I spent the rest of the afternoon in solitude, writing new pitches, finishing an article I’d been assigned weeks before that felt particularly apt – ‘13 Ways to Protect Your Info Without Breaking Up with Big Tech.’ Vera called at four, but I ignored it. She called again at five, and that’s when I decided I better head to town, lest she come over uninvited, as had become our way. I wasn’t ready to talk to her, not yet: If she asked me if I’d meant what I said last night, I didn’t know what in the world I was supposed to say.

Al greeted me with a smile as I walked into Schoolhouse and grabbed an open seat at the counter. The place was decorated for fall, accented with gourds and fake cobwebs. I glanced at my phone, checking the date – October 30. Halloween was tomorrow, and I hadn’t given it so much as a thought. In another life, I would have planned a couples’ costume for Davis and me – Princess Leia and C-3PO was our all-time personal best – but in this life, I wanted nothing to do with it. Fake fear was only fun when you had nothing to truly be scared of.

She wiped my place down and filled a glass of water. ‘I finished the Stephen King book you gave me.’

‘And?’ I asked. On Writing, one of King’s nonfiction books, had been an eye-opener for me, and I’d picked it up for her at the bookstore down the street last week. A sort of extra tip.

Al pushed a menu in front of me. ‘Everything he says makes so much sense, but it’s like, in creative writing class, they never go over any of that. They just tell you to “show, don’t tell,” or whatever.’

I glanced at the menu, remembering my creative writing professor, sophomore year of college. The only real wisdom she’d imparted, as we workshopped our short stories and she tried not to fall asleep, was to ‘write from the heart,’ which was lovely in theory but useless as advice. ‘I remember well,’ I said. ‘That’s why it’s good to read things like this on your own.’

Al leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. She wore a striped shirt in shades of burgundy and a berry lipstick my mother would have found trashy – complete with her copper hair, she was a perfect portrait of fall. ‘I guess. Anyway, same as usual?’

‘Please.’

Al snatched my menu away and posted the order in the kitchen. ‘By the way, when are you going to bring your neighbors in?’

‘They don’t like coming into town,’ I said.

‘I know. But you’d think that John would want to show his face. Not be scared off by what people say about him and Vera.’