Deep Down True (51 page)

“Tina did it.” She could barely keep her eyes open. “I’m going up to change,” she said, and then, glancing at Polly, she told her mother, “Come with me.”

You’re not my armor,
Dana thought for the second time in as many days. “I’ll be up in a minute.” When Morgan had gone, she looked at Polly.

“She did okay for most of it,” said Polly. “Really held it together. Has to be hard seeing your dad marry someone else, when last year it was your mother in all the family pictures.”

“You stuck with her?”

“Like white on rice.” She glanced away. “It was hard for me, too. You and I and Kenneth and Victor were so close. Now everything’s in the toilet.”

“Tina doesn’t seem that bad.”

“Who gives a shit about Tina!” Polly flared. “I don’t want Tina!”

Victor came back from tucking Grady in. He took Polly’s arm, said, “Good night, Dana,” and muscled his wife out the door. “Time and space,” he muttered at her before the door closed.

Dana went up to Morgan’s room. She was under the covers, her dress in a heap on the floor. From habit Dana put it on a hanger. “Don’t bother,” said Morgan. “I’m never wearing it again.”

“Never say never.”
Boy, that sounded just like Ma,
she thought.

“Okay, I’ll wear it when the Jonas Brothers ask me to play cello on tour with them.”

“Fair enough.” Dana scooted her over and lay down beside her. “How’d it go?”

“Terrible.”

“Details, please.”

“I did good,” Morgan said, “up till the vows. Up till the ‘death do us part’ part. And I thought, ‘He said this same thing to Mom, and he didn’t mean it. How come anyone believes him now?’”

“He did mean it.”

“Yeah, right,” she snorted. “And look where
that
got us.”

“Morgan, I’m not going to start defending your father,” Dana said quietly. “But I was there fifteen years ago when he said it the first time, and I know he meant it. He had every intention, and so did I. But sometimes the best of intentions just don’t work out. A lot of times they do, but sometimes they don’t. And I’m sorry you had to learn that so early in life, sweetie, I really am. But hating Dad is no help to you.”

“How do you know? Maybe it helps a lot.”

“Because I’ve tried it. It’s like eating a quart of ice cream. Makes you feel better for a little while, but eventually it makes you feel worse.”

Morgan didn’t say anything after that. Dana could hear the tiny Styrofoam beads squeaking against one another inside the Hershey pillow as Morgan’s fingers pressed at it.

“Sweetie, what happened when you heard the vows? Did you get upset?”

“I cried—not loud or anything. No one could hear me. But Polly was sitting next to me, and she slid right up close and put her arm around me.”

“Was that good?”

“Well ... you know Polly. She grabs you so tight you can hardly breathe. But yeah, it felt kinda good. I thought I was going to freak out and be, like, embarrassing. But she’s so strong—I think she’s been lifting weights. It was like having a superhero right there in the pew.”

Thank you, Polly,
Dana thought.
Thank God for you.

“Are you and her friends again?” Morgan asked.

“We’re getting there,” said Dana. “Sometimes when somebody really lets you down, you need a break, no matter how much they apologize. But I think the break’s about over.” She gave Morgan a squeeze and kissed her forehead. “Sleep late tomorrow, okay?”

She was almost to the doorway when Morgan said, “Wait, I forgot to tell you. I got that wolf paper back. My teacher really liked it, and I got all the extra-credit points.”

“That’s wonderful, honey! Can I read it?”

“It’s in my backpack downstairs.”

Dana went down to the mudroom and finally found it, stuffed behind books, a water bottle, a damp hoodie, and one gym sock. Dana brought the paper into the office to get her reading glasses and sat down at her desk.

“The North American Timber Wolf: Predator or Prey?” she read. “By Morgan Stellgarten.” The teacher had marked it with “A+, 105/100, Beautiful job, Morgan!” The first section detailed the history, hunting and communication skills, social hierarchy, and endangered status of the timber wolf. It had no predators other than humans, who had almost completely exterminated the species. “In a couple of states, wolves can still be killed anytime, even though they’re endangered. Those people must really hate wolves.”

The last section was titled “Extra Credit, Comparing Wolves to Another Endangered Species, Humans.”

Humans?
thought Dana.
That’s a hard case to make.

“Most people do not consider humans endangered,” wrote Morgan. “Maybe nobody does. But being human is very dangerous. No other animals hold grudges against each other, or build bombs, or think about hurting each other a lot of the time like people do. There’s a lot of us, so no one thinks we’re in trouble. But we are.

“Wolves are unlike humans in many ways. If you’re a wolf instead of a human, you always know where you stand. You’re either an alpha or a celibate subordinate, and either way your job is clear. It is very strict, but that makes it safer. Wolf cubs don’t have to worry who is going to take care of them. No one loses their job or worries about money or being pretty enough.”

“Wolves are like humans in some ways, too. Middle school is like a really big wolf pack, only the jobs switch a lot for no real reason. Everyone knows who the alphas are, but tomorrow that could change. The celibate subordinates get bitten if they are acting too cool, or too awkward, or just because the alphas feel like it. That is called bullying, and the guidance counselors talk about it a lot, but it never really goes away. Maybe it is just part of being in the pack. It is more dangerous to be a disperser, a person who gets kicked out or goes off and tries to start their own pack, because in the time between leaving your pack and starting a new one, you get attacked a lot.

