Here Is a Story I Wrote
by Jennifer Amey
This is a very simple story. It's a straightforward story. Boy meets
girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. A classic. But now I've blown
the ending. I've ruined the surprise. Unless we have a twist ending, and
the boy doesn't get the girl back. Maybe the boy meets another girl
altogether, finds love with her. Or maybe something tragic happens.
Maybe the girl dies. Maybe the boy dies, and the girl regrets the fact
that she never forgave him whatever it was that broke them up in the
first place.
But I'm getting ahead of myself now. The boy and the girl haven't even
met yet.
Okay.
Boy meets girl.
Maybe they're in a park, walking dogs, or just sitting under trees,
reading, enjoying the cool air on their faces. Maybe they catch each
other's eyes walking down the street. It happens a number of times,
neither one does anything about it. Then he's in the neighbourhood café,
chatting with the owner because it's that kind of café, and she walks
in. The owner greets her by name. Their eyes meet again, and she smiles,
and he extends a hand and offers his name, and she smiles and takes his
hand and says, "I've seen you around the neighbourhood," and he says, "I
live two blocks over." And she sits at his table and they talk.
The boy-loses-girl part doesn't happen right away. They get closer
first. There has to be something at stake.
This is the part where they start to fall in love. This part is really
important, because if the reader doesn't believe in the depth of their
feelings for one another, everything else falls flat. There are too many
movies especially that don't pay enough attention to this part. The
hero's love for a woman is supposed to drive and justify all his
actions, but we don't see her, we don't know her, we know nothing about
their relationship, and so the rest of the action rings hollow. He's
doing whatever it is he does, robbing a bank or saving the world or
having a nervous breakdown, doing it for a pair of legs, for a pretty
face, for a cipher. This is not like that.
You can be infatuated with a mystery, but to really love someone you
have to know her.
This is not a montage of walks on beaches and picnics and the happy
couple holding hands as they run through a field of daisies. Maybe they
do all of these things -- these are things that are pleasant to do, so
why wouldn't they do them? -- but these are not the things that matter.
These are not the things that make us know, that make us care about what
happens to the boy and the girl. The things that matter are bigger and
smaller at the same time. They stay up till five o'clock in the morning
just talking. They finish each other's sentences. One of them starts to
tell the other about this really wonderful book that you just absolutely
have to read, and the other interrupts to say, yes! I love that book!
It's one of my favourites! Yes! Yes! Yes!
Or one of them suddenly seems sad for no reason, and there is comfort in
the presence of the other, an arm around a shoulder, the touch of a
hand. There is no pushing and prodding, but a story is told, it's
difficult to tell and difficult to hear, but one of them tells the
story, and the other says nothing, just listens, listens intently, eyes
unwavering, nodding, and enfolding the storyteller in an embrace when
the moment comes. Saying, it's okay. It's okay. Maybe it’s a story of a
past relationship, a past betrayal, like so many people have lived
through, though each betrayal is unique . Living through one does not
prepare you for the next. Maybe betrayal is something they have each
lived through, at different times. It strengthens their bond, each of
them knowing: he has been through this. He understands. He would never
do that to me, because he knows what it’s like. The memory of her
lover’s angry forced confession is burned on her brain like a messy
scar, like a tattoo she’s tried to remove, using lasers, using
dermabrasion, using all of these imperfect techniques which obscure the
original message but can never restore the skin to its original smooth
state. He empathizes, he has a scar of his own, a memory of going out of
town on a business trip, of everything seeming just slightly wrong when
he returned, like someone had moved every item in their apartment a
quart-inch to the left, or switched every pair of shoes in the closet so
the left shoe was on the right side, even though neither of these things
actually happened. His lover had seemed distant, he would ask what was
wrong and she would say "nothing," and she seemed to vanish slowly from
his life, piece by piece, limb by limb, and it was only after she was
gone that he found out the truth.
Each one has stories to tell, some happy some sad, and the other absorbs
these stories, like the chapters of a novel, a thick Russian novel
filled with unsentimental emotion and beautiful images, a novel that
makes your heart stop beating because you are reading it with your
entire body, a novel you hope never ends because you want to keep
reading it forever, its variegated layers of tragedy and comic relief
balancing one another perfectly. They come to love one another's flaws,
solely because those flaws are part of the whole. Because without those
flaws, they wouldn't be who they are. Because without those flaws, their
lives would not have led them along paths that crossed.
Of course none of this can last.
It never does. If only because for this to be a story, there must be
conflict. There must be a beginning, a middle, and an end. The formula
for screenplays is as follows: the first thirty per cent is expository,
the next fifty per cent is given over to rising action, and the final
twenty per cent comprises the climax and denouement. The boy and the
girl falling in love always comes under the heading "expository." In
real life, that is the rising action. That is the meat of the story, the
discovery of another person who complements your personality in such a
way that it seems that the missing piece of the cosmic puzzle, the piece
you've been waiting for, has finally arrived. This is the time of
excitement. But for the purposes of narrative fiction, it's not enough.
For the purposes of narrative fiction, there has to be conflict. I'm
still not sure why that is.
So: boy loses girl. Metaphorically speaking, that is. He doesn't simply
misplace her. She doesn't get dropped in the street like a lost glove or
left at a restaurant like a lost umbrella or sucked into the laundry
vortex like another lost sock.
