Chapter Fifteen
Our first writing day is wildly productive, even though we make several false starts on the sea monster scene, unable to decide how many tentacles it should have or what its teeth are like or if it wants to subdue Zane Scarlett before attempting to eat him.
Still, after four hours in the office, we have a rough draft of the battle, Zane’s bloody, brain-piercing victory, and his escape onto the rocky shore, where he’s already setting off toward Fort Cook, a name that drives me insane since James Cook was working for a haberdasher at the time the novel’s set and hadn’t yet joined the Royal Navy, let alone established forts on any Pacific islands.
As Dylan reminds me multiple times, the island in the story is pure invention, as is the sea monster.
I’m forced to concede and let the fort’s name stand for consistency with the prior books.
The best part of the writing session comes at the end, when I get up to shake out my hands and Dylan takes a seat at the desk.
He rolls his shoulders, adjusts his feet, and drums his fingers on the desktop.
He comments on the view and the height of the chair.
He scratches the back of his neck, which grows blotchier by the second.
But eventually, eventually, he sets his hands against the keys and types a few sentences.
Then a few more, seeing us through our final twenty minutes before my phone alarm goes off, indicating we break for lunch.
The paragraphs he typed for us feel like a triumph.
Actually, the entire document feels like a triumph.
It’s rough, and it needs to be fleshed out with more connective tissue and sensory detail, but the basic action is on the page, bridging the end of the previous book with the start of the new one, setting up the central relationship dynamics, and launching the adventure to come.
As I get lettuce and tomatoes from the fridge for the sandwiches we decide on for lunch, my eyes are drawn to the Truth and Dare notes on the fridge door. My chickadee magnet still sits below Truth. Dylan’s smiley face magnet is off to the side.
“I think I still owe you a truth,” I say.
Dylan glances over his shoulder at me from where he’s removing a loaf of bread from a wooden breadbox carved to look like a treasure chest, complete with iron chains, a padlock, and a large ring of ornate keys, though we unlocked it months ago, far less committed to the novelty of the design than my grandmother was.
His expression is unreadable, like it so often is, though it’s accompanied by a heavy pause that strongly suggests he’s also recalling our last round of the game.
I know we can’t return to that moment. Whatever Dylan was about to ask me that day is locked away as surely as my grandmother used to lock away her bread, but we have other truths we can share, and I don’t want to stop getting to know him or letting him get to know me.
“The teaching jobs,” he says. “How will you choose between them?”
At the unexpected mention of my academic job search, my stomach clenches, and I fight a swell of nausea. I’m often skeptical when people say listen to your gut, preferring to rely on careful, rational thought, but today my gut has spoken. And its voice is loud.
I start slicing tomatoes so I have something safe to look at.
“I might not get offered any of the jobs,” I say.
“They’re all competitive, my research area isn’t new and exciting, and search committees will question why I quit my previous job, especially after earning tenure.
In academic hiring, experience isn’t always an asset.
More often, it’s the opposite. Candidates new to academia are less likely to have strong ideas about making change and less likely to threaten current faculty without robust research records who might look bad in comparison.
I’ve seen it happen. They blame it on something else.
‘He didn’t seem like he really wanted to teach’ or ‘She wasn’t knowledgeable about the classroom technology none of us could fix when it didn’t work during her teaching demo,’ but everyone knows.
Searches also fail due to changes in funding or departmental priorities. ”
Dylan sets aside the bread to lean back against the counter and fold his arms across his chest. He knows I’m stalling, doing anything but answering the question he asked. He’s right, and it’s a question I should be able to answer, so I lower the knife and let the veggies idle.
“Hopefully I’ll ask better questions this time,” I say.
“And if I end up with a choice to make, it’ll probably come down to the people.
Do I like them? Do I respect them? Do I think they’ll respect me?
Or will I end up in a repeat of my last job, where my colleagues blew off their administrative and advising responsibilities with no accountability whatsoever while ensuring I knew I was less important than they were? Over and over and over again.”
Dylan’s brow furrows, and his lips press together.
“What?” I ask, certain he’s holding something back.
He shakes his head, barely, otherwise unmoving.
I walk over to the fridge and put his magnet under Truth.
“What?” I ask again, or rather, demand.
He hesitates for what feels like an entire minute, frowning and breathing, nothing more, until, at last, he says quietly but firmly, “It doesn’t seem like what you want.”
His comment only increases my gut ache as my mom’s words ring in my ears.
It’s a job, Philippa. Not a daily group hug. No workplace is perfect.
“Assuming we can have everything we want is a shaky proposition,” I say. “Imagine if everyone only chased their biggest dreams. We’d have a world full of rock stars, astronauts, and professional athletes. Who’d collect our garbage or manage our grocery stores?”
Dylan’s brows inch up until they’re hidden under his tousled curls.
“So you’re equating a university teaching job with garbage collection?” he asks.
“No.” I cringe, caught in my own argument.
I’m used to arguing the opposite stance, that having big dreams is important.
I don’t know how to take the other side.
“Or maybe I am, but I’ll bet some garbage collectors love their jobs, and others at least learn to enjoy them over time.
For many, it’s probably just a job, sure, but a job that affords them other things they enjoy.
Maybe that’s what teaching can become for me.
Not my great aspirational vocation, but my job. ”
He turns away from me with a very Dylan-esque grunt of disapproval, opening the bread bag and taking out slices in a way that signals our conversation has come to an end.
Irritation dances down my spine, sharp and prickly.
Because there’s no way Dylan wanted to spend six years haunting the halls of this crumbling house, alone, with only his laptop and his extensive playlist for company.
He wanted to write, obviously, but when that wasn’t working out for him, what did he do about it?
And he’s never once talked about modeling or copywriting as something he’s passionate about.
They pay the bills. That’s all. And also . . .
“So you wanted to eat mediocre pasta every night for years on end?” I ask. “You wanted to run a zillion miles in shoes that lost their arch support half a decade ago? You wanted to sleep on a hundred-year-old mattress and choreograph a bucket-placement routine?”
His jaw goes tight, and I feel myself bracing for a counterattack, but something other than anger flashes through his eyes, something that shatters my defensiveness and turns it to shame.
“Sorry,” I say. “That was harsh.”
He takes a deep breath, dragging a hand down his face to massage his jaw.
“It was fair,” he says. “Harsh, but also fair.”
The last dregs of my combativeness slip away, thank god. I hate arguing with Dylan, even though no two people get along all the time, and things haven’t exactly been low stress lately.
“I’ve been accused of not fighting for what I want before,” he says.
“I didn’t take the criticism well. There was”—he pauses in that way he does, redacting as he goes—“reason not to. Circumstances that made me feel justified, at least partly. But now, I don’t know.
It’s easier to see when we’re talking about my diet or shoes.
It’s not laziness, exactly. It’s more like inertia, a tendency to keep doing whatever I’m already doing, even when I know better options exist. It’s just .
. .” He trails off, scratching his neck before shoving his hands deep into his pockets.
“How do you know when something’s worth fighting for? And when you’re just . . . fighting?”
I glance around the kitchen, with its cracked ceiling and creaky furniture.
At least half of the cabinet doors don’t shut properly, and only two of the four burners work.
The water pressure in the sink sucks, and the entire room could use rewiring so it can support more than a trio of sixty-watt bulbs without shorting a circuit.
Outside the window over the sink, what remains of the carriage house leans precariously to one side. One more storm, and it’s toast.