Do bad guys apologize?

“You always reading,” the boy said. “You ever have any fun?”

My Terry Brooks novel was next to the keyboard. We were in computer class. Knowing what he was going to say next, I kept my eyes on the screen. I was getting better at pretending he wasn’t there.

playing in grandmother's yard

He scooted his chair an inch closer. “You’ve never had a boyfriend, have you, girl?”

The cursor blinked at me. I tried to look for the teacher without appearing to look and hoped my classmate would get bored with this soon. Some days he gave up faster than others. He put his hand on the back of my chair and I resisted the impulse to move away.

“You’re as pure as snow. I can tell,” he said and leaned in a little closer. “Hey, why don’t you ever speak to me?”

I tried to type the program in, but the keys blurred. I wondered if any of my other classmates ever heard what he said.

“I think I might come over to your house some time. What do you think?”

I gave in to the pressure in my chest. “Don’t do that,” I said, but looked past him.

The teacher straightened up from helping a student across the room. “Would the two of you mind keeping your conversation until after class?” she said to us.

He laughed. “Sorry, Mrs. V,” he said. “We was just having a friendly chat.”

She rolled her eyes and went back to her desk. He winked at me. “After class, Snow White.”

He was assigned the seat next to me at graduation. We hadn’t spoken since the end of our junior year, and I hoped he wouldn’t recognize me. Sitting beside me under the June Florida sun, he glanced sideways at me. I concentrated on the feeling of pennies in my hand. That was our class joke. Every senior would pass the principal 86 pennies when given their diploma. My hand was sweaty and the pennies were hard to hold.

He cleared his throat, and I looked at the torn up grass. “Hey there,” he said. “You know, I just wanted to say sorry for those things I said. I was a real jerk and you’re nice girl.”

“Oh, what? In computer class?” I said. “I’d forgotten all about that. It’s no big deal.”

He relaxed a little. “I’d kill anybody who talked to my sister like that.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t have a brother, so…” I shrugged. We didn’t speak again.

I can’t stop from adding magic and bad guys to my stories. Weird things happen–rooms in a house rearrange themselves, let’s say–and at least one guy is a creep. So, two things are on my mind. Is the fantastic necessary or is it a distraction? I have a hard time telling if something moves the story forward or if it just makes me happy.

As for the guy…he may be a creep but I want him to be human. I’m not sure I pull that off. I’ve learned that some readers will see only the creep no matter what I do.

Now I’m going to try and work on listing the elements in my fiction. As if I know.

Girls like unicorns, don’t they?

“I got you a present,” S. said.

I stopped digging for books in my locker and looked at him. “What?” We were in the tenth grade and he sat behind me in algebra. He’d drawn a button in the corner of his desk. We joked that if we pushed it, we’d start a nuclear war. I usually turned around and tapped it whenever we had a test.

“A Christmas present,” he said. “I wanted to give it to you now instead of in class.”

signing a yearbook in a new dress

“Oh.” I took the brown paper bag. My stomach dropped. Getting him a present hadn’t occurred to me. “Thank you.”

Students jostled by. It was the last day before the winter break and everyone was loud. I looked in the bag and a unicorn stared up at me.

“You like it?” S. asked.

I nodded, glad I was one of those invisible students. No classmates were paying us any attention. “He’s cute,” I said, which was true. And I did like unicorns. Most of the books I read during class had unicorns or dragons on the cover. Or princes.

S. pushed up his glasses and tugged at his nylon jacket. “Maybe I’ll see you over the break,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said, closed the bag, and put it on top of my books. “I don’t know if I’ll be around.”

He nodded and dashed into the next passing crowd of students.

At home I put the unicorn on my shelf and panicked. Maybe he gave this to me because he likes me. No. He can’t like me. But if he does like me he’ll ask me out and if he asks me out he might want try to hold my hand. Or something. No. No. No. I hid the unicorn in my closet. I didn’t want to think about it or my dad to see it.

The first day of algebra after break I ignored him. I sat up straight and didn’t turn around. “They washed the button off my desk,” he said. “But I’ve put it back.”

“That’s nice,” I said not turning away from the numbers I was scratching across my notebook.

“You okay?” he asked. “Did something happen over break?”

I titled my head so that my hair would hide my face. “I don’t walk to talk about it,” I said.

