by Brea Brown
I am a nut job. And a hack (but we’ve already established that). By the time Gus gets home from work, I’m in tears.
“Geez-oh-man! What happened to you?” he asks as he parks his bike between the futon and the wall, removes the metal bike clips from his pants, and lifts his messenger bag from his shoulder and over his head. “This doesn’t look like a good situation.”
Normally, I’d do nearly anything to avoid having someone see me cry, but after the day I’ve had, I don’t have the self-control to prevent making a spectacle of myself.
“I can’t do it!” I wail.
“Can’t do what, Sugar-Booger?” Gus asks, daintily blotting perspiration from his forehead with a linen handkerchief he produces from the back pocket of his khaki pants.
That’s when I wetly tell him about the loud neighbors and the library and my inability to write without all my familiar comforts and surroundings.
“So I went to a coffee shop, because I thought… you know… that there’d at least be some yummy smells from the coffee and pastries and stuff.”
When I stop, he urges me on with his crystal blue eyes, but he doesn’t say anything.
I miserably say, “It was horrible there, too! Too loud!”
He sighs. “Have you ever heard of earbuds, Babushka? Criminey Pete! I don’t go anywhere without my earbuds.” He edges past me and opens the only drawer in the kitchenette. While riffling through takeout menus, he informs me, “They keep away the crazies. Sometimes I even wear them without playing any music. As long as the people around me think I’m listening to something, they won’t bother me. Usually. You know, you always get that rogue weirdo who doesn’t give a damn what’s goin’ on. He’s gonna talk to you no matter what. But in those cases, I point to my ears, give a helpless shrug, and mouth, ‘I can’t hear you,’ before movin’ my ass as fast as I possibly can away from him. Or her. It’s not always a guy. But most of the time, it is. And in either case, the person generally has more of a beard than I would after a week of not shaving.”
As soon as he pauses, I jump in and snap, “Are you finished? I’m having a crisis here!”
He looks up from the menus in his hands. “Oh. Sorry. Yeah.” Before I can get back to my problems, he holds up two menus for me to see. “First, though… which one? Mexican or Italian?”
“I can’t eat,” I state firmly.
“Oh my Buddha! I’ve never seen you so melodramatic before.” Conspiratorially, he mutters, “Between you, me, and the futon, it’s not very attractive, Jayne. I mean, really.”
Taking me at my word that I’m not going to help him choose which food to order, he tosses the menu with the walking taco on it back in the drawer and squints at the phone number on the menu bearing the Italian flag and a mustachioed man. Or is that a woman?
As he’s dialing, I have a change of heart—maybe food is what I need, to feed my brain—and blurt, “I’ll have baked mostaccioli!”
He rolls his eyes at me and turns his back as the person on the other end answers, and he begins to give them our order. I move closer to him and hiss so he can hear me, “With a large iced tea!” He swats in my direction, like I’m an annoying fly, and manages to swat my shoulder.
“Oh! Sorry!” he immediately apologizes, whirling and patting me in a conciliatorily. “No, not you, ma’am,” he says into his phone. “I hit my bestie without meaning to. Bestie. As in, best friend. No, not crusty! No! Lady, listen to me!”
I have a feeling half the apartment building is listening at this point. I cover my mouth to stifle my giggles.
Consternation creates two deep wrinkles between his eyes. “Oh, my dear word! This is the most bajiggety experience I’ve ever had ordering some damn dinner,” he says, punctuating it with a huge sigh. “Pardon my Swahili. Listen, I want two orders of baked mostaccioli, an order of garlic bread, an iced tea, plain, and a raspberry iced tea, both unsweet. That’s it.… Thank you. Sorry for the confusion.”
He punches the button on his phone to hang up and turns to me. When he sees I’m laughing, he immediately relaxes. “There’s a smile! I was beginning to wonder if it was on vacation.”
I choke back a chortle at the memory of the look on his face as he was trying to make himself understood on the phone. “You get flustered so easily,” I say.
