Читать книгу I'm Your Girl - J.J. Murray - Страница 11

When I’m not working at the library, I stay home nights and read.

A lot.

As in four to five books a week, up to three books on the weekends alone.

I used to read like this as a kid, but it took joining the Mid-Atlantic Book Review to kick-start my reading habit. At first, we’d all read the same book and post our reviews at the MAB.org Web site. When authors started using blurbs from our reviews for their book covers, we later branched out into posting reviews at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s Web site. Now, since we’re one of Amazon.com’s top one hundred reviewers, we get advance review copies from publishers and authors from all over the world.

And I don’t have to pay a single dime for any of the books I read anymore. Just about every other book in my library is an advance review copy from some author or another.

If I like a book, I give it four or five stars and write extremely long, glowing reviews in the hopes that my name will travel around the world on the back of some best-seller. At least my name will get out of the house. That’s only happened a couple of times, but it is still quite a rush to see my own name in “lights” whenever I go into a bookstore.

Now if I hate a book—and I’ve hated a lot more books than I’ve liked—I give it one star, though I often write something like, “If I could give this book no stars, I would.” Then I write reviews so short or so overly critical that not even the most imaginative writer or publisher can squeeze a kind, ellipsis-filled comment to put on the back of a book.

It’s funny, but of the hundreds of books I’ve reviewed, few have scored between one and four stars. I guess you could say it’s all or nothing with me as a reader. “Grab me early and grab me often, Mr./Mrs./ Miss Author, and don’t you let me go”—that’s my reviewer’s credo.

I like reading romances the most, not that romances aren’t ridiculous at some level. Most of them are pretty out there, but occasionally I run into one that almost sounds realistic, like what happens to the woman in the story could really happen to me. I usually give those books higher marks, even if they aren’t or will never be best-sellers or be made into movies.

I don’t watch many movies, romantic or otherwise. They are so much more unreal than even the most far-fetched books I’ve reviewed. I mean, in real life, brand-new cars usually start 99 percent of the time and don’t break down on lonely wilderness roads where beady-eyed strangers with maniacal thoughts happen to show up out of the Technicolor blue to help, despite the fact that the population of said wilderness is 0.5 people and 95 squirrels per square mile. In real life, drivers usually insert the correct key in the ignition the first time, and home owners find the front door key in milliseconds, not dropping the key ring while the masked man with the machete slinks closer at 0.2 miles per hour. In real life, most dead bolts hold and don’t break the first time the cop or villain (or cop/villain) kicks in the door, and the doors don’t splinter because most of them aren’t made out of real wood anymore.

And the people in the movies aren’t real, either. In real life, people have gas, runny noses, diarrhea, weak and/or small bladders, and constipation. Unless filmmakers want to do a teen comedy or get an R rating, their people have to be sniffle free and regular so no one will have to use the restroom for one hundred minutes.

In real life, children aren’t always cute; don’t have snappy, adult-sounding comebacks; usually have some piece of green snot or other bodily crud somewhere on their bodies; aren’t always clean or dressed perfectly; and occasionally say the darnedest things. I ought to know. I work in a library that literally crawls with snotty kids every Saturday morning.

Movies also have unreal scenes and settings. In real life, meals don’t always taste good—or all that bad either—even at Grandma’s house, and families don’t always sit down together so they can have some snappy dialogue and food hijinks involving what’s really in the meat loaf. In real life, the average yard is…average, the grass more beige than green, the flowers not always alive or blooming, the trees and bushes not always coiffed like a new hairstyle, the leaves not always raked, the weeds not always pulled, the deck…not always attached to the house. And in real life, the house isn’t that spacious or grand. I doubt I’d ever see my house in a movie. My windows are dirt spotted and grimy on the outside.

Robert Maxwell to the rescue? Hmm. Maybe this spring when I want to see what the outside looks like, but not now. Everything is so wintry and gray.

My carpet is worn and dirty, though I vacuum often, and my hardwood floors are so scuffed that I have throw rugs everywhere. My bathroom is clean, but it’s anything but gleaming. Hard water will do that to your fixtures. My sink, however, is not full of dishes…because I use lots of Styrofoam. My refrigerator is often bare (except for condiments) by the end of the week, and I sometimes hear echoes from my cupboards and cabinets. No, my home will never be in a movie, unless they do a sequel to Animal House.

