Elise Blackwell - Grub

“Don’t forget that it takes a particular talent to write that sort of story,” Eddie continued. “Plot has always been the hardest but also the least important thing to me.”

“We need gas.” Amanda, both hands back on the wheel, veered the car onto a billboard-lined exit. “Look, just pick something straightforward, something that the book clubs will eat up. A love story. A dead child. An animal with supernatural empathy. A narrator with some rare affliction or who’s already dead.”

“I’m going to assume you’re joking. You know that’s against everything I believe in, everything you believe in,” he said as they pulled into a brightly painted station. Before stepping out to pump the gas, he muttered, “Or used to believe in.”

After the tank was filled, they found a diner, where Eddie treated his hangover with grease, eavesdropped on the local dialect for future use in a story, and watched his svelte wife eat two pieces of coconut cream pie instead of lunch.

“It’s the only thing edible in these sorts of places,” she said, explaining as she always did why she would eat only pie in a diner.

“You don’t really want me to write a novel about a supernatural animal?” asked Eddie, putting more pepper on his hash browns.

“Of course, not, Eddie. But I do want you to think more about what you write before you start writing it. I bet you could write a really interesting historical novel.”

Back in the car, now behind the wheel, Eddie suggested that they might cut down on expenses as an alternative to making more money. “We could move across the tunnel. There are some really good apartments in Jersey City. A lot of artists and bands are moving over there. It’s becoming a place to be.”

“I don’t care how much ‘there is there’. If you think I’d live in New Jersey for even a day, you don’t know me at all.”

Eddie smiled at the Gertrude Stein reference. He looked at his wife’s pretty cheekbone, the shape of her ribcage, the profile of her breasts, and began to rack his still sore brain for interesting situations and a plot that someone would turn pages for. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to consider a novel set in the past, to comment on the present by depicting another moment in time. Maybe he could discover something about human behavior in a time of war or famine while using a historical plot as a framework.

Jackson Miller had spent his final ten dollars on two overpriced drinks at the Outlook Bar on faith that he had enough plastic credit for a tank of gas. Now he found himself hundreds of miles from New York, standing in the animal heat and insect hum of tiny Wattleborough, North Carolina, inserting every credit and debit card he possessed into a heartless gas pump. Each effort produced the same effect: dot-matrix orange letters proclaiming “authorization denied.”

He pondered his options, which were few. His family was out of the question. His mother had secretly wired him a little money when he was living in France, but his father had found out. Jackson had promised himself that he would never ask again, and he knew that was a promise he’d keep. He could phone Doreen, his ex-girlfriend and current roommate, and convince her to give the clerk a credit-card number over the phone. Given the large amount of money he already owed Doreen in rent, and given the fact that she worked hard as a waitress to cover her own expenses and save for culinary school tuition, she would be furious with him. Possibly so furious that she would laugh at the idea of him penniless in Wattleborough, North Carolina, and show no mercy. If he didn’t call Doreen, that left begging from strangers, like the red-eyed men back in New York who insisted they were neither homeless nor substance addicted and couldn’t believe what had happened but needed to borrow seven dollars to get some diapers and a bus ticket to Queens, where a niece or a daughter awaited them. Jackson vowed to cough up the seven bucks the next time he was creatively panhandled.

He inventoried the three other cars at the pumps. A fairly young man wearing belted shorts was filling up an SUV in which sat a woman and two fat children. No doubt the man would ask himself what Jesus would do and conclude that his savior did not want him handing over his hard-earned money to itinerant writers with empty gas tanks. Jackson really couldn’t blame him.

There was an older woman gassing up a new sedan and a young woman climbing out of an old, sunburned Honda. Figuring that the older woman might lock herself in her car if he approached, that people with crappy cars are more sympathetic to states of poverty, and that what Doreen called his wholesome good looks might be used to greater effect on the younger woman, he headed for the Honda.

Despite an anemic complexion and loose clothes, she was cute, with short, very curly dark hair, large brown eyes, and skinny hips. He couldn’t place where, but he was sure that he’d seen her before.

“You were at the conference, right?” he said, relieved to have some connection, an in.

“Yes,” she said. “But that’s not where you know me from. I didn’t even see you this week. I didn’t see anyone, hardly, and probably shouldn’t have come. I was holed up with my laptop.”

“Working on a book?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to admit to myself that it’s a book, but, yeah, I’m working on something. I don’t really like workshops, you know, having people read my stuff.” She shook the gas nozzle ferociously, but it was getting the better of her.

“Let me get that for you.” Jackson lifted the bottom of the nozzle, which then slid easily out of its locked position. “If you’ll pop your gas cap, I’d be happy to do the honors.”

“Thanks. I’m really useless with some things.” She rubbed her arms as if cold in the near hundred-degree weather.

The smell of gasoline bloomed around Jackson as he considered how to time his request. “If I didn’t see you at the conference, where have I seen you?”

“At ‘The Valley of the Shadow of the Books.’ I work there.”

“Of course.” Jackson placed her in context now, saw her in her 1950s thrift-store dresses and keds, squatting over a stack of books, reading one that she was supposed to shelve. “My roommate works across the street, at Grub.”

He wanted to ask her name but was worried that she’d already told him and would be hurt that he didn’t remember. Perhaps he could get it from the bookstore, or maybe she wore a nametag at work.

“I’m going to have to find a new job soon. I guess you’ve heard the store is closing down. Can’t compete with the chains is part of it, but also the owners are just tired.”

“I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, because it’s a great bookstore and all. But it’s not exactly shocking that a place called ‘The Valley of the Shadow of Books’ wouldn’t make it. Quite a mouthful, and not what you’d call cheerful.”

“I think it’s a great name, but, you’re right, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

The pump clicked, and Jackson returned the nozzle to its holster, twisted on the gas cap, and slammed shut the little door. A drop of sweat ran down his neck, and his shirt was beginning to stick to his back. “This is embarrassing,” he said. “But I have to admit that I’m really glad to have run into you. I mean, I’m glad to have run into you just to see you, but also because my bank seems to be down. My debit card won’t authorize and I stupidly left my credit cards in New York. I really hate to ask this, especially since you’re about to be out of a job, but could you buy me a tank of gas and a sandwich? I’ll pay you back as soon as I get home. I could bring the money to you at work.” He paused to smile at her. “It would give me a good excuse to see you again.”