Gwendy's Magic Feather

4

AFTER GRADUATING FROM BROWN in the spring of 1984, Gwendy spends the summer working a part-time job in Castle Rock before attending the Iowa Writers Workshop in early September. For the next three months, she focuses on classwork and starts writing the opening chapters of what will become her first novel, a multi-generational family drama set in Bangor.

When the workshop is over, she returns home to Castle Rock for the holidays, gets a tattoo of a tiny feather next to the scar on her right foot (more about that feather a little later), and begins to search for full-time employment. She receives a number of interesting offers and soon after decides on an upstart advertising and public relations firm in nearby Portland.

In late January 1985, Mr. Peterson follows behind Gwendy on the interstate—pulling a U-Haul trailer full of secondhand furniture, cardboard boxes stuffed with clothes, and more shoes than any one person should own—and helps her move into a rented second-floor downtown apartment.

Gwendy begins work the following week. She quickly proves to be a natural at the advertising game and over the course of the next eighteen months, earns a couple of promotions. By the middle of year two, she’s traveling up and down the east coast to meet with VIP clients and is listed on company letterhead as an Executive Account Manager.

Despite her hectic schedule, the unfinished novel is never far from Gwendy’s mind. She daydreams about it constantly and pecks away at it in every nook and cranny of free time she can muster: long flights, weekends, infrequent snow days, and the occasional weeknight when her workload allows.

At a holiday work party in December 1987, her boss, making polite conversation, introduces Gwendy to an old college friend and mentions that his star employee is not only a first-class account manager, but also an aspiring author. The old friend just happens to be married to a literary agent, so he calls his wife over and introduces her to Gwendy. Relieved to have a fellow book lover to talk to, the agent takes an immediate liking to Gwendy and by the end of the night, she convinces the aspiring author to send her the first fifty pages of her manuscript.

When the second week of January rolls around and Gwendy’s phone rings one afternoon, she’s shocked to find the agent on the line inquiring as to the whereabouts of those first fifty pages. Gwendy explains that she’d figured the agent was just being courteous and she didn’t want to add one more unpublishable book to the slush pile. The agent assures Gwendy that she’s never courteous when it comes to her reading material and insists that she send it right away. So, later that day, Gwendy prints the first three chapters of her novel, stuffs them into a FedEx overnight envelope and sends them on their way. Two days later, the agent calls back and asks to see the rest of the manuscript.

There’s only one problem: Gwendy isn’t finished writing the book.

Instead of admitting this to the agent, she takes the following day, a Friday, off from work—a first for Gwendy—and spends a long weekend drinking Diet Pepsi by the gallon and writing her ass off to finish the last half-dozen chapters. During her lunch break on Monday, Gwendy prints the almost three hundred remaining pages of the book and crams them into a FedEx box.

Several days later, the agent calls and offers to represent Gwendy. The rest, as they say, is history.

In April 1990, twenty-eight-year-old Gwendy Peterson’s debut novel, Dragonfly Summer, is published in hardcover to rave reviews and less than impressive sales. A few months later, it wins the prestigious Robert Frost Award, given annually “to a work of exemplary literary merit” by the New England Literary Society. This honor sells maybe—and that’s a hard maybe—a few hundred extra copies and makes for a nice cover blurb on the paperback edition. In other words, it’s nothing to take to the bank.

That all changes soon enough with the release of Gwendy’s second book, a suburban thriller called Night Watch, published the following autumn. Stellar reviews and strong word-of-mouth sales rocket it onto the New York Times bestseller list for four consecutive weeks, where it rests comfortably amidst mega-sellers by Sidney Sheldon, Anne Rice, and John Grisham.

The following year, 1993, sees the publication of Gwendy’s third and most ambitious novel, A Kiss in the Dark, a hefty six-hundred-page thriller set on a cruise ship. The book earns a return trip to the bestseller list—this time for six weeks—and soon after the film version of Night Watch starring Nicolas Cage as the cuckolded suburban husband hits theaters just in time for the holidays.

At this point in her career, Gwendy’s poised to make the leap to the big leagues of the entertainment industry. Her agent anticipates a seven-figure offer in the next book auction, and both Dragonfly Summer and A Kiss in the Dark are now deep in development by major film studios. All she has to do is stay the course, as her father likes to say.

Instead, she changes direction and surprises everyone.

A Kiss in the Dark is dedicated to a man named Johnathon Riordan. Years earlier, when Gwendy started working at the ad agency, it was Johnathon who took her under his wing and taught her the ropes of the advertising world. At a time when he could’ve easily viewed her as direct competition—especially with their proximity in age; Johnathon only being three years older than Gwendy—he instead befriended her and grew to become her closest ally, both in and outside the office. When Gwendy locked her keys in the car for the second time in as many days, whom did she call for help? Johnathon. When she needed serious dating advice, whom did she summon? Johnathon. The two of them spent countless evenings after work eating Chinese food straight out of the carton and watching romantic comedies at Gwendy’s apartment. When Gwendy sold her debut novel, Johnathon was the first person she told, and when she did her first book signing, he was standing at the front of the line at the bookstore. As time passed and their relationship grew closer, Johnathon became the big brother Gwendy never had but always wanted. And then he got sick. And nine months later, he was gone.

