Inspiration
"They keep trying to give me ideas," I tell her. My computer chair creaks as I tilt the seat back and pop open a can of Mountain Dew. "I never know what to do with that."
"Every man thinks he's a writer." She sighs, twisting a lock of red hair around her finger. "Anything good, at least?"
"Well, there was the talking dog --"
"Oh, please." She rolls her eyes so far back that I can't see the green of her irises. "Save me from the self-consciously offbeat."
"At least it wasn't a goddamned monkey."
"My dear," she says archly, "you and I are the only two in the world who realize that monkeys are not inherently funny."
"God, I know." We exchange a look of shared disdain. "Oh, and then someone wanted me to write about Bat Boy --"
"Right, because fan-fiction is so trendy right now."
"And then they all..." I shake my head. "They all start in, you know, with why don't you this and you should write about that and ooh! ooh! this'd be soooo cool! the other thing, and I had to make some excuse about needing more caffeine and just run my ass out of there."
She hops down from her seat on the mini-fridge and paces a little. "You think I like it? I know they're your friends, and they want to help, but..."
"They're not good writers."
"They're not muses, at any rate."
"You know, they could at least --" I beat the chair's arm with the heel of my hand. "At least, if they want these ideas put into words, they could fucking do it themselves, you know? It's not my fucking story, I can't fucking tell it."
"Language," she says mildly. "Fuck that! Don't I have a right to be pissed off? I'm trying to think here, and I have all their -- their goddamned monkey ideas shouting in my head, and I can't hear anything!"
"You hear me, don't you?"
"Yeah. But it's... I have to concentrate. It's like you're coming through static."
"Believe me, I understand," she says. "If I wanted them to take over my job, I would ask them. If I wanted them to make things harder for me by screwing with your head, I would tell them." Her pale face flushes, her voice hardens. "I don't appreciate being blocked." I look at her, sitting cross-legged in the exact center of a blue floor tile, her skirt a wilted white flower in her lap. "I know it's hard already. I know you probably wanted an easier job, someone who'd get you promoted..."
"Promoted? Please. I'm no angel, Rebecca. I'm not going to get my wings if you win the Pulitzer."
"But I always thought you guys got -- I dunno, assigned to people. You don't get to move up? Maybe work with Grisham?"
"That hack." She snorts. "You're better than that. Besides, he already has a muse -- insufferable little prick, he is."
"If no one assigned you to me, then..." I feel a sudden twist in my stomach.
"Hmm?"
"What's keeping you here?" I can't imagine her answer, and it scares me.
"Well, maybe you'll never write the Great American Novel, but I like you." She shrugs. "Isn't that enough?"
"You tell me." She looks so fragile to me at that moment, as if one wrong move on my part could break her in two. "People have liked me before. They're... not around, anymore. And sometimes I can't hear you --"
"Rebecca --"
"I don't have anything of my own. All I have is other people's ideas. It's you, it's -- I'm not the one with the ideas. And if you leave me..." I laugh a little, though nothing feels funny. "If you leave, I'll be stuck with the goddamned monkeys."
"Stop it." She looks up at me, her eyes grave. "I'm not going anywhere."
I lean down to offer her my open hand. She kneels on my palm and I raise her up, careful as I can manage, though my hand's shaking a little. Her small hands grip the strap of my tank top like a rope as she climbs onto my shoulder and sits, crossing her legs demurely, smoothing the wrinkled gossamer of her dress. Her weight hardly registers.
"Listen," she says into my ear, her voice low and intense the way it gets when she starts telling me the story. "As long as you want to write, I will be here. It's what I do. I am a Muse, not some petty schoolgirl."
"Well, la-dee-dah," I say, and we both laugh. My fingers tap at the keys, not typing yet. "Of what shall I sing this day, dear Muse?"
"Me," she says.
"You?" I raise an eyebrow.
"Yes. Me, and you, and living happily ever after." She snickers.
"Sounds trite," I say, with a smile that she can't see. "I love it."