3
Cameras flashed.A radio squawked.One fresh-faced uniformed officer looked like he was struggling not to toss his cookies—
Wait.Would Will Gower say,Toss his cookies?Or would he say,Vomit?Orpuke.
Definitely puke.
—struggling not to puke as a team of safety engineers and crime scene investigators argued—
Debated?
Bickered?
Bickered!
—bickered over the best way to get the lighting—
What was the stupid thing called?
Hello, Google.A search forlighting rigshowed me a lot of results, but they seemed to be too general, and several of them appeared to be highly critical reviews of lighting used at various concerts (Metallica, for one).Okay, how aboutlighting suspended?Nope.That yielded a lot of instructions on how to hang your own LED lights at home.Stage lighting overheadgot me closer.And then, bingo.
—the lighting truss off the dead model without damaging the runway—
Or wait.Was it called a catwalk?Or was that just the overhead thingy?
As you can probably tell, writing wasn’t going great.I was working on a Will Gower short story called “An Affair of Style.”It was my take on another Christie novel (The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which is the first Poirot book), only mine didn’t involve an inheritance at a country manor.Mine was about an affair.And style.And dead models, and lighting trusses, and runways (catwalks?).
A quick search told me to keep going withrunway.
Eventually, though, they just unplugged the darn thing and used a winch to lift it straight up.As the truss rose into the air, my gaze sharpened on—
What?
This was where things got sticky.I could google all sorts of things and eventually land somewhere in the ballpark of the right answer.But plot questions were trickier.I couldn’t ask the internet to tell me what shocking thing Will Gower noticed once the lighting truss was raised.And I couldn’t ask the internet how this discovery would shape the remaining five thousand words of plot and provide a satisfying but inevitable twist at the end of the story.
I needed a break.Just a quick break.A teeny, tiny brain break.
Five minutes, tops.
I was halfway through a slice of cake (strawberry) and a cup of coffee when I realized the bathroom needed to be cleaned.It had been at least two weeks since I’d cleaned it.And even though Bobby and I were neat (well, Bobby was neat enough for both of us), two weeks was too long.The bathroom was overdue for a cleaning.Way past time.And if I didn’t do it right now, who knows how much longer it would be before I remembered?
Besides, the cleaning would be good for my brain—all that movement, getting the blood flowing.I’d have a million ideas by the time I was done.I’d have the rest of the story figured out.
I got to work.Let me tell you: if there’s one thing writerly procrastina—uh, delays teach you, it’s how to keep your house clean.Stuck on the end of a chapter?Do the dishes.Painted yourself into a corner?Time to wipe down every single blind in the house.Can’t figure out your character’s motivation?Spring cleaning!(Don’t let the fact that it’s summer, winter, or fall stop you—spring cleaning is something you can do at any time of year.)
Sink, toilet, tub—done.That was the easy stuff.No revelations had percolated through my brain yet, so I decided the best thing to do would be to keep working.The baseboards.The top of the mirror.I worked on the showerhead for a while, scrubbing away at the crusty junk with a little brush.I even took the fan cover down and washed it.
Still nothing.
But hey, no big deal.I gathered up the towels, the washcloths, even the bathmats, and I carried them all downstairs.The washer and dryer were in the small utility room off the cellar.It smelled a little like damp stone and a little like heating oil and a little like Tide, and honestly, if I were stuck doing laundry down here for the rest of the day (there were so many beds in this house, and so many sheets that needed to be washed), it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.Will Gower would just have to wait until tomorrow—
My thoughts cut off as I opened the washer and saw that it was full of wet clothes.The dryer too.I picked through them, and I thought I recognized a couple of the tees—I mean, only one person in the house owned Koloa stuff, and it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Indira.
As I went to find Bobby, I rehearsed what I was going to say.We were going to have a long conversation about this.In fact, we were probably going to need to take this conversation elsewhere.Like, maybe we should talk about it over burgers at the Otter Slide.And I’d want to ease into it because I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.We could spend an hour or two just hanging out.And then, when we were both relaxed, I’d say,Bobby, you’re such a great person to share a house with, but I noticed you left your wet clothes in the washer and dryer today, and that makes it hard for me to find an excuse not to write—
Uh, maybe not that last bit.
I found him in the living room, stretched out on the couch, one foot propped up on a pillow.He was listening to music, but when he saw me, he sat up and pulled out his earbuds.
