I KNOW THAT CHARACTER

A dear, longtime friend of mine was given an eReader for Christmas. The first ebook she bought was the book on Thomas Jefferson and the second my cozy mystery titled Scene Stealer.

I received a phone call.
FRIEND
I liked your book, I really enjoyed reading it and I know who the characters are.

ME
(Confused)
You do?

FRIEND
Sure. You’re Augusta Weidenmaier. You based the lead character on yourself.

ME
Uhh…no. Miss Weidenmaier is much older than me. I never taught children. She may be loosely, very loosely based on an old character actress I worked with.

FRIEND
C’mon. And what about the actor that does hand commercials? You had that fat tenor we worked with at the beach in mind, didn’t you? I could just see him. It has to be him.

ME
What fat tenor?

FRIEND
You know. What’s his name?

ME
I don’t remember what’s his name. Actually, part of him is a her, based on the ex wife of a dancer who did hand commercials and had her husband do the dishes. And the character is not fat and can’t sing a note and has extremely small feet just like a supervisor I once worked for.

FRIEND
Well don’t tell me I’m not Annalise. I could sing, I could tap and I certainly worked off-off Broadway.

ME
Oh, my God.

FRIEND
Don’t worry—I’m not going to sue you or anything. I like being in your book.
At that moment I thought of a teacher who told us not to worry about the meaning of what we write. “If people like what you write,” he said “they’ll tell you what it means.”


Bests,
Elise