News travels fast

I don’t suppose it surprises you to know I had a long, long chat with my sister last night. I’d sent her my manuscript to take a look and make sure she was OK with the content. Turns out, it was hard for her to read—for a number of reasons. But mostly it was that trick of memory and storytelling. The narrative was close enough to warm her heart with nostalgia but exaggerated just enough to cause concern.

Let me be perfectly clear about this, just so we’re all on the same page. These musings are stories. What the literary world refers to sometimes as creative nonfiction. They have a basis in fact (i.e., these things really happened to me) but the rest of it is up for grabs. Including the characterization of the people involved. And they are my stories. My perceptions. My distortions. I own them and am responsible for their content.

I’m the first to admit the characterization of my sister comes off borderline horrific. And I come off smelling like a rose (most of the time). That’s the story part. The facts are different. Being facts, they existed only at the time the events of the plot happened. The rest is … not to put too fine a point on it … creative, as in made-up. A casual observer roaming through the pages of my memoir may see my sister as a hellion, fueled by equal parts vengeance and spite. Kind of a Lucy to my Linus. But here’s what you’re not seeing, (and something I need to work on before I throw this book out there to the wolves):

1. My sister (B.J. for you regulars) literally spoke for me for most of my childhood, and most of the time, she got everything right. I was tongue-tied and hornswoggled most of the time.
2. She was my staunch defender in my agonizing fight against school, frequently showing up in the office of W.K. Dwyer Elementary to tell them I’d barfed on my way to class and was headed home to my mommy.
3. She drove me everywhere from the time she was 13 until she left for college. And I mean EVERYWHERE.
4. One cold December night, after my dad had thrown the decorated Christmas tree out on the lawn, she helped me put everything back in order so it appeared untouched the next day.
5. She told me what was dangerous, and why not to do things. Then she let me do them and didn’t tell my parents.
6. She once broke up with a boyfriend because he was making fun of the fact I conducted the pep band at basketball games.
7. She calmed me down when I was hysterical over euthanizing the family dog while my parents were away on vacation.
8. She taught me how to defend myself against hangovers.
9. She loaned me money when times were tight and college tuition was due.
10. She regularly told me I looked stupid (“Like a camel”) when I smoked, and it was highly unattractive.

Every good story has a villain, and to me the best villains are hilarious. I love a good hilarious villain. So yeah, when the jig was up and it turned out we had set fire to the Buick, of course, B.J. left me sitting in the front seat of the blazing car. Of course she thought my fascination with the Watergate hearings was bizarre. Of course she called me stupid when I jumped head first into a wading pool. What good, self-respecting, hilarious villain wouldn’t?

So please, townspeople, please. Lay off. (I’m talking to you, lady in the grocery store who approached her and said “So YOU’RE the sister?” all sinister and snotty like. Yeah, you and all the others like you.) These are stories. My storybook sister is my version of a hilarious villain.

My real sister … well … she’s the best.