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“Speaking of—how’s Eve?”
He doesn’t deserve my kindness, not after the incident in the car. But then, those who live in glass houses—or how did he put it? Oh yes, prisons—should not throw stones. “Eve is fine.”
“I haven’t seen her around much.”
“She’s not been feeling like herself.”
“No?” He turns and starts for the couch without making eye contact. “That’s too bad.”
I motion toward Eve’s chair, then lean forward and slide it back. “Here.”
Easing into the seat, he furrows his brow. I study him as he takes a pencil from his pocket, pushes it between his teeth and chews at the tip. Physically he’s here, but mentally he’s miles away. He plucks the pencil from his mouth. “What’s the largest organ in the human body?”
Our eyes lock, and I wonder if this is a dig. Certainly it has to be. “Internal or external?”
A smile lights up his face first, and then he cocks his head as though something brilliant has just occurred to him. He retrieves a notepad from my desk and jots something down. Finally, he looks up at me. “Internal.”
“The liver, why?”
“The body is such a mystery, don’t you think?”
I shrug. “Speaking of—I’ve taken a look at your notes.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you only ever work on mysteries?”
He isn’t expecting the question, I don’t think, which is maybe why it takes him awhile to answer. “I work on things I think will sell.”
“Mysteries hardly sell anymore.”
“That’s not true. Who doesn’t like a good whodunit?”
“What people like is sex and violence. The world is different than when I first started—back when I was your age. These days…everything has to be fast-paced. Attention spans are shot to shit. People need to be shocked out of their normal lives. And it needs to happen quick. There’s no room for mystery in that.”
“What’s more mysterious than sex and violence?”
“I don’t know—maybe I’m just jaded. I’ve seen too much.”
He jots something else down. “How so?”
“There are only so many ways to kill and fuck.”
“Ah, I don’t know. I bet if we put our heads together, we can come up with something.”
I lower my gaze and then swivel my chair around so that I’m facing outside. “I won’t get another chance, you know.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
Sighing heavily, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. “This is it for me. Which is why I’m telling you—there aren’t many of us mystery writers left making an actual living. It would be prudent of you to find something else to study—something more profitable in the long-term.”
“Maybe.” I hear his pencil brushing the paper, scratching. “But before I give up on my dream completely, I figure I’ve got at least one more book in me.”
I don’t know whether to be annoyed or inspired. One thing is for sure, he sounds a lot like me at that age.
“Oh,” he says. “And before I forget—” I swivel back around to face him. He reaches into his bag, pulls out a slip of paper, and hands it to me.
I glance down to see that I’m holding a sizable check. “I wanted to repay you guys for letting me stay in the guest cottage.”
