How to Write a Novel

by Melanie Sumner

  “We broke up,” I said. It felt weird saying it aloud.

  Grandma wanted to know if Billy had found another girlfriend in Massachusetts.

  “He wouldn’t find one cuter than Aris,” said Papa. “That’s for sure.” He made a face. Papa’s opinion of males who seek the attention of females in his family isn’t exactly low. It’s neutral. It’s a certain kind of neutral, though. One wrong move from the suitor, and Papa is ready with contempt and the satisfaction of being right in the first place. Papa is more complicated than he lets on.

  Anders came over to say hello. He complimented Grandma on her scarf and shook hands with Papa, looking him directly in the eye and calling him “sir.” He expressed an interest in Max’s talent. For an instant, I saw Anders in a positive light, but then, when no one was looking, he planted his heel firmly into my toes, grinning his evil grin.

  “You are depriving some village of an idiot,” I told him before he dashed off to his seat.

  “What a sweet boy,” said Grandma. “Is that his father over there? He’s a nice-looking man. That’s the one whose wife ran off. I don’t know what her problem was. I can’t think of their names to save my life.”

  Just then, Penn appeared. He came in through the back door, wearing his Best Nanny Ever T-shirt and a woman on his arm. At the same time, Diane entered the auditorium from the stage door. They were like balls rolling toward us from different directions, a Penn-and-the-other-woman ball and a Diane ball. Grandma was excited. Her head turned toward Diane, back to Penn and his friend, back to Diane again, and finally to me.

  “Who is that girl with him?” she asked, as if I should know.

  From the podium, Mrs. Waller suggested that if everyone would please take their seats, we might get started. Leaning over the back of Diane’s chair, Penn whispered, “Bad news. The dogs are gone. The back hatch is open, and the crate is unzipped.”

  “Someone stole the dogs!” said Grandma. “Max is going to be heartbroken.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Penn. “I’ll find them before he goes on.”

  “I’m Max’s grandmother,” Grandma said to the woman Penn had dragged in from God knows where. They did the southern-female handclasp. “What’s your name?”

  Her name was Cynthia. Grandma smiled at Cynthia, awaiting further clarification.

  Before Cynthia could define her role in Penn’s life, the lights dimmed, and the curtain rose. I was terrified that Max would be standing under a spotlight without his dogs, but it was just the principal, yammering on about how thankful he was for this talented bunch of third graders, their hardworking teachers, and, of course, the supportive families. He pointed out, as he always does, that here at Lavender Mountain Laboratory School, we are a family.

  Across the room, Anders was trying to catch my attention. I’m sorry about Billy, he mouthed, then put his hand over his heart.

  “I don’t know who would have opened that car and let the dogs out,” said Grandma.

  Suddenly, it came to me. Anders! Anders Anderson did it! Excuse me for the purple prose, but sometimes you have to do it: A bitter bile of hatred rose in my throat, foreshadowing the anger that exploded from the clenched fist of my heart to shatter his leering, satanic visage like a CBU-59 Rockeye II bomb blasting a rotten egg that someone had balanced on a whipping post. I craned my neck to find that foot-stomping, dog-stealing, horny little bastard and shoot him the bird. A lady with big hair blocked my view.

  While we were clapping for Hammond Golden’s tae kwon do demonstration, Penn slipped out to look for the dogs. When he returned, he whispered, “No joy.”

  “Max is next!” I said.

  Penn left again, to look for the dogs in the woods, and I settled reluctantly into my seat to listen to Madison Fuller’s pained performance on the violin. Grandma took this opportunity to establish a rapport between Cynthia and Diane, who had been ignoring each other.

  “Diane,” she said, tapping her firmly on the shoulder. “Have you met Cynthia?” Diane and Cynthia fake smiled at each other. Raising her voice to be heard over the noise of Madison’s bow raking across the violin strings, Grandma pointed out everything Cynthia and Diane had in common, which included living in Kanuga and knowing Penn.

  Diane told Grandma to hush. While they grimaced at each other over Cynthia’s head, Cynthia opened her purse and took out a small pink compact of lip gloss. She peered into the tiny mirror, holding her mouth open as she applied the gloss with a miniature brush. Then she smoothed her hair, which was perfectly coiffed.