He fans himself with the menu. “Yeah. I know. That’s kind of my thing. But it’s not yours, so what’s the dealio with you lately?”
Flopping onto his futon and immediately regretting it when the wood frame slams into my tailbone, I wince and say, “Ow! I don’t know! This experience is driving me crazy.”
“You mean, your dream come true?”
Like a petulant child, I cross my arms over my chest. “Yeah. Well, it’s not how I imagined it was going to be.”
“As in…?”
I feel silly saying it, but I do anyway. “It’s not as fun. And… well… I thought it’d be easier than this.”
“You mean, you thought everyone would be kissing your ass more?”
His blunt interpretations are too spot-on to be insulting. I’m relieved he understands and isn’t going to make me say it myself. “Yeah! I mean, I didn’t think it was going to be all, ‘Dahling’ this and ‘Dahling’ that, but… I definitely didn’t imagine myself in a stupid stalemate with an editor.”
“Oh, not him again!” he despairs. “I thought we got all this figured out last night. Is this going to be like that awful Bill Murray movie, where he keeps reliving the same day over and over again? Is that what my life has become? Because, Honey, I don’t know if I can handle that. Two hours of it on DVD was enough to drive me ape-shit.”
When he starts to dig around in his messenger bag, I do the same in my laptop bag, and we come up with our wallets at the same time. Grinning at each other like idiots, we both slap twenties on the coffee table like we’re playing a card game with cash in place of cards.
“I’ve got this,” I tell him in a non-negotiable tone, knowing he won’t argue. He replaces the twenty in his wallet and pulls out a five, which he tosses casually on top of my money.
“For the garlic bread or the tip,” he explains, equally firm. I also don’t argue with him. It always seems to even out, no matter who pays, so we don’t worry about it.
Except for that one time when we each assumed the other had taken care of the ticket and ended up accidentally dining and dashing. It wasn’t until hours later, when we were having a midnight snack at a frozen custard stand that we realized, horrified, what had happened.
He said, “Since you were so kind to pay for dinner, I’ll let you get as many toppings as you want on your custard.” I had laughed at him and said, “You’re in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, pal. You bought dinner, remember?”
“I most certainly am not, and I most certainly did not,” he insisted, still perusing the custard menu.
“Very funny.”
That’s when we both looked at each other and realized what must have happened.
“Oh, my gosh!” we gasped together.
He clutched at my hand like someone had told us we had ten minutes to live.
“Jayne, we have to go back there,” he said earnestly, turning in impotent circles, as if he wasn’t sure in which direction to start walking.
After the initial shock of it, I had laughed. “Forget it,” I told him. “It was an honest mistake.”
His eyes were so wide that I could see white all the way around his irises. “What?! Of course it was, but it would be dishonest not to rectify it now that we know.”
“You just wanted to say ‘rectify.’”
“It is a delightfully disgusting word,” he admitted. “But I'm serious! Otherwise, we can never go back there again!”
“I’m okay with that,” I said callously, finally deciding on the vanilla custard with caramel and bits of pretzel mixed in.
“Oh, my gosh. We’re criminals,” he’d whispered, but he promptly ordered a banana and butterscotch concoction and stopped trying to convince me t
o go back to the restaurant to pay.
Unfortunately, the place was practically on the Indiana University campus, so we walked past it all the time. Every time we did, Gus would cross himself and say, “Hail Mary, full of grace…” even though he’s not Catholic and doesn’t know any of the words after that part.
I was blasé about it at the time, but I’ve been paranoid about it ever happening again. I figure you’re only allowed one of those in your life, and that’s only if it’s not malicious.
Now I stare at the cash on the table and sigh as I contemplate my current situation. “I can’t help it,” I declare. “I’m disappointed by how everything’s gone so far. The publishing process, that is. It’s a lot less glamorous than I thought it would be. I thought it would be fun, at least. But this is bordering on miserable.”
“Motherfucker…” Gus even manages to make one of the most vulgar curse words sound silly, like something a sweet Southern granny would say after burning her finger on the cast-iron skillet while making cornbread. “I can’t believe you’re going to let that ninny ruin this for you!”
