“Dammit,” she muttered as she walked back to the table to arrange it properly.
Well, at leastshewasn’t petty.
Chapter Nine
Merritt stared at the radio dial in her car, fully aware that she was being ridiculous. How many NPR stories about one measly novel could there be? She jammed her finger into the button and waited, defiance keeping her body rigid. It was just the normal hourly newsbreak stories. Increasingly bleak political news, a merger of two media conglomerates, and a natural disaster in Kentucky—all were more important than her own personal calamity. And now here cameKrys Boyd!, talking to a musician who had released a critically acclaimed country music album. Merritt did not care, but it felt like a victory that she had turned on the radio at all, and it took her mind off Graydon Lyons as she drove to Whit’s house.
She had worked out a new schedule with Diana, having alluded to a second part-time job that she took pains to make sound a lot like copywriting. On days when she wrote with Whit, she would spend the mornings at Goodenough Books, leave at lunch, and then return to the store to close when needed. She had sold only one copy ofSerious Gamestoday, to Ian Hoult. He was one of the local authors and someone she had pretended to like back in grad school, when she felt compelled to care about such things. This morning she pretended not to recognize him.
Merritt tossed her head a bit to rid it of these thoughts. It was time to transition to ghostwriter mode. She had ideas for Whit, and she was determined, now more than ever, to execute them with glorious precision.
Merritt had carefully planned things so that she would arrive early at Whit’s. She pulled out a large thermos of her mother’s chicken soup with leeks and rice and tried not to feel like a schoolgirl with a packed lunch as she ate it there in the front seat. With each spoonful, she added a bullet point to her checklist for the afternoon: she had ideas for the outline and for a potential new character, and a theory she’d been working on, since long before Whit came into her life, about the half-fairy and an allusion to Sleeping Beauty was gaining steam in her brain. She was waving her spoon in the air—a quirk of hers when she got a good bite or a good idea—when a knock on her window nearly sent her soup flying.
It was Whit, of course. She rolled down the window.
“Hi,” she said, embarrassed.
Whit looked like he was trying not to laugh. “What are you doing?”
“Eating my lunch.”
“Out here?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like eating in front of people.”
“You ate at the bistro.”
“You were eating, too, that’s different.”
She could see Whit’s breath. He held himself by the elbows, which were covered by a tan Carhartt that (just face it, Merritt) looked quite good on him, showing off his sturdy arms and broad shoulders.
“Will you just come inside? It’s cold out here.”
“I’mwarm,” she joked.
He had already turned around to walk in.
“Come inside,” he called without looking back.
As she screwed the thermos lid back on, Merritt let herself smile.
“So,” Merritt said, as she removed her coat, “I have some more ideas.”
“Me too,” Whit said, trying not to sound too excited by this fact.
“And I have this.”
Merritt pulled the signed contract from her tote.
“Everything look okay?”
Merritt made a show of pretending to think.
“Yeah,” she said eventually, flatly. “It’s... yeah. Everything looks shipshape.”
Whit laughed and carefully avoided her fingers as he grabbed the paper.
“Good. You eat, and I’ll make tea.”
