Characters in Remember When, 5. She's there for a reason.

Let's see if I can manage to discuss a bit about Sherri, without stumbling over my words too much. It wouldn't be unfair of readers to accuse me of focusing an entire parallel story on her simply to have the opportunity to write a love letter to someone from long ago. When I went back and read the scenes involving her, it was pretty clear that a couple of things had happened during the Writing Fugue that resulted in the 1st draft of Remember When, and one of those was that I'd drawn from an odd mix of experiences to write about her. She's written as a composite of an image of a person I've never had the pleasure of meeting, a second person I knew well for some of her mannerisms, and a third person's way of thinking and expressing themselves. What made that a surprise to discover was that that third person was someone I only knew briefly, that she looked stunningly similar to first person (at the same age)... and she was someone who left one hell of a mark on me.

She's the focus of everything beautiful and wonderful in the story, and one of the not-beautiful parts. She's the embodiment of the last real opportunity The Roomie had to realize how much he'd become some very bad things in four years plus of doing what he did, and how much of that came home with him when he tried to be himself again. She somehow knew from their first meeting that she was important to him, in a way she wasn't important to anyone else... and liked that a lot. Sherri had been around the block in the L.A. Scene since she was in high school. She had the looks to have been courted by agents and photographers since she was 15. She had confidence and no small amount of natural skill as an actress. She was gifted with an amazing singing voice, and that ended up being the moneymaker for her as a career. To get to have that career, she'd had to work at it. Unmentioned in the story, but also a part of how things came to be for her, one of her parents had basically committed their entire effort to helping her get opportunities, too. So proper schooling in the Performing Arts, expensive music teachers, and a whole lot of support for her dream were all there to help shape her. To give her the skills to compete in a ruthless business... and to look away and not notice when she did all the things a young, beautiful, and entirely purposeful lady would do to get ahead in the Scene. She'd had a lot of guys; hadn't cared about any of them. Had joined a band full of guys she could be friends with, but also who made her stand out as the one really memorable member of the band. She was almost the opposite of the real life Debbie Harry from Blondie in the N.Y.C. Scene... Debbie wanted to be a part of the band, and was uncomfortable her entire career about being the focus. Fictional Sherri was the opposite; she loved being the stand-out, the mistress of her own success. The band needed her. She probably didn't need the band other than as a way up the ladder. She wasn't mean about it, though. She genuinely liked the guys, especially Jon writing specifically for her.

What she didn't have was someone who just wanted her because of who she was inside. She knew that about the Scene, tolerated the fact that people were wanted for what use they were or could do, but when an unexpected meeting resulted in her just dropping it all and being Sherri... that mattered to her. As the story went on, and the opportunity to do something wonderful with The Roomie happened, she ended up with the worst confusion of wants and needs possible. She also got dragged into something very dangerous. Astoundingly, and yes based on one of those real people who contributed to the composite of her character in the story, she was also very competent and mostly coolheaded in the face of danger.

She's one of the fully described characters in the novella, as much because I took such joy in writing about her as because it mattered to the story to know almost everything I mentioned about her. She moves in certain ways, choses when to speak and act in certain ways, and is almost always aware of the effect she has on people around her. She also genuinely wanted to find a way to make things work with The Roomie. Maybe she knew that he'd have made her whole, just as she was capable of saving him from himself. In the end, all she could give him were words. It sure took a long time after that for him to realize that was how she'd always remember him.

I hope Sherri "lived" for you as you read the novella. As always, the comments are open for questions and commentary.