S. was quiet. He was quiet a lot after that. A few times during the rest of the school year I thought about turning around and saying I was Russia about to nuke the school, but I didn’t. I felt too guilty.

Sometimes my characters don’t do the nice thing or the right thing or the understanding thing. I’m tempted to make them good people every minute of the day, but what would they learn? How would they change? That makes me wonder how much the protagonist should change. Is change always necessary? Must there be some revelation? Or does the reader have to change? That seems like a lot to ask?

But I don’t like obvious lights flipping on the character’s head–like everything will be easy from here on out. Like they’ve understood the meaning of life and all is well. They ought to see something new though. How much and what?

Exhausted and Dreaming

Sharing is exhausting. Sending your child to kindergarten is exhausting. Starting another semester teaching is exhausting. Working on art for a show is exhausting. Rewriting a story is exhausting.

I’m tired.

For tonight–goodnight and sweet dreams.

in my mother's apartment

Princess Gets Away with Stealing

“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” my step-mother said. “You’re not even supposed to be here.”

My friend, K., and I were standing on the porch with our trick-or-treat bags in front of us. I’d told a lot of lies to get to my own door on Halloween. I still thought of it as my house even though I’d been living with my mom for several months. The custody case wasn’t over and I wasn’t allowed anywhere near my step-mother. Judge’s orders.

But I’d talked K. into it. When I’d left home at the beginning of summer, I could take few of my things because I had to look like I’d be back soon. My mom had since tried to talk my step-mom into arranging for me–or a lawyer–to come and get items that I missed. My step-mother refused. If I wanted them so bad, I could damn well come home.

“I wanted to say hello,” I said, in my princess costume, which was really my grandmother’s evening dress, evening gloves, and rhinestone jewelry.

“Your mother know you’re here?” she asked.

“I’m spending the night with K.,” I said. My step-mother let us in. She was alone.

horrible Halloween--though not the one in the story

“I’m going to the bathroom,” said K. I wandered into the Floridaroom and my step-mother followed and talked about how hot it was. I nodded and asked her about work. About N. I could tell she was uncomfortable and annoyed. I made sure she was never between me and the door.

A few minutes later, K. came into the room and I said I had to go to the bathroom too. Then I did what K., had done. I didn’t go to the bathroom. I went to my old room and started shoving things in my trick-or-treat bag. Jewelry. Horses. Books. The bag didn’t fit much, but I made it bulge. I had, after all, brought the largest bag I could find.

I darted to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, and poked my head in the Floridaroom. “We probably should be going,” I said. K., flushed and trying to hold her bag behind her, scurried by my step-mother and to the front door. I gave J. a wave and turned my back on her as if I weren’t in a hurry. As if I didn’t care.

K. and I sped away on our bikes. My princess dress, flapping around me, got caught in the bike chain and my trick-or-treat bag and I went sailing into the grass. We were out of sight of the house by then, and I stayed on the ground and looked at the cow pasture across the road. Paperbacks and plastic horses were scattered around me. One of the horses had belonged to my mother when she was a girl, so I picked that one up first and cleaned it off with the now shredded hem of my grandmother’s dress. K. laughed at me. I laughed too.

I like sending my characters on foolish adventures. I like discovering what they will risk and what they will risk it for. It doesn’t have to be a cursed object that contains the fate of the world. It just has to be something she can pin her heart on. Then the reader must believe what she will do. Not that the reader has to find value in a plastic horse, but perhaps the reader ought to believe the character does.

Making the reader believe–I’m still working on that.

The Tough Girl

“This came for you,” my mom said. The letter was from my step-sister. It arrived a few days after my father got our address. I hadn’t seen N. in months.

my step-sister and me

The letter wasn’t very long, and I remember only one sentence. How could you leave me in this house with her?

My 13-year-old step-sister talked back to grown ups, beat me up regularly, smoked, and kissed boys. I’d thought she could take care of herself. I’d thought she’d be happy I was gone.

Some characters you think are strong. You think they can face anything, but even the toughest has to have a weakness. I don’t want predictable characters but they can’t be unbelievable. Characters should surprise the reader and the writer but not ruin the story.

What characters have surprised you?

