I'm Your Girl (3 page)

M
erry Christmas, Daddy….

“Stevie?”

I sit up too quickly and hit my head on the slats for the top bunk of Stevie’s bed.

Again. When will you learn?

How did I get here?

You were drinking heavily.

I only had three—

Five.

Okay, five mugs of eggnog. At least I won’t need breakfast. I’ve already had my dairy and eggs for the rest of the week.

I look up at the torn black lining under the top bunk. One little hole, and Stevie had found it, taking one tiny finger and rrrrrrrr-ip. And instead of fixing it properly, I had only duct taped the sides and put a few pushpins here and there.

It did the job.

But it looks tacky.

I’m a grown man sleeping in my boy’s bed. Funny, I hardly had to do that when he was…when he was here. Noël did most of the soothing in this house, whispering him back to sleep whenever he had a bad dream. He would call out only to her in the night.

And here I am calling out to him in the morning.

Merry Christmas, Jack.

What am I going to do today? There’s no need to check the mailbox since it’s a holiday. That’s one of my few daily errands. It takes forty-seven steps to get to the mailbox. The fact that I know this makes me sad.

It took you forty-three yesterday.

It was cold. I had to move fast.

I’ve been waiting for my first novel to come out, a romance of all things, as if romance will ever happen to me again. I had waited too long to find a wife, to start a family…and to buy a safer vehicle than that van.

Stop thinking about that van.

I go to the kitchen and turn on the coffeemaker before I realize I haven’t put in any coffee. The water that drips into my cup is slightly brown and smells like coffee, but it tastes like…hot brown water. Instead of searching through the mess I’ve made of the kitchen pantry for the coffee, I take a tea bag I used yesterday and dunk it into the water. It should be good for at least two more cups.

You’re going to need vice grips to squeeze out any flavor.

Probably.

I return to the living room and plug in the lights of the tree before curling up on the love seat with my “coffee water tea.”

“It’s a nice tree, honey.”

It never was, but Noël was always looking for something positive to say. The four trees I bought for us before…the accident…leaned right or left, were too bushy or had bald spots, or were too short or too tall.

One even had a bird’s nest.

Yet, after we decorated those trees, they always looked better—in Noël’s eyes, anyway—than any tree in any window in the neighborhood. We used to walk through the neighborhood looking at other people’s trees, and though there were many grander than ours, Noël always said, “It’s a nice tree, honey.”

“Thank you,” I say now. “Thanks…honey.”

Change the subject. You’re already out of Kleenex.

I’ll use napkins.

You’re out of them, too.

Oh. Paper towels?

Just the part stuck to the roll
.

I’ve killed a lot of trees.

You’re the champion of the forestry industry. Think about the novel
.

My novel has been sent out to reviewers, and my agent, Nina Frederick, is supposed to be sending their reviews to me the second she gets them. My editor, Trina Lozell, has told me to keep my fingers crossed, but I’m not superstitious. “It’s a great summer read,” Trina says.

Then why is it coming out in April?

Beats me.

My book will finally be on the shelves in bookstores after all those late nights away from Noël and Stevie. I had wanted to make it big as a writer to allow Noël to stay home with Stevie instead of working as a medical transcriber at Roanoke Memorial. And if the money was good enough, I could quit teaching and write full-time.

All those dreams…and only mine came true.

Until the insurance money runs out.

All those dreams!

Change the subject, Jack! What’s left of the paper towels will feel like sandpaper on your nose!

And I’m all out of lotion.

There’s bound to be some lotion on Noël’s vanity.

I’m not going in there. I’m…I’m thinking about the book.

I’m not nervous about the reviewers as much as I was about the revisions Trina suggested I make. She had me add more profanity, sex, attitude, and drama to what was originally a simple love story. I’m a little embarrassed about it all. I even had to add stereotypical, one-dimensional characters who are more like caricatures than people. Noël would barely recognize the novel, mainly because it wasn’t originally multicultural.

You mean, it wasn’t originally
interracial.

I prefer the word “multicultural.” We are all, after all, from the human race.

True.