And please don’t get me started about the so-called jobs people in the movies have. Yeah, I have lots of issues with the movies, and I’ve even thought about being a movie critic, too, but I doubt my reviews would ever go on any poster or DVD cover. In real life, jobs are tedious and frustrating at times, and there’s rarely enough time to flirt, cheat, make conversation, or develop relationships. Folks generally work at work, and the only people hanging around the copy machines are the people repairing them.

Movie people just aren’t real enough for me. In real life, folks spend a lot of time in line: at the Department of Motor Vehicles, in traffic, at the supermarket, or at the “big game.” They do nothing but wait and think, “Here I am again in line, waiting to get into another line.” In real life, people actually read newspapers, novels, magazines, and cell phone manuals silently to themselves in bed late at night until they fall asleep. And in real life, every phone call isn’t life changing, life affirming, mind-blowing, or the least bit shocking—or all that interesting, for that matter.

If Hollywood followed the average person around for twenty-four hours, it would be real, but who would watch it? Who would watch a movie about, well, nothing?

Just look at the average romance or “chick flick.” These movies do pretty well at the box office if there’s chemistry between the two principles, but what real-life romance has chemistry, heat, and passion all the time? In real romance, so much nothing happens that eventually something has to happen—which is usually a burst of passion followed by more nothing. Nothing has the ability to happen for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years at a time (don’t I know it!), leaving the average person time for introspection, a few collected thoughts, a nap, trips to the bathroom, chores, vegging out in front of the TV, another nap, and/or a shower. Can Hollywood put all that in a romantic movie? Of course not! While it is logical and everyone can relate to it, it’s ultimately boring. Something has to happen every nanosecond in romantic comedy, or the romance (and the movie) fizzles.

I know, I know, romance is about hope, about possibilities, about chance encounters, and Hollywood doesn’t have time (or the budget) to be completely real. Hollywood wants to get to the juicy stuff, to get to the passion, to get ’em rolling and writhing in bed, so Hollywood can get to the sunset, to the limo, to the church, and to the credits scrolling during a song that just might win a Grammy.

Maybe I’m too cynical, but reel life can never be real. And though many of the books I review fall short, at least they try to be real.

I flop into my comfy chair, an overstuffed leather lounger, and open four packages, each addressed to “Nisi.” That’s right. I’m just like Madonna or Cher. I am the one-name MAB reviewer. Mama thinks I should use my “Christian” name, but Mama doesn’t know how angry some of these authors can get. My pseudonym gives me a little security, and in a way, I have made a name for myself. If “Nisi” gives a book high marks, the book is good.

The first book is called The Quiet Game, by Anonymous. Hmm. Anonymous? Maybe it’s a big-name author afraid to ruin sales of his or her other books. Either that, or this is a stinker, and the publisher doesn’t want anyone to know who wrote it. No title graphic, just plain black text on a white cover. Most advance review copies I receive are dull like this to save money, I guess. I open and read the first page:

I’ve been playing the quiet game ever since I was a little boy.

I’m good at it. No one has ever beaten me. No matter how much they tried to make me talk, I didn’t talk. No matter how much they tried to make me laugh, I didn’t laugh. No matter what they did, said, or threatened, I didn’t make a sound.

And I still don’t.

I am the champ.

If they only knew what was going through my mind….

If they could only see what I see through my little lens….

I’m not sure that I want to know or see, but at least this book isn’t full of typos so far. I hate that. You wouldn’t believe how sloppy some authors and editors have gotten in their rush to get a quote or two from a reviewer. It’s almost as if I’m reading a first draft half the time. This reads smoothly, but I don’t think this is going to be my cup of tea.

Virginia is as good a place to play the quiet game as any. It’s already quiet. Except for a little strip of rat-racers in Northern Virginia (NoVa) and around D.C. and Richmond, even the people are quiet, silent almost. Not much has changed since the Civil War. I guess Virginians are just as dead as all those ghosts on the battlefields, the ones they charge admission to. I don’t visit them, though.

