Jumping the Shark: Day 28, and 51,691 Words

To quote Elle Woods: WE DID IT!!!!!!!

I was inspired by the amazing dedication and commitment of my fellow EsNoWriMo-ers and met my goal of finishing my novel today. It ended up taking about 3,500 words today, but I am pretty happy with how it ended. Here is a very lengthy part of what I wrote today, and what is now the ending of the book (before I write an epilogue, at a later date):

Toronto was buzzing with the news that Doug Ford and Jordan Peterson had both recently died from falling into a shark tank at Ripley’s Aquarium. Apparently they had become belligerent when they could not buy beer for a dollar anywhere in Toronto, as much of Ford’s political platform had stood for making it legal to purchase beer for a “buck” despite the fact that no beer sellers actually intended to do so. The rumour is that they stole the keys to the shark tank and dove in, perhaps as a way of testing Peterson’s theory about the similarities between humans and lobsters, and the more sexy animal, the shark. The sharks took no interest in either man, as they were quite well fed, but they each kept pulling each other further down into the watery depths in an effort to save themselves. It was quite a metaphor, if one was interested in metaphors.

Jordan Peterson believes that it makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. He also thinks that it makes sense that the old king lives in a desiccated tower.

For the rest of us, however, witches don’t exist and they don’t live in swamps. Similarly, Doug Ford and Jordan Peterson no longer existed or lived anywhere. Those things hang together at a deep level, you see, unlike their innards at the deep level of the shark tank.

While the sycophants were crying about this “tragedy,” the entirety of Toronto was celebrating by dressing up as sharks.

The biggest party, of course, was at Jackie’s Place. Jackie immediately regretted opening his doors that day. But once he had, the momentum would not be lost. The Labrador retriever tribute band, Black Labbath, rebranded as Great White (Shark), a play on the somewhat popular 80s and 90s hair metal band Great White. The reference was mostly lost on the millennial patrons of Jackie’s Place, but some reported that they heard Jackie humming along to the bands’ cover of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.” They hardly changed any lyrics at all.

Nora, however, felt that the band should not have performed a song that even references a classic line from Wham’s perfect holiday ode “Last Christmas,” as she wished that she lived in a universe where musicians have the respect not to ruin George Michael’s perfect oeuvre.

Nora had agreed to meet Wynn David at Jackie’s Place. There was something about getting trapped in an elevator with a man and his ex-boyfriend that brought you together. They had been meeting in the weeks since, writing and becoming friends. He had also attended Henry Golding’s audition at Jackie’s Place for the part of William Wandstein in the movie adaptation of Pride and Prejuwitch. He of course nailed the audition—both Nora and Wynn thought so—and happily accepted the role. Even David Boreanaz and Taylor Kitsch, who now worked part time at Jackie’s Place not out of need but out of want, stood up and applauded him after his audition scene. Boreanaz even yelled, “You rock, eighty-four!” Golding had no idea what he meant by that, but he was nonetheless flattered.

What Nora truly needed, by then, was a friend. Shalini had moved to Vancouver in the week after the fateful elevator incident. Of course, they had kept in touch and spoke on the phone most days. She missed her friend dearly, but took comfort in the fact that she now had an excuse to visit Vancouver.

She was delighted to hear that Shalini had also kept in touch with Noah. While Nora was trapped in the elevator, apparently Noah had confessed to Shalini how much he missed her and that he had been harbouring second thoughts about the way that their relationship came to an end. Shalini, after the misery of the days past, admitted that her move to Vancouver was not indicative of any disinterest in their relationship, and that she hoped that it might continue. Their intimate conversation was interrupted by the arrival of brian j. Pickles, who informed them that their best friends were trapped in an elevator. Luckily they continued the conversation the next day, and decided that they did not want to break up after all. Noah had already flown to Vancouver to visit with Shalini, and she had booked a return trip to visit with him over Labour Day weekend.

