My husband knows how to make the perfect steak. He knows how to
marinate it, and he knows how long to leave mine on the grill. You see,
I like my steaks rare. No, I like my steaks to pretend that they’ve
seen the fire from a distance. Purple and juicy and zapping with flavor.
I like my characters the same way.
When
I come away from a book and know what so-and-so would say or do or wear
in a situation different from the book without the author telling me,
"Hey, Gerard is the type who would cling to his mother and can’t make a
decision without her and to some extent is afraid of her." I want to
think I’m smart and can figure this out on my own. (No comment fromt he
peanut gallery, please.)
Sometimes I leave my characters on the
grill too long, grilling them with reflective questions until they’re
tough and almost burnt, well-done instead of delicate and tender.
Sometimes I become more of the psychologist and less of the author.
"How does this make you feel?" I ask.
Of course, psychologists would
probably make great authors. Think of all the interesting characters
they have stocked in the files.
Point being, let the steak moo for itself.

After all the craziness of life, family operations, family reunions,
vacations, and projects, I believed coming back to my books would be
like dusting a rarely used room (or an often used room that rarely gets
dusted, not that I would know of such things).
Not so much.
My
characters were none too pleased with me. Marnie, after letting loose a
string of insults, which were a mixture of kindergarten knocks,
street-savvy slaps, and Shakespearean slams, gave me the cold shoulder,
making a show of pouring a single glass of Shiraz. Itzel, well, she had
flat-out disappeared. I searched and searched, finally finding her in a
closet. She gave me a smile I knew to be not her own, said she was
fine, and went back to smelling her mother’s skirt.
Hey, I told them
in my maternal voice (ironic since the only one I have to be maternal
to is the one fish that’s left, George), I brought you into this world,
and I’ll take you out.
Marnie harumphed and swilled. Itzel pulled out a notebook and added to her list of idioms.
Fine.
Three can play at this game. I sat in my corner and opened up a browser
window. I can read blogs all day long, I informed them.
But then I
got a craving for flan, and only Itzel knows Maria’s secret recipe. And
I came across a website that would have Marnie laughing until she had
to hop up the stairs with her legs crossed and barge in on her teenaged
daughter lest she not make the toilet. We’d have to make up sooner or
later.
"I’m sorry," I whispered. "I messed up. Can you guys forgive
me?" It was enough for Itzel, who, after all, had been in my shoes,
well, maybe not my shoes exactly since she and I don’t wear the same
size. She ousted herself from the closet and gave me a hug. Marnie, on
the other hand, was not so easily placated. Good thing wheedling and
groveling are my specialty. "I’ll babysit for free and you can have an
entire night to yourself."
"My mother will do that if I need it, thank you."
"I’ll order panzorattis."
"I can get my own panzorattis."
"Do you want a new hairdo? Hair color? Chestnut or copper, perhaps? They seem to be all the rage. Almond eyes? Bedroom eyes?"
But I only insulted her.
"Marns, maybe we should-"
"Itzel, I will decide for myself what I should or should not do."
Itzel ran back into the closet.
"I’ll let you have a happy ending."
Again, an idle threat since she knew she decided these matters better than I ever could. She was not fooled.
Then
I knew what I had to do. It would hurt me more than it would hurt her.
"I’ll start working on my next book." It was below the belt, I realize,
but sometimes a person’s gotta do what a person’s gotta do.
Her face contorted into what I can only describe as a fish’s lips wrapped around a stinging anemone. "You wouldn’t."
"I don’t want to. You and I, well, we wouldn’t just turn our backs on one another."
It
was enough. After all, she knows about the Broadway wanna-be and the
African missionary couple. She retrieved from her cupboard another wine
glass, which was not a glass at all but a Garfield mug from an old
McDonald’s collection, and poured. Itzel, happy to be reunited,
immediately began blending eggs and sweetened condensed milk, keeping
her body between us and her cooking so as not to give away Maria’s
secret ingredient.
And we all lived happily ever after.