There might be a ghost out there who can outquiet me, and I can’t let that happen.

Besides, I have my own personal battlefields, and you don’t even have to get a park permit or sit in traffic or stand in line to see them.

All you have to do is read the headlines….

And if you’re not careful, I’m going to put a bullet in your head.

I don’t have to read this one. It has to be a rip-off of the sniper killings a few years back. When will authors get some innovative plots? There is definitely nothing new under the sun. I mean, where’s the mystery in this? I enjoy reading mysteries, I really do, but after reading this first page—and knowing what it’s based on—there’s no point in reading this at all. And I’ll bet the movie version of the whole sniper mess is either in the works or “in the can,” as they say.

Overkill. That’s all this is.

Yeah, it shocked me that a black man was the sniper, just like it shocked all those fool criminal profilers out there who thought he had to be white to be such a sophisticated criminal. The only thing that shocks me more is the book sitting in my hands. This is old news, and it gets published. Sometimes I don’t think the publishers in New York have a single clue about what folks really want to read. “Hey, here’s something that scared the crap out of Americans on the East Coast, Bob. Let’s sell it.” Yeah, and it kept us inside reading. Now that the sniper has been caught and convicted, we’re outside again…and reading less.

I set The Quiet Game aside and wished Vanessa—the president of the Mid-Atlantic Book Review—would stop sending me every book that takes place in Virginia. I wasn’t even living here during those sniper shootings, and I know there are at least ten other women in Virginia who post reviews for MAB. Why me? I pick up The Quiet Game and flip a few pages, the word “blood” jumping out at me several times on page six. Great. A black serial killer sniper is the narrator, he looks at life through his “little lens,” and I live alone on part of his personal battlefield.

I’m going to pass on this one for now. I’ll probably skim it later, and I know I’m not the only book reviewer who skims books on occasion. So many books come out every year in the United States, something like 100,000 titles, and it’s difficult for reviewers to keep up. I officially reviewed 106 books last year in addition to “unofficially” reviewing 140 of my own choosing at Amazon.com, and I might have read half of the 106 all the way through.

The title of the second book, Thicker Than Blood, by J. Johnson, doesn’t make me feel any safer, although when I open to the first chapter, I’m mildly intrigued:

“They say that you men think about sex every seven seconds,” Jeanetta says, sipping her mega—Mai Tai during the happy hour at Bensons Bar and Grill after work.

When’s the last time I went to a happy hour? Or even a restaurant that serves mixed drinks, for that matter? It has to be years. I doubt I’m missing much. But men think about sex every seven seconds? Who determines this stuff? Do I think about sex that often? Who has the time?

I don’t answer right away because I’m looking at the cute woman sipping on some ice water sitting next to Jeanetta. She’s small with a cute face, zigzagged cornrows, little dimples, a shy smile, and very nice legs that are smooth and silky, with cut calves. She has small hands and the nicest brown eyes. And she’s wearing some cut-off jeans, you know, with all the strings hanging down from where she cut them, and a tight, plain white T-shirt that almost gets to the shorts, a tattoo of some kind edged around her belly button. She’s quite a package. I wish I were sitting where Jeanetta’s sitting—

“Cute woman”? Hmm. That girl is a hoochie. When will authors realize that most of their female readers are nothing like the women in the books they write? When will authors realize that we do not aspire to be them? If other female readers are like me, they have some baggage, and the only time they have smooth and silky legs is just before a trip to the gynecologist’s. Cute Woman sounds like a trifling ho.

I know, I’m just jealous.

“Are you listening to me, Robert?”

Oops. “Call me ‘Rob,’ Jeanetta, and I know that can’t be true.”

Jeanetta, a fix-up date from Tony, a real estate buddy of mine, is bustin’ out all over in a beige dress with buttons that go all the way from her breasts to her thighs. The girl is thicker than thick, but she’s one of those sisters with an agenda, you know, like she has to save every man from himself or something. Too much make-up anyway, though I haven’t exactly been looking at her face. She must have triple Ds up in there.

