Gwendy's Magic Feather

3

GWENDY’S OFFICE IS SPACIOUS and uncluttered. The walls are painted a soft yellow and adorned with a framed map of Maine, a square silver-edged mirror, and a Brown University pendant. Bright, warm lighting shines down on a mahogany desk centered along the opposite wall. Atop the desk are a hooded lamp, telephone, day-planner, computer and keyboard, and numerous stacks of paperwork. Across the room is a dark leather sofa. A coffee table covered with fanned-out magazines sits in front of it. A small table with a coffee station stands off to one side. There’s also a three-drawer filing cabinet in the far corner and a small bookshelf lined with hardcover books, knickknacks, and framed photographs. The first of the two largest photos shows a tan and beaming Gwendy standing arm-in-arm with a handsome bearded man at the Castle Rock Fourth of July parade two years earlier. The second is of a much younger Gwendy standing in front of her mother and father at the base of the Washington Monument.

Gwendy sits at her desk, chin resting atop interlocked hands, staring at the photograph of her and her parents instead of the report sitting open in front of her. After a moment, she sighs and closes the folder, pushing it aside.

She taps a flurry of buttons on the keyboard and opens her email account. Scanning the dozens of notices in her mailbox, she stops on an email from her mother. The time-code shows it was received ten minutes earlier. She double-clicks on it and a digital scan of a newspaper article fills her monitor screen.

Gwendy frowns at the computer screen. She’s seen enough. She closes the email and starts to turn away—but hesitates. Tapping at the keyboard, she switches to SAVED MAIL and uses the Arrow button to scroll. After what feels like forever, she stops on another email from her mother, this one dated November 19, 1998. The subject line reads: CONGRATULATIONS!

She opens it and double-clicks on a link. A small, dark window with Good Morning, Boston written across it opens at the center of the monitor. Then a low resolution video comes to life and the Good Morning, Boston intro music is blaring from the computer speakers. Gwendy quickly turns down the volume.

Onscreen, Gwendy and popular morning show host, Della Cavanaugh, sit across from each other on straight-backed leather chairs. They each have their legs crossed and are wearing microphones clipped to their collars. A banner headline runs across the top of the video screen: HOMETOWN GIRL MAKES GOOD.

Gwendy cringes at the sound of her voice on the video, but she doesn’t turn it off. Instead, she readjusts the volume, leans back in her chair, and watches herself being interviewed, remembering how utterly strange—and unsettling—it felt to tell her life story to thousands of strangers…