“I’m not!” I protest.
“Yes, you are! You said it’s not as great as you thought it would be, and you specifically mentioned him as the reason. And that sucks!”
I jut my chin out. “Well, I can’t make the changes he wants. I didn’t write a single word today! It’s hopeless.”
“After one frustrating day, you’re declaring it ‘hopeless’? Really, Jayne? Really?”
“I don’t see how it’s going to get any better. I’m not going to wake up tomorrow or the next day and magically be able to do it.”
He scrubs his hands through his hair, and tiny, fine stray pieces, stragglers from the fresh haircut he got on his lunch break, settle onto his shoulders. “That’s right, because it’s got nothing to do with magic. You’re going to figure out how to write without your blankie and your candle and your silent apartment. And then you’re going to turn in a brilliant finished product, and Lucas Dickweed Edwards is going to sit up and take notice.”
“You’re crazy. I know what inspiration feels like, and it’s nowhere to be found now.”
“Well, you’ll find it. You’re going to see something on TV or hear something on the radio or overhear a conversation on the bus or in the park or in line at the coffee shop, and it’s going to click. You know that’s how it goes.”
His cell phone rings then. After a perfunctory look at the display, he answers. “Maman!” Then he rattles off a string of French so quickly that I can’t make out a single recognizable word.
Finally, after what seems like an interminable monologue, he stops and then only says, “Oui,” or “Non,” occasionally. Then he abruptly says, “Je t’adore, aussi. Au revoir, Maman!”
After pressing the button on his phone to hang up, he explains unnecessarily, “My mom,” and as if the interruption never happened, he cocks his head and jumps back to our previous conversation. “You know I’m right.”
“I don’t know, Gus,” I tell him honestly before voicing my deepest fear: “I think I’ve lost it. Maybe what I’ve written so far was all I have to give. Maybe that’s it; I’ll never be inspired again. Maybe I am a flash in the pan, like he said.”
Gus levels a glare at me. “First of all, who uses the term, ‘flash in the pan,’ anymore? Second, why are you being so insecure? Your book is one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. A lot better than most of the stuff out there on the bestsellers lists. And I’m not saying that because you seem to be fishing for compliments; I mean it.”
A knock at the door prevents me from objecting to his accusation. As he pays for the food with the money I gave him, I try to figure out how much I can tell him about my fears without betraying the truth behind the misgivings. With a disappointed sinking in my stomach, I realize I’ve already said as much as I can.
What started as a therapeutic writing exercise, a way for me to exorcise my demons without turning to drugs and alcohol (although trust me, I considered them first), quickly bloomed into an obsession. Writing it all down was my way of keeping my sisters and parents alive. It’s how I remembered all their quirks and personalities. As a matter of fact, one of the few positive comments Lord Lucas Edwards wrote in the margins of my manuscript was, “Vivid characters. You really bring them to life.”
Ha! If only!
Before I knew it, I had a book-length memorial, starting with the day my youngest sister was born and ending with Rose (me) receiving an offer letter from a publishing company, promising to make her the next big thing. That’s not how it happened in real life, obviously, but I wrote that before I knew what a quagmire the publishing world is, and I never went back to change it, because I liked the fantasy of the publishing process being effortless and instantly gratifying. I know I’m doing a disservice to all those aspiring writers out there by not being more accurate and honest, but even the frankest portrayal winds up glamorizing things, despite efforts to the contrary. So I didn’t worry too much about it. Good thing, too, since the real story thus far has been too anti-climactic to make it marketable.
I took some creative license in other passages, too. After all, we didn’t lead an exciting life, for the most part. We were average Midwesterners who lived on a working farm. While that may be exotic to someone who’s never stepped off the pavement of a metropolitan area, it was difficult for me to see it with fresh eyes and pluck out the events that would be interesting to an outsider. They were there, but I had to dress them up a bit. It’s true that my mom almost gave birth to my youngest sister in the car, because it was a long drive from our house to the nearest hospital, but she wasn’t out in the corn field when she went into labor. I embellished that part. We didn’t even have a corn field.