“A family is like a wolf pack, too, except for the changing-jobs part. In my family my father was the alpha male. I’m not sure what my mother was. She wasn’t a celibate subordinate, because she had the cubs (my brother and me). But she didn’t act too alpha. Then my dad turned into a disperser (even though alphas are not supposed to do that) and went to start a new pack. So then we had no alpha for a while. My mother had some trouble getting bitten by wolves from other packs. But she must be pretty smart, because she figured out how to be an alpha pretty quick. She nips back a little now, too. It is safer in our pack now, and mostly I believe her when she says, Everything is going to be okay.”

Fortysomething Dana Stellgarten has always been nice to everyone, to a fault. These days, however, she’s got her hands full and her patience is wearing thin. She’s fresh out of a divorce—in a move that even she found painfully predictable, her husband left her for a younger woman—and trying to raise two children on increasingly limited funds in suburban Connecticut. Dana must essentially start over, make some new friends, learn how to date again, and find a job after being at home with her children for years.

If all that weren’t enough, her ex, Kenneth, continues to make her life miserable with his insensitive demands, and both of their children seem to be internalizing the pain of the divorce. Twelve-year-old Morgan is starting to exhibit some suspicious behavior, and Dana suspects that she might be in the early stages of an eating disorder. Her once happy-go-lucky seven-year-old, Grady, is acting out in school, alienating his friends and irking his teachers. Determined to provide a better home life than she had growing up with her hapless mother and depressed father, Dana will do everything she can to make her kids feel safe, secure, and loved.

Then one day Dana’s sixteen-year-old niece, Alder, arrives unannounced: She’s running away from home, though she won’t say why, and needs somewhere to stay, far away from her contradictorily controlling bohemian mother, Dana’s sister, Connie. Dana, kindhearted as always, can only say yes, hoping that she can somehow make the new arrangement work while finding a way to keep her infuriated sister at bay.

Even with all these moving parts, Dana eventually starts to settle into post-divorce life. She volunteers delivering meals to a local family in need. She starts dating Grady’s enthusiastic football coach. Nora, the popular and glamorous mother of Morgan’s new BFF, befriends her, and Dana feels flattered. But it’s when she begins working as a temporary receptionist for her dentist, Dr. Tony Sakimoto, that Dana finally finds a real connection, one that will teach her that nothing is more important than being true to your own heart.

Juliette Fay’s second book is a tender, often humorous, story of rising above the unexpected, sometimes disappointing, circumstances of life. Dana is the quintessential everywoman, finding her own voice and inner strength just when she needs it most. Fay has a knack for creating authentic characters whom readers will come to love. With savvy dialogue and compelling emotional insight,
Deep Down True
is a novel with intelligence and soul.

Juliette Fay received a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and a master’s degree from Harvard University. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and four children. Her debut novel,
Shelter Me
, was on the Indie Next List, was chosen as a Target Bookmarked Pick for 2009, and was a 2009 Massachusetts Book Award Book of the Year.
Deep Down True
is her second novel.

I was inspired by the fascinating crucible of the middle school experience, and how sometimes we as adults can be thrown back into those feelings of desperately wanting to belong, while also trying to follow our hearts. At any age these two things—belonging and being true to ourselves—can sometimes be hard to accomplish simultaneously.

The narrative starts after the divorce because the divorce itself isn’t as interesting as the way it shatters Dana’s complacency with the life she knows—a barely lukewarm marriage and an existence that revolves around everyone but her. It challenges her to stop settling for so little and start building a life that is worthy of her.

 

 

 

I guess it’s kind of like moving to another country—eventually you learn the lingo. And for the stuff I don’t get right, I have a native speaker in my teenaged daughter, Brianna, who corrects my drafts. She’s the oldest and the only one of my four children who’s read my novels. The boys have never asked to. Maybe if I were writing thrillers or fantasy they’d be more interested.

I rarely if ever quote my children—or anyone’s children—in my books. I have too much fun making it up myself. But I do use little common phrases, mannerisms and reactions. As a writer I’m lucky to have such ready access.

 

 

 

Making the dinners for the McPhersons is emblematic of Dana, who is such a selfless giver that even as her own life is falling apart, she never stops doing for others. The flip side of that coin is that it also serves as a self-soothing behavior. Her rituals of kindness keep at bay the harshness of a world where people kill themselves and husbands leave and kids are cruel. And hey, it’s food, Dana’s drug of choice.

The dinners are more than just food, though. They serve as an entrance ticket into the life of another family in the throes of even greater adversity than Dana’s. And it’s a way for her to tap into her true self, which is not about what she can
do
—she cannot fix anything for the McPhersons. But she can offer her particularly wonderful brand of compassion, which is one of her essential strengths.

 

 

 

I did a lot of research, read reports, talked to experts, poured over Web sites, went to a conference. The Web sites that anorexic and bulimic girls themselves put up about what they do and how and why are absolutely haunting. I also interviewed a couple of adult friends who’d been bulimic. Ultimately I kept thinking back to a friend from my younger years who was anorexic. I confronted her and begged her to stop starving herself and she told me, “I want my mother to make me stop.” I’ll never forget it because it was then that I knew she was in for a long haul. Her mother was utterly checked out. It made me see that even as we are leaving childhood behind and insisting that we don’t need help, we want our parents’ guidance and leadership.