybe he wanted to.
No. No. He was losing his mind. He was reacting to the stress of writing the last book and the fear of not being able to write the next one.
