LOVE STORIES IN THIS TOWN

THE STARS ARE BRIGHT IN TEXAS

I've lived in Texas on-and-off for almost ten years now, and I am continually fascinated by this state. I have some friends who work for oil companies, and they told me about The Woodlands, a planned community north of Houston. I suppose it's not a whole lot different from any planned community, but something about this place fascinates me. It's entirely insulated–children grow up and go to school there, parents commute from home to office inside the development. In some ways, it's like the American compounds for oil workers in the Middle East or Nigeria.

There's something so emotional about searching for a house, too. As you walk through each house with a realtor, you imagine your life, what might happen to you there. I have only owned one house, but I'm continually scanning the listings, peeking into stranger's bedrooms and backyards. I love house tours for this same nosy reason.

This story went through many revisions, even after it was published in Zoetrope. I wanted the story to be balanced between heartbreak and hope. I get teary when I read it.

SHAKESPEARE.COM

While I was trying to write my first novel, I had a series of jobs: I edited textbooks, answered phones, created descriptions of couches for a furniture web site, and worked for a Japanese anime company, making dialogue in English fit the cartoon character's "mouth flaps." This was the late nineties in Austin, Texas, and things were booming.

Originally, "Shakespeare.com" was set in Austin. I worked at a company on South First Street, and walked by a psychic on my lunch break. (I don't think her name was Margarita–I can't remember what it was.) When I compiled all my stories, I decided that there were too many stories set in Austin. "Shakespeare.com" was easily re-located to San Francisco, thanks to some help from Jared Luskin, my editor's husband.

I love San Francisco, but I can't afford to live there. I still have 500 stock options from the company I based “Shakespeare.com” on. Someday, I know, they'll make me rich.

ON MESSALONSKEE LAKE

When I was heavily pregnant, Tip and I spent a week in a Belgrade Lakes cottage. No one had drowned in the lake, but I lay awake at night, finding it impossible to fathom how my life was about to change. The first half of Messalonskee Lake was published in Portland Magazine with the title Swim to the Surface.

When I went back to the story after about four years, I felt it needed something more. I wrote dozens of drafts of the first half before realizing I wanted to see Bill's perspective, and to see how the couple had weathered the storm of parenthood.

At one point, I had the crazy idea of linking all the men in the collection. I thought perhaps they had all gone to summer camp together. I wrote a draft of Part Two where Bill was on a camping trip with a group of young boys. It was very ominous–Bill drank whiskey and told them about the geology of the area, how Europe and American had once been connected but had drifted completely apart. The heavy-handed metaphor didn't work, and neither did the attempt to put all the men in all my stories on a camping trip.

In subsequent drafts, Bill drowned, a child drowned, a child told Bill that his mother had died and he comforted the boy, and Bill went canoeing by himself in the middle of the night. Finally, I stripped away the boys and the camping trip, Bill's parents, and even the camp itself. I was left with Bill and Lizzy, alone in the cabin.

My editor and I had many conversations about the end of the story. She wanted the loon's cry to be "lonely and beautiful." I feel it's best the way it is.

SHE ALMOST WROTE LOVE

At one time, I thought I might write a novel about a daughter who finds her father a mail-order bride. I thought the woman and her dad would travel all over the world, looking for love. (This idea was inspired by the movie Cowboy del Amor.)

Some of the facts in this story are true:

• I love to kayak and river raft.

• My husband is a geologist, like Emmett. He fly fishes, loves the Western states, and brings home trout.

• We didn't elope to Las Vegas–we were married in Ouray, Colorado, where I holed up to write my first novel, Sleep Toward Heaven. In fact, I've never been to Vegas.

• The Second Chance Humane Society and Thrift Shop is a real place, located in Ridgeway, CO. I've never worked there. I've never worked with animals, but my brother-in-law, Bret, is a veterinarian, and gave me all the details for Lola's career.

• My father does smoke cigars, though to my knowledge, he has never been on a mine tour. And he's happily married—a much nicer man and father than Grandpa Fred. After I acknowledged that this story was about Lola and Emmett, the words came quickly. This story makes me reminisce about the time before children, back when I used to smoke cigarettes and wonder where I’d end up.