How to Write a Novel

by Melanie Sumner

  THINGS JOE TAUGHT ME

  How to roll a burrito.

  How to roll a baby into a blanket like a burrito.

  How to stop hypothermia.

  How to make puttanesca, which means “whore sauce” in Italian, because when women cheat on their husbands they don’t have time for cooking.

  It’s okay to dig a huge hole in your backyard.

  The difference between jets and unidentified flying objects.

  Federal taxes are illegal.

  Keep a machete in the car.

  How to die before you get old.

  I was trying to forget this list when a man tapped on the window and smiled at us through the glass.

  “It’s Charles!” cried Diane, waving for him to come inside.

  A slim young black man stood by our table. He was wearing creased khakis, a starched white dress shirt (I notice these things because Diane and I don’t have time to iron), and a red power tie. I couldn’t see his shoes, but he wore a felt hat like the one Papa wears when it’s cold, sort of a twenties gangster hat. A red feather stuck out of the hatband at a jaunty angle.

  If you have ever met one of your favorite writers IN PERSON, you will understand how hard it was not to jump up and give Charles a big ole bear hug. We had been through so much together: cringing when Daddy gave Mama that mean look and said, “You the smart one … ,” suffering the humiliation of wearing clown shoes when other kids had new Nikes. When we pulled up in front of Mama’s house in a BMW that left our clothes smelling of new car … our hearts were one. How we braced ourselves to see Marvin Hutchins’s face behind that Plexiglas window in Hays State Prison—

  “Children,” said Diane, motioning for Charles to sit down, “I’d like you to meet my student, Charles Hutchins. Charles, these are my children, Aris and Max.”

  “Hi,” I said brightly. My ears were hot with excitement, and I didn’t know where to look.

  “Hello, Aris,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  I stared at the red-and-white-check tablecloth, thinking, Believe me, I have heard a lot about you.

  He sat down, working his long legs into the tight space under the table, and smiled broadly. The hat looked pretty strange, with the feather. Papa’s feather was a discreet fluff of robin, but Charles’s feather was out there, coming right at you. It may have once belonged to some tropical bird.

  The waitress brought our Cokes. At first, I thought this was a mistake. Diane says that soft drinks jack up a restaurant bill. Cheap eateries like Domino’s don’t even make money from their food; it all comes from the soft drinks, which are legal poison. Apparently, Diane had lost her mind and ordered them. She looked a little surprised herself.

  “No refills, please,” she told the waitress, but she didn’t send them back. She asked Charles to eat with us, but he said he couldn’t, blah blah blah, and I zoned out. I was watching a baker behind the window to the kitchen knead dough. He wore plastic gloves all the way up his thick forearms, and his muscles popped each time he slammed the ball of dough on the counter and stretched it out again.

  “You’re coming from the police station?” Diane was asking Charles. “Why?”

  Immediately, I forgot about pizza dough and gave Charles my full attention.

  He had removed his hat, holding it lightly in his lap. He looked down for a moment while he fingered the brim. He had long, tapered fingers and wore a gold class ring. Other than Penn and Papa, and the occasional Mr. Friend, we rarely get close to men, so it was something of a novelty to have one at the table.

  “Well, Dr. Montgomery-Thibodeau …”

  “I don’t have a PhD.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I always forget.” He flashed a smile. “Ms. Montgomery-Thibodeau.” Then he was serious again. “I don’t know how to say this, but … I got arrested over the weekend for speeding. The police searched my car, and then they took me to jail.”

  He paused to give each of us a long look, and I could absolutely see him as a preacher. Preachers know that certain silences have a way of waking people up. Even Episcopalian rectors do it (okay, rector doesn’t sound disturbing), but they don’t have the flare that Baptists have for making people squirm.

  Max’s mouth had dropped open. “You went to jail?” He practically yelled this across the restaurant. Heads turned. Diane and I hushed him at the same time, but Charles wasn’t mad.

