The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [89]
“All of them. Does that surprise you?”
“You never said anything.”
“Well, you never asked. And I never knew what to say or anything, so I didn’t.”
“I wonder if I ever thought of you reading them. I don’t think so. Isn’t that strange. Well? Pretty bad, huh?”
“I think they’re wonderful.” Such a heavy feeling in his chest. “I can’t judge books. I’m not that kind of a reader. All your books—I get completely wrapped up in them until it’s as if I’m not reading. I’ll think about trying to know you through your books but I just get caught up in the story and—Daddy? Did I say something wrong?”
Of course. That was the way to do it. The husband’s life, seen through other eyes. But not just the wife’s. The wife’s and the daughter’s.
The two women in his life. The two points of reference from which the man’s life could be triangulated and transfixed.
Of course. Two women knew him, and in the two ways in which a woman might know a man. He would have to scrap a great deal of what he had written. Most of it could be reworked, at least. But it would work. It would work beautifully, and if he handled it properly it would do a great deal more than reveal one man’s life.
It might be … important.
“Daddy?”
“You just solved my problem.”
“I did?”
“You damn well did.” He was standing, his drink abandoned on the coffee table. “I’ve got the whole opening now. I have to start over on page one but it’s all, right there.”
“You’re going back to work?”
“I can’t let it cool off.”
“But you already worked all day—”
“All I did was sit in a chair. I didn’t even move my fingers.”
“Do you want anything to eat? I could bring it to you.”
He shook his head. “You could bring me a thermos of coffee, though. Just don’t be hurt if I ignore you.”
“I’ll tiptoe. You won’t even know I was there.”
She did tiptoe, but he wouldn’t have noticed if she’d stamped her feet. It was all there, just as he’d said, and it flowed. At four o’clock he pushed himself away from his desk with thirty-two pages written and huge chunks of the rest of the book etched vividly in his mind.
He had made it a rule for many years now not to do more than twenty pages a day. But it was absurd to keep to that rule in a situation like this. The sooner he got it all down, the better it would be.
Thirty-two pages, and he didn’t have to look at them to know they were good.
And the dedication page was no longer blank.
TWELVE
When Gretchen Vann strode into the Lemon Tree, Linda did not notice her immediately. It was a Friday night. The weather had been good all day, the sky clear and the sun not too hot, and the town was packed with tourists. The Lemon Tree had been getting its share all day. Now, while Olive was in the back room showing Central American wood carvings to a rather intense young couple, Linda was at the desk watching a longhaired boy contemplate shoplifting. There was a bracelet of polished bits of rose quartz which he kept picking up and putting down, and she was certain he was trying to decide whether or not he liked it well enough to drop it in his pocket.
She decided to approach him. Once it was in his pocket there wasn’t much she could do. Olive had told her not to bother much about minor pilferage; it wasn’t worth the nuisance of running for a policeman, and while she was thus engaged other more ambitious browsers could empty half the store. She had learned, though, that it was easy to stop most shoplifters in advance. If you just went up to them and gave a sales pitch for whatever you figured they were about to steal, it generally routed them from the store without making a scene.
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
The words, spoken sharply and bitterly, came just as she was about to step out from behind the counter. For an instant she thought she had said them herself, and the long-haired boy evidently had no doubt they were meant for him; he straightened up, dropped the bracelet back where it had come from and walked nervously away from it.
“You think you’re fooling me, don’t you?”
She turned toward the voice and saw Gretchen. The woman’s drab blond