Amalee

by Dar Williams

  REALLY?

  “We all want to impress people, you know,” she went on. “And when we find people we don’t have to impress, you know what we call them? We call them friends.”

  I thought of John telling his friends, including my dad, that he felt like a depressed cow. What a field day Hally and Ellen would have with that!

  “And you know what the truly magical thing is?” Phyllis continued. “A real friendship doesn’t ask you to impress anyone, and yet it helps you do all sorts of impressive things you never thought you could do!”

  Then Phyllis sounded a little like a teacher as she asked, “And what do you think is the key to that magic door?”

  “I don’t know, Phyllis,” I said. “I’m not so good at finding this magic door yet. I’m a work in progress on this topic.”

  She countered, “Well, why do you think you invited Sarah here tonight?”

  I thought of the day I met Sarah. We probably hit it off because I didn’t make her feel like a “misfit,” as Phyllis would say, for wandering around backstage, and she didn’t make fun of me for eating lunch alone in the dark. That’s when we knew we could be friends.

  I looked over at Sarah now, talking with John. She must have said something nice about his cooking, because suddenly he was hugging her in his enormous way. I was relieved to see she didn’t give him a you’re-so-weird look. She just laughed.

  I turned to Phyllis and said, “I know the answer. If the door you’re talking about is friendship, there is no key. If you want to open the magic door, you have to knock, and you have to keep knocking until someone opens it up from the other side. Right? Is that what you were thinking?”

  Phyllis beamed. “Bright, bright, bright as a star. I love the way that mind of yours works, Amalee Everly.” I guess it was better than the answer she was looking for. I took that as a good sign.

  Across the room, Dad held something up. It looked like a dumpling, “Have you had one of these?” he called. “It’s amazing! You have to try it!”

  I made my way across the room to where Dad was sitting with Joyce and Dr. Nurstrom. “I will!” I answered.

  Tonight, I would try anything.

  Dar Williams is one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of her generation. She was born in Mount Kisco, New York, on April 19, 1967, and raised in Chappaqua. Her parents named her Dorothy Snowden Williams, but her two older sisters called her Dar (Dorothy was too hard to pronounce), and the nickname stuck.

  Dar started playing the guitar when she was nine years old. She wrote her first song at age eleven. But Dar didn’t know then that she would grow up to be a professional musician. After high school, Dar went to Wesleyan University, where she studied theater and religion. She then moved to Cambridge, where she worked at an opera company and wrote plays. At the advice of her voice teacher, Dar started playing guitar and singing her songs in local coffee shops. Her sweet voice and beautifully crafted lyrics earned her a steady following. After several years of performing, Dar released her first album, The Honesty Room, in 1993. She has recorded several more albums since, including My Better Self, The Beauty of the Rain, Out There Live, The Green World, End of Summer, and Mortal City.

  Dar lives in New York City with her husband, Michael, and their son, Stephen, who was born on April 24, 2004. Besides writing, performing, and spending time with her family, Dar is active in many social and environmental causes. Amalee is Dar’s first novel—but not her last. She is also the author of Lights, Camera, Amalee.

  Q: Where did you grow up? What were you like when you were Amalee’s age? Who were the most important people in your life then?

  A: I grew up in Chappaqua, New York, which is now famous because Bill and Hillary Clinton live there. When I was eleven, I was really into the things Amalee is learning about in the book. Also like Amalee, I had to learn about how to be a friend, because I found myself trying to impress and prove myself to my two best friends, which is not a comfortable situation. I loved everything I was studying, though, even math. I used to carry around a vocabulary book we had in English class and quiz myself!

  Q: Besides being a novelist, you are a singer-songwriter. Many of your songs tell stories, too. How did you become a storyteller?

  A: I think I was relieved when I realized I wanted to be a storyteller. If you want to be a writer, I think, then you always feel the pressure of writing very impressively. But if you want to be a storyteller, you just find the best voice for what you want to say and then you let that voice tell the story, almost as if you’re just writing a letter to a friend.

  Q: How is writing a novel different from writing a song?

  A: When I write a song, I have to wait for the perfect kind of weather in my head, just like you have to wait for the perfect weather to do certain things outside. When I start to write a chapter of the book, however, it can be any weather inside my head! I can be frustrated, distracted, angry, or sad. The story takes me back to itself line by line. I can’t do that with a song that’s thirty lines in all!

  Q: What inspired you to write Amalee?

  A: I heard that when my husband’s father died, people came forward with whatever they could bring, like the family friend who worked for a travel agency who arranged a trip to Cuba for my mother-in-law. I’m sure she would have expected something like a pot of beef stew! I thought of how people offer what they can in a crisis, and that friendship is often about people just offering their weird selves to the world and seeing who appreciates what they give.

  Q: Do you have a group of close friends, like Amalee’s dad?