Mr. Johnson—at least I assume that a man wrote this—is obviously writing with his Johnson. Why is it the big women in men’s books (and some women’s books, too) have to have attitudes and agendas? Jeanetta sounds blessed, not cursed, and just to have some triple Ds for a couple hours might be nice to balance me out so I wouldn’t have to lean forward so much when I walk.

“I bet it’s true,” Jeanetta says.

“Just add it up,” I say, sipping my Coke. “That means men think about sex eight times a minute, right? That’s almost five hundred times an hour, over ten thousand times a day, close to four million times a year.” I was, after all, an accounting major before I went into real estate. “How would anything ever get done?”

“Like anything ever gets done anyway,” Jeanetta says.

Amen to that! Maybe nothing gets done because men are thinking about sex so much. So, whenever Congress has trouble passing a bill…I don’t want to think about that.

The woman beside Jeanetta is quiet. I like that. She’s kind of like me, just taking life in, watching and thinking. Maybe she’s waiting on someone. Lucky guy.

I’ll bet Cute Woman is a ho, and a pro ho at that, and Rob is about to hook up with her.

“Okay,” I say, “let’s say a group of fellas are playing a pickup game of basketball. Don’t tell me all they’re thinking about is some booty while they’re ballin’.”

Jeanetta blinks at me. “You just said ‘ballin’,’ right?”

Jeanetta is obviously not a proper lady of color. Such language!

The woman beside Jeanetta bites her lip and looks away. Cute. Definitely cute, and she’s eavesdropping on us. I had better not sound like a complete fool then.

“I meant,” I say, “they don’t have time to be thinking about sex when they’re shooting hoops.” They’d better not be, especially if they’re playing tight defense on me.”

“Yeah?” Jeanetta says. “Isn’t the object in basketball to put it in the hoop more than the other guy?” She takes a longer sip of her Mai Tai. “Sounds like they’re thinking about sex to me.”

“That’s not what I’m saying—”

“And what about football? ” Jeanetta says. “You take a ball from between some sweaty fat man’s legs, and if you hit the hole just right, you might score.”

Damn. I never thought of it that way before.

Neither have I. Yuck. I will not be watching any of the bowl games this year, not that I make time to look at TV. About all I do is dust off my TV.

“And in baseball, you try to keep your balls in play so you can hit a home run and get to home plate.” Jeanetta nudges the woman next to her with her elbow. “All the sports men play are all about sex, right?”

The woman turns to us. “Maybe,” she says in a cute voice. Everything about her is cute. “Sports can’t be all about sex.”

What sport isn’t sexual? What sport puts most folks to sleep on a Sunday afternoon? I got it. “Golf isn’t that sexual,” I say.

“Long skinny clubs, drivers, ball in the hole,” Jeanetta says.

Hmm. Okay, what’s more boring than golf? “Chess, then,” I say.

Jeanetta smirks. “A bunch of men trying to gang up on the queen.”

Damn. Jeanetta is sharp as a tack. Smart and thick. I know this will be our only date.

“Okay, enough with the sports analogies. I just know that I don’t think about sex that much.” I don’t know why I’m admitting that to them. I have to talk fast. “It isn’t because I don’t enjoy it.” Whenever there’s a blue moon. When was the last time? Was Clinton or a Bush president? Damn.

I know this is false. Any man who’s this hard up has to remember his last time in glorious, graphic detail.

All two minutes of it.

And as for me…hmm. I don’t have a last time to remember, though that one time with Petie Whatshisname in the tenth grade…No. We didn’t. He did, but I didn’t. The boy didn’t even get his pants off. I thought he was having a seizure!

And now I’ve depressed myself.

“Don’t get me wrong. I just don’t have the time because of my family.”

“Amen to that,” I say aloud this time. Yeah, I talk back to books. They don’t argue back—much.

Jeanetta arches two perfectly shaped eyebrows. I bet she gets them waxed. “Tony told me that you weren’t married.”

“I’m not. I’m talking about my family family, the family that raised me.”

“Oh.” She sucks down more of her Mai Tai. The girl thinks and drinks too much. “Well, you know what they say: blood is thicker than water.”

