Blair:Why would I do that?
Jack:Because it’s an authentic emotional state. A necessary part of being human.
Blair:No it’s not.
Jack:Sometimes you can’t avoid it.
Blair:Yes you can.
Jack:How?
Blair:Surround yourself with people, duh. You only got one oar in the water or what?
He smiled to himself.
Blair:How do you not know that the cure to loneliness is people? Don’t you have a master’s degree?
Jack:It was an MFA. No correlation with actual intelligence.
Blair:Can you get your money back?
He wondered if she was jokingly insulting him now because she felt she’d told him too much. In some ways, their texting had created a shortcut to intimacy. They’d gotten to know each other without all the bullshit that often came with social interactions. It reminded him of the letters he and his childhood friend Allie used to exchange during the school year when he lived in Minneapolis with his mom.
But in other ways, he and Blairdidn’tknow each other. He knew she loved books, but not which ones. He knew her kids were in college, but not their names or majors. He knewGreen Lightwas dead, but not what other projects she had on the go.
She knew he couldn’t write his fucking book, but she didn’t know what it was about—or, given that itdidn’t exist, what it was supposed to be about.
Jack:So you want me to move into your pool house so you won’t be lonely. But you also told me you’d leave me alone to work.
Blair:I will leave you alone. You will go entire days without seeing me. But I’ll know you’re there.
Jack:What difference will that make?
Blair:I will find out what your favorite foods are and deliver them to you.
Jack:Are you kidding me?
Blair:I don’t really do that.
Jack:You don’t kid?
Blair:Not unless I need to in order to get a deal done.
That was strangely compelling. It probably summed up why he liked her in spite of himself.
Jack:Aren’t there much easier ways to accomplish your goal? Actually rent your pool house to a paying tenant, say? One who might actually socialize with you?
Blair:Yeah, but I want you to get your book done.
Jack:Why?
Blair:Because I want to read it. Because the first one cleaved a chasm in my chest, which should have been an unpleasant sensation but somehow wasn’t. That’s what the best books do. You know what I mean, right? They must have taught you about that while they weren’t teaching you life skills in your MFA.
Jack:I know what you mean.
It was why he did what he did. In some ways, he and Blair weren’t that different. It was an unsettling thought.
Equally unsettling: he wished they were on FaceTime, despite his misgivings about disturbing their text-enabled truce, so he could hear her voice. See her hazel eyes.
