©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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If there is one thing I've learned about being a writer, it's that inspiration can strike anywhere, at any time. Such was the case with Joy School.
As a young girl, I once spent about 15 minutes in the cozy office of a Mobil station. I was taking a break after ice skating on a pond nearby. I did not fall desperately in love, as Katie does in my new novel. I merely warmed up a bit, said "Thank you" to an overly generous compliment about my ice skating ability, and headed home. I forgot about that gas station incident for over 25 years. Then I took out the memory, dusted it off and dressed it up for theater. Thus was born Jimmy, who, if I may say so without sounding like a jerk, is one of my all-time favorite characters.
Actually, having favorite characters was a big reason for writing Joy School, which is the sequel to my first novel, Durable Goods. I didn't feel quite finished with them.
I never know much about what I'm writing before I write it. I didn't know Joy School was a novel of first love until it became one, seemingly of its own volition. But once it did become a novel of first love -- that unrequited, achy, heartbreaking kind -- well, then I had a joyous time writing it. Because if there's anything I like to do in writing, it's to go deeply into emotions.
I remember my experience of first love at age 13 as clearly as I remember waking up this morning -- more clearly, if the truth be told. The object of my affection was named David, and he was extremely handsome: long eyelashes, a careful dip in his hair, a tiny mole above his pouty lips. He could play piano! He turned his jacket collar up! He had his own key ring!
I waited with David for the junior high school bus every morning. I watched him. And watched him. All the girls were nuts about him, and he knew it, bore the pleasant weight of widespread adulation with bemusement and faint pleasure. He went through the girls in our neighborhood like Kleenex, one after the other. Finally it was my turn to be his girlfriend.
He asked me to go to the movies with him that Saturday night. I promptly got a stomach ache which lasted up to and including date night.
"What do I do when he buys the tickets?" I asked my older sister, who was sitting at her dressing table putting her hair into a French twist. I was sitting on her bed and wringing my hands. I felt like weeping. "Hmmm," she said, around the bobby pins she held in her mouth. "What I do is go over and look at the posters for the movies that are coming next."
Saturday night came. I started getting ready about two hours too early, and when the doorbell rang, I very nearly vomited. David and I held hands through the movie. (I should have known he'd never be true because his grasp did not stay firm: I had to turn his hand over to assure maximum contact. I suspected, even at that tender age, that a man who really loves you will make serious business out of hand-holding.)
A few weeks later, David sat beside me on the bus on the way back from a dance, and used his breath to fog up the window and draw a heart with our initials inside. (I should have known he'd never be true, because he put my initials first. I wanted him to put his initials first, which any boy who was really crazy about a girl would know was the chivalrous thing to do, it would just come naturally to him; knight-like, he would want to be the one to claim the girl, not have the girl claim him.)
Alas, the day after that bus ride, we broke up. My heart sunk to my shoes. I wanted a little bit to die. I went home and slammed the door to my room and burst into heaving sobs. My father came in to ask what was wrong. I wept hard into his chest, saying "David doesn't like me any more!" He said, oh, there'd be lots of other boys. "No there won't!" I said. And I meant it truly. I believed I would never love again.
So first love, with all its awful irresistible emotions -- blood-rich embarrassment, toe-curling longing, intractable hope -- is what I wanted to get at in Joy School. I hope anyone who reads Joy School will have the same odd experience I did in writing it -- I hope they'll remember with great pleasure the jagged pain that accompanies the heart's first offering.
Elizabeth Berg is the author of the novels Durable Goods, Talk Before Sleep, Range of Motion, Pull of the Moon, and Joy School, to be published in April by Random House.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.