About two and a half years earlier, one sunny April morning in 2018, Ronald busied himself at his small desk. He worked at The Natural History Museum as a copy editor, a job that allowed him to write during the day, even if it didn’t directly aid in his aspirations to become a novelist.
Earlier this morning, he’d been handed some very rough copy in dire need of his editing skills, about an upcoming exhibition. At this quiet moment, Microsoft Word sat open on his laptop’s screen while a Wikipedia page scrolled by on an external monitor, providing some light reference on the subject matter at hand. Only the light sound of keys tapping and the occasional mouse click could be heard.
“Got lunch plans today, Ronald?” Jack said aloud, suddenly appearing at Ronald’s desk.
“Bloody hell!” Ronald exclaimed.
“Sorry!” Jack laughed.
Jack had worked alongside Ronald for a couple years, though they had known each other longer. It was Jack, in fact, who helped Ronald get this new job back in late 2016, after he’d had been out of work recovering from an illness. Jack, like Ronald, also fancied himself a writer, and the pair would often work together on their writing projects, reading excerpts and providing constructive criticism, often over tea, coffee, or beer.
“It’s all right.” Ronald said, recovered from his brief fright. “So . . . lunch you say?”
“Yes.”
“Where to?”
“Panicucci’s”
“Panna-what?”
“It’s new. It’s Italian. Let’s go.”
Ronald glanced at his computer to check the time. “But it’s only quarter to eleven.”
“I know. I’m hungry. Let’s go.”
“But—”
“No buts, man.”
Ronald glanced at his computer to check his schedule. “All right, but I’ve got a meeting upstairs at one. Can’t be late.”
“That was a but. But I’ll let it pass.”
The two set off, leaving the museum and walking a few blocks in a direction that soon gave Ronald some concern.
“Where is this place, again?” Ronald asked as a tube station loomed ahead.
“Not far.”
In reality, more than a half hour of cross-town travel elapsed before they found themselves seated at a table.
“Why did I let you drag me here?” Ronald bemoaned. He glanced at his phone to check the time.
“You don’t have to be back until one,” Jack replied reassuringly. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
“Yes, I have to be back at one for that meeting. But that didn’t mean I was in for a two hour lunch. I still have other work to do.”
“Another but,” Jack smiled. “Look, just relax. You’ve been working too hard lately anyway. One long lunch won’t change your life.”
Ronald tried to relax as commanded as the two sat in a moment of silence. Jack quickly looked over the menu while Ronald sipped tentatively from a water glass.
“Spaghetti Bolognese!” Jack announced to no one, which reminded Ronald that he too had a menu to examine. Jack quickly added, “Finished your manuscript yet?”
Ronald chuckled, since Jack asked this question at least twice a week. He quickly decided on the Margherita Pizza before giving his standard reply.
“Just one chapter to go!”
“As always.”
The waiter arrived and took their orders.
“I was just thinking,” Jack resumed. “The Club hasn’t met for a while. You free Friday night?”
Ronald nodded.
The Club was short for The Lost Boys Club, a small circle of friends who’d been meeting sporadically over the last two years to discuss books and writing and other creative endeavors. Jack served as the de facto leader. Ronald, Tom, and Will rounded out the gang. Named for the well-known Peter Pan characters, Jack decided that it was a fitting moniker. “Our collective endeavor to write and publish our tales,” he was fond of saying, “detaches us from the real world as much as if we’d truly fallen out of our prams as babes and now lived in Neverland.”
“Quit talking like a prat,” the rest of the club was fond of replying.
Jack grabbed his phone and started a group text. By the time their food hit the table, everyone had replied with some variation of “I’m in.”
“So, honestly, how is the book going?” Jack asked. “It’s been a while since you’ve mentioned it. I think you were editing . . . ?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve touched it, really. It seems to happen that way, I’ll get a good burst and over a couple of weeks can whip off two or three solid chapters, and then it just goes quiet again.”
Jack nodded.
“Which is particularly strange, because I am nearly finished.”
“Really?” Jack was genuinely surprised.
“I’m on my last pass through the third draft.”
“Third?”
“Okay, seventh.”
“Great news, though! And the ending? I know you struggled with it.”
“I never struggled with it,” Ronald clarified, a tone of mild indignation in his voice.
“No, no, not with writing it. But by how it might be received by readers. You seemed to think people don’t go for happy endings nowadays.”