  A: I have many close friends who I’ve met over the last thirty years. I met one of my closest friends when I was seven! Another close friend, Nerissa Nields, I met when we were both booked for the same concert at a cafe in Boston about fifteen years ago, and we have been kindred spirits ever since. In fact, it was after we did a show together in 2000 that Scholastic approached both of us to write books. I think my friends are like a sky full of stars: some are brighter, some are dimmer, some are clustered in California, and some are clustered in New York City or Northampton, Massachusetts. And they are all very unique. It was very interesting to see how they all got along (or didn’t) at my wedding. Luckily, my husband is probably my best friend at this point. That really cuts down on the phone bills!

  Q: What kind of friend are you?

  A: I’m a friend who’s gone a lot or shows up out of the blue, thanks to my constant traveling for work! Like Amalee’s dad’s friends, I just offer what I can when I can, and so far that has been enough. I try to relate to what other people say so I can offer unique and helpful feedback. Usually that means that I try to connect their stories to something that has happened to me, and then I wonder if I’m talking about myself too much! I am a loyal friend, but I have to admit that there are a handful of people who I stopped being friends with when I thought they stopped taking me seriously or couldn’t stop being mean to me. I believe that most friendships can endure very hard times and are better for them. But I also believe that I can’t let myself be bullied.

  Q: You mention in the acknowledgments that much of Amalee was written in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City. What drew you to St. John’s as a place to write? Do you have other special places where you like to write, or unusual parts of your writing routine?

  A: St. John the Divine is the largest cathedral in North America, and it was five blocks from my apartment in New York City. Wouldn’t you want to write there, too? St. John the Divine is open to the public and prides itself on welcoming people of all backgrounds from around the world. I also wrote some of the book (the part about Carolyn’s painting) in Fort Tryon Park in New York City, and my favorite places to write are in big cafes where no one minds if I sit for a couple of hours over a single mocha. I have discovered that my muse likes sugar, so I try to indulge her with hot chocolate, a cafe latte, or a cinnamon bun. Or maybe it’s just me that likes sugar.

  Q: Amalee loves new words. D
o you have a favorite word (or favorite words)? Where do you go to find new words?

  A: I love words that I never knew and that help me express a whole new world of ideas. I only learned the word demagogue about five years ago, and it basically means someone who loves to lecture about ideas but doesn’t really say anything valuable. That was extremely helpful to learn! There’s a difference between a demagogue and someone who just says things I don’t agree with, I realized. They’re both annoying to me, but one is wasting my time (the demagogue) and the other just has a different opinion. I love it when my world becomes more nuanced, another of my favorite new words. Also, when I was in college, I loved the word ontology, which is basically the study of what people believe in, specifically what we think we’re here (on the planet) for. I think about that all the time!

  Q: What do you do when you’re not writing?

  A: Good question! Cleaning up after myself or my son, or talking with friends on the phone, shopping for dinner (my contribution to the cooking), or daydreaming about recycling and renewable energy. I’m really interested in the environment.

  Q: Any advice for aspiring writers — either novelists or songwriters?

  A: I’d say the less pressure, the better. I only write for an hour or two a day, Monday through Friday, if that. The wheels are turning in my head at all different times, but when it comes to that tricky navigation from my mind through my body to my hand through a pen, or computer keyboard, I get exhausted and hit a point of no return!

  Q: What’s next for Amalee?

  A: Amalee is more confident in the next book, and instead of learning how to be a friend, she learns how to be a better friend and she gets to enjoy the friendships she has. She’s also making a short movie, so she gets to receive everyone’s gifts and helpfulness the way her father did when he was sick. She’s much happier in the next book!

  Recipes from John’s Kitchen

  Breakfast dessert is John’s name for the perfect brunch combination treat: scrambled eggs and coffee cake. Go ahead — try it!

  Scrambled Eggs à la Amalee

  Serves two.

  Ingredients:

  4 eggs

  salt

  1 Tbs. butter

  black pepper, freshly ground

  Instructions:

  1. Heat a non-stick skillet over low heat.

  2. While the pan is heating, break the eggs into a bowl and beat them gently with a fork until the yolks and whites are well mixed. Add a little bit of salt and pepper to the eggs, according to your taste (err on the side of using too little — you can always add more after the eggs are cooked, if they need it).

  3. Melt the butter in the pan, then add the egg mixture. As you cook the eggs over very low heat, push them around gently with a wooden spatula. The eggs will thicken and dry out quickly as they cook. If you like your eggs moist, remove them from the heat after just a few minutes. If you like your eggs drier, let them cook a little longer.

  Serve warm with a thick slice of coffee cake on the side.

  John’s Coffee Cake

  Serves eight.

