Sounds simple, right?

6.

Monday, Memorial Day, Mercer slept late and missed another sunrise. She poured coffee and went to the beach, which was busier because of the holiday but still not crowded. After a long walk, she returned to the cottage, poured more coffee, and took a seat at a small breakfast table with a view of the ocean. She opened her laptop, looked at a blank screen, and managed to type, “Chapter One.”

Writers are generally split into two camps: those who carefully outline their stories and know the ending before they begin, and those who refuse to do so upon the theory that once a character is created he or she will do something interesting. The old novel, the one she had just discarded, the one that had tortured her for the past five years, fell into the second category. After five years, nothing of interest had happened and she was sick of the characters. Let it go, she had decided. Let it rest. You can always come back to it. She wrote a rough summary of the first chapter of her new one and went to the second.

By noon she had ground her way through the first five chapter summaries and was exhausted.

7.

Traffic was slow along Main Street, and its sidewalks were crawling with tourists in town for the holiday weekend. Mercer parked on a side street and walked to the bookstore. She managed to avoid Bruce and went to the upstairs café, where she had a sandwich and scanned the Times. He walked past her to fetch an espresso and was surprised to see her.

“You have time to sign those books?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here.” She followed him downstairs to the First Editions Room, where he closed the door behind them. Two large windows opened onto the first floor and customers browsed through racks of books not far away. In the center of the room was an old table covered with papers and files.

“Is this your office?” she asked.

“One of them. When things are slow I’ll ease in here and work a little.”

“When are things slow?”

“It’s a bookstore. Today it’s busy. Tomorrow it will be deserted.” He moved a catalog that was hiding two hardback copies of October Rain. He handed her a pen and picked up the books.

She said, “I haven’t autographed one of these in a long time.” He opened the first one to the title page and she scribbled her name, then did the same for the other one. He left one on the table and put one back into its slot on a shelf. The first editions were arranged in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

“So what are these?” she asked, waving a hand at a wall of books.

“All first editions of writers who’ve signed here. We do about a hundred signings a year, so after twenty years it’s a nice collection. I checked the records, and when you were coming through on tour I ordered 120 copies.”