  In comparison, Diane looked a little rough. Her bun had already sprung a leak, and her face was gray with worry. I rummaged through her purse for a lipstick, but there was nothing besides a wallet, a phone, and a book of to-do lists.

  “Max will be okay,” I whispered. She nodded, biting her lip.

  “How did you meet Penn?” Grandma asked Cynthia.

  “We’re neighbors,” Cynthia whispered, blushing as she glanced warily at Diane. “His car broke down, so I gave him a ride.”

  Immediately, I texted Kate.

  SKANK Alert!

  Madison finished her solo. In the brief pause before the audience rose from their seats to clap, Grandma announced, “That girl needs a lesson.” I tried not to imagine what kind of trick Max would make up on the spur of the moment, without the dogs, and how the audience might stand up and clap in the same terrible way.

  Returning to the auditorium, Penn shook his head at us and lifted his empty hands. When Cynthia whispered something to him, she put her hand on his knee! I wanted to tell her that Penn only touches dogs, but the curtain was rising on Max.

  “And now,” announced Mrs. Waller from the podium, pausing to shake the static out of the mic. “Now I would like to present our very own Max Thibodeau and his two dogs, Lucky and”—she looked down at the paper in her hand—“Hiro?” Pushing her glasses up on her nose, she tried again. “Hiroshima?” She cocked her head. “Did I get that right? Your dog’s name is Hiroshima?” A ripple of laughter ran through the audience.

  Max stood alone on the stage, looking down at his feet. The technician was moving the spotlight around him, hoping to find some dogs. At last, the light encircled just Max. Normally, Max seems like a big person because he’s loud. Silent Max alone on a stage was a small boy. Although I had picked out a dashing outfit for him to wear for the performance, he’d ditched it in favor of navy blue pants and a black shirt, with the traditional dab of toothpaste over his heart.

  Max said something inaudible.

  “Uh-oh,” said Grandma.

  All around me, people were shifting in their seats, rustling their programs, clearing their throats. It was the kind of tension that would make Max scream, throw himself to the ground, and slam his head against the floor. My chest tightened. Beside me, Diane wasn’t even breathing.

  However, Mrs. Kierkegaard, our kindergarten teacher, had heard Max. She appeared onstage with a chair. After a whispered consultation with Max, she turned to the audience, tucked her hair behind one ear, and smiled with her pretty white teeth.

  In her public announcement voice, she informed us that we were going to witness an unusual performance by Max Thibodeau. Moving the mic away from her face, she had another brief, whispered consultation with Max. While they conferred, he took his hands in and out of his pockets, scratched his head, and looked desperately at the ceiling, but she kept nodding her head and smiling. Finally, she straightened up and said into the mic, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Max, one of my all-time favorite students. He is going to do something utterly, astonishingly wonderful.” She said this with such authority that even Grandma was quiet. “What you are about to see might look easy, but believe me, it’s not.” She glanced at Max, and then back to us. “Max,” she said, “is going to meditate.”

  Max sat in the chair. His feet hung several inches off the floor, and for a moment he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Then he remembered how to hold them out in front of him in the shape of an egg.
At first, there was some nervous shuffling in the audience. A baby whimpered.

  “Someone needs to cut those bangs,” said Grandma, but we shushed her. Max sat absolutely still as his spirit entered the egg shape in his hands. Under the spotlight, his round face became a white moon, all aglow. You could almost see inside of it. As we watched, somewhere deep inside of Max, the choppy waves of self met the hard world, and Max grew calm. How did this happen? The glow didn’t surprise me as much as the sitting still.

  I set the timer on my phone. One minute, one and a half minutes, two minutes. Max was still. Three minutes. I smelled the lip gloss of Cynthia. Three and a half minutes. In his chair on the stage, Max was a lighted sculpture. Four minutes …

  “Henry,” said Grandma, “I gave that camera to you. Where is it?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Yes, I did too!” She rummaged through her purse. “Oh, here it is!”

  She got a picture, but it just looks like a boy in a chair.

