THE LAST ROMANTICS by Elizabeth Malin

THE LAST ROMANTICS by Elizabeth Malin: Chapters Four and Five

NOT STEAMY ENOUGH, she thought. This was like writing grief porn, except without the grief. Didn't they have the same goals—to titillate, arouse intense feelings?

From the kitchen, Jim called.

"Is there anything for dinner or you wanna get pizza?"

"For God's sake, just order something!" she yelled back. "I'm working." She could probably finish another chapter if she wrote for another hour—a rough draft, at least. She got up to close the door that was slightly ajar, but Jim appeared first.

"What's the matter?" he said, sounding angry himself.

"Nothing."

He heaved an annoyed sigh. "Right."

"Just take care of dinner. That's the deal." An unspoken deal. Once she'd become the major breadwinner with her writing, she'd expected Jim to pitch in more with household tasks. He'd stepped up and did most of the cleaning, but meal-planning was a constant source of irritation for her. He often left it til the last minute, if he did it at all, and she'd come out of her office after a long writing session, hungry and tired, to find the kitchen dirty and the stove cold.

"I have a lot to do," she continued. "And I don't have time to fix dinner."

"So we'll order out," he said, his voice thin.

"Great. Just take care of it."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with mock respect and stomped back to the kitchen. She heard him call in the order, and she closed the door, grateful she'd set this boundary after her first book sale—when the door was closed, she wasn't to be disturbed. She was writing. Oh, how important it had made her feel, how authorly.

She rubbed her tired eyes and leaned against the door, feeling anything but authorly. She felt...petty. How could Jim make her feel that way without hurling an accusation? And why wouldn't he just take care of dinner instead of making such a big deal out of it?

Now she'd have to fight past her bad feelings to get any writing done. She went to the desk, stared at the words she'd just written, and sat, head in hands, waiting. Waiting for this mood to pass. Waiting to give up on being mad at Jim. Waiting.

She closed her eyes. She was so tired. Maybe she should turn on some music. No, Jim might have painted to music, but memories provided her background noise.

Random recollections floated through her mind when she wrote. Unrelated to the story she was penning or its characters, they were all happy moments or things that had delighted her. Now she remembered an autumn when she and Jim had first started seeing each other. It was his birthday, and they were going out to eat that evening at a fancy restaurant downtown. But she'd been unsure of how much time they'd have before heading there, so she'd worn her best little black dress all day, even when they'd gone hiking in the woods to catch some fall color. It had been warm that day, and she'd felt sweaty by the end of their amble. But it hadn't mattered because it was a special day, his birthday, and she was so eager to be with him that discomfort was eclipsed by their growing love.

It was as if writing had become a form of suspended animation. For the hours she sat at the computer, she was transfixed in time. In those moments, while the working part of her brain tapped out other characters' stories, she lived moments from her own story, moving smoothly from snapshot to mental snapshot, as if they were living tableaux:

A drive to her sister's house on a back road, turning a curve and going past an old white spired church, its graveyard nearby filled with thin, leaning slabs. The sky blue and bright. The air soft. The radio on. Something old. You are the magnet and I am the steel.