38.

The creative spirit is wonderfully erratic, sometimes quick and irresistible, and other times sluggish, if not apathetic, or maybe it’s just pathetic. I’ve learned over the years to just write, so I’ve narrowed the gap between the two extremes. Lots of writers wait for inspiration, or think inspiration’s going to fuel them the whole way. It’s not. It’ll get them 1% of the way. The rest, as the cliché goes, is perspiration.

And, right now, given the mess of the meeting with Regina, and knowing I’m off the Melody edit, I feel this awesome resentment. People talk about positivity and shit like that. Anger and resentment are great motivators, too, and I want to conquer the world right now.

So, as I drive into work, I call Gillian (from my film crew – you’ve only met her briefly before) and suggest instead of a Zoom meeting, we get together tonight over dinner.

“I really want to do this,” I say, meaning the film (rather than the dinner). “But those remote meetings keep everything so distant.”

“Good idea,” Gillian says. “I think … well, I don’t know if I should tell you.”

I hate when people do that – I don’t know if I should tell you, so let me just tease you with possible information that I don’t feel you should know. Where do you go from there? Either you have to pester to uncover what this information is, or you surrender live with the not-knowing, and I don’t think anybody ever lives with the not-knowing. Not truly.

“Everybody feels like we’re a bit stagnant,” Gillian says. “We have these meetings. We plan things. We move forward a little. Things come apart. We regroup. Then it’s the same all over.”

She’s not wrong.

“I think doing things in person, keeping the energy up, we’ll build momentum.”

“You can pull me up on these things if I’m doing them wrong,” I say. “I have no idea what I’m doing with this stuff – publishing, yes; film production, not really.”

“Okay – deal. I’ll talk to the others and let you know if they’re available.”

“Thanks.”

I hang up and feel okay with myself, which mightn’t be much, but it’s more than I usually feel, and I think I’m motoring along to somewhere meaningful – although (and this isn’t meant to be negative), I’ve felt that way before. We all do. We think we’re heading in the right direction with a gale-force blowing up our butts and then …

Anyway, once I get to work, I’ve no sooner sat down at my desk when Gillian messages me, Others love the idea so all good for tonight. 6 at Ben’s. I’ve just texted her back, Thanks – see you then, when Autumn emerges from her office and calls me in. I take a seat, and she closes the door, then sits down in her recliner.

“Just to let you know that Shia’s officially overseeing Melody’s edit,” she tells me.

I shrug.

“It doesn’t bother me?”

“What am I gonna do about it?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“What there left to do? Really?”

“Okay, well, that’s something.”

Autumn looks at me, like she wants to share something more. I can’t think of anything else I’ve fucked up, and all my other authors are happy with me. My film crew’s happier with me. Lana’s happy enough with me. I’m happyish with me. We’re all happy now, surely? This is where the story should end.

“I miss catching up,” Autumn says.

“Oh.”

“You’ve been almost evasive this week.”

“I just thought I’d give my relationship with Lana a chance.”

“You’ve given it … how many chances?”

She’s right. And she’s not being spiteful. Or condescending. She just wants me to realize this fundamental truth, to embrace it, and yet all I have is fundamental doubt that I’ve been doing it wrong all this time, not been committed enough, and I have to give this a chance properly.

Autumn sighs, and sits back. “I don’t want to come between you two,” she says. “You know how I feel about Lana – I like her and she’s nice but I just don’t think she’s right for you.”

“I’m going on fifty – who do you think’s right for me?”

Autumn chuckles. “I’m sure there’s somebody out there.”

“With who I am, the way I am, I’m coming to accept I can be intolerable, ranty, those sort of things – and I’m okay with that now. I just don’t think anybody else would be.”

“You’re not giving yourself the chance to find out.”

“I am with Lana now.”

“And if it falls apart again?”

“What if it’s all me? And I just haven’t given this the chance it needs.”

“We all love you around here, as ranty as you are.”

“You don’t have to live with me.”

“Lana doesn’t.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m just in a place where I don’t know anything anymore – things haven’t worked out like I planned. All my dreams are just broken glass. I’m just trying to find a way forward without cutting myself.”

“Most people don’t realize their dreams. You’re not different. Your circumstances might be. But everything else? I’d rather be sitting in some cabin in nature, working on my novel. Dennis would rather be driving fast cars and making more money. Has anybody got it worked out?”

“Melody?”

Autumn snorts. “I’ll give you space because I want you to be happy, but I miss catching up, chatting, like we used to.”

Returning to my desk, the first bit of darkness crawls back in. Autumn recommended me for this job and backed me. We’ve been close friends and always shared a nice camaraderie. Outside of her being relatively easygoing, and trusting that shit will work out, and me stressing about whether shit will work out, we share a lot of similar viewpoints.

For now, though, she’s unfortunately a victim of compromise. I hate it, but I can’t imagine I’m the only in a relationship who’s made compromises to keep a partner happy, so I invest in that rationale, invest in it with the glee of somebody splurging the last of their savings on a longshot tip, and think that one way or another, this time I’ll win.

Longshots do come in, don’t they?

39.

I hang back at work to kill time so I can go straight from here to the pizzeria, tidying my emails, and even checking on the Melody edit. Nothing’s changed, there, although I do stutter on one passage:

Tiana was upset. Not just normal upset. But so upset. Screamingly upset!!! What did her parents know about love? Surely! What did they know about passion? About taking chances? Tiana’s frustration boiled until it was whistling like a kettle that hasn’t been switched off, and she could feel it screeching like a wild banshee in her head.