My simple, sweet little novel had two lonely white people meeting, getting together, and falling in love. Nina had agreed to represent my manuscript if I changed a few “colors” and added some more “colorful family and friends.” I ended up padding the word count with gratuitous sex, adult humor, and cursing—all of which seems to be in vogue in today’s literary world. “The book needs more dramatic, guilty pleasures,” Nina had advised, and I had still wanted that dream even if I didn’t have Noël and Stevie to share it with me, so…I did it. I even rationalized that since there is a glut of same-race romances out there, I would be breaking new ground. The world was changing, the literal face of the nation was and is darkening, so I supposed with a few touches here and there—

If Noël had been here to do the final edit, I know it would have come out better. She had helped me to write the original woman’s part, and in many ways, she’s like Noël: sensibly curious, honestly shy, spiritually worldly, and glamorously uncomplicated. My character and my wife were beautiful homebodies.

Like I’ve become.

Except for the beautiful part
.

True. I can’t remember the last time I’ve left the house.

You bought eggnog, Kleenex, and coffee two days ago at Food Lion, remember?

That was two days ago?

Yes
.

Time flies when you’re not having fun, too.

Get back to the book
.

I had told Trina early on that I wasn’t up to making appearances or traveling to promote the book because of what’s happened, and she had understood. “That’s okay, Jackie,” she had said, in her Brooklyn accent, “we weren’t planning on you making any appearances anyway. You’ll be the non-gender-specific D. J. Browning on the advance review copy.”

Non-gender-specific, a name that could apply to either a man or a woman.

You’ve been neutered.

So, here I am on Christmas Day, an anonymous, neutered man waiting on the next day’s mail missing…Noël and Stevie.

God, I need to stay busy.

So, get busy.

But where to start…where to begin? Time to get up off this love seat and do something.

Right
.

The toys.

The toys?

Yeah. Stevie’s toys. Other kids need a nice Christmas, too, and though they’ll be a few days late in getting to them, at least—

At least you’ll be moving.

At least I’ll be moving.

Start with the simplest things first, and then it will become easier.

I hope so.

W
hen I’m not working at the library, I stay home nights and read.

A
lot
.

As in four to five books a week, up to three books on the weekends alone.

I used to read like this as a kid, but it took joining the Mid-Atlantic Book Review to kick-start my reading habit. At first, we’d all read the same book and post our reviews at the MAB.org Web site. When authors started using blurbs from our reviews for their book covers, we later branched out into posting reviews at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s Web site. Now, since we’re one of Amazon.com’s top one hundred reviewers, we get advance review copies from publishers and authors from all over the world.

And I don’t have to pay a single dime for any of the books I read anymore. Just about every other book in my library is an advance review copy from some author or another.

If I like a book, I give it four or five stars and write extremely long, glowing reviews in the hopes that my name will travel around the world on the back of some best-seller. At least my name will get out of the house. That’s only happened a couple of times, but it is still quite a rush to see my own name in “lights” whenever I go into a bookstore.

Now if I hate a book—and I’ve hated a
lot
more books than I’ve liked—I give it one star, though I often write something like, “If I could give this book no stars, I would.” Then I write reviews so short or so overly critical that not even the most imaginative writer or publisher can squeeze a kind, ellipsis-filled comment to put on the back of a book.

It’s funny, but of the hundreds of books I’ve reviewed, few have scored between one and four stars. I guess you could say it’s all or nothing with me as a reader. “Grab me early and grab me often, Mr./Mrs./ Miss Author, and don’t you let me go”—that’s my reviewer’s credo.

I like reading romances the most, not that romances aren’t ridiculous at some level. Most of them are pretty out there, but occasionally I run into one that almost sounds realistic, like what happens to the woman in the story could really happen to me. I usually give those books higher marks, even if they aren’t or will never be best-sellers or be made into movies.

