Story Girl
Authors: Katherine Carlson
Story Girl
Copyright © 2013 Katherine Carlson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-9866-7092-8
ISBN-13: 9780986670923
Story Girl
A Novel
Katherine Carlson
Dedication
For Anne, Bo, and Bradley…
Acknowledgements
Much love and gratitude to Anne, Bo, Brad, and Jasmin Carlson.
Many thanks to Kathy, Dale, and Kerri Hauer – as well as Mike, Steph, and Garrett Lidin.
I am thankful for Nicole M. Weatherly and wish to extend thanks to Bea and Edward as well.
Thank you also to Val Yegorov, Rylie T. Lowry, David Alley, Amy LeJeune, Luisa Marshall, Nicholas Snow, Lucy Pereira, Marie Prasad, Anja Offermann, Rowan Tully, and Jasmine Whenham.
I also want to thank Yiota Moldovanos for her unwavering support and friendship.
And kudos to all the Story Girls and Boys out there who brought their imaginings to fruition and delivered us countless epics, spectacles, and flights of fancy.
And finally…
Thank you, Lin Elder, for being so consistently amazing… and for showing me that real life is the most wonderful adventure of them all.
~
Part
1
Hives,
Uneaten Scripts,
and Happy Accidents
chapter
1
2005
H
OLY CRAP
.
My hand mirror revealed a face I’d never seen before.
It was the morning after my thirtieth birthday, and I was swollen silly with blood red hives that were merging together like some strangely hideous second skin. And my torso was cramped as though I’d spent the last three nights traveling by Greyhound.
I hobbled to the bathroom, took two Benadryl, and sat in an empty tub. My naked and bloated body had somehow turned against itself. I turned on the tap and tried to squish my entire bulk, limbs and all, under the faucet. Hot water burned through the itch, and my tormented hide turned a rather violent shade of purple.
My God. I held my breath to better endure the scalding and squinted at myself in the shiny tub fixtures. I had no reference point for an event such as this, and wondered if I might be suffering from some sort of raging food allergy; considering I hadn’t eaten anything in twenty hours, I was left to conclude that I was having a really bad reaction to my own life.
I squeezed my eyes tight and tried to remember yesterday –
the turning point
. I’d eaten breakfast with my cat, Lucy, and stared
blankly at the news. An hour later, Ray called – he was the latest in a string of apartment managers, informing me that I had two birthday packages sitting in the lobby.
My little sister had sent a stationary set with a butterfly pattern, and my high-school friend Molly had sent me a bottle of Cabernet and a box of last year’s Christmas chocolate. For fun, I set a lighter to some of the chocolate squares and watched as the stale candy melted into a sticky puddle.
At noon, I received a dozen lavender roses from my parents. And fifteen minutes later, they called.
“Hello,” I asked, already skeptical.
“Happy Birthday, sweetheart.” My mother sounded like she was on the verge of tears. I could hear my father’s heavy breathing on the other line.
“Thirty years ago today, I was holding you in my arms,” she said.
“Yes you were, Mother.”
“Twenty-five years ago today, you were celebrating your first half decade on Earth. Twenty years ago today, you were about to enter grade five,” she paused to take a breath, and I broke in.
“I feel good, Mom – I feel fine.” I wanted to add that only one hour ago I’d been plucking dark hairs from around my nipple.
“Well honey, your father and I are so proud of you. Not many people just up and leave their family for Hollywood.”
She waited for a response from me, but there was nothing. We’d been having this exact discussion for almost six years.
“Have you written anything lately?” she asked.
“This and that.”
“No big money offers yet?”
I couldn’t admit that the only thing I’d been offered was a twenty-dollar bill to write a phony doctor’s note for a co-worker – which I regretfully turned down, “Not unless my secretary’s keeping secrets.”
“You have a secretary?”
“I’m kidding, Mom.”
My father laughed but I could almost feel my mother stiffen.
“I’m glad you can be so light-hearted, dear.”
My father sneezed and wished me a happy birthday.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You were always such an adventurous type, Tracy.”
I was squeezing my pillow like someone possessed, bracing myself for the other shoe to drop, but I knew from the tone of her voice that it might well be a kick from a steel-toed boot.
“Thirty’s different, sweetheart. Thirty changes everything. Time to be thinking about direction and security. When you’re our age, there will be no such thing as a pension.”
“Not if they privatize social security,” my father hollered.
I had to put the phone down and rub feeling back into my ear. The phone looked better on the floor but I eventually picked it up and placed it against my other ear.
“Just stop it, Herb,” my mother was scolding. “All I’m asking is that you don’t interrupt me.”
“She’s my daughter too, right Pebbles?”
“Right, Dad.”
“As I was saying, dear. Security and retirement are important concerns.”
I was expecting a Suze Orman style lecture on 401(k)s and Roth IRAs; instead, my mother delivered the dreaded strike to my most vulnerable region.
“Maybe it’s time you thought about marriage.”
I suddenly remembered that the cupboard was bare of vodka.
“You know, Tracy, there is absolutely nothing more rewarding, or fulfilling, or meaningful – ”
“Or expensive,” my dad interrupted.
“Stop it, Herbert. You don’t want to give her the wrong idea.”
“But they are.”
“As I was saying…”
But don’t say it
.
“There is nothing more substantial in life, nothing that makes a woman feel more whole than finding love and having children.”
But I barely even know what a child is
.
My throat tightened for the grand finale.
“Trust me, sweetheart. Trust me on this one thing. It’s fun to tinker around in your teens and maybe even your twenties, but thirty is a turning point in every person’s life. Thirty means it’s time to grow up. We’re not meant to be alone, my dear. And it’s just that – well – you’ve tinkered enough.”
“Okay.”
“Tracy?”
The entirety of my existence had been reduced to tinkering.
“Okay, Mom – great!”
“I mean it, Tracy. We really aren’t meant to be alone – it’s unnatural.”
“Someone’s at the door.”
“Have you really taken in what I’ve said?”
“Yes, I’ve taken it in,” I mumbled. “Like a mallet blow to the gut.”
“What was that, dear?”
“Someone’s at the
door
.”
“Well, for God’s sakes, do not answer it.”
“Why not?”
“Is it someone you know – it could be someone with bad intentions.”
Or maybe even worse, Mother – it could be someone with unnatural intentions! Maybe it’s me at the door, carrying a spine, ready to tell you off and reassure myself that my lack of desire for kids is as natural as the nose on my face – possibly even supernatural
.
“Is the person still there – you have to call the police.”
“They’re gone.”
“They could be lingering.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then let’s get back to basics. I really want you to consider your age now. Alone won’t be fun.”
I already knew that.
“Old won’t be fun either, Tracy. And anyway, isn’t it time to be responsible for someone else?”
I summoned the most frenzied voice I possibly could, “Oh my gosh – I really
really
gotta go!”
“Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Now you’re really worrying me.”
“I just got my period.”
I slammed the phone down in horror – the phone that was shaped like Mickey Mouse. Sure, of course I was ready to be responsible for someone else.