So “Tianna” has become “Tiana”. And there’s multiple punctuation – just so we know how exclamatory she’s being!!!!! And what could her parents know about love or passion? Sure, if it’s a marriage of convenience, but it’s not. Tiana’s mother fled China (that’s the way the book phrases it), so she knows something about taking chances, and presumably when Chun and Dylan got together – this unlikely pairing – they knew something about passion. They must’ve at least once, because they conceived her.

There’s something unsettling about this book that stays with me, although I’m unsure what. Is it that despite doing all this over I’m having no impact over this narrative? If I can’t do over this narrative, can I have any impact over any narrative?

I have to get out of Gainsboro, so leave just as the cleaner’s come in, and drive over to Ben’s. I’m early, but that’s fine because it gives me a time, grab a booth, and order a beer. While I drink it much too quickly, I have my shots in Words (I exchange my letters), and when that frustrates me (its sound effects like a wild banshee screeching in my head), I order another beer.

But nothing settles. Something’s wrong, and I don’t think it’s just me. And my back aches, which can only be tension. You’d think sitting at a desk is cushy. Your back and neck build up resentment, though.

Zach arrives first, dressed in his loose jeans and a blazer. There’s nothing that leaps out about him when you meet him in person. He’s so solid and unassuming you’d think he’s some drone who mindlessly goes about his job – and he does for his job job. But in film, he handles people with aplomb, always calm, always patient, always diplomatic. I envy that.

Then it’s Gillian and Dom, joking together, almost like they’re a new couple who are still in that fun and jokey stage of their relationship. They’re not in a relationship at all (as far as I know), given both are married, but that’s the way they come across.

Gillian’s glamorous in a suburban mum sort of way, a woman who might’ve been cast in some awful TV show like Desperate Housewives, tarted up elegantly (if that can be used as a descriptor) in her black blazer, tight jeans, and windswept hair. Dom hasn’t changed much from when we caught up on Saturday – he’s bulging out of a t-shirt that’s too small for him, and wears this paramilitary vest jacket thingy you’d except to see some grenades hanging of.

“All right,” I say. “Let’s get started.”

“Hang on,” Gillian says. “Wait. We’re still waiting on—”

And as if it’s timed, another woman arrives at a booth – a tall fifty-something woman with scraggly ash blonde hair, and wearing oversized clothes like she’s trying to disguise that she’s putting on weight.

“Hey, guys,” she says.

My immediate thought is she’s somebody one of the others must know and she’s stopping by for a hello – even though Gillian interrupted me to tell me we were still waiting on somebody.

But as Ash Blonde squeezes into the seat alongside Zach and Gillian so that she’s seated opposite me, I know she’s meant to belong but I have no idea who she is.

It’s isn’t like I’ve just gone blank on her name – which, embarrassingly, has started to happen as I’ve gotten old. But in this case, I’ve gone blank on her existence, and as she looks back at me expectantly, smiling this wry smile, I have no fucking clue who she is.

“Are we gonna get this started?” she asks.

After discarding possibilities like I’ve suffered an aneurysm and or I’m experiencing some peculiar but very specific form of dementia, I remember what Luca told me: I would forget one thing, and it clicks that Ash Blonde is what I’ve forgotten.

I could bluff now, but I don’t know what her relationship is to me. Are we close? What’re the dynamics? I’ve known Dom over forty years, and I’ve become good friends with Gillian and Zach, although only generally in this setting. It’s not like I catch up with them for a meal or food. But I do that with Dom. So whoever this is could sit in either camp, which makes bluffing problematic.

“I gotta hit the toilets first,” I say, although I’m already out of the booth and on my way by the time I hit that final word.

In the toilets, I lock myself in a cubical and go to our group messages – we have a Facebook chat: Gillian, Dom, Zach, and Peta. I click on Peta’s name. Everybody’s name in the group pops up in a new window. Clicking on the three dots to the right of her name gives me the option to view her profile. I do that also.

Facebook loads her up – Peta Carson – along with a picture of her, but she’s still a stranger.

I go back to the chat and flick through our messages, and see that our interaction is formal. There’s another singular chat with her, but most of the exchanges are short. We’re friends, but only on the level of acquaintances, so one of the others (likely Dom) brought her in.

Next I check my recent and missed calls, and don’t find any from her or to her. Okay, so we’ve never talked on the phone. We share no texts either. So our contact is limited to this film stuff.

In any story when amnesia is a device, learning things about a person jogs the amnesiac’s memory. But that’s not happening. If anything, this is triggering this surreal introspection where I doubt everything about my reality. But Luca said this was how it worked – how the forgetting was random. He also said the forgotten thing could be rediscoverable, like relearning a skill. Not here, though. Peta’s gone. I’d have to get to know her all over.

Somebody knocks on the door.

“You okay, mate?” It’s Dom.

“Yeah.”

I rise, stuff the phone in my pocket, and flush the toilet. Opening the door, I find Dom standing there, concerned. That’s nice of him. He is good that way, and I’m thankful for this one foundation of my existence – particularly one that reaches so far back in my life.

“You sure?” Dom asks.

I nod. “Read the script?”

He pauses as he processes the question – either it’s surprised him because it’s such an abrupt detour from where we just were, or because he hasn’t and he has to jumpstart his brain to get into excuse mode. I just need some solid familiarity and more than Dom himself, this is familiar.

“Yeah,” Dom says.

We head back out to the booth, where I bluff my way through the meeting – fortunately, it’s not hard because it seems Peta and me have such limited contact that I don’t have to fake friendship or rapport or any sort of bond.

I won’t go through the meeting itself, other than everybody was assigned a task to try get our production moving, and it genuinely did feel constructive, like this could mean something big.

But as optimistic as I was in the morning, as enthusiastic as I should feel about film as a prospect, now there’s only the uncertainty that while doing over this week should empower me, this erasure has left me feeling just still how little control I have over my life.