“Gum can really clog up your digestive tract,” he told me as the pacing restarted. “With all the gum you chew, your innards probably look like the Seattle Gum Wall.”
I smiled and chose my next words carefully. “I never swallow on purpose.”
He stopped for a millisecond with his back to me and my thighs involuntarily squeezed together.
“We need to talk,” he said.
I shut my laptop and stood up, so we could have whatever conversation he needed to have on equal footing. “Is it Mr.Tumnus? I saw him with a chunk of foam in his mouth earlier. Was it from the studio? I can totally put it back. Just like hot glue some new foam on there for you or something. Hot glue fixes a lot of things, ya know? People who own toolboxes are elitist, to be honest. Anything a nail can do, a Command strip can do better.”
“Sit,” he said, the single syllable low and gravelly.
“Yousit down.”
“I need to pace. But you need to sit. I don’t like a moving target.”
I crossed my arms defiantly before sitting back down. “You’re lucky this armchair is, like, really comfortable and already has my butt print nice and warm.”
“Okay, hear me out,” Isaac started.
Mr.Tumnus knocked the cracked library door open with his head and proceeded to weave in and out of Isaac’s feet in an attempt to trip him.
Isaac tiptoed over my very distinguished gentleman with a sigh. “He’s going to kill me. Did you know he darted out in front of me on the stairs the other night? Murder by cat.”
“Yeah,” I said in my sympathetic baby voice. “The big bad kitty is going to assassinate you. Maybe you can call The Rock or someone to save you. Wasn’t he in your mom’s last movie?”
He eyed Mr.Tumnus. “Sheison his Christmas card list. Well, and he actually sends a calendar—of himself—and not a card, but that’s not the point.” He shook his head. “Okay, what I was trying to say is that we’re both stuck. I can’t write and neither can you.”
“Excuse you, I’ve been tucked away in different mansion crevices for the last two days just hacking away.”
He narrowed his gaze on me, and I shrank back in my armchair a little. Daddy Isaac calling bullshit.
“Okay, well, I at least figured out how to use the screenwriting software I purchased,” I admitted. “I think.”
The truth was I’d written and deleted the same sentence over and over again. I’d dabbled in creative writing and had published a few short stories in local magazines, but writing a whole script? I told myself it couldn’t be that hard. There was a formula to most of the Hope Channel’s Christmas movies after all, but none of my reasoning made that silly little blinking cursor on my screen make sense.
“You need to solve the mystery of this Christmas legend,” Isaac said. “And I need a muse.” That part came a little more quietly. “So I help you find out what really happened to the widow and the postman, and you can be my muse, and then both our problems are solved.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But did you just ask me to be yourmuse? What am I supposed to do? Lie around naked all day and eat grapes?”
He shrugged. “Does it sound that bad?”
I thought about that for a moment. “Actually, no. But I’m not—” I didn’t know how to say it out loud, and I didn’t even really know what the hell being a muse entailed. But it sounded like a responsibility... and Isaac... Sad Boy Isaac needed someone he couldrelyon. The thought of him counting on me to inspire his next album made me feel tethered and trapped and oh God. How could I, the owner of a half-finished associate’s degree and the world’s largest collection of wand vibrators, ever live up to the memory of his cherished Brooklyn Blue? How could anyone live up to her?
And him helpingme? I’d counted on only myself for years now.
“I can’t be your muse,” I finally said.
He inhaled sharply. Like he’d been stung.
And then an idea came. “But maybe I can help you find one?”
His expression became one of cool indifference—and maybe even a little bit of curiosity. “Deal,” he said, his blue gaze betraying nothing. “You find me a muse and I’ll help find your miracle.”
“What makes you so sure you can even help me puzzle this together? Are you secretly a Vermont history buff?”
“I’ve got my resources,” he said vaguely.
AndthatI had to believe. Isaac probably had enough money and connections to open a real-life Jurassic Park. A sudden image popped into my head of him dressed as sexy Jeff Goldblum. Okay, that was hot as fuck. I wondered if I could get him to say “Life finds a way” to me...
