The Ruin of Matilda Pepperstance

                Carolyn closed her book and sighed. She’d finally read her way through though all 18 books by her favorite author, Matilda Pepperstance. Carolyn arched her neck toward the cavernous ceiling of the public library and rotated her head round, back and forth. She rubbed her eyes and took another deep breath. She felt tired but extremely relieved to have made her way through Matilda Pepperstance’s weaving, layered and sometimes convoluted storytelling to the final ending in which the main character, Julius Craven, discovered that he was never an ageless Magi, but was really just a seven-year-old boy in a hospital imagining a magical life.

                Carolyn had started the whole series of books in college after getting dumped by Roger and she needed something to distract herself from re-living their 11 year long relationship. A story-line filled with fantasy and adventure and a little mushiness was just what she needed.  She didn’t know at that time it would turn into a lifelong obsession, conventions, book signings, cos-play, and even permeate its way into her bedroom and sex life.  Yet now, it was done.

                Matilda Pepperstance had died two years ago after the completion of the last book, so there were no more Julius Craven stories to come, ever. Which now seemed okay since discovering that her sexual fantasies regarding Julius were actually the imaginings of a seven-year-old sick child in a hospital. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she felt slightly betrayed by Matilda Pepperstance and her perhaps strange desire to let her readers down with such a moronic ending. “A sick kid imagined he was Julius!?” thought Carolyn.

                Carolyn looked down at the finished book on the long library table. She felt warm. She felt like she might be sweating. The library was cool and quiet, sparsely populated by old men at the periodicals and a small table of worn out mothers near the kid’s reading room. Carolyn felt angry. She felt betrayed. She felt that the last four years of her life, so devoted to these books was now suddenly a waste. A complete waste.  She pushed the thick book to the other end of the long library table with disgust.

“Matilda Pepperstance,” said Carolyn, “that bitch!”

The librarian looked up from her computer instinctively, to shush Carolyn. Carolyn gave the middle-aged librarian a dirty look and stood up from her chair. She pushed it angrily in and grabbed her jacket from the back of it. She looped her purse strap around her shoulder and stormed toward the exit. She threw open the large library doors and looked up at the blue springtime sky. She squinted against the afternoon sun as she started to walk toward her car. She remembered feeling so happy when she first arrived to the library. She felt like she would finally have the peace and quiet she needed to finish this last book. She felt like a fool now.

She opened her car door and threw her purse and jacket into the passenger seat. She sat behind the steering wheel and slammed the driver’s side door. She sat for a moment remembering how Roger told her that he was seeing someone else, someone sexier and better looking and touched him in the way that he wanted to be satisfied and how she could never be that for him. She remembered staring at him, not crying, not feeling anything but contempt for all the things she had done for him. She remembered seeing Matilda Pepperstance’s first book on the shelf next to where Roger was standing as he delivered his selfish news. The book, The Resistance of Mercy, was what Carolyn focused on. It was what she poured her rage, compassion and love into since feeling so abandoned by Roger.

She felt that same abandonment now as she sat in her car.  Roger, the car salesman, the cheap whiskey and casual cocaine user, the sadist and unrepentant selfish asshole. She missed him. She hated him. She hated she wasted so much of her time with Matilda Pepperstance’s stupid books, stories and generally bad writing.

She started to cry. She felt the hot tears of rage, sadness, and wasted time streaming down her cheeks. She started her car and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. She tossed her head back, banging it against the headrest. She grit her teeth and let out a silent scream, part fury and part exhaustion.

 Her tears, running down her cheeks, felt right. She felt like this cry was perhaps right somehow, like it was the eulogy she needed for the last four years of her life. It felt cathartic. She felt her rage and self-delusion start to slip away. She took a deep breath.   

Carolyn caught a glimpse of herself in the rear-view. She burst out in a short laugh at herself. She wiped her cheeks and looked around the parking lot. She put the car in reverse and backed out of her parking space. She put the car in drive and left the library parking lot. She turned on the radio. Tom Petty came on, singing about not backing down.

“Screw Matilda, screw Julius, Screw Roger,” she said.

She hit the accelerator and drove West.