Page 47 of An Unfinished Story
“You know it.” Whitaker considered hugging her but offered his hand instead. “I’ll be in touch.”
“No time like the present,” Whitaker said to himself, sitting down at his desk and setting the composition books at his side. He was indeed scared. Anxious. And an emotion so distant that it seemed almost foreign was rising inside him like lava from a dormant volcano. He feltexcitement. As he’d driven home from the beach, he could barely wait to get started. Not typing. Writing.
Opening up the first book and setting it down next to his laptop, he started a new file. As he saved it, he saw the graveyard of unfinished Microsoft Word documents buried in a file called Open Projects. Maybe he would finally close a project this time.
Whitaker formatted the document, titled it, and typed the first line. He smiled. Something told him that he was starting something big. His instincts hadn’t spoken to him in such a way sinceNapalm Trees. It was a good stab at a first sentence, at least nothing to tweak quite yet. He kept going, adding a few lines here and there, ideas that seemed to come out of nowhere. Whitaker couldn’t quite see Kevin’s house west of the Tamiami Trail in Sarasota, so he brought out the setting more. Growing up only an hour away, Whitaker knew Sarasota well enough.
As he typed, Whitaker felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience, his fingers dancing across the keys, the fingers of a robot racing to enter lines of computer code that might save the world, the line between him and David and reality and fiction blurring.
A phone ring stole him away from his work. The ring wasn’t necessarily loud, but to Whitaker it was as loud as the fire alarm he’d gone into battle against nights before. He pulled back from the computer. He noticed sweat under his arms. The screen was full of words. He looked around, and another chill ran through his body, inching up his spine. He stuck his arms out to stretch and took in a giant breath. What had just happened? Whatever it was, it felt good.
Deciding to ignore the call, he went back to work.
Finally, he looked at the clock on the wall. Three hours had passed.
Whitaker returned to the document and scrolled up. Pages and pages of words. He could feel the muscles in his forearms weary from the chase. He’d done it. He’d found her.
He’d found the muse.
“Where in the world have you been, my sweet lady?” he asked, the hairs standing up on his arms, tears rushing to his eyes. “Don’t leave me again.”
Sex was the only feeling he could compare this to, and it was the kind of sex you have when the whole world lights up around you, a million fireflies dancing in the dark, your partner a sorceress of delight, a long steady climax of unbridled joy. The drug he’d missed finally coming back. A fix of the finest order.
Whitaker looked down at the terrazzo tile floor. And he imagined seeing something nearly transparent—almost like a snake skin—but it wasn’t serpentine. It was the skin of the typist. The writer had finally shed the unhealthy skin of the ego that had been holding him back. The typist was no more.
Chapter 19
THEDUSTYCAMERA
One afternoon a week later, after leaving Whitaker’s house for another interview, Claire drove back to Pass-a-Grille and returned to her bungalow excited about finding her camera. She’d learned on a dated film camera, back in Chicago when she was working her father’s diner during the day and taking college courses at night, but she’d upgraded to a digital camera with the rest of the world once she’d moved to St. Pete. What were the chances it was charged?
With Willy curiously staring at her, Claire eagerly rifled through the closet in the second bedroom until she found her camera bags. Three of them. One with the body and her favorite lens, and then two other bags full of other fun lenses like her fixed 100 mm and her wide angle. Bringing all three bags into the living room, she plugged one of the batteries into the wall and spread her camera equipment out on the dining room table, relishing in the world of photography she’d left behind.
Claire reached for her computer, deciding it would be a good time to do her scheduling for the coming week. To everyone’s surprise, she’d not been working herself to the bone. Not that she was letting things slide, but she was no longer the person responding to emails three seconds after receipt. She wasn’t ordering food and alcohol well before it was needed. Her life’s motion was becoming a bit more “just in time,” as opposed to “doesn’t hurt to stay ahead of things.” Apparently, Leo’s South wouldn’t burn down if she took a few hours off here and there.