  Charles sat up a little straighter. “Yes, I did, young man. I never thought that would happen to me.” He shook his head. “It was … I don’t know how to say it. It was a low point, Ms. Montgomery-Thibodeau. A real low point in my life. They didn’t find anything in my car,” he said softly, “but they took me down to the station anyway. They told me I could call someone.” He looked back down at the hat in his lap. “I hated making that call to my mother. She borrowed money from my cousin to pay the five-hundred-dollar fine. The worst part is, I have to spend spring break in jail. The whole week!”

  “How fast were you going?” asked Diane. Without looking away from Charles, she reached her hand across the table and slid her phone away from Max. He had started downloading the gun app.

  “Eight miles over the speed limit. I don’t usually speed, but—”

  “That’s ridiculous!” said Diane. “They can’t search your car without a warrant. They can’t just throw you in jail for speeding. Were you drinking?”

  “No, ma’am. And this was my first speeding ticket. I had my papers.”

  Diane went into mom mode. “Driver’s license?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Car title?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She was probably about to ask him if he’d brushed his teeth, if he was sure, now, when the waitress swooped down on us and tried to take his order. He said no, thank you; he had to go see his fiancée. I imagined Billy saying my fiancée like Charles did, and looking so proud.

  “They can’t do that to you,” said Diane. “Do you have a lawyer?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I think so. My mother talked to someone. He said we could write an appeal.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Diane, and I saw the grit coming up in her right there as we moved our glasses to make room for the pizza the waitress was setting on the table. The smell of cheese bubbling on puffy, freshly baked dough and the sight of pepperoni curling at the edges sent stabbing pangs of hunger to my belly. My mouth watered. Diane didn’t even notice the pizza; she was looking at Charles with a dangerous gleam in her eye. “Repeat after me,” she said. “I am not going to jail.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Repeat,” said Diane in her teacher voice.

  “I am not going to jail,” said Charles. He smiled, handsome and proud.

  The waitress asked if there was anything else she could get us. “Just the check, please,” I said. She smiled, like I was trying to be cute, and waited for Diane to see her. Diane, however, was blind. “Even Georgia is aware of racial profiling,” she was telling Charles. “Let’s write an appeal that will bring this case to the national news.”

  “Thank you,” said Charles. When he stood up to leave, he touched his hand to his heart, brushing the red tie with the tips of his long fingers.

  “Why is Charles going to jail?” asked Max after he left. He had the phone again.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” said Diane. With a napkin, she wiped some tomato sauce from his chin. Then she dipped a forkful of salad into the small container of dressing on the side. Thoughtfully, she chewed her food. Then she said, “Charles drives a BMW. Charles is black.”

  “Surprise!” I said.

  “You’re supposed to say African American,” said Max, with his mouth full. You could often see the entire process of mastication in his mouth. It was interesting, but gross.

  The waitress came by with a pitcher of Coke but caught herself before she poured refills. Then Max pointed Diane’s phone at the ceili
ng, and the sounds of gunfire filled the restaurant.

  That night, before I went to sleep, I crawled under my bed and opened Diane’s last journal. The binding had come loose and pages were slipping out. On the inside of the back cover, Diane had written an inventory in her smallest handwriting.

  INVENTORY

  Money in checking account: $47.12. Savings: $2.07. Debt: $0. Gas in car: ½ tank. Milk: ¼ carton. Coffee: 1 bag. Annie’s Mac and Cheese: 7 boxes. Nicotine gum: 4 pieces, 4 mg. Monogrammed Christmas hand towels given as wedding gifts: 12. Books: 612. Books of Mormon: 3. Lego pieces: 174,112. American Girl dolls: 5. American Girl doll shoes: 23 pair. Love notes from children: 12. Apology notes from children: 19. Number of students: 66. Passing students: 56. Students who expect to pass: 65. Intellectually curious students: 1. Friends: 2. Acquaintances: 168. Ex-boyfriends: 17. Ex-fiancés: 3. Ex-husbands: 0. Number of times fell in love at first sight: 1. Number of times in love: 1. Urns on mantel: 1 dead person, 1 dead pet. Pets: 2. Number of times forgiven: 1,938. Number of times forgave others: 1,512. Number of times hit by parents: 511. Number of times hit my children: 2. Times father has given me the shirt off his back: 1. Number of years member of a country club: 22. Number of times sold blood for money: 5. Number of miles jogged: 213,000. Number of cigarettes smoked: 2,992,999. Number of kisses blown: 5. Miracles witnessed: 3. Miracles expected: 2,183,173. Number of prayers: 1,319,873,918,000. Number of secrets—

