The Novel

He noticed her first when the barista asked if she was ok. She flashed her smile and said, “Of course.” But he noticed the smile never reached her eyes. He made note of her order. He saw her again a week or so later when he was standing at the counter and happened to catch her at the drive thru paying for the order of the car behind her. Her breath caught a little when she heard that it was $36 but her gaze did not waiver. He could almost see her doing the math in her head. Maybe hoping she had that much in the account?

That day, when he returned to his car, he reached for the little black notebook kept in his glove compartment. He wrote down everything he could remember about her - sad eyes, bright smile, soft voice, professionally dressed, generous spirit, and what she ordered. He wasn’t sure if she would be a main character steering the story in his book, or just one that appears and disappears just slightly nudging the direction the characters take. But she would certainly be there. Those eyes had captured him.

He felt like he was keeping tabs on her. Now he not only saw her at the coffee shop, but other stores and the park as well. He wondered if she ever noticed him. Did she wonder who he was or why he suddenly appeared everywhere she was. But that wasn’t it. She appeared everywhere he was. He began to keep track in his little black notebook. Every time he saw her - what was she wearing; what was she doing; what did her eyes say that day? And now that smile had captivated him. It was infectious, and on the occasions when her eyes smiled with her mouth, she was radiant.

Some days he wrote pages and pages about her. It was obvious she was going to have to be the main character in the narrative. A romance mystery? An adventure spy novel? He had been paid an advance of $20,000 for his fourth book. He had never gotten an advance before. It better be good. He wrote and wrote, but wondered how much of it made sense. He wanted to meet her and find out who she was. What made her eyes so sad? Why was she always alone? Was she or someone she loved sick? Did she have bills she couldn’t pay? Was she widowed? Hiding? Was she really a spy? He had noticed she could disappear into thin air better than anyone he had ever seen. And it seemed like most people didn’t notice her at all.

He spoke about her to friends and family. He normally didn’t talk about his writing until it was nearly complete. No one ever knew what he was working on. But this time, he was sharing details of his main character like she was a real person. They were beginning to worry he had completely lost his grip on reality when he confessed that he had been running into this woman and using her as the model for the character in his novel.

There was a level of concern since he seemed completely obsessed but didn’t know her name; or anything else about her for that matter. Then one day his sister was with him when he pointed the woman out. She was unlike anything his inner circle would have guessed.

She didn’t look like the supermodel or actress to whom one would expect a best-selling author to be attracted. She was certainly not a wall flower but was not flashy. Simple, almost austere, in style, but anyone could see why she would be noticed, but in all his conversations raving about her character, he had never mentioned what she looked like. But it was certain that, conventional beauty be damned, he was smitten.

Day by day, week by week, his story grew, developed, deepened. He wrote pages upon pages and then ripped them up and started over. The $20,000 advance afforded him a little wiggle room to avoid his regular job and concentrate on writing. He worried over the little black notebook, flipping pages furiously to make sure he didn’t miss a single Through rewrites and edits, changes in direction, and an unexpected plot twist in the plot twist and the novel emerged. They were used to his strange, absent minded disappearances for days at a time while he was writing. They were used to his wandering, both geographically and mentally, while working through a particularly difficult plot point. This book seemed to have a lot of them – difficult plot points, that is.

Now that he was into the meat of his writing, he would less often venture to the coffee shop hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Friends and family worried less. It was strange, he missed her, even though he had no idea who she was. He also knew everything about her as the character emerged through his writing. Then one day, when he returned to the coffee shop after having skipped the crowds for , while waiting on the cup of blessed nectar from the coffee shop that would energize him for the remainder of the afternoon, he saw her again. This time she looked directly at him, and smiled. And then just as quickly as his heart had leapt to his throat, she was gone. He thought about her as he returned to his computer and sent off the final draft of his novel.

The book signing was a huge affair. A bit too much for her quiet nature. Critics wrote effusively that this, her first release, was the unexpected hit of the season. The line of people waiting for their chance to meet her snaked through the book store. She glowed in the praise and attention, but knew she owed her success to the mysterious man in the coffee shop.

She sometimes wondered about the man who became the protagonist in her book. Since she began writing, he had popped up all over her life so often that she felt like she should know his name. His wide, friendly smile, his conversations with the baristas at the coffee shop, his bending down to pet the dog at the park had all made her notice him, but the way he always seemed to be watching every move she made had her thinking there was more to him than the freelance journalist she imagined he must be. He spent so much time writing in that little black notebook. Or maybe he was a spy. Certainly, she would never know.