CHAPTER 11

A bby sat at her laptop and couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Her story had been pouring out of her, word after word, page after page, and for the past three days, all she’d done was type, use the bathroom, eat the few times she’d actually remembered to do so, and crash into her bed around one or two in the morning. Her new book was waking her up with a start each day, with characters begging her to get back to the computer to continue typing out their stories. The whole time, she felt in a haze, as if she weren’t the one typing the words but like she was channeling someone else who was using her fingers and eyes to get them on the page, going to war with the outline Abby had initially created and taking the story in an entirely different direction. She’d had to type at a feverish pace to keep up with that imaginary person inside her head. Still, every time she thought she knew where she was going with something, another new thing hit her, and she had to move to another chapter or scene. That caused her to either have to skip what she’d been typing or, at least, glaze over that bit, jotting down a note of what to come back to and what her train of thought had been when she’d been working on it so that she wouldn’t forget, which, she supposed, was every writer’s biggest fear outside of being blocked or maybe running out of ideas: forgetting the words they’d just been about to type and typing words that were poor replacements for them instead.

She’d just planned to write a romance novel where two women fell in love. They would move toward that love in act one, be in that love in act two, something would tear them apart in act three, and she hadn’t yet figured out the ending, but she’d planned to let the story take her there as she worked. Instead, she’d started the story on that wedding day from the photo, with the maid of honor staring at the not-so-happy couple, and proceeded by telling it a little forward and a little backward, skipping a few chapters for now because she’d had to get the other words out. She’d thought she could go back to 1935 and tell more about the life after the wedding – she’d even made a note of it, what to include and consider – but 1937 had slapped her right in the face, metaphorically, so she’d skipped to that year. Then, she’d suddenly switched to 1938, probably because she didn’t like the idea of her character, Deb, having to do anything with John David.

Sure, she’d made him a good man in the story, but Abby hated the times. She hated that, in the 1930s, women had few choices and no technology. It wasn’t as if they could go to the doctor and skip the sex, but when she’d written part of a scene, she’d instantly deleted it. Abby didn’t want anyone to focus on that part. She wanted them to think about Deb and Harriet’s love at a time when that kind of love was considered immoral and illegal.

“Hell, people still think it’s immoral today ,” Abby said to herself, stretching back in her chair.

She wasn’t close to finished, but the ending was what bothered her now, and she couldn’t get any more of the story on the page until she had that.

Deciding that she’d force herself to take a break, Abby stood up and headed to her shower, unsure of when she’d last taken one. Knowing she was wearing the same shirt she’d at least worn yesterday, she pulled it up to her nose and smelled it before she scrunched up her face, shook her head, and tossed it into the laundry basket on the way to the bathroom. Then, she lost the rest of her clothing and started the water, holding her hand under it so that she would know when it had reached just the right temperature.

While under the water, she got an image in her mind of two women, older than Deb and Harriet, but maybe still them. Maybe it wasn’t them at all… Abby was having a hard time keeping it all straight. They were in the shower, not this one but another one, and it had a pale-yellow wall with a row of flower tiles at around head level. The two women were kissing, holding on to one another, washing each other, and wh ispering sweet nothings.

“Sweet nothings?” she asked herself. “Who are you?”

The water was now a little too hot, but she welcomed it. Pushing the image of the other women out of her mind because she already had two fictional characters warring for too much time in there, she washed up and changed into a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweater. Having slipped socks onto her feet, she then made her way to the kitchen, where she contemplated making herself some coffee but decided against it. She needed to get out of the house, and coffee was as good of an excuse as any. Abby put on her shoes, grabbed her phone, wallet, and keys, and walked out to the garage to start the car.

It was only after she grabbed a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin from her usual coffee place instead of the new one with the way-too-bitter stuff that she remembered that she also needed to go grocery shopping. She had hardly anything in her fridge and freezer, and the blueberry muffin wouldn’t be enough to get her through the day, so she decided to pick up a few things from the corner shop, which was more like a convenience store than a grocery store, and walked down the block toward it.

Her mind was on the store layout as she walked slowly by the few people on the street. There were four aisles and a little alcove where the owner had the fresh produce. Abby liked to plan out her store visits whenever she could. She knew that it was her brain trying to combat her anxiety, but the more she knew about a place, the better. If she could, she looked up a bar’s parking situation to ensure she had a spot. If there wasn’t one, she could take a shared-ride car instead, but she always hated having to wait for one to show up at the end of the night. She usually tried to look up pictures of shops, grocery stores, restaurants, and parks to find not only a place to park but also how to get in, where to go or sit, where the bathrooms were, and how to make the quickest exit just in case.

