I was loud as I unlocked the door, even coughing, in case Montrose was there but had decided to take a nap on the couch or something, thus turning out the lights.
Not that I thought that would be the case, but I didn’t want to take the chance of surprising or waking him and giving him even more reason to be pissed off at me.
He wasn’t there. I hung up my coat, knit hat and mittens, and slid off my boots, putting them in the corner to dry out while I worked.
As I rounded his desk, the first thing I noticed was a space where his laptop had been. After yesterday, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, there were a handful of flash drives and a note.
Unpacking my laptop and phone and other stuff from my bag, I read the note from Montrose.
Syd,
Sorry about the misunderstanding yesterday. Perhaps the best way to go about the work is for you to transfer all your transcriptions and outlines to a flash drive and just leave it on the desk. I’ll take it from there.
My last class is done at three daily, so I plan to take classwork home, and read it from my apartment each night, leaving the office open for you to work.
Billy
Well, at least we weren’t back to “Ms. O’Brien.” But there wasn’t one shred of anything personal in that note. I know, because I read it fourteen times analyzing it for something—anything—that would make me think we were back on track on a personal level.
Much as I wanted to find something, it was all business. And designed in such a way that he wouldn’t have to see me.
And, obviously, I wouldn’t have access to his chapter one docs anymore.
All forty gajillion of them.
I pulled the next pile from the credenza.Skylarkwould be a fast pile to transcribe. I even considered not doing the process I went through with theOne Mile Trotpile of cutting and pasting into different outline ideas. But no, even if that wasn’t part of the job, per se, it was an element that I enjoyed and was sure would help Montrose whenever he got around to writing fresh.
I snorted into the silent room as I wondered to myself if the man even knew how to type the words “Chapter Two.”
My anger rose as I entered the notes from the various pieces of paper, napkins, and backs of envelopes, into a cohesive document on my laptop.
Yes, we hadn’t discussed boundaries for me as it applied to his past work. Orlackof it, as the case seemed to be. But, if I had just been his assistant, if we hadn’t spent all those hours FaceTiming and talking and texting and discussing everything under the sun, would he still have flown off the handle at the thought that I knew he was basically a crippled writer for the past five years, unable, or unwilling, to go beyond three paragraphs?
If we hadn’t pressed our bodies into each other, clinging together with a shared wanting. If we hadn’t kissed for hours on the couch, would I, as nothing more than a glorified typist, have been permitted to see those all-mighty beginnings of some two hundred different novels?
But then I thought about the lovely clinging. And the kissing. And I knew I wouldn’t trade having had that for anything.
Even if I would never have it again.
My anger dissipated into sadness for what wouldn’t be, but I kept typing, even though my eyes got a little glassy and at one point I couldn’t even read my screen through the unshed tears.
Part of me even understood what made him lose it yesterday. (Not that hereallylost it—I knew real losing it.)
The insecurity he felt as a writer, something I supposed every writer or artist went through at times, was something I very much understood.
His numerous chapter ones were the equivalent of my standing at the mall, staring at racks of shoes or clothing on a semi-regular basis because I’d noticed a new trend with the Bribury girls.
I knew insecurity. And I knew the feeling of shame at having your insecurities found out, like when those Bribury bitches called me a poser to Jane.
I shoved theSkylarkpile a little further away from my keyboard, but still within reading distance. The tears were falling now. Not hard, and not often.
But there was no way I was going to leave my tearstains on Billy Montrose’s papers.
Chapter17
I got into a routine.I would go to class, then spend two or three hours at the admin building, where the workload was light enough that I sometimes even got my studying done while there.
Afterward I would text Lily and Jane that I was going to the caf for dinner. Lily would meet me most nights, and we’d have dinner and then maybe study right at the caf or walk over to the library. Lucas worked nights, so Lily did most of her studying then, preferring to spend every moment that she didn’t have class during the day with her man.
