As she wrote now and sipped her decaf coffee, she felt herself opening up, like a stubbornly coiled peony that has finally agreed to bloom. Whatever else had happened or not happened, this was who she was. A writer. And though Graydon had nearly crushed this part of her, and she had nearly let him, and though she had no idea what was next for her in nearly any category of importance, she was writing. For herself. And she was happier than she’d been in weeks, happier even than in those first days with Whit.
And another strange thing happened: writing like this, on her own, made her want to go back to writing with Whit again. To remind him that she was good, that he needed her, and that no amount of chemistry or the awkwardness it generated could change that.
She pulled out her phone.
Hey Whit. My mom’s friend offered to take her to the doctor. See you tomorrow?
The man texted back with uncharacteristic alacrity.
Great, he said.Looking forward to it.
Merritt flipped her phone face down on the table.
She smiled to herself.
Me too.
Chapter Eighteen
Merritt drove with purpose. She felt like the main character in a network TV series about a strong, smart professional woman who doesn’t need a man to complete her. Something like righteous determination was animating her, giving every pump of the gas, every turn of the wheel, an edge of significance. She and Whit had almost kissed, and that was perhaps unfortunate, but she wouldn’t let it derail this huge career opportunity. (“Huge career opportunity” was something they said on those TV shows.)
Today she was going to besocool. The consummate professional.
She parked in her usual spot and allowed herself thirty seconds of staring at the house through narrowed eyes, nodding along to the Cranberries song playing from her car speakers. The opening credits were winding down. It was time to go in.
As she walked to the door, the song still played in her head, alongside the thoughtWhat would Dolores O’Riordan do?She would probably not have had as many scruples as Merritt did about eating in front of people (a quirk that had led Merritt, in her singularly focused state, to have lunch before leaving the bookstore), but that didn’t matter. Today Merritt was devil-may-care. She was rock ’n’ roll. She was—
She was staring at the open front door, which now framed one of the most beautiful women Merritt had seen in her life. Suddenly the last five minutes of her thought life became deeply embarrassing. This woman must never know she had mentally used the words “rock ’n’ roll” to describe herself. She was wearing alight brown, ribbed mock-turtleneck tucked into jeans, which as a sentence was offensive to Merritt but in the present moment was somehow the chicest thing she’d ever seen.
“Hi,” the woman said warmly. She had lips and eyebrows that were impossibly yet naturally full. “I’m Evie. You must be Merritt. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
What an absolutely terrifying statement. A vision flashed before Merritt’s eyes of grabbing this woman by the shoulders and begging her, “What has he told you?” Instead, Merritt smiled what felt like an incredibly stupid smile.
“Hi. I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” she said, which was essentially a lie.A lot?Really?
“Come in,” Evie said with a nod. “Whit ran out to get some tea, which he seemed to think was suddenly urgent, but he should be back any minute. It sounds like you’ve fully saved his life.”
Evie had moved seamlessly from one subject to the next, but at these words, Merritt hesitated. In response, Evie halted on her track to the living room.
“He said that?”
“Maybe not in those exact words,” Evie said, “but I got the picture.”
“When?”
Her voice had gone all squeaky and, well, there went playing it cool. The presence of this woman had made Merritt short-circuit.
“What do you mean?” Evie asked. Merritt had expected her to look confused, but instead she and her perfectly threaded eyebrows seemed interested, almost excited.
“Sorry, just wondering if he said that today or last week or what.”
“Why? Did something happen?” The eyebrows were arching now.
Merritt—stupid, stupid—scrambled for a lie. “No, nothing like that. It felt like we were hitting a wall last week. Not getting anywhere. I just wanted to make sure he was still happy with me. With the work we’re doing, I mean.”
Sure, Merritt, overexplain, that will help.
“Oh,” Evie said, squinting toward the ceiling and demonstrating a remarkable gameness for this round of twenty questions. “He said you’ve been... I think the words were ‘exceptionally helpful,’ but it could have been ‘astonishingly helpful.’ Though that sounds a little more gushing than the Whit we both know. And that would have been Sunday, I’m pretty certain.”
