Page 9 of Love is an Open Book
Mia is using my wheelbarrow as a footrest while I pull out the old brick footpath leading to my front porch. Fingers resting on her laptop keyboard, she’s reclining in one of the webbed vinyl-and-aluminum lawn chairs I found in the shed after moving in, eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. She might be sleeping, but she’s definitely not writing.
I drop another brick in the wheelbarrow with a clatter, and she jerks upright. Definitely sleeping. “Geez, Gavin. What the heck?”
“Just curious how your scene is going.” She asked me to keep her on track today, and while I don’t like how much pressure she puts on herself, I understand the need for accountability.
She tilts her sunglasses down. “About as well as your path, from the looks of things.”
Almost a week has passed since we drove into the city to help her sister move out, and Mia’s been holed up in her condo, writing. Between Ted insinuating the show would be fine moving on without her and Kim pressuring her to start dating again, I think she needed space to get back into what she calls a “creative mindset.”
I haven’t had much free time, either. Starting in late spring, business ticks up at the tree nursery and garden center where I work as manager, and I’m in the middle of several landscaping design projects. My brother and his family drive out from Colorado to spend a month with Dad on the farm every summer, and since I plan to visit at least once during their stay, I decided to use my day off to get ahead on projects at my own place. First on the list is this eyesore of a path.
The previous owners either DIY-ed or hired someone with zero experience, because the walkway is as uneven as the mogul course on the ski slope near my family’s Wisconsin farm. I nearly sprained an ankle tripping over a loose brick on my way to the mailbox last week.
I’ve ripped out a big section of cracked bricks, leaving gouges in the exposed dirt. Resting an elbow on my grit-streaked knee, I blink against the sting of sweat and peer up at Mia. “Nothing wrong with a work in progress.”
“This is more of a teardown situation,” she says, glaring at her laptop. Normally when she’s struggling with a plot, she talks through things with me, but she didn’t say a word about the book when she arrived today. Not a good sign.
“What about your scene cards?” I lift my chin toward the stack of multicolored note cards she wedged between the chair and her thigh to keep them from blowing off in the breeze. The same cards I’ve seen pinned to her bulletin board and taped to her computer monitor at home.
She ruffles them with a fingertip, like she’s shuffling a deck of cards. “A prop, at this point.”
“Well, if you’re going to nap, at least use the daybed.” She talked me into installing an extra-wide porch swing, complete with soft pillows and a throw blanket. I planned on something more basic, but once Mia sent me a photo of a swing like this she’d spotted on social media, there was no going back to a run-of-the-mill design. “You’re going to get heatstroke if you fall asleep in the sun.”
“I was contemplating.”
“Want to contemplate while you pull bricks?” She once told me walking helps jostle ideas loose. Yard work does the trick for me, but Mia grew up in apartments and doesn’t see the joy in working outside.
To my surprise, she swings her legs down. “Why not?”
“You hate yard work.” I wait for her to say she’s joking, but she gingerly settles to her knees in the grass, eyeing the pavers like she’s assessing the best approach.
“I also don’t deviate from my outlines or go a full month without any salvageable words.” With her bare hands, she pries at one of the bricks, fingertips scraping at the packed dirt surrounding it, and I cringe at how close she comes to scraping her knuckles.
“Maybe this is the new me,” she says. “Napping. Playing in the dirt.”
“I am not playing in the dirt.” Sitting back on my heels, I pat my pockets for a spare set of gloves.
“There’s no HOA breathing down your neck.” She blows up at the curls falling in her face. “You could fill your yard with garden gnomes riding flamingos but instead you’re ripping out this path on your day off.” She hitches up her shoulder, trying to dislodge the strands of hair clinging to her neck without using her grimy hands.
It doesn’t work, so I use my wrist to brush the curls back, doing my best not to notice the tickle of her exhale on my throat. This close, her light floral perfume mingles with the earthy scent of exposed soil, like a freshly planted garden.
I drop my hand and pull away. Just like I have for years. Just like I always will.
“Admit you love having all these projects to work on around the yard,” she says.
“Of course I do.” Unable to watch her struggle any longer, I pass over a trowel, which she stabs into the ground with a fierceness that has me biting back a grin. “Nothing wrong with having a hobby.”
Her lips pinch together, but she doesn’t respond. Whatever’s on her mind, she’ll share when she’s ready. We work in silence, me methodically tearing out another row of bricks, Mia making up for her lack of technique with frustration-fueled determination.
“Ted was right, you know,” she says after a few minutes. “The other day, he asked if production could move forward without me. They can. If I don’t turn in the book on time, the screenwriters have carte blanche to write the final couple’s season as they see fit.”
I figured that was weighing on her mind, and no wonder. “You’ve never missed a deadline.” But it’s the wrong thing to say, because she’s also never needed an extension on her other dozen books.
“I pulled out of the book fair in New York,” she says, and rips out another brick, taking a chunk of grass with it. “The only signing I have this summer isn’t until August. I went on a social media hiatus and my assistant helped me schedule newsletters through the end of the year before she went on vacation. For the first time in what feels like forever, I’m free to put all my energy into the writing part of my job, so why can’t I get a handle on this story?”
She tosses the paver into the wheelbarrow with enough force to crack it in half.
“You’ve never been under this kind of pressure,” I say. “Give yourself some credit.”
