“And in real life . . .” Leah says, ushering Seth along.
“No rewrites. What’s done is done.”
“You guys know why I became a librarian?” Sharon asks.
Maddy says, “To increase the hot factor of all librarians throughout history?”
“There is that,” Sharon says, “but . . .”
I remember. “The Color Purple.”
“Beyond that,” Sharon says.
“To hide your rack among the stacks?” Leah slaps her hand over her own mouth. “That just came out! It was like . . . bad rap!”
“That’s what I get for asking a rhetorical question, right, Seth?” Sharon says, tapping her forehead. “I wanted to find the bridge between stories and life. As long as I can remember, every important literary character reminded me of someone, and almost all the ones I loved reminded me a little bit of me. Of course many of those I hated also reminded me of me. Seth is right; stories are . . . cleaner, because of rewrites. We don’t get the rewrites, but we also don’t have to bring our stories to conclusion in three hundred and fifty pages, so no rewrites, but do-overs, maybe.”
Oliver says, “I like that.”
“Something else has become clear to me,” Sharon says, “listening to all your stories, and particularly this mess of Annie’s. I think we’ve missed the boat, focusing on heroes and/or heroic acts; you know, finding them in fiction and then in life.”
Leah says. “So what should we have been talking about?”
“Narrators,” Sharon says. “The tellers of the tale. It isn’t a question of whether or not you’re the hero of your life, it’s whether or not you’re the narrator; whether you tell your own tale or let someone tell it for you. The characters I love stand up for themselves, understand that they run their own show.”
I’ve heard this before in one form or another, from Leah and from Walter.
The conversation continues, but the rest is word salad to me because my mind slides down the road of “standing up for themselves. . . .” I see it again so clearly; I get so mad at Pop because he wants to tell my story. When he tries, I get devious and elusive; I lie, and live a story that’s not his, but it’s not mine, either. I felt such relief that evening in the den when I just gave up—refused to let him own me. So, easy enough: from here on out, tell the truth and let what happens, happen. The truth has a way of catching up to you, as they say, which sounds right, but I also need to catch up to it. But I’m on the other side of this, too. I want to control Nancy. I’ve done everything to make her feel guilty about not taking care of me in the first place and about not keeping contact. I want to control Sheila, because I want to control what happens to Frankie. Maybe Sharon is right. Maybe those aren’t my stories.
ChapterEighteen
It’s crazy how things work, or maybe how they don’t. As much time as we’ve spent in book club talking about books we’ve read and the “lessons” that come out of them and as much time as I’ve spent with Walter, who’s like some kind of guru, I don’t know any more about how life works than I did when I was five. I remember talking with Mark about God one night after book club last year, walking away thinking I hope he’s right. I hoped some great big entity is watching, some entity who wants things to turn out right . . . and who has the power to make that happen. But at the same time I was afraid to want it, because of how much it hurts to not get it. When I was five, I was back with Nancy and Sheila for a fairly extended period, one that ran through the Christmas holidays. Nancy was using again, just hadn’t been caught, and Rance was in and out for some reason that probably had to do with dealing. Sheila had taken over what parenting duties there were, even though she was barely a year and a half older than me, and we’d been downtown looking in store windows. She kept asking me what I wanted for Christmas and I picked some things out. She told me I had to ask Santa Claus real nice and if I’d been good, I’d get them. Christmas was only a week or so away, and I remember thinking I hadn’t been all that good or I wouldn’t keep having to go away, but if I could do everything right for a week, Santa might come with the goods.
And I was so good. I didn’t cry or call names, and was seriously obedient . . . helped Nancy steal groceries and hid money under my bed that she’d snuck out of Rance’s billfold. When I woke up on Christmas morning I didn’t get anything I wanted; in fact, I didn’t get anything. First day back at kindergarten our teacher asked about our vacations, and it seemed like every kid got at least one thing they asked for. I couldn’t believe I was the worst kid in the class, but the jury was in. I can’t tell you how glad I was to find out later that there wasn’t a Santa Claus.
So as much as I wanted to believe in the God Mark talked about, I was just too afraid to wake up and find out I haven’t been good enough.
Things do get on a roll and a hand may be guiding them, but not necessarily a good one.
A few days after Sheila disappeared from drug treatment, Frankie disappeared again . . . right from Wiz’s place. Wiz was in town at the library and his wife had put Frankie to bed. When Wiz got home and stuck his head in Frankie’s room, the bed was empty. They didn’t think much of it; Frankie is famous for wandering in the night, but they scoured the house and Frankie was gone. Wiz called 911, then alerted everyone who even knew Frankie’s name.
