You’ll Be Fine: Excerpt

YOU’LL BE FINE, Jen Michalski

An enjoyable story about an adult trying to grow up”—Kirkus Reviews.

After Alex’s mother dies of an accidental overdose, Alex takes leave from her job as a writer for a lifestyle magazine to return home to Maryland and join her brother Owen, a study in failure to launch, in sorting out their mother’s whimsical, often self-destructive, life.

While home, Alex plans to profile Juliette Sprigg, an Eastern Shore restaurant owner and celebrity chef in the making who Alex secretly dated in high school. And when Alex enlists the help of Carolyn, the editor of the local newspaper, in finding a photographer for the article’s photo shoot, Alex struggles with the deepening, tender relationship that blossoms between them as well.

To complicate matters, Alex and Owen’s “Aunt” Johanna, who has transitioned to a woman, offers to come from Seattle to help with arrangements, and all hell breaks loose when she announces she is actually Alex and Owen’s long-estranged father. Can Alex accept her mother and father for who they are, rather than who she hoped they would be? And can Alex apply the same philosophy to herself?

EXCERPT

There is literally nowhere to go in this town, she thinks, that isn’t the Walmart of restaurants. Except Sprigg, which is the last place she wants to be right now. But she doesn’t want to take her transgender aunt to the Cracker Barrel, so they head over.
“My ex-girlfriend owns this place,” Alex explains to Aunt Johanna at Sprigg as they get settled at the bar. Would Juliette even be here yet? Alex prays she isn’t.
Alex digs her phone out of her purse. She thinks about texting Juliette she’s here, just to warn her, but she also doesn’t want to look too eager. Especially after she’s already fled from her today in tears.
“Let me try your best rosé.” Johanna says as the bartender arrives. “And a BLT, white bread. Heavy on the mayo and pepper.”
“I’ll have a vodka tonic,” Alex pipes in. “And a garden salad, dressing on the side.”
“She’ll have a rosé too,” Johanna says to bartender before turning to Alex. “Sweetheart, you’re carrying a Walgreens in your purse and drinking vodka in the middle of the day. I know your mother just died, but I don’t want to have to do an intervention while I’m here, okay?”
“It’s not like that.” Alex opens her purse and scoops out all the bottles. She shows one to Johanna. “These are all Owen’s, see?”
“Oh my goodness—your brother’s a drug addict?” Johanna’s mouth opens. “Adeline said he was just a homebody.”
“I think he was pill-shopping for Mom,” Alex explains.
“I was worried it would come to this.” Johanna picks up the glass the bartender put in front of her and swirls it. “I should have come sooner. I’d wanted to come years ago, but your mother didn’t want me to.”
“Why you?” Alex regrets it as soon as she says it. Why does she have such a knack for being insulting? “I mean, why not Dad?”
“It’s complicated.” Johanna sips her rosé.
“You mean, it gets weirder?” Alex picks up her own rosé and gulps it.
“Not weirder.” Johanna pats her arm. “At least, I don’t think so. Just complicated.”
“What do you know about Lewis?” Alex signals the bartender for another glass.
“Adeline’s narcissistic, criminal ex-boyfriend?” Johanna sighs. “What has he done now?”
“Nothing.” Alex shakes her head. It’s probably not the best time to bring up her own emotional trauma, in the middle of her ex-girlfriend’s restaurant. But when will she have the chance again?
“I’m just glad she got out of that situation.” Johanna punctuates each word with a period as she speaks. She squeezes Alex’s hand. “But I want you to know, as much as a bitch your mother was sometimes, she loved you. She loved you, she really did.”
“Look.” Alex picks up her fork. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and I’m not saying my mother had no redeemable qualities whatsoever, but I’m just here because she died. Because I need to sign a few documents and get probate started. That part of my life is over.”
“Oh, honey.” Johanna grabs her forearm like she’s going to flip her over the bar. “You never divorce your family—they’re always in you.”
“Like a genetic predisposition to cancer?” Alex rolls her eyes.
“No⎯you come from your family. You are your family.” Johanna lets go of her forearm as the bartender slides her BLT toward her. She takes one half of the sandwich in both hands and holds it up to her lips, as if examining a crown jewel, before taking a small bite. She continues to speak while chewing. “The only way you can know yourself is to learn who your family is.”
“I know who my family is,” Alex answers. “My brother has a PhD and works at Staples. My mother was the Cookie Monster of impulse control.”
“And you’re the star. At least, according to your mother.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Alex frowns. She’s able to keep plants alive in her small apartment in Adams Morgan and meet deadlines for the magazine, but everything else seems amorphous and vague, crammed deep inside, like an M&M in a car seat. And if it threatened to pop up, she signed on for another assignment, another happy hour after work, another spin class on the weekend.
“Well, you certainly did well for yourself,” Alex changes the subject. “A whole winery!”
“You have to love what you do, honey.” Johanna holds up her empty glass as the bartender refills it. “When I was little, I knew I wanted to be either Leslie Gore or a bacchanal goddess. Of course, bacchanal goddess when I was little meant I wanted to be like my mother, who made her first martini at two after she came back from the hairdresser and her last at eleven, with my father before bed. But being a wife never happened for me, and when I needed money for my hormones, I took work as a tasting attendant at one of the other wineries outside Seattle. Are you getting all this? Because I’m hiring you to ghostwrite my memoir, The Grapes of Maas.”
“It’s funny.” Alex stares at the bottom of her now-empty glass. “I’ll probably wind up knowing more about you than I ever will my own father.”
“No, you won’t,” Johanna says quickly, gulping her wine down as well.
“Why?” Alex asks. “Is he going to feature prominently in this memoir as well?”
“Look.” Johanna taps the bar with the bottom of her glass, signaling the bartender again. “There’ll never be the right time for this, but there was a reason I wanted to talk to you first.”

—

Jen Michalski  is the author of three novels, The Summer She Was Under Water, The Tide King (both Black Lawrence Press), and You’ll Be Fine (NineStar Press), a couplet of novellas entitled Could You Be With Her Now (Dzanc Books), and three collections of fiction. Her work has appeared in more than 100 publications, including Poets & Writers, The Washington Post, and the Literary Hub, and she’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize six times. She lives in Carlsbad, California, with her partner and dog.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing