“That’s fucking terrifying.”
“You’re welcome.”
He leaned forward a little bit, as if to try to look at my computer screen.
I angled it downward. “Rude.”
“Working on the manuscript?”
“No. Dad’s obituary,” I admitted. A part of me wondered if, instead of a letter Dad wrote for us to read at his funeral, he could’ve taken that time to write his obit instead. Whenever a bereaved person was having trouble with their obituaries, he would help them write the best goodbyes. He was remarkably good at them.
I was definitely not.
“Ah.” He sank back in his booth. Tapped his fingers on the table. “I take it by the look on your face it’s not going well?”
“My face can tell you that much?”
“Your eyebrows pinch. Right there.” He pointed between them, so close I felt the chill of his finger against my forehead.
I sat back and rubbed at the line between my brows. The last thing I needed was more wrinkles. “The obit is going about as good as everything else in my life right now, Ben. Fucking terribly.” It wasn’t his fault that I was failing so hard at my dad’s obituary, and the second I raised my voice at him I felt bad. I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . .”
I missed my dad.
And then it hit me again—this grief that stretched like an endless field of all the things I used to feel for Dad. I was so used to compartmentalizing my life, but now the two bled together, and it made my chest hurt. I was having coffee, writing my dad’s obit, and Dad was dead.
I blinked back my tears and gave him a fake smile. He could see right through it because his dark eyes flickered.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Great. I just—I have to go.”
I took out a few bucks for the coffee, closed my laptop, and left.
20
Novel Idea
DANA FIXED ME another rum and Coke when I set up shop at the bar that afternoon. I’d texted Alice after I realized that Dad’s obituary was coming along about as well as literally everything else in my life, and she was very short in replying that it needed to be done by Wednesday.
Amazing. Another deadline I would probably sail right past.
I stared at the computer screen, and knowing I wouldn’t get anything done today—my head felt like cotton balls—I scrolled over to Google.
Benji Andor I typed into the search bar.
I was surprised to find that there weren’t any articles dedicated to his funeral, or at least his passing, but then again, hadn’t he said that he didn’t have any living close relatives? Then who was taking care of his goodbyes? I didn’t know much about Ben at all.
Who was in charge of his funeral?
While I didn’t see anything about his death, he did have a social media account. I clicked on it, and went to his page. It was an older photo of him, not quite smiling but not dour, either, leaning against the railing of a cruise ship. And there was a very pretty redhead standing beside him, smiling, with one of those fruity umbrella drinks in her hand. His page was private, so I couldn’t know who she was, or anything else he might’ve divulged, but the photo was enough to make me feel a little uneasy.
“I haven’t updated that page in ages,” Ben said, and I gave a start. He was sitting beside me at the bar, his head resting on his hand, watching me snoop through his life.
I quickly exited out of the internet, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Sorry, I wasn’t prying. I wanted to see if—there was any news yet. About your funeral.”