In the store, she turned left down the first aisle against the wall, where the baskets were. Having grabbed one, she then quickly found her favorite frozen burritos and one of the small frozen pizzas they sold. Next, she moved around the corner and hit the back refrigerators, where she grabbed a small half-and-half for her coffee and a bottle of sparkling water for her to drink later that day. Making her way from aisle to aisle, she finished in the produce alcove and grabbed two apples and a bunch of bananas, her favorite fruit. Then, she turned to the snack aisle and paused at the item facing her. It was microwaveable popcorn. Abby didn’t have any at home, so she reached for the box, thinking it would make a good snack or, in the event that she wanted nothing else, a decent enough dinner.

When she put it into her way-too-full basket, though, she had an image of a stovetop. There was a pan on top of it, and popcorn kernels were mixing with oil inside it. Someone’s hand was swirling the kernels around. She couldn’t see the person doing the swirling, but the image was from her perspective, as if she were the one doing that, making popcorn on the stove. Except Abby hadn’t ever made popcorn like that. She’d also grown up with a microwave and parents who never had much time to spare for things that they could do more simply. Popcorn had always come from a bag and out of the microwave for her, and they hadn’t even used the kind of popcorn that came shaped like a pan, with a handle and everything, which people made on the stove. There was one of those hooked on a rack next to the popcorn boxes, too.

Abby had no idea where all these images were coming from, but some were so vivid that she could tell the exact kind of flowers in white that were on the yellow-tiled wall of a shower. Others were blurrier or foggier, but they also felt so real to her, like she could walk into them and keep swirling that popcorn. She made her way up to the counter to pay for her items, and when the guy who was ringing her up got to the popcorn, something inside her made her shake out of her stupor.

“Um… Actually, I changed my mind on that one,” she said and grabbed the box from him. “I’ll just put this back. ”

“Are you sure? I was just going to tell you that it’s on sale today. Buy one, get one fifty percent off.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Abby hurried over to where she’d gotten it and set it back on the shelf. Then, she looked at the popcorn-making fake pan and thought about buying that one instead to give it a try, but decided against it. Maybe she’d go to the bigger store later and buy actual corn kernels and learn online about how to make real popcorn on the stove. Why she was suddenly interested in doing more work to do something that someone had already made easier for her, she had no idea, but as she carried her three grocery bags, wishing she wouldn’t have bought as much, back toward her car, she felt something again.

It wasn’t a vision this time or a hallucination, as she’d decided to call them until she could explain them away. It was that same sensation she’d gotten at the antique shop the day she’d bought the photo, or, rather, had been given the photo, which had immediately given her the idea – it was something telling her to stop and pay attention. She turned her head and saw Quinn Jordan of Jordan Antiques walking on the opposite sidewalk in the other direction. Abby’s feet betrayed her then. They just turned her around on her own sidewalk and had her mirroring Quinn’s path but keeping her distance.

Quinn had a cup of coffee in her hand, and it was from the same place she ’d gone to prior to hitting the convenience store. Abby’s blueberry muffin was still in her purse, and her coffee cup had to be alternated from hand to hand because it was still too hot for her to drink, but Quinn didn’t seem to have that problem. She took a long drink from her to-go cup and appeared to be walking with a little pep in her step that had Abby wishing she’d work out more. Eventually, out of breath, Abby stopped when Quinn turned into her shop, unlocked the door, pulled it open, walked in, and disappeared behind it. A moment later, the closed sign was turned to open, and Abby looked both ways before crossing the street.

Yet again, she was a woman possessed by a force that she didn’t understand. Part of her didn’t want to understand it, though, so even that confused her because when dealing with her anxiety, she usually needed to plan and prep to figure out how best to prevent it or, sometimes, attack it right back. Going on an unplanned errand typically bothered her. Even having to run to the convenience store, knowing she had to eat food to survive, was something that had her heart going a little faster. So, while she’d been able to combat that by planning out the order of things for once she was inside the store, she hadn’t planned a trip to the antique shop to see a beautiful woman who had made her tongue-tied just a few days ago. That should have caused her some pretty intense, massive anxiety, but it didn’t. It hadn’t the day she’d first met Quinn, either.

Something about the shop, crammed to the gills with random and mostly unorganized items, along with the beautiful woman who owned it, actually calmed her. Sure, she wanted to help Quinn rethink that floor plan, get rid of items that hadn’t sold in forever, and wipe down everything to get rid of any possible dust, but even that didn’t make her anxious. Nervous to walk in because of said pretty girl, yes, but her usual anxiety, no.

Having arrived at the door in question, Abby still considered walking away. Not because of anxiety but because she had no idea why she was about to go inside. She had no antique needs. Her house was old, but inside, she’d gone with a more modern feel, like her LA apartment before it. She wasn’t sure what to say to Quinn, either, and if she didn’t know that, she could end up word-vomiting all over the place, which would be embarrassing. That was when she remembered that Quinn had given her a reason to stop by the shop. She’d let her have the photo as long as Abby had promised to come back and tell her why she’d wanted it.

Abby still wasn’t exactly sure of why that was, but she thought that if she told Quinn about the story idea that came from it, that might mean she was holding up her end of the bargain, so she shifted her bags and her coffee cup and pulled open the door.