The Woman in the Doorway

Chapter 1 - Elliot's Cabin

A broad, second inversion G major chord rang out triumphantly from the piano's core as Elliot pressed his foot hard into the sustain pedal. He closed his eyes and exhaled into the sound of the decaying notes. Slowly, when the vibrations had all but stopped entirely, he released his foot, lifted his fingers, and closed the lid over. It was time to write this damn book.

Elliot stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. It was time to stop putting this off. Back at home, he knew a whole town's worth of people were expecting him, any day now, to stumble off the train and back to his real life. His friends, his old coworkers, and even his parents all thought it had been a ridiculous idea to move to Pelican Town to pursue a career as an author. They told him to keep working, to write after work or on his days off. Or worse yet, to just give up. In short, they didn't understand.

But now he was going to prove them all wrong. Or at least he was going to try. He had everything he'd always said he needed: a small private cabin, the salty smell of the ocean, and a quaint little town full of new and interesting people. There were no more excuses to make. It was time to write this damn book.

Creeeeak. The sound of the door's battered hinges pulled Elliot out of his thoughts.

"Oh!" said a woman, now standing in his doorway, silhouetted by the shockingly bright sun. "This is a house!"

Elliot just stared for a moment, unsure of how to handle the situation.

"I mean, umm, is this a house? Because I was just…are you Willy?"

Elliot exhaled in realization. "Ah," he said, "Willy. You'll want to head a bit closer to the shore. His shack is out on the dock."

"Perfect," she said. "This is a house. Wow, okay. That's super embarrassing. Sorry for barging in! And thanks for the help!"

"Not a problem." Elliot smiled at the stranger, squinting against the light.

After a few seconds of shared silence, the woman said "Soooo this way, then?" and pointed off towards the wrong side of the beach.

Elliot laughed. "Umm, how about I just show you?" He walked to his writing desk and slipped on a pair of brown dress shoes, then made his way to the door. As he approached her, he began to make out the details of her appearance little by little. She was wearing a brown jacket over a white T-shirt, and a pair of dark, tight jeans that fed into tall, brown boots at the bottom. Her face was small and boyish, and her hair waved down to just above her shoulders. She smiled, and it was a nice smile.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm new here, if you couldn't tell."

"I'm new, too," Elliot said as he stepped out onto the sand. "And don't worry about it. You'll get used to this place pretty quickly." He pointed towards a small shack at the edge of the water. "That's where you're headed, now. And please tell Willy that Elliot said hello!"

"Thank you so much!" she said, and she reached out for a handshake. "You're Elliot?"

"I am." He smiled as he took her hand in his.

"Every time I feel like I've met everyone here, I find someone new. My name's Amelia."

"Amelia." Elliot said her name back. "Well, you're always welcome to stop by and say hello. Just try to knock next time?"

"I'll do my best!"

After the two had said their goodbyes, Elliot closed his door, removed his shoes, and took a seat at his writing desk.

Amelia, the new girl in town. He wondered what her story was, what she did for a living, and he kicked himself mentally for not thinking to ask. And she sure was attractive, wasn't she? Why didn't he spend more time talking to her? He should have asked where she was from, at least. She mentioned she was new, so maybe she was hoping he would. For somebody who wanted to write novels professionally, Elliot felt he'd really dropped the ball on dialogue.

But nonetheless, his short conversation with Amelia seemed to be exactly the energy boost he'd needed to get started on his debut novel. As soon as he picked up his pen, the first sentence came to him:

The woman in the doorway had gone before I could even ask for her name.

And after this, the second sentence followed effortlessly, and then the third and fourth, each coming even more easily than the one before. Soon then, after three weeks of little to no progress, Elliot was pumping out page after page of what felt like a strong first draft. It was a story about a man who met the love of his life in the doorway of a shack on the beach. He felt a bit childish writing something so unflinchingly derivative of his own life, but it felt great to put this idea, this fantasy on paper. It felt great to have a story worth telling.

After forty-or-so minutes, there was a knock on the door.

Is she back, Elliot wondered. He hurried quietly to the door and opened it to see, to his disappointment, a scraggly looking man in a brown cap.

"Willy!" he said, feigning excitement for his friend's sake. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

But Willy looked less than pleased. He frowned and shifted his feet like a guilty child preparing to apologize to an angry parent. "You familiar with a girl named Amelia?" he asked.

Elliot's face lit up. "Yes!" he said. "We just met, actually."

Willy looked down at his feet, the worry in his eyes growing more apparent by the second. "Well, I found 'er in my shack."

"Yes, she mentioned she was going there. Is something wrong?"

"Uhh, well, I mean I found 'er…" Willy paused. "She was on the floor when I found 'er. And she looked all sickly and she wasn't moving."

"What?!"

"I carried 'er to the clinic, but she's looking really bad, I guess. And uhh…" Willy swallowed before he continued. "They asked me to get you."

"Me?" Elliot stared.

"Yeah, Harvey did. He asked for you, specifically. And uhh, I dunno. They wouldn't tell me what for, but they need you over there."

Elliot's heart started racing. Something was very wrong here. What had happened to Amelia in the half hour that she'd been gone? And what did Harvey want him for? She certainly couldn't have asked for him, being unconscious, and even if she'd woken up, why would she have asked for someone she'd only just met today?

"Okay," he said. "Thank you, Willy. I guess I'll head over there now."

Willy frowned. "You want me to come with you?"

Elliot thought on this for a second. He felt uneasy about this whole situation, and it would be good to have someone there he could trust. "If you don't mind, I would like that, yes."

"Let me just lock up the shop."