Suzie’s House 324 : Inspiration

“I thought Summer Vacation was supposed to be an easygoing time of the year.” Lisa shoved her laptop away, skidding it across Ben’s dining room table. “I’m working harder now than I did when we had school.”

“Summer’s never been easygoing for me.” Ben kept on typing. At this rate he’d win the word war hands down, but Lisa told herself she didn’t care. Then he stopped typing. “Last summer Drew abandoned us.”

“Don’t say it like that.” Lisa remembered when Drew left. “He said he would be back, hadn’t he? So it’s taking a while. Grown ups are like that. Look at Tracy’s mom, Aunt Cherry. You never know when she’ll be back, but she always comes.”

“Tracy’s mom is coming back? Does that mean Tracy is leaving?”

“Well, yeah. Eventually. But not this year, I don’t think. She’s still got job problems.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right then.” Ben glanced at his laptop screen like he’d really rather be writing than talking.

“But it’s a fact that grown ups come and go however they want, right? So Drew will be back. But I see why last summer was kind of bad for you.”

“It wasn’t all bad. It was fun hanging out with you and Tracy and Gene. And I got more serious about writing. I mean, it’s nothing like the summer before when I almost got kidnapped a bunch of times and we had those guys Drew was supposed to arrest coming into the house when ever they wanted and my dad turned out to be a homicidal maniac and all.”

“Wait. What?”

“It was before we got to be friends. The point is, I’d rather be writing it than living it. So anyway, this is good. Right? We’re doing what we want. So what if it’s work?” Ben smiled like he wanted her to agree.

“Yeah.” Lisa pulled her laptop closer.

A second later she heard the rattle of keys on Ben’s keyboard. He was getting better at typing. She wasn’t sure she could keep up.

So what if she could type faster? When at came to writing, Ben would put down just about anything. Lisa couldn’t do that. She had to be inspired. Only, inspiration wasn’t like a kitchen tap. She couldn’t just turn it on and off.

The front door slammed open. Lisa leaned a little so she could see into the hall. A troop of people went up the staircase lead by Gene in his blue jeans and jack boots and Tracy in leggings and feathered flip flops.

“Well, where is she?” Tracy said. “It’s not like she’d go chasing after some handsome dude or anything.”

“We can practice without her,” Bruce growled.

“Maybe we should go to her house.” Tracy again.

“No. If we do that…” Kate’s voice cut off at they reached the top of the stairs and closed the door to Gene’s room.

Suddenly Lisa was full of inspiration, but it was for a whole new story. Plot bunnies, Mrs. Audrey called them. Follow them and you just end up falling into a hole. Besides, the whole reason she was over at Ben’s house trying to write was because she wanted to have her book done by the time school started again.

“I’m going to outline.” Lisa opened up the file where she kept the notes for her book.

Mrs. Audrey told Lisa to do that when she didn’t have inspiration but wanted to write. It really worked too. Sometimes.

“Yeah. All right.” Ben kept typing. He didn’t even look up.

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