After the battery had charged for an hour, she looked out the window, and her heart fluttered, seeing the golden hour approaching. What a perfect time to get back in. She prepped her main rig, finishing by twisting the hood onto the lens, and rushed toward the water. It was the last day of February, and the cool late afternoons had a San Diego feel about them. But spring was certainly coming. Reaching the dunes dotted with patches of sea oats, she was pleased to see a rather empty beach, at least her stretch.
An older man with a curve in his back was moving along the middle of the sand working a metal detector. She’d always wondered if people ever found anything worth the search. A couple sat in chairs facing the water with cocktails in their hands. She smiled and waved when she saw one of the mascots of Pass-a-Grille. “Hi, Kenny!” He had the deepest tan in town and strolled up and down the beach strutting his fluorescent pink or green mankinis.
“A beautiful afternoon to you, Claire!” No one on earth could pull off such a skimpy affair, but Kenny tried and did so with pride. He always hiked it up high, revealing way more of his bottom than anyone would want to see. And he didn’t care one bit. He’d happily jump into a photo if you asked him.
Claire was searching for a more interesting subject for her first day back. Halfway to the water, she sat in the soft, dry sand. She wasn’t one to shoot a million pictures like many in the digital age. She liked to frame and prep each shot. Only after studying the light and its effects on the subject would she adjust her lens and go in. Maybe, like David, who used handwriting in the digital age, she was an old soul still clinging to her canister of film and her old Nikon that she’d used and abused in college.
Claire put her eye to the viewfinder and moved the camera along the water, exploring the shades of blue. Other than a school of fish dancing on the surface a few yards out, the Gulf was as still as a lake. She saw a pelican flying toward her from the horizon. With very little time to react, she adjusted the aperture, cranked up the shutter speed, and backed off on the zoom. Then she lay on her back in the sand and waited for him.
With a final glance for confirmation, she verified he was still coming her way. The moment the bird came into view, she pressed the shutter button. His wings were spread wide, and he was gliding thirty feet above her. The camera clicked away with a burst of four shots, the most she ever took at one time. “Thank you, Mr. Pelican.”
She sat up, removed her glasses, shook the sand from her hair, and looked at the images. The first two were blurry, but then she found the one she liked. The bird was perfect, so utterly magical as he slid across the sky, not a care in the world. “Do you know how good you have it, Mr. Bird?”
She dug her feet deeper into the sand.It’s good to be back, she thought, looking at the photos, reminding herself how much she used to love being out here. She stood and walked down to the water, one hand holding her camera. She noticed a dolphin riding the horizon but knew it wouldn’t be a good shot. Something about dolphins—it was tough to capture their grace on film, at least without the advantage of a boat’s closer proximity. She strolled south, revisiting those halcyon summer days when she and David had met here and shared the clumsy and ravenous kisses of first loves. These were memories to be cherished, not to be torn apart by.
She paused to shoot a few seashells and then stopped when she saw a log in the water, pushing onto the shore. In her years on the Gulf, she’d never seen such a big log wash up. Such an occurrence might happen much more often on the East Coast because of the crashing waves and strong current, but the calm waters of the Gulf rarely brought in anything larger than small pieces of driftwood, many of which she’d collected to decorate her bungalow. Thinking there might be a good shot there, she walked up to the log and readied her camera.
Her mouth dropped. It wasn’t a log.
A manatee was hovering in several feet of water, his prickly whiskers, squishy eyes, and broad nostrils poking through the surface. She gasped with joy. She’d never seen a manatee on the beach side. They typically favored the inland waterways, but the water was so calm today he must have felt like exploring. He was a giant ten-foot-long puppy dog, and perhaps the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. He had to be close to a thousand pounds.
Claire didn’t want to scare him away, so she slowed and knelt. She silently lifted her camera and adjusted the settings. “Can I take a few pictures of you, my friend?” she whispered. Knowing he might be timid, she fired off a few early shots before he sneaked away. Then she inched closer, moving quietly.