Blood is thick, but what is thicker than blood? Is it supposed to be love? That’s not something I’ve ever thought about. Love is thicker than blood. Hmm. I guess it makes sense.

I know they—whoever the hell “they” are—say that. But “they” have never met my family.

“You got to stand by your family no matter what, through thick and thin,” Jeanetta says. “Your family has to come first.”

I finish my Coke. The woman beside Jeanetta looks bored. Shit. I better liven up the conversation. “But what if your family is completely out of its damn mind?” The other woman turns to me, her eyes focused on my face. We have this little moment, you know, like we recognize something in each other. Maybe her family’s messed up, too.

Either that or Cute Woman is upset you said “damn.” Or she’s the hoochie I know she is. I’m beginning to like him, but the women? They’re ridiculous.

“Are you saying that your family’s dysfunctional?” Jeanetta asks.

“Dysfunctional?” I say. “That’s a word for white folks and talk shows.”

True. Though sometimes I think my mama…No, I’m not going to say she’s dysfunctional. Blood is thicker than water. Mama’s just…eccentric.

The other woman smiles. Nice. We’re connecting. Cool.

“My family is crazy,” I say. “My family is damaged. My family is…completely out its damn mind. Trust me. Your IQ will shoot up thirty points just being in the same state as them.”

Jeanetta clears her throat and takes her purse from the bar. “No one’s that crazy,” Jeanetta says, turning to the woman beside her. “Come on, Chloe. Let’s go.”

Chloe? Geez, Cute Hoochie Woman is a perfume. Rob is getting played.

What the hell?

Jeanetta turns to me with a bland, no-this-hasn’t-been-fun look on her face. “It was nice meeting you, Robert.”

“It’s Rob, and who—”

“Uh-huh.” Jeanetta slides off the stool, but Chloe stays put. “Come on, girl. Happy hour’s almost over. You don’t have to chaperone me anymore.” Jeanetta turns to me, dipping those triple Ds into my face. “No offense, Robert. I have to be careful. You understand.”

“Uh, yeah.” I smile at Chloe. “It was nice meeting you, too, Chloe.” I think.

Chloe slides off her stool, letting just the tip of her tongue flick over her lower lip. “It was nice meeting you, too, Rob.”

And she got my name right.

“And I’d like to meet your family someday,” Chloe says directly to me.

Cute and daring? “What?”

Chloe hops up on Jeanetta’s seat. “I’d like to meet your family.”

Daa-em. “Um, I’m going to see my grandpa Joe-Joe and my daddy this evening. You…want to come?”

Grandpa “Joe-Joe”? Where do authors get these funky names? One author came to the library to do a reading last fall, and he said he used a phone book for all of his names. “I prefer the randomness of it all,” he said. I doubt there’s a listing for “Grandpa Joe-Joe” in the phone book.

“Sure.”

Riiiiight. Just like that. Chance meeting, a “date” to see Grandpa Joe-Joe, then lots of sex where Rob will analyze Chloe’s tattoo. Only in books. Or in Las Vegas.

Or so I’ve heard.

Yes! “Cool.”

Jeanetta sighs and shakes her head. “How are you going to get home, Chloe?”

Chloe smiles. “Rob can take me.”

Rob. That’s my name. I like this girl.

“Whatever,” Jeanetta says, and she walks out of Bensons.

I don’t watch Jeanetta leave, though every “man” cell in my body wants me to, and I focus on Chloe’s hands. Short nails, no nail polish. I’ll bet her hands are soft. “Are you sure you want to meet my family?”

Chloe nods.

I leave a ten on the bar. “Well, okay.” I look down at her feet and see sandals. This could be a problem. “Just watch your step when we get to Grandpa Joe-Joe’s house. You never know what might be hiding in Grandpa Joe-Joe’s jungle….”

Not bad. Not great. Adequate. It reminds me of some book I read a few years ago, what was it? Some book about a dysfunctional white family that made most of the top ten best book lists. Maybe this is the darker version of that. Yet another rip-off.

I toy with turning the page. I haven’t quite been grabbed yet, though I have a feeling these two—Chloe and Rob—will be bumping uglies by page thirty. So predictable.

I need a challenge!