Page 15 of Story of My Life
Should she be wearing a sundress for easy access or short shorts for slow burn chemistry?
“Thank you for showing up,” Heroine said, sounding super sexy and confident in my head.
“It’s what we do here,” he said gruffly.
When my fingers stopped moving, I scrolled back tentatively through the document. I sat up straighter. This wasn’t all crap. This was…something.
I glanced down at the article on the floor and drummed my fingers over my lips. If an old news article could have me forming the beginning of a very rough outline, what would real-life inspiration give me? “‘Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, one-of-a-kind library/den, fenced yard, charming and spacious kitchen, two-car garage, spacious laundry room, large closets,’” I read from the listing. “‘On the main street a block from town square.’”
I’d gone down a rabbit hole. A Story Lake real estate rabbit hole, to be precise. Strictly research, I told myself, until I realized that the online listing was for Heart House, the home from the article. I flipped through the listing’s photo gallery for the ninth time.
“Oh my God! I could put a desk in the turret and make the library my office,” I said to the darkness beyond the glow of my screen. It was a million o’clock at night. I couldn’t feel my legs from sitting crisscross applesauce for hours on end. But I was wide-awake…and I could tell you exactly how far Story Lake was from my soon-to-be-ex-apartment in Manhattan. I could also tell you that there were a grocery store and bar withinwalking distance of the sleepy Second Empire home on the professionally landscaped corner lot.
“‘Property comes with a nontransferable seat on the town council,’” I read under my breath.
I’d never been involved before. My entire life I’d taken on the role of observer, which had been great for my writing career and a lousy slap in the face when my life came to a screeching halt.
Buy It Now.
The big red auction button was flirting with my eyeballs from the bottom of the listing.
I had come up with some real whammies of ideas while writing books before. That time I’d quit typing in the middle of a sentence to go skydiving for research. Then there was the time I’d done a ride along with a small-town cop in New Jersey and ended up bailing out her arrestee because he seemed like a nice guy who just got caught up in a bad situation.
Butthis. This by far had the potential to be the dumbest. I traced the big red button with my mouse just to see if the universe would send me a clear sign like a power outage or a surprise aneurysm. There were just a few hours left in the auction. Time was ticking down.
Who even sold real estate in an online auction? Whoboughtreal estate sight unseen from an online auction?
And why had I checked the “Buy It Now” bid against the cash balance in my brokerage account four times in the last hour?
I blew out a noisy, lip-flapping breath.
There had been a time in my life when I’d been known for being impulsive. I’d changed majors from business to creative writing after one English assignment in college. I’d convinced Zoey to become a literary agent and signed a contract written ona cocktail napkin one drunken night in our early twenties before I’d ever written a word. I’d moved in with Jim after dating for only two months.
Come to think of it, that was the last rash decision I’d made.
He was older than me, which I assumed also meant wiser. Well educated, charming. He made me want to be the kind of woman he would want. His goals became my goals.
My gaze flicked to the door of his office, and I remembered the last time I’d entered that room. I could still taste the bitterness on my tongue as he’d explainedyou’ll understand somedayas if I were still that twenty-four-year-old kid dazzled by him.
Why did I continue hanging on to those memories? To this space? It had always been his. My clothes had lived in an armoire in the bedroom and on a rolling rack behind the dining room table because his were in the closet. My books had been stacked behind the dresser and under the bed because theydidn’t go withhis collection of leather-bound tomes and the minimalist literary covers of his clients’ titles.
The familiar mixture of anger and panic simmered in my chest. But I pushed it down. There was no place for it to go these days. The only one here to take responsibility was me.
I glared at the screen, at the auction clock as it ticked down.
People made mistakes all the time. They changed their minds about marriages and real estate transactions, and nothing horrible happened to them. I could go, write the best book of my career, and then move back to the city…or Paris or Amsterdam or the beach. Wherever inspiration took me. I just had to make that first leap.
That big red button glowed brighter as my mouse moved closer.
Maybe it wasthe wine on top of the vodka sodas. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the fact that it was three o’clock in the morning and I was euphorically exhausted.
Whatever the hell my “character motivation” was, I’d gone and done it. I’d one-clicked a freaking house in a tiny Pennsylvania town that I’d never even visited. But it feltgood. It feltright.
I needed someone to tell. It had been a long-ass time since I’d had good news to share with someone. Now that I had good news, I didn’t have anyone to share it with. Zoey was probably sleeping off her liquor. My mother was…never an option. The friends I’d had while married had all migrated away, either turned off by my extended pity party or they’d been Jim’s friends first and therefore loyalty dictated they stay with him.
“This is why I should have a cat,” I announced. Cats didn’t care if you woke them in the middle of the night to talk to them.
Pursing my lips, I drummed my fingers on the keyboard. Hmm. There was always the option of strangers on the internet. That was what they were there for, right? Uncomfortable oversharing with people who would probably judge you mercilessly in the comments. I navigated to my author page on Facebook and logged in.