Lying Daughters and Bad Writers

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” I said to my dad. I was lying. Every summer I spent two weeks with my mom, and I packed as if this summer were no different than any other. I kissed him goodbye on the cheek pretending I didn’t know about the lawyers and the judge and the child protective services people who would soon surprise him.

running with Jill

When my mom asked me to come live her, she had nothing but lettuce and cheese in her refrigerator and Melba toast and coffee in the cabinet. In her bathroom, you could put your hand against a soft spot in the wall and sometimes feel a rat run by. “I’ll get a new place and a new job,” she said. “If you want.” I’d just finished my 6th grade year.

I thought about my step-mother. I thought about my dad. I thought about how I’d started having accidents on purpose–usually stumbling down stairs enough to scare myself but not quite get hurt. Self-preservation is a powerful thing. “Okay,” I said to my mom. “Sure.”

The day I was supposed to go home to Dad, Mom drove to a house I’d never seen before. A place where we couldn’t be found. The people there were nice, but when Mom had to call Dad and tell him she wasn’t bringing me back, I went alone outside. Appropriately enough one of those great Florida summer storms was coming. The dark clouds were huge and I could see the rain on the horizon. A Narnia-like lamppost stood near the edge of the yard and it made me feel better to sit next to it and pull up grass.

My mom had left my dad. My step-mother left him several times a year to run off with other men (though I didn’t know about those men yet). Now I was leaving, proving my step-mother right–I was selfish, ungrateful, and always putting myself first.

I’m mean to my characters too. They deserve better, but I’ll do what I’ve got to do to make the story. Just like I lied to my dad–see you in two weeks–and smiled, I’ll do my best to make a reader believe one thing, and then I’ll knowingly break their heart, which they should see coming if they’re paying attention. I do leave clues.

Like chronic headaches and chest pains and twisted ankles. Like refusing to hand over a key. But some readers will still be shocked–how can you do this? I don’t understand. Because self-preservation is strong. So is the desire for publication.

Pity the man with a writer for a daughter. Pity the reader who picks up the wrong book.

Kisses and Irony

“I thought we should talk about seeing other people,” I said.

We were sitting on the sofa. My boyfriend, the aggressive one who’d found me at JC Penney three months before, was leaning against the armrest his legs stretched out in front of him. I sat facing him, perched on the other armrest my elbows on my knees and my hands clasped.

you can see the sofa!

“You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I’m not seeing anybody else.” He patted his hands on his hands on his chest. Pat-a-pat-pat.

“I didn’t think you were,” I said. After that walk for ice cream, dating had turned out be him showing up at 10 pm and leaving at 6 in the morning. My roommate had hassled him into taking me out to dinner, but that made me feel worse. Like it was quid pro quo. Like being paid.

Pat-a-pat-pat. “Well, I don’t want to see anyone else. I’m happy.” He smiled up at me.

He’d told me he had to work long hours. He and his partner had just started a computer company. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to take me out–he really didn’t have the time. That’s what he’d said.

“Okay,” I said, now from my perch, wishing I could stretch my legs but too anxious to move. “But that’s not what I meant.” He’d not introduced me to any of his friends or family. Though I hadn’t told him, I was sure he didn’t want to be seen with me. My one high school date echoed in my head–I want someone who will impress my friends.

Pat-a-pat-pat. He looked like someone who’d forgotten why he’d walked into a room. Pat. “Oh,” he said. His hands were still. “You want to date other people.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.” I felt guilty and annoyed. I also felt pleased I’d been able to surprise him.

Little did I know I was dumping him to date the tactophobe. Is that irony? I’ve never been that good with irony. I know that when I rid myself of the boyfriend who didn’t want to be with me in public, I was thrilled. Optimistic. I had a date with a good-looking guy who was going to take me to an expensive restaurant…and not be attracted to me whatsoever.

Maybe it’s just bad luck. Or bad choices.

I read a lot about irony, but I never think–this will be an ironic thing to do to my characters. I turn things around on them. I give them what they want with a twist. I give them things to regret, to screw up, and to wish they could give back. They realize that all along they’ve been going in the wrong direction, traveling the story with a stranger, and reaching for the wrong thing.

If I were looking for an example of irony, what book would you tell me to read?

An Aggressive Waltz

“I found you,” he said clearly proud of himself. “Remember me?”

I was almost too surprised to speak. “Wow. Hi. Yeah. I remember.” The night before we’d met in the bar down the street from my apartment.