  Oh, Diane. What was I going to do with her? What if my novel wasn’t any good? A firm believer in beginner’s luck, I hadn’t seriously considered that possibility until now. Kate said I was a great writer, as long as I used spell-check. True, my English grade was growing shabby, but that’s only because I hadn’t turned some things in yet. Diane said I could do anything I put my mind to—she wouldn’t have given me Write a Novel in Thirty Days! if she didn’t think I was up to the task. However, after reading these journals, I realized that our family situation was worse than I had thought. If things didn’t work out with Penn—and even if they did, since, as Grandma was quick to point out, Penn didn’t actually have a job.

  Looking at the sticky notes posted on the bulletin board of my under-the-bed office, I reflected on my writing goals.

  1. Avoiding therapy.

  2. Marrying Diane off.

  3. Making money.

  Bottom line—the fate of the Montgomery-Thibodeau family rested on my literary success. Even though I wasn’t finished with the manuscript, I needed a second opinion. The author of Write a Novel in Thirty Days! suggests that the first critic of your work should be someone who has read a lot of books, someone who likes you, but not too much. I thought for a moment, took three deep breaths, and emailed my work in progress to Ms. Chu.

  Write a Novel in Thirty Days! says that you should never leave a character alone in a room too long. People don’t do anything when they’re alone, the author argues, so the story comes to a standstill. When there’s no interaction, there’s no action.

  How I wish that were true.

  On Monday night, Diane had arranged to meet Charles at her office to help him with his next essay assignment. Penn came over to watch us and cracked open a taco kit. “There must have been some Mexican jumping beans in that box,” he said after dinner, when Max had circled the table for the fourth time, hopping on one foot. Penn suggested a field trip to the Salvation Army, and Max started talking a mile a minute about finding his rock collection there.

  “I hope somebody else hasn’t already bought it,” he said. “That would just suck.”

  “ ‘Never say of anything that I have lost it,’ ” said Penn. “ ‘Say that I have given it back.’ That’s Epictetus, or however you say his name. Cool dude.”

  “If I see someone trying to buy my rock collection, I’ll just hit him over the head,” said Max. “Pow.” He picked up the saltshaker and hit a few imaginary rivals over the head before he got a better idea. “Penn, can I download my gun app on your phone?”

  “I hope you know that our correctional institutions are crammed with eight-year-old boys shooting gun apps in thrift stores,” Penn said. “Hurry up before the store closes.”

  Max thought for a moment, shifting his weight on his feet.

  Finally, he reached his compromise. “I’ll just say politely, ‘Excuse me, sir, I believe that’s my rock collection.’ ” He looked up at Penn. “Will that be good?”

  “Sweet,” said Penn. “You coming, sister?”

  “No, thanks.” I made my voice sound casual, a little bored. I stretched, yawned, and looked at the ceiling. “I think I’ll stick around here and finish mailing out those books for Diane.”

  Penn’s eyes were silvery beneath the brim of his cap. Sometimes looking into his eyes is like looking through a one-way mirror. You can’t tell what he’s thinking, but you get the feeling that he’s reading your brain. “Time to do some good works, or is this penance?”

  “I need the cash,” I said, and smiled at him.

  “Well, all righty, then. Max, load up that gun app, and let’s hit the road.”

  When they left, the house felt suddenly empty. Except for one lamp casting a yellow glow over Diane’s stack of manila envelopes, the living room was dark. I watched my shadow on the wall. Every time the furnace kicked on, the lamp blinked and the shadow moved.

  Random memory: Once, after Joe died, I was following Diane through a parking lot in Georgia. We had just moved from Alaska, and the sunlight hurt my eyes, so I kept my face down as we walked. Diane was pregnant with Max. As I followed her, I kept my feet on the edge of the shadow of the lady with the big belly.