  At the reception for the talent show, we had to stand in line to talk to Max. When we finally got close enough to touch him, Mrs. Kierkegaard stepped in front of us.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “but I have to tell this child how absolutely amazing he is.” She put her hands on his shoulders, turning him to face her. “Max, you are absolutely amazing. In my twenty-seven years of teaching, I have never, EVER seen a child sit still and actually meditate for a talent show.”

  Nibbling on the edge of a cookie, Max looked up at her with the serenity of a cow.

  “I raised him,” said Grandma, edging in close. “I helped raise him.”

  Diane rolled her eyes, but before all claims of ownership were staked, Anders tugged on my arm.

  “Do not touch me,” I said. “Ever.”

  “Well, excuuuuse me. I only wanted to tell you that your nanny found your dogs.”

  “Oh, really? After you let them loose?”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t touch your dogs.”

  “Um, excuse me,” said Max.

  “You did too! You opened the car and let them loose so Max wouldn’t have a performance.”

  “Hello,” said Max. “A word, please.”

  “Why would I do a mean thing like that?” Anders asked.

  “Because you are a horrible person. I’m sure there is a more accurate word for you, but I am too mad to find it right now, and it doesn’t matter because you are now officially out of my novel!”

  “What?” Anders looked at me with wide eyes, his cheeks bright red. Angrily, he jammed a package into my hand. “No nuts,” he said. “Because you are one.” Then he ran out of the room.

  “Chocolates!” cried Max. “Can I have one?”

  “Throw them out,” I said. “They’re probably poisonous.”

  “Aris?”

  “What is it, Max? I’m busy hating someone.”

  “Anders didn’t let the dogs out.” He offered me a dangerously charming smile.

  “Max,” I said sternly. “What did you do?”

  “It was an accident! I swear! I was tired of waiting for Penn, so I went to the car to get them myself. Then I saw a deer. A huge one. I don’t know how this happened, but while I was trying to grab Hiroshima’s collar, Lucky sailed over my head. I’m not kidding. She was flying. Like a pterodactyl. We should probably put her in a dog show or something. Then, somehow—again, I don’t know exactly how—Hiroshima knocked me to the ground and ran after Lucky.” He pulled his shirtsleeve over his elbow and stuck it in my face. “See? I have a bruise right here. I may have broken my arm, actually.”

  I sighed, sounding just like Diane, and handed him the box of chocolates. He removed the lid, looked inside, and sniffed. “Can I have two?”

  Grandma breezed by and said she was taking Papa home because he had an upset stomach.

  “He’s sick?” asked Diane, frowning.

  “He’s just feeling puny,” said Grandma. “Too much excitement.”

  Before anything else could go wrong, Ms. Chu appeared, ghostlike in her flowing gray dress. In her whispery voice, she asked me to come to the library with her. “I have a book you might need,” she said.

  The library smelled of pine oil and books. It was silent except for the shutting of the heavy wooden door and the rustle of Ms. Chu’s skirt. When she pulled the gold chain on the lamp, sending shadows across the wall, I sank into a red faux-leather chair in the reading nook.

  “Long day?” she asked. I nodded. We sat for a few minutes, watching dust motes in the air. She asked me how the novel was coming.

  “Almost done,” I said.

  “That’s good. What did you discover?”

  “Oh, you know. The usual stuff. Chaos versus order, woman versus nature, good versus evil, individual versus society, the evils of racism, the effects of capitalism on the individual, the fallacy of eternal love, loss of innocence, appearance versus reality, the circle of life—” I couldn’t tell her the rest. She’d have to read it.

  “Ah,” she said.

  “I took some cheap shots at my characters,” I admitted, “and I almost kicked Anders out.”

  “I wouldn’t exclude Anders,” said Ms. Chu. “He’s very sensitive.” She folded her hands in her lap. “He’s your mirror.”

  Oh joy, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Looking around at the polished shelves, I imagined slipping between the covers of the books, feeling the bumps of words on the page, climbing each line like the rung of a ladder. That deep into a story, I might let go and fall forever.