“I lost your number and forgot your name, but I remembered where you work,” he said, and looked at my JC Penney name tag. In a fit of I’m-tired-of-my-dateless-life I’d agreed to let him walk me home from the bar at one in the morning.

“It’s nice to see you,” I said. I’d told him I like to dance, and he decided we should dance in the middle of the street. He knew the waltz. Now in the store he grinned. “What time do you get off work?”

Of course, he’d wanted to do more than waltz on the yellow line, but I’d said no. I wasn’t that tired of my dateless life. “Nine o’clock,” I said. When he’d written my phone number on his hand, I expected him to wash it off without thinking about me.

“Can I take you out for ice cream then?” he asked, standing at my register. “You said you liked ice cream.”

I looked to see if my manager was around, but it was a slow night. “That’s be fine. Sure,” I said.

“Great! I remember where you live,” he said. “Oh, and hey, I’m sorry if I was pushy last night. I just have an aggressive personality.”

I turned red. “Oh, that. Well, you did leave, so it’s fine. It wasn’t a problem.” I thought about how stupid I was to leave the bar with him in the first place. I knew better. Although I still didn’t know a lot–I was flattered that he’d bothered to find me.

they are thrilled I'm taking their picture in the JC Penney parking lot

My friends were shocked and thrilled I had a date of any kind while I wondered if he’d really show up. The word aggressive zipped around in my head like a gnat for the rest of the night.

In fiction, characters often want two contradictory things. She wants attention. She wants to be safe. In the light of a bar, one choice may seem attractive. In the light of the mall, perhaps another. The other characters may be unsure what to wish for her. Yes! Go live a little. Wait! Be careful.

Some stories have a villain who wants to stop the character from making the right choice. Consequences schmonsequences! You know what you’re doing. Then there is the villain that is the character’s own mind. Should I or shouldn’t I? Yes. No. Somewhere in all that dithering the trouble really starts.

Hidden Keys

“She wants the key,” my step-sister said.

We were both now in the 6th grade. It was a weekend and I’d come to spend the night. This time, when my step-mother left, she kept N. in school, and so I learned where they were if not why they were there. N. wanted to stay friends and invited me to spend the night. We never got along so well.

Now she stood in front of me and told me her mother wanted my house key.

after the divorce and before the second wife, mom takes a picture of my dad and me

“Why?” I asked, looking up from where I sat on the pavement.

N. shrugged. “She wants you to give her your key.”

I tensed. J. had worked most of the weekend and I hadn’t had to see her much. N. and I stayed outside when she was in. In when she was out. “I’m not giving her my key.”

N. raised an eyebrow, but went back inside. She returned quickly. “She wants to clean.”

“She doesn’t need to clean. I can clean,” I said.

“Just give her the key. You know how she gets.”

“No.”

While I waited for her to deliver this message and I fidgeted. I’d only said no to her once before–when she tried to change my name. N. let the door slam behind her. “She’s really mad. She’s says she’ll take you home if you don’t give her the key.”

“Fine.” I felt flushed and shaky. I wished I could walk home, and thought about doing it anyway.

A few minutes later we were in the car. I sat in the backseat alone. N. must’ve decided it was in her best interest to pretend I wasn’t there. My step-mother, however, couldn’t let me forget. “You’re father works so hard for you and all I want is to help him out and clean the house. But no. You are too selfish to help. All you do is think about yourself. I can clean that house for you.”

“I can clean it,” I whisper.

“I can’t believe you said no to me! How is your dad going to feel when I call him and tell him you won’t help me. I’m doing something nice but no, you can’t help. You’ve always been ungrateful and selfish. You don’t care what you put your dad through at all. All I want to do is help.”

“I can clean it.”

“Don’t be stupid. You don’t know how to clean a house. Your not grown. Besides, your dad will give me the key. You can’t stop me.”

I cried because she was right.

She pulled into the driveway. “I don’t know why you hate me,” she said. “All I do is try my best.” She says many things. “You’re dad thinks your so good all the time, but I know you’re a spoiled little brat.”

I got out of the car without saying goodbye to N. and I walked to the kitchen door, afraid to get out the key while she’s there. “You so stupid. You know, I’ll get that key,” she shouted out her car window and threw the car into reverse.