But then, as other parts of the story unfolded on the monitor in front of me, I realized I didn’t need to do anything to make them funnier or juicier or more tragic. They were poignant and heartrending enough in their original forms, and they wrote themselves. In those instances, it became important to me that I not alter a single detail.
When I approached Tullah for representation, I deliberately packaged the book as pure fiction and said nothing about it being “based on actual events,” because I didn’t want to become the story. I wanted it to begin and end on the page. I knew all along that I wasn’t going to tell anyone that this “story” was my personal history.
Anyway, if that detail gets out at this stage, I’ll really look like a fraud. Everyone will know that my imagination can’t compete with the facts. I’m a historian, not a novelist. I don’t create characters; as a matter of fact, two of them created me.
Nevertheless, I give Gus a brave smile when he returns to the table with the food. “It’s nothing a little mostaccioli can’t fix, right?” I say brightly.
Chapter Six
He’s not impressed. Nor is he fooled. Shit. I should have known that the easy (a.k.a., “lazy”) solution wasn’t going to be the ultimate solution. And now I’ve wasted days on material that’s going to have to be scrapped.
When he glances up from his iPad, I try to deliver a confident, approval-seeking smile, but I know it falls closer to “grimace” on the continuum of facial expressions. Thankfully, he returns to his reading too quickly to see it. I think he was mostly checking to see that I’m still sitting here, that I have the nerve to still be sitting in his presence. Maybe that was a signal that I should leave before he explodes.
But, no, his expression—if I had to try to break it down—contains bemusement, mixed with hints of confusion, contemplation, and… what is that…? (all the other expressions are getting in the way)… uncertainty? Yes! As uncharacteristic as it seems, he definitely looks unsure of himself. And I have plenty of time to study him to make sure I’m correctly interpreting the look on his face.
Swipe, swipe, swipe. For the third time, he paws at the tablet resting on his knee to return to the beginning of the passage I most recently delivered to him. Scratch
es his head. Pinches his chin between his forefinger and thumb in the universal gesture of deep thought. Clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Blinks his green eyes and then rolls them as if he’s trying to deliver moisture to a pair of contact lenses, which he doesn’t wear.
Oh, fuck. This is torture. I’d rather he rant and rave and tell me it’s horrible than make me sit here and wait for him to come up with the perfectly devastating words to say. Because that’s obviously what’s going on. Any old insult won’t do. Its severity has to perfectly match the level of my writing’s depravity.
I catch myself cringing and then force myself to relax. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do before a traumatic collision? Relax, and then it won’t hurt as much.
Finally—finally!!—he deliberately sets the electronic tablet on the low table in front of our chairs, but instead of returning to an upright position, he remains bent at the waist, his elbows resting on his knees as he lets his head hang, seemingly enthralled with something on the carpeted floor between his shiny shoes.
I refuse to say anything. I’m not going to play dumb and ask if he likes it; but I’m also definitely not going to anticipate his wrath and put derogatory words in his mouth.
“So…” he says more like a sigh than a word after what feels like at least ten minutes of thick, suffocating silence. Now he turns his head to look at me and smiles.
At first, I’m thrown. The smile is extremely cute. And it makes me think he actually liked my changes. Then I recognize the pity in it. Huh? Pity?! I think not! Anger, I can take. But his sympathy (and I don’t even know what it’s for yet)… I don’t think so.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask warily, the tension returning to my shoulders. And neck and abs and legs and every other muscle used to keep me vertical.
Before answering, he shifts his weight back and forth from his toes to his heels a few times. Then he purses his lips, sighs for real, and says, “What’s going on here?”
“Here?” I repeat so I can stall as the following races through my mind: OhfuckheknowsI’mlyingabouteverythingwell,noteverythingbutsomethings,bigthings.HeknowsI’mnotawriterandthatmystoryisrealrealrealrealreal.Fuckfuckshitdamnhellballs!!!