“Now you’ve got me curious. Come on,” he added when I shook my head again. He gave me an encouraging smile. “I’ll buy you a muffin,” he offered.
I laughed. “Okay, then.” I held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “It happened after I read your book.” I stopped and chewed my bottom lip, trying to find the appropriate words to describe my revelation while Rad sat there with an expectant look on his face. “I’ve sat in on several interviews with writers, and not all of them strike me as tortured souls. So it got me thinking, because a lot of literature is about struggle. But I don’t think all writers are sad. I think it’s the other way around—all sad people write. It’s a form of catharsis, a way of working through things that feel unresolved, like undoing a knot. People who are prone to sadness are more likely to pick up a pen.”
Rad nodded thoughtfully. “And because they do, some will inevitably end up as writers,” he said.
“Exactly.”
“So we’ve had it backward this whole time.”
“Well, it was just a thought,” I said with a shrug.
“I like it.” He smiled at me, and I found myself smiling back.
Several cups of coffee later, the rain was coming down thick and fast. Only a few cold, soggy fries remained in the basket. The sky was growing darker. “I should head off,” I said, glancing at my phone. “I’m going to miss my bus.”
“I can give you a lift home,” he offered.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t know,” he said playfully. “I think I am starting to have second thoughts now.”
We left the café and made our way to Rad’s car, doing our best to dodge the rain.
“You still drive the same car.”
“It hasn’t been that long since we last saw each other,” he said, getting in the driver’s side.
“But it feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?” I slid into the passenger seat, and it was like entering a time capsule. “I suppose it’s because so much has happened since.”
We looked at each other for a moment, our expressions quizzical. Drops of water slid from our hair and fell onto the gray fabric upholstery. I felt along the seat, and that same tear was still there. Rad reached into a duffle bag in the back seat and pulled out a large beach towel, passing it to me. I dried myself as best as I could before handing it back. As Rad toweled his hair, a flicker of something passed through me. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but for a split second, it felt almost intimate. “So,” he said, tossing the towel carelessly into the back seat, “where to?” I gave him my address as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Do you know what’s ironic about writers?” Rad said, as we sat in heavy traffic. The sky outside was almost pitch black, and the rain was pounding steadily on the windshield.
“What?”
“Writers take things that are deeply personal, things said to them in confidence, often during moments of great intimacy, and strip them down into words. Then they take those words, naked and vulnerable, and give them to the world. Yet in spite of this, writers struggle more than most when it comes to sentimental attachment. They only write about things they’ve felt deeply. That’s the thing about writers—on one hand everything is sacred to them, but, on the other, nothing really is.”
“Is that off the record?” I smiled.
“Is anything?” he replied with a grin.
“I think you’re right, though.” My face grew serious. “Some of my colleagues have admitted to sacrificing their integrity for a really good story. I suppose the act of writing is in itself a form of betrayal.”
Rad nodded. “I agree. Writing is a conduit. It opens up a passageway into the past. Not just for the writer, but for the reader too. Both readers and writers are linked by the commonality of human experience.”
“Yeah,” I said. I looked at the figures walking on the street outside, their silhouettes warped by drops of rain sliding down glass. “But it’s always a little skewed. You can never relive a moment through writing. You can only retell it.”
“Yet things always seem less artificial when you’re looking back. Time lends it an authenticity that nothing else can.”
“I think it’s because we romanticize the past. We give it more than it deserves.”
The traffic began to clear, and we were quiet the rest of the way to my house.
I felt a twinge of disappointment when Rad turned the corner onto my street. I was enjoying our conversation and wished we could keep talking. “It’s just ahead. You can drop me here.” He slowed down to a stop just outside my house.
“Hey,” he said, turning to face me. “Want to keep driving?”
“Okay.”
Fifteen
I surreptitiously checked my phone in the pocket of my brown satchel. No text. I slid it back down into the bag with a sigh. I looked out the car window and smiled at Duck, who was getting gas for the car. I didn’t have to go into the office that day, and Duck’s morning lecture got canceled, so we decided to go for lunch. He came around and tapped on my window. I wound it down.
“Want anything?” he asked.
“Can you get me a Diet Coke?”
“Okay,” he said, kissing me as his thumb and forefinger gently snatched my chin.
As he walked away, I felt a stab of guilt, thinking about the night before. After we left the café, Rad and I drove aimlessly for hours, lost in conversation. By then, it had stopped raining, and the night air was warm and still. We had no idea where we were. None of the street names were familiar, but we didn’t care. It felt almost dreamlike, as though we had slipped into a new reality.
It was well past midnight when we realized how hungry we were. Thankfully, we found a twenty-four-hour McDonald’s with a drive-through. We ordered burgers and thick shakes that we ate in the deserted parking lot. Outside, the rain-drenched asphalt was an incandescent blur: hues of white, red, and yellow refracting the light from the nearby streetlamps and the golden arches overhead. Maybe it was the free-flowing conversation or the thrill of being somewhere unfamiliar, but it was hands down the best burger I’d ever had.
This morning, I was ready to tell Lucy about Rad, but she had to rush off to class. Now I wondered whether I should hold back from telling her. If I kept it a secret from Lucy, then perhaps I could justify keeping it from Duck.
The sound of the door clicking open snapped me back to the present. Duck got into the car and handed me my drink. Then he looked at me and smiled for the longest time. “What?” I smiled back.
“I really love you, Audrey.” He leaned over and kissed me softly on the cheek. “You make me so happy.”
“Audrey,” Trinh called, when I walked into the office Wednesday morning. She was sitting on the couch in the common area and motioned for me to come over. I sat down next to her.
“So how was your interview?”
I took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t believe this, but I know the author.”
Her eyes widened. “Colorado Clark?”
“Well, I knew him by the name Rad—no one calls him Colorado,” I explained.