"I used to," she said.
"Write stories?"
"Yes."
"Wait a sec, I'm Joe Burke. What's your name?"
"Call me Isabelle," she said wryly.
"Isabelle! Call me Ishmael. My God, I spent a whole winter reading Moby Dick. I was working in San Francisco. Read a couple of pages every night sitting in a circle of lamp light with my back to a heater."
"Nice town—great book," Isabelle said, "although no one can really say why." She seemed quite experienced, in her early forties, maybe.
"You want to know the trouble I'm having?" Joe asked. She looked amused. "Writing," he added.
"Sure."
"I can't make the jump into fiction. I use something from real life, and then, if I leave anything out, I feel like a liar—like I haven't told the truth."