This is where the surprise enters the picture.

Inspired by the AIDS-related death of her best friend, Gwendy resigns from the ad agency and spends the next eight months writing a non-fiction memoir about Johnathon’s inspiring life as a young gay man and the tragic circumstances of his passing. When she’s finished, still not over the heartbreak, she immediately pours herself into directing a documentary based on Johnathon’s story.

Family and friends are surprised, but not surprised. Most seem to explain her newfound passion with the simple, well-worn statement: “That’s just Gwendy being Gwendy.” As for her agent, although she never comes right out and says it—that would be unsympathetic, not to mention unkind—she is profoundly disappointed. Gwendy had been on the fast track to stardom and had veered off to tackle a topic as controversial and unseemly as the AIDS epidemic.

But Gwendy doesn’t care. Someone important once told her: “You have many things to tell the world… and the world will listen.” And Gwendy Peterson believes that.

Eyes Closed: Johnathon’s Story is published in the summer of 1994. It garners positive reviews in Publishers Weekly and Rolling Stone, but is a slow mover in the national bookstore chains. By the end of August, it’s demoted to bargain bins in the back of most stores.

The similarly titled documentary is another story altogether. Released shortly after the book, the film plays to packed festival audiences and goes on to win an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Nearly fifty million viewers watch as Gwendy gives her tearful acceptance speech. She spends the majority of the next few months doing interviews with national publications and appearing on various morning and late-night talk shows. Her agent is over the moon. She’s back on the fast track again and more in demand than ever before.

Gwendy first meets Ryan Brown, a professional photographer from Andover, Massachusetts, during the making of the Eyes Closed documentary. The two strike up an easy friendship and, in an unforeseen turn of events for both, it grows into a relationship.

On a cloudless November morning, while hiking along the banks of the Royal River near Castle Rock, Ryan pulls a diamond ring out of his backpack, gets down on a knee, and proposes. Gwendy, tears and snot streaming down her face, is so caught up in the moment she finds herself unable to utter a single word. So, Ryan, ever the good sport, shifts to his other knee and asks again. “I know how much you like surprises, Gwennie. C’mon, what do you say? Spend the rest of your life with me?” This time Gwendy finds her voice.

They’re married the following year at her parents’ church in the center of Castle Rock. The reception is held at the Castle Inn and, despite Ryan’s younger brother drinking too much and breaking his ankle on the dance floor, a good time is had by all. The father of the bride and the father of the groom bond over their mutual admiration of Louis L’Amour oaters, and the two mothers spend the entire day giggling like sisters. Most folks predict now that Gwendy is hitched, she’ll settle down and concentrate on writing novels again.

But Gwendy Peterson does love surprises—and she has one more up her sleeve.

Born of simmering anger and frustration at the cruel and discriminatory manner in which many AIDS victims continue to be treated (she’s particularly incensed that Congress recently voted to retain a ban on entry into the country for people living with HIV, even as more than two-and-a-half million AIDS cases have been reported globally), Gwendy decides—with her husband’s blessing—to run for public office.

Suffice to say, her agent is not pleased.

Gwendy pours her heart and soul into a grassroots campaign, and it quickly catches fire. Volunteers show up in unprecedented numbers and early fund-raisers exceed all expectations. As one notoriously stingy pundit notes: “Peterson, with boundless charisma and energy to match, has not only managed to mobilize the young vote and the undecided vote, she’s found a way to stir the merely curious. And, in a state as tradition-steeped as Maine, that may well prove to be the key to a successful fall.”

It turns out he’s right. In November 1998, by a margin of less than four thousand votes, Gwendy Peterson upsets incumbent Republican James Leonard for the District One Congressional Seat of Maine. The following month, just days after Christmas, she makes the move to Washington, D.C.

So, there you have it, the story of how Gwendy finds herself eleven months and eight days into a two-year Congressional term, peddling her idealistic ideologies (as Fox News referred to them during last night’s broadcast) to anyone who will listen, and often being referred to—with a not so subtle hint of derision—as the Celebrity Congresswoman.

The intercom on her desk buzzes, yanking Gwendy out of her time machine. She fumbles with the keyboard, closing the video window on her computer screen, and presses a blinking button on her telephone. “Yes?”

“Sorry to disturb, but you have a meeting with Rules and Records in seven minutes.”

“Thanks, Bea. I’ll be right out.”

Gwendy glances at her wristwatch in disbelief. Jesus, you just woolgathered away forty-five minutes of your morning. What’s wrong with you? It’s a question she’s asked herself a lot lately. She grabs a pair of manila folders from the top of the stack and hurries out of the office.