Story of a Life...

If you wanted to be clever, and sometimes she really wanted to be clever, you could say she started her career in 6th grade. That was the year her teacher did a unit on journalism for English. They had to interview each other and write up a story. Being a first year teacher Mrs. Penney did not realize that all of her budding little journalists would end up asking their subjects who they LIKE liked but she learned and adjusted the assignment the next year. 

She was assigned Erik as her subject. When she wrote up her story she included how his family had lived out of a camper van for the summer but she left out that Erik LIKE liked Shauna. Because she knew that Shauna liked Larry, who liked Debbie, who liked Luke, who liked nobody. She got an A and the praise from their teacher that she hadn't done what everyone else had done. She took the A knowing full well if Erik had LIKE liked Shelly she would have included it, since Shelly was the one who asked her to ask in the first place. The lesson for her was that what is left out of a story is often as important as what is included. 

She used that as an example when she was in college and her professor wanted them to write about manipulation in media spaces. He did not agree with her that she had been an untrustworthy journalist in her time. But he didn't remember how important who you LIKE liked was in 6th grade. 

So sometimes when people asked how she got started writing life stories she mentioned the 6th grade. And the camper van story. How everyone is interesting and has something new to share if you just ask them the right questions and then let them talk. She doesn't mention that Erik LIKE liked Shauna, she doesn't want Shelly to find out that way.

She looked over the bound pages in her library. Every story she had written. Every single one was here. Some volumes were very thin. Only a few pages. Others were quite thick. She had done a few notable biographies. A few actors, a few politicians, even a few writers. Those were always the hardest. Writers tended to edit more. Actors and politicians embellished, they polished, they made themselves look wittier or smarter or more aware of the world around them, but writers? They just moved pieces around. What would make it a better story? What would be funnier? Deeper? More moving? She would have to remind them over and over to just tell her what actually happened and let her write it.

Eventually they would get there. That point where they would let down their guard and tell her the truth. And as soon as she had that she knew she had her story. 

That used to be enough for her. Getting their stories. Sharing them with other people. Showing the world that everyone was interesting. Everyone had something to share. And usually it was enough. Most of the time it was enough. But not always. 

She ran her fingers along the spines of the books on her shelves. Looking for that first one. Not her first published piece. The first one of her own stories. 

It wasn't a widely read piece. Not when she wrote it. More of a human interest story in the vein of "Uplifting Human Tragedy" the kind that come out around the holidays most often. Where someone has just had a shit time of it and then one thing good happens and everyone cheers. They make the rounds of the local news stations and newspapers and if it's a really good heart tug they might even make the national morning shows. Everyone knows their stories and then everyone forgets them. She had even forgotten it for a time. 

Then she ran in to Samantha January Flowers at the grocery store. She was at the Can Do turning in aluminum cans for cash. Clearly this was how she was making a living now. Her bright moment of joy had faded. She was back to the tragedy without the uplifting part. Samantha January Flowers had smiled at her and told her she kept the piece wrapped in aluminum foil to protect it from the elements and that she would reread it every once in awhile when things go too bad to remind her that something good could still come. 

She went home that night and got very drunk. And after she pulled Samantha's story off the shelf and reread it she wrote a follow up and sent it to her editor. This, surely, deserved to be talked about as well. How the world had used up Samantha's good fortune to make themselves feel better and then forgotten about her again. Her editor wasn't interested. He told her to let him know if she found another Samantha out there that was still on the upswing. That nobody wanted to read about a rags to riches right back to rags story, unless the person was a real asshole. Which Samantha January Flowers most certainly was not. 

She got drunk again after getting the rejection. Then wrote a happy ending for Samantha January Flowers. Seems as though she had found a lottery scratcher on the ground by the Can Do machine and it was worth $2. She took that $2 and bought a PowerBall ticket. It wasn't the big jackpot but it was the $100,000 prize. Good old Samantha January Flowers was back on top, baby! It wasn't a great story, clearly too fantastical to happen, but it made her feel better for just a moment to pretend. To really believe that Samantha January Jones had once more battled out of the shit.

She had tucked her addendum into the book and put it with the, at the time, small collection of stories on her study shelf and went to bed to sleep it off. 

A month later Samantha January Flowers was making the rounds of the morning talk shows one more time. This time knowing that good fortune could be fleeting so she was being much more careful of her money and her trust. 

It took a few more times of adding to people's life stories for her to understand the power she held. She added small details, she added big moments, but if she added them they happened.

Once people tell you their truth you have their story. And once you are in control of their story, you can edit it however you like. 

What you leave out, what you put in. It's all important. 

Her fingers trailed across the spines of all of her stories. Because they were hers now. Most of them would just remain the way they were. Snapshots of a moment in time. But sometimes...sometimes they really needed a follow-up.

Ah here it was. He had been incredibly charming when she interviewed him. It had actually been one of her more challenging pieces because of that. He knew what he wanted her to write, how he wanted to be portrayed, and she wanted a true story. A flash of who he was. Which she eventually got. His lawyers had fought to keep it from being published. There had been a lot of wrangling over what was and was not to be published. What is left in and what is kept out. But it didn't matter. She had the story. The truth. She had printed the full piece and put it on the shelf. Letting the editor decide what to publish. None of that changed the truth.  

Now, years later, more truth was coming out every day about who he really was and she was glad to have the story. She could work with the truth. 

She opened her computer and typed up the follow-up piece, the addendum to his interview. It was simple. "And he decided to tell the truth."

She printed the page and put it in his book. She pressed her hand against the cover and put it back on the shelf.