  Ingredients:

  For the cake:

  3⁄4 cup (11⁄2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

  1⁄2 cup white sugar

  2 eggs

  3⁄4 cup plain yogurt

  3⁄4 tsp. vanilla

  11⁄2 cups flour

  3⁄4 tsp. baking powder

  3⁄4 tsp. baking soda

  1⁄8 tsp. salt

  For the filling:

  1⁄4 cup brown sugar

  1⁄3 cup chopped pecans

  2 tsp. cinnamon

  Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

  2. Use a square of waxed paper to smear a small bundt pan with a thin layer of butter. Set the pan aside.

  3. Mix the brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set the bowl aside — you won’t need it for a while.

  4. Slice the butter into a large bowl and dump in the white sugar. Using a hand-held or standing mixer, beat the butter and sugar until creamy (about two minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each –addition. Mix in the yogurt and vanilla.

  5. In a separate, smaller bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

  6. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until just combined.

  7. Spoon one-third of the batter into the buttered bundt pan. Next sprinkle the pecan filling mixture on top. Then add the remaining batter to the pan.

  8. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes. Allow the cake to cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing it from the pan.

  Slice, serve, and enjoy!

  You don’t have to paint an enchanted garden on your wall to change the look of your bedroom. A few creative touches can transform your space into a place that’s totally great … and totally you. Here are some ideas for how to remake your room, one detail at a time.

  To Start

  Clean up! Seriously. Make your bed, straighten your shelves, organize that mess on your desk, pick up — and put away — those piles of clothes on the floor. There’s no need to become a neat freak, but too much clutter will overwhelm the eye and distract from your room’s new look.

  On the Walls

  Cut a large piece of poster board into a big fun shape, like a star or a salamander or a daisy or an interesting blob. Glue on strips of colorful wrapping paper, pictures cut out of catalogs or magazines, cool quotes typed out or written in calligraphy, photos of your pets or friends. Outline or accent your collage with glitter. Let it dry. Hang it up!

  Parents won’t let you paint your walls? Maybe they wouldn’t mind if you painted your windows … with washable paint, of course. Paint a whole scene, like Carolyn’s garden mural, or decorate with stylish designs or blocks of color. Use just a thin layer of paint so the sun can still shine through, like stained glass.

  On the Ceiling

  Create a cool mobile using two chopsticks (tie or glue them into an X to make the mobile’s frame), some colorful string (use it to hang your mobile from the ceiling and to dangle the objects at different lengths), and an assortment of funky, lightweight odds-and-ends (a small plastic monkey from a gumball machine, a paper umbrella from a Chinese restaurant, a dried flower saved from a bouquet, a dangly earring that’s missing its match, puzzle pieces, twisty straws, Barbie doll clothes, a match-box car).

  A memory book is a great place to store all your photographs and mementos for years to come. You can make your own memory book by stapling or tying together several sheets of blank paper between a cover made from decorated poster board or cardboard. Or, you can glue your memories into a ready-made scrapbook purchased at a bookstore, stationery store, or craft store. Here are a few tips for creating a memory book that you will want to flip through time and time again.

  When you develop a roll of photos, write the important information — year, names, place, occasion — on the back of each photograph right away. Then, when you get around to putting the photos in your memory book, you won’t have any trouble remembering all those details.

  Use your scissors! Many photos can be improved with a little bit of trimming. Cut off boring edges, save the good corners from otherwise blurry shots, “zoom in” on important people or pieces of images, cut away backgrounds that appear again and again. Don’t be afraid to collage together pieces of photos on your memory book pages for a fun, funky effect.

  Save ticket stubs, playbills, notes from friends, candy wrappers, postcards, pressed flowers, horoscopes, and other flat mementos to paste into your book along with your photos.

  Use scraps of colored paper, glitter, gel pens, and stickers to create a different background for each page.

  Write in catchphrases or jokes that you and your friends have, sayings from your parents or grandparents, pieces of conversations that you want to remember, song lyrics, or quotes that remind you of the people, events, and places in your memory bo
ok.

  Here’s a sneak peek at Dar Williams’s next book, Lights, Camera, Amalee, in which Amalee and her friends return … to make a movie! But first she meets a relative she didn’t even know she had….

  When Sarah and I headed home to my house that afternoon, we walked in to see not only my dad but also two of his friends waiting for me, looking very serious. Like Mr. Chapelle’s assignment, their silence had a language of its own.

  My dad had been extremely sick the year before. We thought, when it was all over, that it was something called viral meningitis that had turned into something else, but we never knew for sure. Had whatever it was come back?

  Dad was looking out the window with a tired expression, as if he were trying to figure out how much the whole world weighed. His brown hair was always a bit wild, but now it made him look like he’d been pummeled around in a windstorm.

  His best friend Phyllis’s long legs were stretched out, with her feet on another chair. She had her head in her hands as if she had a terrible head ache. His also-best friend Carolyn was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, and had her thin freckly arms folded. She was pacing without looking up.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked immediately.

  Dad turned to me and said, “I just told Phyllis and Carolyn some weird news.”

  “A dying old lady would like to talk with you,” Phyllis said without looking up. “And your dad thinks it’s a good idea.”

  I looked at my dad to explain. So did Carolyn.

  “Somebody wants to meet you,” he said. “Your grandmother. Sally’s mother.”