  “Merm,” I said, “I’m following your shadow.” Suddenly, the woman turned around. It wasn’t Diane.

  Remembering this made me miss Diane so much I couldn’t stand it. Was this the fourth dimension, when then is now and here is there? I was 4 years old and 12.5 years old and 20 years old all at the same time. My entire life was squished into one big Proustian blob.

  What if Diane was dead right now? What if she had a car wreck on the way to KCC? Or maybe, driving over there, she had a change of heart, the way Anders’s mother did. I imagined Mrs. Anderson on a humid afternoon, exiting the dry-cleaning drive-through. For some reason—maybe she was hardly aware of making a decision—she kept on driving, all the way to Nevada, with Mr. Anderson’s starched shirts swinging in the backseat window. Anders told me that she said, “I miss you,” on the phone, but he never said it back. There is nothing worse than missing people.

  I went to Diane’s bed and pressed my face into her pillow to smell her sleep smell. The room was dark and cold, so silent I could hear the tick, tick, tick of the cheap clock on her bedside table. It was 6:16. Penn said they would be back at eighteen thirty Romeo time. As I watched the minute hand s-l-o-w-l-y make its way around the circle, I made a decision.

  Having a definite goal, with a sharp deadline, cheered me up. Lucky and Hiroshima followed me into my bedroom and stood with their heads cocked, tails wagging uncertainly, as I scooped Diane’s journals out from under my bed. They followed me back to the living room, where I dumped the notebooks in a big pile beside Diane’s neat stack of books to be sold.

  Each book had a different color sticky note announcing its new owner. Cooking Vegan for Kids now belonged to Dr. Patricia Gormez, of Spokane, Washington. That was fine with me. In addition to the cookbook, Dr. Patricia was getting a journal handwritten by Diane Montgomery-Thibodeau, the one with the coffee stain on the cover. This notebook contained Diane’s list “Times I Have Seen Double,” which a doctor might find interesting.

  TIMES I HAVE SEEN DOUBLE

  1. This morning driving the kids to school. I guess I was tired from speed grading last night. The logging truck in front of me split into two logging trucks. Immediately, my mind tried to make sense of it, to put them in separate lanes. Then my mind said, nope, you’re seeing double, and the two images snapped back into one truck in one lane.

  2. My last drink, eighteen years a
go.

  3. Last Saturday at Kroger. A man held a screaming girl over the open trunk of a mottled and dented Buick while two women watched with tight faces.

  After I sealed the Gormez package and placed it in the “finished” pile, it was easier to slide the next journal into an envelope. This is the case with criminal activity. Does a dog feel a measure of guilt the first time he sucks an egg? At any point, does he quiet his conscience by reasoning that his actions, albeit not championed by the popular majority, are for the greater good? I looked at Lucky, who was stretched out on the floor with her paws placed neatly in front of her, watching me intently. Her look said plainly, No, dogs do not have a shadow side.

  For Miranda Delmar, P.O. Box 921, NY, NY, who wanted a “like new” copy of Gone with the Wind, I chose a journal written right after Joe’s death.

  STUPID THINGS PEOPLE DO WHEN YOUR HUSBAND DIES

  1. Suggest it was your fault.

  2. Bring an out-of-state ex-wife to the funeral in your hometown.

  3. Ask if he was saved.

  4. Try to engage both a Baptist preacher and a Catholic priest to conduct the funeral.

  5. Enlist a Sunday school class in bringing the family casseroles. Insist that the widow write a detailed thank-you note to each contributor. “We’ll buy the stamps,” my mother said. “I know you don’t have any money.”

  Stanley Elke, of Huntsville, Alabama, was next on the list. He had ordered a book in Greek that Diane has been carting around for twenty years with the intention of teaching herself Greek—Alabama will surprise you sometimes. Stanley’s journal was recent. It had the list “How to Die,” taken from a conversation my grandparents had one Thursday night at Applebee’s.

  HOW TO DIE

  1. Write an obituary for yourself and one for your wife in case you die first, and she doesn’t know how to do her own.