Am I in it?
I have a friend who asks this every time I finish a story. Is she in it?
One day I finally said, yes, you are.
After years of wanting and asking to be part of the busy, made-up fictional life in my head, there she was.
Wednesday Lunch is a short story. And she is in it.
Like most of what I write, the story is based on a truth. In this case a real event – a lunch – with said friend and another girlfriend where we discussed some taboo topics in the way good friends do.
Now, while the lunch and the conversation happened, the story in its writing and wresting from real-life into fiction has become, in the process, something else altogether.
Suddenly she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be in a story.
What if someone recognised her?
They won’t I said, it’s fiction.
What was her fictional name?
Gemma, I told her.
I don’t like Gemma, she said, why am I Gemma?
It isn’t you, not really, I reassure her.
It’s fiction I keep saying but I know this word isn’t making sense to her.
The lunch was a spark for the story but the characters are made up, I tell her. She nods.
I’m not surprised she’s confused. I manage to confuse real-life with my imagination and the sorting process in my head. Maybe that is why I love to write fiction.
So when you read Wednesday Lunch when it is published one day, you won’t recognise anyone you or I know because it is fiction.
Right. Got it?
Lunch anyone? Pic taken at Sculpture by the Sea in 2010.
