Chapter 4 Q and A
Q and A
“Son of Arthur Branksome debuts with taut family drama”
… Curious readers may be wondering if In Time is derivative. After all, Stephen King’s son used a pen name so as not to be accused of riding his father’s coattails. No pseudonyms here, and Branksome, Jack is, of course, shelved next to Branksome, Arthur.
The answer is: kind of. Both writers deploy muscular yet sparse prose and restless-bordering-on-impatient sensibility…
An amazing thing happened to Jack over the next couple of weeks: he started to write his fucking book. And when he got stuck, which he did quite a lot, he texted Blair Kellermoon.
It wasn’t like him. But Blair was funny, and she gave good advice. She got him out of his head. And she didn’t seem to mind when he sent her random questions. It was like talking into the void—but the void talked back and said only the right things in only the right doses.
Jack: What would you say to a busybody who’s too much in your business?
Blair: Mind your own biscuits, and life will be gravy.
He laughed into his empty condo. He had discovered Blair was a veritable font of ridiculous sayings.
He suspected that normally he would find her chipper Southernisms annoying, but somehow he didn’t.
They were charming. She was charming. Which was a bit of a twist. He certainly hadn’t been charmed by her on that call last winter.
She’d been all poufy blond hair and big hazel eyes and perfect white teeth—so OK, she was good-looking, but she was a movie star, so that came with the territory—and his overwhelming impression had been that Blair Kellermoon was an unserious person.
Was there such a thing as a movie star who wasn’t?
Maybe it was different over text. She was a good texter. Witty and literate. She made him appreciate the medium in a way he never had.
They had gotten into playing this game where he would describe a situation and she would give him an inane Southern adage about it.
Sometimes these scenarios were real, and sometimes they were fictional.
More than one of her responses to the latter type had given him a small burst of inspiration for the book.
Blair: Who’s the busybody?
Jack: Fictional.
The dots that indicated she was typing started up, and he rushed to preempt whatever it was she was going to say.
He had to press ahead with his next question or he’d never have the guts to ask it.
This was what it was like, texting with Blair.
She was engaging and charming, and eventually she disarmed him sufficiently that he could ask something real.
Jack: How do you know when you need to give up on something? Do you have a saying for that?
The dots started again.
Blair: One of my grandmother’s most common refrains used to be: you can put kittens in the oven, but that don’t make ’em biscuits.
Jack had only ever heard Blair’s voice once, on that Zoom, and she hadn’t said much; her colleague had done the majority of the talking.
But her voice had struck him. Not just the slight drawl, but the way it was so much lower than you’d expect from a petite Southern rom-com queen.
That had been nine months ago, but somehow, that voice was still in his head.
He could hear her saying the silly aphorisms she was typing.
Or maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he just wanted to.
He didn’t like that thought, so he put it away.
Jack: You reference biscuits a disproportionate amount.
Blair: No I don’t.
Blair: Well, maybe I do. But if you’d ever had my biscuits—which are my grandmother’s biscuits—you would know that they loom large, and rightly so.
Jack: I don’t think I’ve ever had a proper biscuit. Is a scone a biscuit?
Blair: No. Most decidedly not.
Jack: Bagel?
He was teasing her now. He wasn’t sure why. He’d asked that question about when to quit because it’d felt important. He’d been keenly anticipating her answer. And now he was making a joke of it?
Blair: No.
Jack: English muffin?
Apparently, yes, he was making a joke of it.
Blair: Stop it.
Before he could think of another vaguely biscuit-esque bread product, she kneecapped him.
Blair: Why are you asking about how to know when it’s time to give up on something? Are you talking about your book?
There it was. This was what he meant. She had a way of homing in on the meaning behind his words, of letting the joking go only so far.
Blair: Because if so, my initial answer is that you shouldn’t give up, but I suppose that’s not helpful. How do you know when to give up on something? I guess sometimes you just have to face the fact that you’re not good enough. That sometimes hard work and desire don’t yield the outcome you want.
That wasn’t what he had wanted to hear.
Jack: The book is actually going OK. OK-ish.
Or it had been, until he’d gotten together with his dad yesterday. Dad had been in town to shoot an interview with the Twin Cities PBS affiliate, PBS being the only brand of television Dad could abide.
Now Jack was back to staring fruitlessly at the computer screen and, apparently, using the word OK-ish in a sentence.
Jack: I wrote a chapter, anyway.
Blair: Good for you!
To his dismay, he flushed at her praise. When Jack first googled Blair, he’d seen a picture of her at some women-in-Hollywood breakfast, and she’d been wearing a sundress printed with little clusters of cherries. She’d looked like a kindergarten teacher.
Which he supposed made him a kindergartener, given how chuffed he was by her praise.
Jack: It’s more…
How to explain? It wasn’t about this book, or it wasn’t only about this book. It was also about what happened after this book. Both immediately, when the reviews came out, and then when he had to do it all again. His agent was already making noises about the next proposal.
Blair: It’s more the existential question of why are you doing what you’re doing, and what would happen if you stopped? The fear that your ability to forestall disaster is hanging by a mere thread?
Something rose in his throat that felt like it would be, if he let it out, part laugh, part wail.
He would not let it out.
He thought about calling her. Maybe even FaceTiming her.
But then he would have to hear her voice (he would get to hear her voice?), and he was afraid that would undo whatever careful détente they had going over text.
As improbable as it seemed, he and Blair Kellermoon had spun a careful web of companionability, and he was coming to rely on it.
It was starting to feel like more than a web, in fact.
It was starting to feel like a safety net.
Jack: Something like that.
Why was he being so vague? He had started this conversation.
Jack: You know the novelist Ashwin Bajwa?
Blair: Yes! I loved Red Shift.
Jack: He has framed reviews of his books on the wall in his office. He says they inspire him.
Jack: But they’re not just good reviews. Some of them are rather scathing.
He glanced at the old review from The Atlantic he had taped on the wall by his computer.
Blair: That could never be me, but whatever works, I guess.
Jack: Why could that never be you?
Blair: I’m my own worst enemy. I don’t need anyone else vying for the job.
Hmm. What did that mean? Sunny Blair Kellermoon with the cherry-print dress didn’t seem like the type to let bad reviews get to her. Probably the fact that her movies grossed millions helped.
Although… he considered her having said I guess sometimes you just have to face the fact that you’re not good enough.
Had the you in that sentence not been merely of the proverbial variety?
Damn, trying to understand the psychology of real people was hard.
Fictional people were easier. It wasn’t that you could just make things up with fictional people, it was more that you could, with enough patience, see who they were.
All you had to do was wait around for them to reveal themselves to you.
Which, of course, required you to have enough time for said waiting.
Beware the ides of March.
He scrolled back up through their conversation. He asked himself what someone who was less of an asshole than he was would say next. That person would probably ask a question about her.
Jack: How is Green Light? Still deader than a doornail?
He stared at his phone for a long time, but she didn’t answer.
Until she did, a good ten minutes later.
Blair: Just write your book, Jack.