Wynn and Nora had settled into an easy friendship. They read drafts of each other’s work, and eagerly gave and accepted feedback. On Fridays they would meet up to talk about their writing goals, whether or not they had met them that week, and if there was anything that they needed to do to better meet their goals. They also shared a habit of always checking for a working phone in every elevator they stepped into. Never again in their lives would they see another shell-covered pot, but once was more than enough.

As much as that evening in the elevator had brought them together, it had not brought them together romantically. They felt that they had been brought together for a much more important purpose: to write together and support each other’s ambitions. And, to make fun of brian j. Pickles behind his back while simultaneously believing that he was the best damn book agent in Canada.

As Great White (Shark) launched into their cover of “Rock Me,” aptly titled “Bite Me,” and dedicated it to Doug Ford and Jordan Peterson, the entire crowd sang along to the lyrics of the chorus—the only ones they knew.

Bite me/ Bite me/ For justice we will fight/ You’ll burn in hell tonight

It was a raucous night of celebration, only rivalled by the one months earlier when the Toronto Raptors had been crowned as NBA champs and the housewarming plant scene was never the same again.

The final notes shook the already unstable rafters at Jackie’s Place.

“Did I miss ‘Bite Me’?” Nora heard someone say behind her.

“Afraid so,” she replied, knowing exactly who it was without turning around.

“I’ll go get another drink,” Wynn said, as he shook hands with Oliver. Since their détente in the elevator, the two had worked to find their way as friends. They had always shared much in common, and took pleasure in learning to care for one another in a different way.

Since their last encounter, Nora had been unsure if sparks between her and Oliver had been real or a product of the magical shell-covered pot. She had been waiting to see if they would simply run into each other again, as they always seemed to do when she believed that her life was emulating Pride and Prejudice. Weeks passed, and she did not reach out to him, nor him her. They did not see each other outside of their meetings with brian j. Pickles, despite Nora looking for him.

At first, Nora had felt incredibly foolish about her assumption that her life was destined to follow the map laid out by Jane Austen all those years ago. It was improbable, to be sure, and she tried to chalk it up to bat bile ingestion.

But the more that she thought about it, the more that she felt that she had truly learned something from the famous love story. Much like Elizabeth, she learned that pride and prejudice can prevent a person from recognizing the good—and the bad—in others. She learned that misunderstandings can cause hurt feelings that could have been avoided with better communication. People are so often not exclusively one thing, or one identity. And if you aren’t careful, you might find yourself being villainized in someone else’s eyes, as well.

After this experience, she felt more than ever that she was in control of her own life, rather than living it according to someone else’s expectations. One would not have anticipated that she needed to learn that the long-dead Austen was indeed not in the driver’s seat of her life, but sometimes with life lessons you just have to start small.

Even so, she had started to believe in magic. Not the magic of a deflated balloon, or a shell-covered pot. But something had brought all of them together, and if it wasn’t magic, she wasn’t sure what it was.

“What’ll it be?” Taylor Kitsch asked Oliver, as he slid him over a can of beer in a paper bag. She did not need to look into that bag to know that it was a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The immediate service was an incredible change of pace for Jackie’s Place, but not caring about what people actually wanted made Nora feel right at home.

“I kept thinking that I was going to run into you,” Nora said as she watched him open the bag, look disappointed, but open the can and start drinking anyway.

“I’ve been avoiding elevators,” Oliver quipped.

“And I’ve been really busy with my shell-covered pot business,” Nora replied. “It’s been making quite a splash!”

“From what I hear, so have Doug Ford and Jordan Peterson.”

“You can tell your friend Kiefer that his mum can join Twitter now.”

The two smiled at each other, happy to have settled into their rhythm again.

“When you said that you had been thinking that you would run into me,” he began, “were you also hoping that you would?”

“Well, it’s less fun when I quote my own book to myself,” Nora joked.

Oliver waited for her to provide a genuine answer to the question.

“What I mean is, I guess, well, yes,” she finally answered. “After our conversation that day, I felt like I saw a completely different side of you. I judged you quickly, and as I have gotten to know you better, I’ve felt like I want to know you even more.”

