Page 19 of Not on the Same Page

And as I take a few steps toward her, I have the exhilarating sense that I’m either walking toward my doom or right into one of the best things that could ever happen to me. There will be no in between, and somehow, I can’t wait to find out which it’s going to be.

She still doesn’t glance at me when I stand right next to her, turning my attention outward to try to see what it is she’s seeing. But she shifts slightly closer to me. I take that as a good sign.

“Nice night,” I say stupidly.

“Yeah,” she breathes, still gazing out into the distance. “It’s really beautiful here.”

“It is,” I agree.

She sips her wine and I do the same with my own drink, not exactly sure what to say and unwilling to break the silence, for some reason. She’s working through something, I think, and I suddenly feel bad for interrupting.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I ask after a while. The sun has almost made its descent behind the mountains, and it’s growing cooler.

She huffs and shakes her head as if she’s laughing at herself. “I was just thinking I wish I were a writer, so I’d have a way to describe that sunset.”

I down the last of my bourbon and put the glass on a nearby table. “You’re surrounded by words every day. I’m sure you could find some way to write it.”

Trina raises a skeptical eyebrow, finally looking at me. Her eyes are deep and full of wonder, and her chest rises and falls slowly, rhythmically. “I’m not a writer.”

“No one is until they start writing.”

Rolling her eyes, she turns her body so she’s facing the mountains again. “It wouldn’t be any good.”

I lightly tap her with my elbow. “That’s what you have an editor for,” I joke.

The look she gives me is almost one I’d expect from an annoyed preteen. “Oh my god.”

I take it a step further. “You could probably land a deal pretty easily with all your connections.” When she giggles brightly, I can’t help but feel I’ve been rewarded.

She shoves me lightly. “I just wanted to describe a sunset, you weirdo.”

The chuckle that escapes me is light and airy, almost like the clouds over the mountains in front of us. It’s a feeling I haven’t had for a long time—like I could float away, or even simply release some heaviness for a time.

“And I’m saying you could,” I say between laughter as she continues to give me little pushes. “They’re just words.”

She stops to give me an incredulous look. “You’re an editor.”

“So what?” I spread my arms out from my sides. We’re starting to attract sidelong glances from others on the patio, though I can see a few people grinning at our antics.

“Words matter!” she insists loudly, but she must notice people looking at us too, because she comes closer to me and lowers her voice. “If they didn’t, then why are any of us here?”

“That sounds like an existential question more than a literary one,” I quip, which earns me another eye roll. The moment having passed, I grow more serious. “Of course words matter. But I can’t edit a blank page. Write it down, fix it later.”

“How very Steinbeckian of you,” she says drily.

“Wasn’t that Hemingway?”

She shakes her head vehemently. “Hemingway was, ‘The only kind of writing is rewriting.’ If anything, ‘You can’t edit a blank page’ is attributed to Picoult. But Steinbeck’s method was famously to get everything down on paper quickly and worry about it later.”

When Trina pulls references out of her brain like this, she starts waving her arms in these large gestures that punctuate her sentences and accentuate her passion for the subject. Not for the first time, I’m struck by how enthusiastic she is and by how much she keeps inside that mind of hers.

“What?” A little bunch forms between her brows as she smiles a little uncomfortably.

Shit. Every thought must have been written all over my face.

I clear my throat. “Nothing. Impressed by your knowledge is all.”

Trina hums, unconvinced, but I’m saved by a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see a young waiter with an apologetic look on his face.