Something Missing_ A Novel - Matthew Dicks [123]
Thankfully, it had been the first of many kisses that week, and after a few days, Martin had summoned the courage to initiate an occasional kiss himself.
Most of the time they had spent together had been filled with conversation, a process at which Martin was growing more adept by the day. Though he continued to plan and rehearse possible conversational elements prior to her arrival, much of his recent dialogue with Laura had been completely spontaneous. Martin had learned a great deal about Laura in the time they had spent together, and the more he learned, the more he liked this clever and quirky woman.
In order to fill the time, Martin had also spent many hours working on his novel, and after a week of pleading, he finally allowed Laura to read the first chapter. He couldn’t help but stare at Laura as her eyes scanned the words that he had placed upon the page, watching as the sentences forced smiles, frowns, and looks of confusion from her. He marveled at how he had managed to create an entirely new world from his imagination, and how real his characters, and in particular his main character, had become. Though he couldn’t be certain, he thought that she enjoyed the story a great deal, and he was proud of what he had accomplished so far. He had written more than thirty thousand words, filling more than a hundred pages, and his story had taken an interesting turn. His main character, Matthew Stock, had turned out to be a smash-and-grabber, an ordinary thief with a little more finesse than most of his kind. He was in his mid-twenties and living a bachelor’s life, with a large number of friends and acquaintances and a constantly rotating stable of women in his life. His friends considered him the consummate frat boy with a well-paying job in an IT department at a major insurance company, but in reality Matthew was a much more private person than anyone knew. As a smash-and-grabber, he specialized in jewelry but had recently found himself becoming more interested in the people from whom he stole than in the actual jewelry that he acquired. One of the women whom Matthew Stock planned to rob was suffering from leukemia, and in the midst of chemotherapy, her husband, a coward by the name of Paul, had moved out, unable or unwilling to deal with the stress of the situation. Matthew Stock suddenly found himself needing to take care of this woman in her greatest moment of need, but not knowing how to do so without being caught.
Remarkably, the novel seemed to be writing itself. What had begun as autobiography had quickly diverged into the story of a man whom Martin never would have imagined until his fingers began striking the keys, and this burst of unexplained and seemingly uncontrollable invention thrilled Martin and made the days pass by with ease. Though he had no idea where this story might lead, he had learned to stop worrying about plot and allow his imagination to take control.
He had pretended to be a writer for years, never knowing how easy writing could be.
After she finished reading the first chapter, Laura had grabbed Martin’s face, kissing him and telling him how proud she was of his accomplishment. “You’re so talented! What made you think of writing about a thief? And a thief who I kind of like.”
“Honestly, I have no idea,” Martin had lied. “Maybe I read something in the newspaper that day. I don’t know. I came home after that night at the Elbow Room and just started writing. This is what came out.”
“Well, I think it’s brilliant. I can’t wait to see what happens next. Can I read the next chapter?”
Martin had told Laura that the next chapter wasn’t finished and that major revisions were needed, but in truth, his first three chapters were complete. He just wasn’t ready to share them yet. As much as he wanted to hand the pages over to Laura immediately, he worried that the story might fizzle out at some point, leaving him with an interesting character and no place to go. By parceling out the chapters one at a time with days or weeks in between, Martin hoped to avoid disappointing Laura