Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 253

You guys,

I'm in the second draft of my book, which means as each chapter gets closer to the final draft, I share it with the people in my life who are mentioned.

Chapter 1 is about my ex-boyfriend of eight years, Mark. We were together through our entire twenties. He was my first love, the person I drove across the country with to start our new lives in California, and the person I told repeatedly that if he proposed I’d say no.

I wanted to get his perspective on that time in our lives. I wanted to be a reliable narrator and do what Mary Karr did in The Liars’ Club. When she was a little girl she remembered her grandmother as a mean old lady (or rather, her words, “a ring-tailed bitch”) but her older sister loved their grandmother and disagreed fully with Mary’s memories of what happened. So in the book, in a parenthetical, she writes, “If I gave my big sister a paragraph here, she would correct my memory. To this day, she claims that she genuinely mourned for the old lady, who was a kindly soul, and that I was too little and mean-spirited then to remember things right.”

How did Mark remember our relationship? Did I capture it fairly? Did I depict our time together accurately?

We grew up in the same town and still shared one mutual friend, Rick. I called Rick first, told him about the book and Chapter 1. He was silent on the other end for a moment, which was unsettling since our phone conversations typically last an hour with him talking for most of it. Then he said, “Uh, how do you think Mark’s going to feel about this?”

I could sense his fear for Mark. Rick remembered our relationship better than anyone. We were always fighting. He must have figured that whatever I was going to write about Mark, it wasn’t going to be good.

He wasn’t wrong. It’s part of the reason I was calling. I wanted to see if he could remember anything specific, preferably that cast me in a negative light because I knew the key to relatability and trust with the reader was to write unsparingly about myself.

“You suck when you’re mad,” Rick said, present tense, as if this was still true, as if he’d seen me mad since our 20s. “You’re the worst angry person ever. You forget why you’re mad ‘cause you’re so mad.”

When I thought back to those years with Mark all I could remember was my anger. I was mad at him all the time, but I couldn’t remember any specific instances of what he did or said.

When we ended the conversation I told Rick I was going to send him the chapter first, before I sent it to Mark. The day I sent it, he confirmed that he got it. Months later he has still not given me any feedback.

I re-wrote the chapter about six more times, and on a cold and sunny afternoon in January, I sat at my kitchen table and sent a text to my ex-boyfriend:

“Hey Mark! Is this still your number? You still in California (hopefully not near the fires)?”

Three little dots appeared and Mark responded:

“hey Charlie so funny u just texted me during my therapy session n my therapist was like everything ok…im like uhhh yea

Blast from the past funny timing

But yes I’m all good from fires thanks for checking in”

We went back and forth with polite pleasantries and then I dropped the bomb. The text had first been written in a Google doc and shared with Sam and Michael Dean, my book editor. Together we crafted a text that would invite Mark to share his perspective without allowing him to remove something I’d written if he disagreed with it. I saved the draft in a note in my phone so I just copied and pasted it. I wrote:

“So, there is actually another reason I’m texting.

I’m writing a memoir. It’s about how I moved to California, sort-of tried acting but barely, and eventually found writing. You’re in the first chapter (I used a different name). I’m reaching out to most people who are in the book. I want to write unforgivingly about myself, so your perspective about that time in our lives could help with the details. I want to know how you remember things, and if there is anything specific that could add to the story. Of course I also understand if you’d prefer not to read it. But I didn’t want to publish a book without you having the chance to read and comment on the pages that mention you.”

I stared at my phone. No dots appeared. Thirty-two minutes crept by. I tried to busy myself with other things, like eating a chicken salad sandwich. It tasted dry and was difficult to swallow. Later, when I told Sam that Mark didn’t reply for thirty-two minutes, he asked why I cared so much what Mark thought. Would it change anything?

I’d been writing under a pseudonym for five years and over the course of that time I had written about people in my life in disparaging ways. I wrote that my brother was an asshole, my Dad was a slob, my mom was judgmental. Writing as Charlie had turned into an exercise in blame. I was somehow always the hero and/or the victim. It was only in the past year or two—after reading and analyzing so many memoirs—that I realized every time I blamed someone was an opportunity to reflect on my own flaws and misgivings. Sharing this chapter with Mark was the first time I could test if I’d gotten it right. If the writing was full of blame—or had any blame at all—Mark would, I guessed, have a negative reaction.

My phone beeped. He had reacted to my text with a thumbs up, and then three dots appeared. He wrote:

“that’s great I would love to read it…I’ve fully healed and grown from that time…always enjoyed your writing”

Me: “Well that is the most amazing response I could have imagined. And I’m glad to hear that you’ve healed and grown…me too.”

Mark: “that was such a wild time in our lives…but it has led us to where we r now so im always grateful for what we went through”

I sent the chapter to Mark. Twenty minutes later he sent me another text:

“I breezed through that…no notes

all the feels coming back but even tho I don’t like thinking about some of it…it made me smile

20 year old me from New Jersey had so much to learn

Can’t wait to read it all”

—

Until next week,

Charlie