Or maybe she does. Maybe they are out someplace crowded, Christmas
shopping perhaps, or it's summertime and they're at an outdoor music
festival in a park and crowds of people are strolling the lawns, sitting
on deck chairs they've brought, or stretched out on beach towels hoping
to absorb some summer colour, drifting off to sleep to the bossanova
beat of the congo drums on the band stand. They're heading to the
concession stand -- it's hot, and she's thirsty -- except that they
aren't. He thought that's what they were doing, she was right behind
him, but it turns out she's not. Maybe someone pushed between them and
she lost sight of him because he turned left when she thought he'd
turned right. She thought she caught a glimpse of his yellow hat bobbing
above the crowd, she tried to follow, only when she caught up with him
it turned out she was following the wrong yellow hat. Maybe it's as
simple as that. She's just caught up to the yellow hat, reached out to
grab his arm so she doesn't lose him again, pulls him toward her in an
embrace, and their eyes meet and the moment turns from the smiles of
I've-found-you to the perplexion of who-is-this? And she laughs and says
"I've been following the wrong yellow hat!" and he takes his hat off,
laughing, and someone is pushing through the crowd and their bodies are
pressed together. This is when he catches sight of them. This is when he
sees them, from a distance, the girl he loves pressed up against some
other boy, they are laughing together. The moment looks so intimate, he
feels like he is intruding something simply by watching them, and his
face grows flushed. She breaks away, turns and gives a little wave as
she leaves, heads towards the lemonade stand where he is waiting. She
smiles when she sees him, but he does not. She says, "There you are!"
She says, "Are you okay?" and he says he's tired and maybe they should
go home early and they do.
Some times that's all it takes. He is embarrassed to ask her about the
other man. He assures himself it was nothing, he's making a big deal out
of nothing, and if he brings it up she will tell him just that. So he
says nothing, but he wonders. Doubt has been planted.
Of course, he has no real reason to doubt her. True love comes with
trust. Pure love imputes only the most noble intentions to the object of
one's affections. So the fact that the doubt exists makes him doubt
more. Shouldn't they be able to communicate? Shouldn't they be able to
talk about anything? The fact that he doesn't feel comfortable talking
about this just demonstrates that something is wrong, something is
deeper than the confusion and anger he felt when he saw her in the arms
of another man. The very fact that the doubt exists, that he didn't
automatically believe in the very core of his being that her intentions
were pure and honest, this proves that something is wrong. If their love
was real, he wouldn't doubt. He wouldn't think twice.
Suspicion is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
He grows distant. She asks what's wrong, he says nothing. This makes her
furrow her brow, it is so obviously a lie. He would feel foolish saying
anything now, so much time has passed. If he answered truthfully, if he
said, when she asked what was wrong, "Last month at the jazz festival,
who was that man?" She would smile with relief that his mood was all do
to a trivial misunderstanding so easily cleared up. Part of him would be
relieved that the ordeal was over, part would feel embarrassed, no,
angry at her lack of respect for his feelings. "Don't be silly!" Why
were his feelings silly to her? They were real to him, they should be
real to her as well. She asks what's wrong, he says nothing.
They're living together, but she feels lonely. Sleeping in the same bed,
she feels lonely, he is so far away. She writes a letter to an old
school friend, trying to seem upbeat, but her mood lies beneath her
words like a dark pool, absorbing light. Her friend sends her a
bracelet, braided out of coloured string, not really to her tastes, a
bit too hippy-style, but her heart aches and when she opens the envelope
she is touched by this gentle gesture, she struggles to breathe
regularly, her eyes grow heavy and wet. She ties the bracelet around her
wrist, wraps her other hand around it, holds her hands, together, close
to her chest, and thinks: you are not alone.
He asks her where she got the bracelet. She tells him an old school
friend sent it to her. He nods, but he doesn't believe her.
You've read this story before. This gap cannot be closed. There is a
chasm between them. This is what they call "drifting apart." He is angry
at himself for being so insecure that he assumes the worst, but he
cannot bring himself to ask her. He becomes less and less pleasant to be
around, so she avoids spending time at the apartment. She works late.
She takes yoga. She joins a book club.
Finally they realize they never see each other anymore. They are like
roommates who never speak, never take the time to get to know one
another. When they break up, it's not like breaking up. It's like they
broke up a long time ago. Relationships are all about communication. If
there's no communication, there's no relationship.
Months go by. They were both careful for a while, not going to the old
hangouts, not going back to the café where they met, but eventually they
start to ease back into their old ways. Maybe the first time he sees her
in the park he turns around and walks the other way before she sees him.
Maybe the first time she heads to the café and sees him at the counter,
she walks right past. The first time they make eye contact in the street
is an accident; neither of them was paying close attention. They were
lost in space, staring into middle distance or at the sky or at their
feet, and when they realized they were only six feet away from one
another, it was too late to pretend not to see. They both looked sort of
shocked, then each half-smiled at the other's reaction, mumbled "hi."
The next time they bump into one another they say hello like normal
people.
Eventually they run into one another at the café, share a table. They
talk.
Maybe that's not a very exciting ending. This is supposed to be the part
where something dramatic happens, where they rush into each other's
arms, where the music swells. But life isn't like that. In real life,
the best possible ending is having a conversation.
Jennifer Amey's short fiction has appeared in
Pindeldyboz and Eyeshot, and essays and opinion in *Spark,
Hive Magazine, McSweeneys, and The Globe and Mail. Together with Toronto writer Jill
Murray, she co-founded and co-hosts Itch: the reading series. She is currently working on her
first novel, Sundowning, with the support of the Toronto Arts Council.
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