I don’t watch many movies, romantic or otherwise. They are so much more unreal than even the most far-fetched books I’ve reviewed. I mean, in real life, brand-new cars usually start 99 percent of the time and don’t break down on lonely wilderness roads where beady-eyed strangers with maniacal thoughts happen to show up out of the Technicolor blue to help, despite the fact that the population of said wilderness is 0.5 people and 95 squirrels per square mile. In real life, drivers usually insert the correct key in the ignition the first time, and home owners find the front door key in milliseconds, not dropping the key ring while the masked man with the machete slinks closer at 0.2 miles per hour. In real life, most dead bolts hold and don’t break the first time the cop or villain (or cop/villain) kicks in the door, and the doors don’t splinter because most of them aren’t made out of real wood anymore.

And the people in the movies aren’t real, either. In real life, people have gas, runny noses, diarrhea, weak and/or small bladders, and constipation. Unless filmmakers want to do a teen comedy or get an R rating, their people have to be sniffle free and regular so no one will have to use the restroom for one hundred minutes.

In real life, children aren’t always cute; don’t have snappy, adult-sounding comebacks; usually have some piece of green snot or other bodily crud somewhere on their bodies; aren’t always clean or dressed perfectly; and
occasionally
say the darnedest things. I ought to know. I work in a library that literally crawls with snotty kids every Saturday morning.

Movies also have unreal scenes and settings. In real life, meals don’t always taste good—or all that bad either—even at Grandma’s house, and families don’t always sit down together so they can have some snappy dialogue and food hijinks involving what’s
really
in the meat loaf. In real life, the average yard is…average, the grass more beige than green, the flowers not always alive or blooming, the trees and bushes not always coiffed like a new hairstyle, the leaves not always raked, the weeds not always pulled, the deck…not always attached to the house. And in real life, the house isn’t that spacious or grand. I doubt I’d ever see my house in a movie. My windows are dirt spotted and grimy on the outside.

Robert Maxwell to the rescue? Hmm. Maybe this spring when I want to see what the outside looks like, but not now. Everything is so wintry and gray.

My carpet is worn and dirty, though I vacuum often, and my hardwood floors are so scuffed that I have throw rugs everywhere. My bathroom is clean, but it’s anything but gleaming. Hard water will do that to your fixtures. My sink, however, is not full of dishes…because I use lots of Styrofoam. My refrigerator is often bare (except for condiments) by the end of the week, and I sometimes hear echoes from my cupboards and cabinets. No, my home will never be in a movie, unless they do a sequel to
Animal House
.

And please don’t get me started about the so-called jobs people in the movies have. Yeah, I have lots of issues with the movies, and I’ve even thought about being a movie critic, too, but I doubt my reviews would ever go on any poster or DVD cover. In real life, jobs are tedious and frustrating at times, and there’s rarely enough time to flirt, cheat, make conversation, or develop relationships. Folks generally
work
at work, and the only people hanging around the copy machines are the people
repairing
them.

Movie people just aren’t real enough for me. In real life, folks spend a lot of time in line: at the Department of Motor Vehicles, in traffic, at the supermarket, or at the “big game.” They do nothing but wait and think, “Here I am again in line, waiting to get into another line.” In real life, people actually read newspapers, novels, magazines, and cell phone manuals silently to themselves in bed late at night until they fall asleep. And in real life, every phone call isn’t life changing, life affirming, mind-blowing, or the least bit shocking—or all that interesting, for that matter.

If Hollywood followed the average person around for twenty-four hours, it would be real, but who would watch it? Who would watch a movie about, well, nothing?

Just look at the average romance or “chick flick.” These movies do pretty well at the box office if there’s chemistry between the two principles, but what real-life romance has chemistry, heat, and passion
all
the time? In real romance, so much
nothing
happens that eventually
something
has to happen—which is usually a burst of passion followed by
more
nothing. Nothing has the ability to happen for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years at a time (don’t I know it!), leaving the average person time for introspection, a few collected thoughts, a nap, trips to the bathroom, chores, vegging out in front of the TV, another nap, and/or a shower. Can Hollywood put all that in a romantic movie? Of course not! While it is logical and everyone can relate to it, it’s ultimately boring. Something has to happen every nanosecond in romantic comedy, or the romance (and the movie) fizzles.