  “Ms. Chu?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know how to end the novel. I don’t think I’ve lived long enough to know how things end.” I thought of Joe, sliding across the black ice with his hands clenched on the steering wheel, his jaw set, blood pumping. Did he think, That child molester Lafontaine gets to live, but I am jerked off the planet, leaving my wife a widow, my children orphans? Or was it a relief to die? Does suffering ever end?

  “Look at the beginning,” said Ms. Chu. “The ending is usually there.”

  “So I make a circle?”

  “No,” she said. “A spiral. The ending returns to the beginning, but on a higher level.” She padded over to her desk and returned with a worn copy of Writer’s Market. “I’ve been waiting to give this to you, Aris. I think you’re ready now.” The inscription on the flyleaf read, To my wife, Mandy, with love eternal—Douglas.

  When I stepped into the parking lot, I saw the silvery glint of Max’s smooth rock sailing into the fishpond. Apparently, Anders had taught him how to skip rocks. His dad must have taught him. You don’t need a penis to skip a rock, but there are things that single mothers just don’t stand around doing, and one of them is skipping rocks.

  Diane had packed the dogs in the car and was leaning against the hood, saying goodbye to Penn. His head bent close to her face. She smiled up at him, the way she does. I swear it looked like they were going to kiss. Cynthia must have thought so too, because at that moment she hit the horn. It was a silver car, with a KEEP CALM AND GO SHOPPING bumper sticker. Strands of shiny pink beads hung from the rearview mirror.

  “Hello, boys,” I said as I approached the pond, shoring up more courage than I felt. The water was muddy from the rock throwing, with no fish in sight. When I leaned over to see if I could find a fish, Anders hurled a heavy rock that splashed water all over my chest.

  “Oops,” he said. “Wet T-shirt contest.”

  This is my mirror, Ms. Chu? “I was going to apologize,” I said, wringing out my shirt.

  “The dog escape was a misunderstanding,” said Max. “I explained it to him. I told him you would put him back in the novel.”

  “What are you—my editor?”

  “I’ll write my own part and email it to you,” said Anders.

  “Also,” said Max, “we need a car chase. We really, really need a car chase.”

  I looked at my little brother, grubby from toothpaste, dog biscuits, and chocolate, with m
ud up to his knees from wading in the pond. He made a guttural noise. Was this the same guy who had reached divine communion with the eternal spirit in front of a restless audience, less than an hour ago? In fact, we have had a car chase in this novel, a very short, rather slow one, more of a truck chase. I would never tell Max about it; he would worry his little head off. Every time we passed a logging truck, he’d pull out a gun app, which could cause problems.

  Max’s car chase happened like this. We were pulling out of the gates of Lavender Mountain Laboratory School, two cars behind Cynthia’s car. Diane was a little tense. She was chewing two pieces of nicotine gum at the same time, and she gunned her engine at the red lights, which was unnecessary.

  Suddenly, Max yelled, “Look! There they are! They’re on the side of the road!”

  Cynthia had pulled her car over to the shoulder. Penn was leaning into the open passenger door, apparently arguing with her. Suddenly, she reached out and slammed the door shut. Her tires spun on the gravel as she squealed back onto the highway.

  Diane slowed down and opened the window. “Need a ride?”

  “Little misunderstanding,” Penn said as he slid into the seat.

  “It happens,” said Diane coolly. (Go, team Diane!)

  She had just pulled back onto the road when Max yelled, “Cynthia is turning around! She’s coming back! She’s gaining on us! Gun it, Mom!”

  “Somebody’s interested,” I said, with a significant look at Penn.

  “And somebody ain’t,” he said.

  “Anybody got any nails I could throw out the window?” asked Max.

  “Get your head back in this car,” said Diane.

  “Tacks might work,” he said, still hanging his head out the window.

  “Windows up!” yelled Diane. Then she turned up the radio and stepped on the gas pedal. One of her favorite oldies was playing, “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett. A little smile turned up the corners of her mouth.

  Behind us, the pink beads swung wildly on Cynthia’s rearview mirror, and Max wished aloud that he had a bomb.

  “That’s plan Zulu,” said Penn, lapsing into the military alphabet code. “Just take this right by the Quik Mart, Diane, if you don’t mind.”