“It’s not that it’s happy per se. It’s just that it’s a bit—”
Ronald paused, looking for the right words.
“Cheesy?” Jack offered. “Cliché? Trite?”
Ronald shrugged his shoulders.
“I tried writing a few alternatives, but in the end, none of them felt right.”
“You have to write what feels right,” Jack reassured. “People will know if you’re faking it. You can’t engineer an ending that you expect the public will like. All you can do is be true to yourself, and whatever happens after that — well, that’s just what happens.”
Ronald seemed quiet and Jack wondered if anything was wrong. Ronald replied with some hesitation.
“It’s just – it’s just that I worry if it’s good enough. I mean, sure, you like it. The boys have spoken highly of it. But the publishing industry isn’t some small club. It’s difficult: the prospect of the world rejecting something so close to one’s heart.”
“But it is good!” Jack supported.
“But I want it to be great. I want it to have meaning and impact.”
Jack laughed. “Well, sure, we all want that. But it is just one book, mate.”
“Exactly,” Ronald countered. “All this time and effort. For just one book. And the odds that it’s ‘great’ or ‘has impact’ are miniscule. The odds that no one even wants to publish it are quite close to one hundred per cent.”
“And either way, it won’t change who you are. You’re a good writer and a good person, Ronald. Don’t let the world get you down.”
After lunch, Ronald and Jack stepped outside. The time had gotten away and it was nearly half past noon already. Worried he might not make his meeting, Ronald pulled out his phone to text he might be late. Better to give them a head’s up rather than show up late without explanation. He began thumbing out a message as they waited to cross the street.
In a splintered second, his phone was gone: snatched from his distracted hands. Jack let out a yell as Ronald looked up to see a young man dart up the street. Instinctively, he tore off after him, in spite of his racing heart and Jack’s protests.
The thief crossed the street, many yards ahead, as Ronald did his best to catch up. He honestly had no idea what he would even do if he apprehended him, but a burning sense of injustice propelled him forward anyway.
Once Ronald also crossed, the thief turned a hard left into what appeared to be a brick wall. But when Ronald found the spot, he saw an opening to a narrow alley, little more than a crack between two buildings. In spite of his device now hopelessly ahead of him, he still gave chase.
He climbed up and down a short series of stairs in the passage. He ran heedless by two startled people standing in a back alley doorway. He finally emerged into a lane, breathing heavily, and coming to a stop. Ronald looked right, left, and then right again. He made a quick guess the thief had gone left, and so he resumed his run.
Half a minute passed before he slowed again to a stop, now with no trail at all to follow. He leaned over, put his palms to his knees, and caught his breath.
“Damn it!” he said aloud, as the full frustration of the situation replaced his short-lived streak of vengeance. He stood up and paused a moment, realizing he hadn’t felt this helpless in a long time. Half of it, sure, was being robbed in broad daylight but also in this moment Ronald fully realized how much that small, portable communications device meant to him. Firstly, he couldn’t even let Jack know where he’d run off to. (Such a mindlessly simple thing texting is — until it’s not there!) His mind then drifted to a few recent photos he’ll likely never see again. And then the inconvenience of replacing the device and restoring (most of) it from backups. “I did back it up, didn’t I?” he thought.
He began a slow walk back to Jack, retracing his steps up the lane. But just before he turned into the narrow alley, something caught his eye. Just ahead, and to his left, stood an old, dark, and odd-looking store front. He didn’t recall seeing it a minute ago, when he first emerged and scoped out the lane. But that also wasn’t saying much, given his state of mind. Forgetting his situation, he drew himself up even with its black door and stared.
The shop looked closed. No, not closed. It looked abandoned: a stark contrast to the bright and bustling businesses lining the rest of the lane. He stepped back to examine the gold-lettered sign above: The Curious Bookshop.
People walked by as if neither the shop — nor Ronald for that matter — were even there. He stepped up to the window to peer inside. It resisted. He then reached for the door and gave it a hearty pull. It didn’t budge and his hand slipped from the handle as he staggered backward. Looking around to make sure no one saw, he returned to the door and gave it a push. The door held fast.
“Curious indeed.”
At last, reality got the best of him. He’d lost track of time. Jack had no idea where he’d run off to. And Ronald needed to amend both issues immediately. The theft of his phone left him with just one tiny comfort: he now had a better excuse for missing his meeting than “long lunch with Jack.”