He was teasing her now. He wasn’t sure why. He’d asked that question about when to quit because it’d felt important. He’d been keenly anticipating her answer. And now he was making a joke of it?
Blair:No.
Jack:English muffin?
Apparently, yes, he was making a joke of it.
Blair:Stop it.
Before he could think of another vaguely biscuit-esque bread product, she kneecapped him.
Blair:Why are you asking about how to know when it’s time to give up on something? Are you talking about your book?
There it was. This was what he meant. She had a way of homing in on the meaning behind his words, of letting the joking go only so far.
Blair:Because if so, my initial answer is that you shouldn’t give up, but I suppose that’s not helpful. How do you know when to give up on something? I guess sometimes you just have to face the fact that you’re not good enough. That sometimes hard work and desire don’t yield the outcome you want.
That wasn’t what he had wanted to hear.
Jack:The book is actually going OK. OK-ish.
Or it had been, until he’d gotten together with his dad yesterday. Dad had been in town to shoot an interview with the Twin Cities PBS affiliate, PBS being the only brand of television Dad could abide.
Now Jack was back to staring fruitlessly at the computer screen and, apparently, using the wordOK-ishin a sentence.
Jack:I wrote a chapter, anyway.
Blair:Good for you!
To his dismay, he flushed at her praise. When Jack first googled Blair, he’d seen a picture of her at some women-in-Hollywood breakfast, and she’d been wearing a sundress printed with little clusters of cherries. She’d looked like a kindergarten teacher.
Which he supposed made him a kindergartener, given how chuffed he was by her praise.
Jack:It’s more…
How to explain? It wasn’t about this book, or it wasn’t only about this book. It was also about what happened after this book. Both immediately, when the reviews came out, and then when he had to do it all again. His agent was already making noises about the next proposal.
Blair:It’s more the existential question of why are you doing what you’re doing, and what would happen if youstopped? The fear that your ability to forestall disaster is hanging by a mere thread?
Something rose in his throat that felt like it would be, if he let it out, part laugh, part wail.
He would not let it out.
He thought about calling her. Maybe even FaceTiming her. But then he would have to hear her voice (he wouldgetto hear her voice?), and he was afraid that would undo whatever careful détente they had going over text. As improbable as it seemed, he and Blair Kellermoon had spun a careful web of companionability, and he was coming to rely on it. It was starting to feel like more than a web, in fact. It was starting to feel like a safety net.
Jack:Something like that.
Why was he being so vague? He had started this conversation.
Jack:You know the novelist Ashwin Bajwa?
Blair:Yes! I loved Red Shift.
Jack:He has framed reviews of his books on the wall in his office. He says they inspire him.
Jack:But they’re not just good reviews. Some of them are rather scathing.
He glanced at the old review fromThe Atlantiche had taped on the wall by his computer.
