Izzy laughed as she turned to leave the kitchen. “Ask him.”
She and Beau worked together in the library that afternoon, and every day that week. By Wednesday, she realized that she’d started to look forward to that hour—sometimes more—in the library with him. Unlike the rest of her job, the time with Beau was fun, challenging in a good way, interesting, and strangely, not at all stressful. She didn’t write every time, but at least she thought about it.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said on Wednesday afternoon.
She looked up from her notebook. “Of course.”
“What if I don’t totally remember exact conversations? Like, I remember they happened, I know that, and I remember a few things perfectly, but the rest I remember in a sort of general way. You know what I mean? How do I…What do I do then?”
Beau hadn’t asked her a real question about writing until now.
“I think the most important thing is to talk about how those conversations made you feel, what impact they had on you, both then and now. Like, you don’t remember word for word exactly what you said, or what other people said, but you remember your emotions during those conversations, right? And if those emotions have changed as you’ve gotten older, or if you have different perspectives on them as the years have gone on, you know that. So lean into that, concentrate on that. This book is about you. So talk about you, and how you felt, and how you feel now.”
He looked at her, and then down at the screen. “Okay. That makes sense.” He tried to smile, though she could tell it was an effort. “That sounds really hard, but it makes sense.”
She laughed, and after a moment, so did he.
Without even talking about it, they had dinner together every night that week. They met in the kitchen every night, loaded up their plates together, and then either ate at the kitchen table—if Izzy was tired, or if she had more work to do that night after dinner—or in the TV room. And now Beau always loaded the dishwasher after dinner.
Izzy didn’t go back out to the pool, though. It was too dangerous out there. She and Beau were working together. She couldn’t get her mind all full of Beau’s bare arms and shoulders and back and dear God, his chest. At least he’d been in the pool the whole time and she hadn’t been able to see the rest of his body. Better to stay inside, where there was no chance of that.
On Friday, when she walked into the library at three, Beau was already there, his laptop open, the tray of snacks on the table, and the bottle of green juice at Izzy’s seat.
She sat down and twisted the cap off. “Okay, where were we?” She pushed Beau’s notebook across the table to him. “You know what? It’s Friday, you’ve worked hard all week, let’s do something fun: Today, why don’t you write down your favorite story about yourself. You know the one I mean, the funny one you tell at parties, some adventure you went on, something fun you did as a kid, whatever. Write as much as you can get to today; this weekend you can type it up and work on it. Starting…now.”
Izzy set the timer. She looked down at her phone and sighed. She had more work to do, but she didn’t have the heart for it today.
All of a sudden, Beau flipped closed his notebook and pushed it back across the table to her. She looked up from her phone. “What—”
“Today is a break day,” he said. “I decree it.”
Break day. What a concept.
“Oh, you decree it? Then it must be true.” She took his notebook. “It’s fine if you need a break, we all do sometimes.” She started to get up. “Okay, well—”
“No,” he said. “Not just me. We both need a break. It’s Friday, and you’ve been working with me every day for almost two weeks. You need a break even more than I do.” He stood up. “The thing I started writing was actually fun, but it reminded me that it’s too beautiful a day to be inside. Get your stuff, we’re going to the beach.”
She stayed where she was and looked up at him. “Oh, I don’t have…beach stuff here. I actually haven’t been to the beach yet.”
He looked at her, his mouth in a perfect O. “You haven’t been to the beach?” She started to explain, but he kept going. “This is unacceptable. We have to teach you the true meaning of fun. There are plenty of places to buy everything you need. Be at the car in ten minutes.”
He left the room before she could argue with him.
Izzy stood up slowly. The beach. It did feel sort of criminal that she’d been here for over two weeks and hadn’t been to the beach yet. She looked out at the Pacific Ocean from her bedroom window every single day, but she’d never seen it up close. Beau was probably right; she should do something about that.