She thinks this is a love story

Confession: A good number of my story ideas come from my real life. Specifically, imagining what someone significantly more unhinged than me would do in situations I have found myself in real life.

That’s where “Give Artie My Love” began (find it in my second short story collection Flight). I had a conversation with an old friend, and could not stop thinking about how a different person might have handled it.

Picture this: I have not seen this person in maybe fifteen years, though we have connected on social media. He messages to let me know he’ll be in my city for a work event, and would I like to meet for breakfast or something. We’re catching up on life and everything since we last talked—work, moving, divorce, engagement.

Me: “Tell me about your fiancee.”

Him: “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. What does she do?”

“She’s an accountant.”

“What did she want to be when she grew up?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

He shrugs. “Why does it matter?”

And that’s when I knew he and I were totally different people.

Because what do you mean you don’t know fun little anecdotes about your partner? What do you mean you don’t think she has hobbies beyond work and wanting to have kids? Is it that you dislike her or just cannot be bothered to get to know her?

And, to be clear, it was not just this one question about her childhood. I asked him several, trying to get to know what kind of person he was marrying. He couldn’t answer them.

(Will it surprise you to learn they are now divorced?)

But, anyway, imagine a somewhat delusional, narcissistic person having this conversation, and somehow twisting it in their mind until she believes she has to save him from this marriage. That she is the only one who truly understands him. That if only she could insert herself into his life now, he would see it too.

That’s how I got to “Give Artie My Love.”

It’s a short story delivered entirely in transcripted voice memos. Our main character Heather is leaving messages for the wife of her high school boyfriend newly moved back to their hometown. The messages begin politely, over-friendly, a bit awkward. As the day goes on, however, and she is not getting the response she wants, Heather turns progressively more damaged, demanding and dangerous.

The story was about how much could I imply, hint at, while keeping the words acceptable on the surface.

Using the epistolary format allowed my character to behave without having to respond to another person’s thoughts and feelings. This is what happens when a person doesn’t have a filter, doesn’t have the social expectation of allowing another person their own side of the conversation. Give someone empty space and they will fill it, and that is how the reader ends up with our narrator giving us far more of the story than she may have otherwise.

Heather’s voice is, of course, unreliable. But not because she’s lying—she believes what she’s saying. So deeply that it propels her actions. Which, to me, is the most interesting kind of unreliable narrator. How much of what she is saying is actually true, and how much is skewed by her perception?

Flight is available now—wherever you like to buy your books. In addition to “Give Artie My Love,” you’ll also find stories about arguing, fleeing a cult, closing night of a play, among others.

(And if you know someone who’d appreciate a story about the subtle slide from affection to obsession, feel free to forward this along.)