Oliver blushed.

“And it’s not only because you really know your way around a tuxedo.”

“I do?” he smiled back.

“And it’s also not just because you know your way around the written word,” Nora laughed.

“The ‘written word,’ indeed!” he replied.

“You’re not the only one who can pick up a copy of the other’s book.”

“I’m flattered.”

“I think that the Governor General’s Literary Award committee has flattered you enough, from what I read in the Toronto Star,” Nora said.

“Well, just in case you felt like the flattery was one-sided, I got a transcript of the remarks from your award presentation at the Writers’ Union of Canada Gala,” he said, pulling out a sheet of paper.

Nora had left as soon as she had been freed from the elevator. After the evening she’d had, a nice relaxing nightcap at Jackie’s Place to the smooth sounds of Black Labbath was just what the doctor (Shalini) ordered. Her award had arrived in the mail the next week. She felt regretful that she missed being honoured in front of her peers. It was not often that she won awards, and it felt like horrible luck that she missed the ceremony when she finally did.

“I felt bad for you missing your award,” he said. “It was my fault that we all ended up in the elevator in the first place.”

“Well, I guess we could have not followed you in,” Nora conceded. “But I guess that’s neither here nor there.”

“Much like Doug Ford and Jordan Peterson?”

“That will never get old.”

Oliver placed a paper in front of her. It was hand-written, as if he had watched a video of the awards ceremony and paused it repeatedly to catch every word.

“I can’t believe you did this,” she said, holding her hand over her mouth in wonder.

“Are you surprised?”

“Yes,” she said. “After you ran away from me at the gala, plunging yourself into a broken elevator, I thought I knew exactly how you felt. But by the time we escaped, I wasn’t so sure.”

“Allow me to fix that right now,” he said. “I want you to know how much I admire you. To put it in your words, you certainly know your way around the written word. I loved your book. I can’t wait for the movie. I think Henry Golding is an excellent casting choice, by the way. I find your passion and conviction about what is right—and your fearlessness in the face of those who oppose it, whether it’s Gamergate, Doug Ford, or me, when I’m being sexist—to be most attractive and exciting. You love your friends fiercely and protectively. You have made me a better person in the time that I have known you. Less sexist, at least.

“It’s because of how I feel about you that I want you to feel the full weight of how much people appreciate your work. I know that people dismiss you because you are a woman, and you write books that women mostly read. You deserve to feel honoured, and because I got in the way of that, I transcribed their remarks myself.” He gestured towards the bottom of the page and added, “I also added some of my own here.”

Beneath the paragraphs of praise and accolades, the references to book sales and movie contracts, was this:

“She is also fiercely intelligent, beautiful, and amazing. I hope that she will go out with me.”

“This would have been completely inappropriate in the speech,” she commented.

“How appropriate would you perceive it if I said it?” he asked.

“Completely appropriate.”

I have a couple of things to say about how this novel ended. While writing this, it was really important to me to subvert a lot of the tropes in Pride and Prejudice, and to make the plot truly unpredictable. This, obviously, goes against an ending that has the Elizabeth character end up with the Darcy character.

I thought a lot about this. People had awesome suggestions about other endings, and those endings made a lot of sense and were probably better for the characters! I know that I made Oliver pretty obnoxious in a lot of instances, and they mostly disagreed. Perhaps I did a little too good of a job of driving the characters apart, and not good enough a job of bringing them together. Towards the end of the month I started joking that I dislike men so much that I made all of the male characters completely unacceptable for the main characters to ever truly love. I hope that you don't think this is the case.

But when I think about why I read P&P-inspired novels, a large part of it is that I love this story and want to live in the world (minus Collins) as much as I can. I love that the Elizabeth and Darcy character end up together, every time. In the end, I just had trouble envisioning an ending that I would find personally satisfying that does not have the two of them together. That's why I wrote it this way-- I had to decide between unpredictable and what would be romantically satisfying to me, and I chose the latter.