This is the closest that I have come to writing a romance novel.
6:45 PM I laid awake between the clean sheets of a comfortable full size bed.
I tried watching a PBS documentary on roadside motor inns and how they were facing extinction. A part of American culture that America no longer cared for.
I could neither concentrate or sleep through it.
I got up and pushed the curtains back on the window, looking down into a flower garden that ended on a ledge, everything beyond this was an infinite view of the ocean. I quickly grew weary of watching the water in her constant pushing/pulling movement.
I went into the guest room's private bathroom and found items left behind by Adrian's sister. A bottle of cruelty-free herbal shampoo that was supposed to help straighten hair, witch hazel, a pink toothbrush, a tube of mascara and a small tin of petroleum-free lip balm.
I was curious of what it was like when she came to visit. What did they look like standing side by side? What did they talk about? What similar habits or gestures? What did they bicker over?
Grace Braughtigan. It was a sweet name that went well with her brother's.
By 3:30 am, I was tired of snooping, sleeplessness, nerves, obsessing... It made me crazy. I got dressed.
I left the room with the intent of waking Adrian to tell him that I was okay to drive home, but his bedroom door was open and his bed was empty.
I was surprised to find him down the hall in what looked to be an office, wide awake. He was sitting in front of a notebook computer, typing rapidly and chain smoking cigarettes. The only light in the room came from the computer screen.
"I didn't know that you smoked."
He gave a startled jump as he looked over at me.
"Hey," He spoke quietly, "What are you doing up?"
"I have the same question for you," I took a few steps into the room.
There was the modest desk that Adrian sat at with papers strewn about its surface and an old Smith-Corona Coronet electric typewriter in the corner. It looked to be free of dust and in good working order. I figured that to be what he used when there was no one around to wake.
On the bookshelves, there were stacks of scripts mixed in with books on 'Shot by Shot' directing, writing screenplays, ancient books on Christianity and classic literature, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce...
"I only smoke when I write," He answered my first question, "It's something for the hands to do between thoughts."
"It looks like you write all the time... so you don't sleep? You stay up all night working?"
"I take naps on and off."
I touched a small pile of 3x5 cards beside the computer. There were words scrawled on them as well as diagrams and in bold letters at the bottom of one,
"...in this case. DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ANYTHING!"
"Spencer's index cards?"
"Sadly, they are a life line," Adrian took notice of the keys in my hand, "Are you sneaking out?"
I blushed, "I was going to wake you. I'm well enough to drive home."
He was confused, "Were we still going tomorrow... today?"
"We are."
"Why not stay here, then?"
I reached out and slid the cigarette from his fingers. I took a drag then handed it back. I liked my lips touching where his lips had touched. It was thrilling, like a disjointed kiss.
I exhaled smoke, "I can't sleep. I'm in a weird space."
"What kind of weird space?"
"I'm obsessing over things."
"What kinds of things?"
You.
"Do you have another one of those?" I pointed to the pack of cigarettes. He shook one out for me and lit it, "I don't know. Anything, I guess."
"Everything?" He smirked.
"Yes-- everything," I returned the smirk.
There was a pillow on the floor. This was from, what I could guess, Adrian's naps. I stubbed my cigarette out in the crystal ashtray beside the typewriter, then laid on the floor, tucking the pillow beneath my head.
"I might have something for you. Wait here," Adrian rose to his feet. He returned to the room, disc in hand, and, after much consultation with the index cards, placed it in the computer.
A film flashed to the screen.
"Nights of Cabiria," Adrian answered before I could ask, "One of Fellini's finest. Black and white, Italian and almost painfully long. You'll get so tired from reading subtitles that I'll expect you to be asleep within moments."
He sat in the desk chair and opened a notebook.
"Tell me about Audrey Moriarty," He said, "From the beginning."
"Are you going to write it down?"
"Maybe-- it's important that someone does."
So I started from the beginning and I kept talking until I talked myself into sleep.
1 comments
love this the most so far... so real its scary
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