I cleaned the house like crazy. I washed the curtains and the inside of the microwave. I walked through the empty house shouting, “I’m not giving her the key!” I was cleaning the baseboards when Dad got home.

“Why didn’t you give her the key?” he asked. He sat on the sofa and I stood in front of him. I couldn’t speak.

“You’re a good girl. I don’t understand,” he said.

The words stuck. It hurt to talk. “I,” was all I said.

“She’s only trying to help,” he said.

“I don’t,” I said. My chest hurt. “Want.” My dad talked about being a family. “Her,” I said interrupting. “In this house.” My dad looked as if he’d never seen me before. I was not the good girl he thought.

“I’m going to give her the key,” he said.

I nodded. About a week later J. moved back in. He was shocked five months later when I left and didn’t come home.

Symbolism. From apples (forbidden or poisoned) to rings (hidden from view or thrown into fire), from winters of discontent to summers of love, from this color to that number, and from what this professor said a symbol meant to what it meant to you, stories have symbols. Intended and otherwise. Meaningful and missed. Silly.

I don’t try to put symbols in my stories. I use a color or a number or a name because of the sound. My first novel (though I’m still reluctant to confess such a thing) I called The Blue Jar and a friend and I joked how it wouldn’t work to call it The Yellow Jar or The Pink Jar or The Plaid Jar. That blue is associated with the spirit, water, and sky is just nice. But the sound of things comes first.

In school I hated it when I missed a symbol in a story and a teacher would look at me like–what? Didn’t you get that? What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong? Where do I begin?

Well, when you read do you look for symbols or ignore them? Think they’re important to spot or fine to take them as you see fit? Or do you see them in a way I haven’t thought of yet?

The Terrified, the Blind, and the Lost

“He wants to meet you,” she says.

I look up from filing photographs. “What? Why?”

My co-worker points to the silly staff photo on the wall. “He saw that and was like, ‘hey, introduce me and is she single?’”

silly staff photo

I walk around the counter and stare at the photo. “Are you sure he meant me?”

“Of course he did.”

I shake my head and walk back to the photo bins. “That’s not me.”

She looks at the photograph, looks at me, and looks back at the photograph. “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, okay. It is me, but is isn’t me–I mean, I don’t look like that. That’s a joke.”

She tilts her head and frowns. “But he wants to meet you and he’s cute.”

“No way.” I feel queasy and ridiculous.

“When was the last time you had a date?”

“Two months ago.”

“And before that?”

It had been a year. “Look, I just don’t want to meet him. Okay?”

“He said you looked hot.”

“Yeah, and he’s going to come in here and find me!” I shook my head. “And I can’t, I mean, he’ll be…it’s a stupid picture. You can’t believe a picture. Tell him I’ve got a boyfriend.”

She looks at me, and I figure she’s now thinking I’m too nuts to introduce to her friends. “Suit yourself,” she says. “But I don’t see what’s so bad about just meeting him.”

I make her promise she won’t let him come into the store, and that if he does come in, she’ll tell me. If I know he’s in the store, I’ll hide in the breakroom, I say. At this point I assume she’ll warn him off–that girl’s a mess. Stay away.

As far as I know, she kept her promise. I kept wishing I had a date.

In fiction, characters often lack an understanding of how others see them. If they are told, they misunderstand or refuse to believe it. They may miss out on what they want because they are too afraid of looking foolish. Or unattractive. Or…(place your fear here).

Some stories make me feel like I’ve been gutted. These tend to be stories where the main character is his own worst enemy. My first thought is of The Glass Menagerie. Everyone in that play is so deluded, I can barely watch. Or stories where the man knows he’s got the Great Idea and it is going to Save him and his family, but of course he’s a fool and loses everything.

But hey, great literature is filled with such people. Who can you name? The terrified and the blind and the crazy–who always think they got a handle on things but the world knows they’re hurtling towards disaster. Often times their fellow characters push them to crash faster.

I can’t help it. I like my characters to figure things out. I do terrible things to them, but in the end they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and are not broken or depending on the kindness of strangers. They have lost bits of themselves, sure. They’ve understood something new, yes. They are probably sadder. They are definitely tired. But they are not lost.

This is not to say I wouldn’t a kill a character in the end. I would. All the same, they still wouldn’t be lost.

-

As for whether photographs tell the truth…that’s for another day.