I know, I know, romance is about hope, about possibilities, about chance encounters, and Hollywood doesn’t have time (or the budget) to be completely real. Hollywood wants to get to the juicy stuff, to get to the passion, to get ’em rolling and writhing in bed, so Hollywood can get to the sunset, to the limo, to the church, and to the credits scrolling during a song that just might win a Grammy.

Maybe I’m too cynical, but
reel life
can never be real. And though many of the books I review fall short, at least they
try
to be real.

I flop into my comfy chair, an overstuffed leather lounger, and open four packages, each addressed to “Nisi.” That’s right. I’m just like Madonna or Cher. I am the one-name MAB reviewer. Mama thinks I should use my “Christian” name, but Mama doesn’t know how angry some of these authors can get. My pseudonym gives me a little security, and in a way, I have made a name for myself. If “Nisi” gives a book high marks, the book is
good
.

The first book is called
The Quiet Game
, by Anonymous. Hmm. Anonymous? Maybe it’s a big-name author afraid to ruin sales of his or her other books. Either that, or this is a stinker, and the publisher doesn’t want anyone to know who wrote it. No title graphic, just plain black text on a white cover. Most advance review copies I receive are dull like this to save money, I guess. I open and read the first page:

I’m not sure that I want to know or see, but at least this book isn’t full of typos so far. I hate that. You wouldn’t believe how sloppy some authors and editors have gotten in their rush to get a quote or two from a reviewer. It’s almost as if I’m reading a first draft half the time. This reads smoothly, but I don’t think this is going to be my cup of tea.

I don’t have to read this one. It has to be a rip-off of the sniper killings a few years back. When will authors get some innovative plots? There is definitely nothing new under the sun. I mean, where’s the mystery in this? I enjoy reading mysteries, I really do, but after reading this first page—and knowing what it’s based on—there’s no point in reading this at all. And I’ll bet the movie version of the whole sniper mess is either in the works or “in the can,” as they say.

Overkill. That’s all this is.

Yeah, it shocked me that a black man was the sniper, just like it shocked all those fool criminal profilers out there who thought he
had
to be white to be such a sophisticated criminal. The only thing that shocks me more is the book sitting in my hands. This is old news, and it gets published. Sometimes I don’t think the publishers in New York have a single clue about what folks really want to read. “Hey, here’s something that scared the crap out of Americans on the East Coast, Bob. Let’s sell it.” Yeah, and it kept us inside
reading
. Now that the sniper has been caught and convicted, we’re outside again…and reading
less
.

I set
The Quiet Game
aside and wished Vanessa—the president of the Mid-Atlantic Book Review—would stop sending me every book that takes place in Virginia. I wasn’t even living here during those sniper shootings, and I know there are at least ten other women in Virginia who post reviews for MAB. Why me? I pick up
The Quiet Game
and flip a few pages, the word “blood” jumping out at me several times on page six. Great. A black serial killer sniper is the narrator, he looks at life through his “little lens,” and I live alone on part of his personal battlefield.

I’m going to pass on this one for now. I’ll probably skim it later, and I know I’m not the only book reviewer who skims books on occasion. So many books come out every year in the United States, something like 100,000 titles, and it’s difficult for reviewers to keep up. I officially reviewed 106 books last year in addition to “unofficially” reviewing 140 of my own choosing at Amazon.com, and I might have read half of the 106 all the way through.

The title of the second book,
Thicker Than Blood
, by J. Johnson, doesn’t make me feel any safer, although when I open to the first chapter, I’m mildly intrigued:

When’s the last time I went to a happy hour? Or even a restaurant that serves mixed drinks, for that matter? It has to be years. I doubt I’m missing much. But men think about sex every seven seconds? Who determines this stuff? Do
I
think about sex that often? Who has the time?

“
Cute
woman”? Hmm. That girl is a hoochie. When will authors realize that most of their female readers are
nothing
like the women in the books they write? When will authors realize that we do not aspire to
be
them? If other female readers are like me, they have some baggage, and the only time they have smooth and silky legs is just before a trip to the gynecologist’s. Cute Woman sounds like a trifling ho.