STAFF/VOLUNTEER READER SHOWCASE
BY MARIA HYPPONEN
Copyright is held by the author.
Said Silver-tree, “Troutie, bonny little fellow, am not I the most beautiful queen in the world?”
“Oh! indeed you are not.”
“Who then?”
“Why, Gold-tree, your daughter.”
Silver-tree went home, blind with rage. She lay down on the bed, and vowed she would never be well until she could get the heart and liver of Gold-tree, her daughter, to eat.
— From the Scottish fairy tale “Gold-tree and Silver-tree”
***
WHEN SYLVIA Woods was first admitted to the long-term care facility, she had forbidden the nurses to let Trout visit. They ignored her. Sylvia’s scowls and sarcasm had won her no friends.
In truth, the only friend she had was Trout. It’s not as if Sylvia’s daughter would ever visit. Sylvia herself had made sure of that.
The common room was warm. Sylvia sat in her wheelchair, with a faded pink blanket on her lap. She gazed out the window at the lake. Another resident snored gently in front of the television. Trout had settled into an armchair next to Sylvia.
“Feel like going outside today, Syl?” Trout asked, sipping her coffee with a slurp.
Sylvia didn’t turn her head, but said as clearly as her frozen lips would let her, “I feel like pushing you into Lake Ontario and watching you sink to your watery demise.”
Trout erupted in laughter. That was Trout for you. Edie Troughton — Sylvia’s long-time friend and personal Jiminy Cricket. She had been putting up with Sylvia’s moods for years and never took her outbursts seriously.
“Ha! I’m a strong swimmer. Even if you could get up out of that wheelchair, you’d never get rid of me. Who else is going to wipe the drool from your chin?”
Sylvia glared at Trout with all the indignation she could muster. “Oh, you’re hilarious today, Trout.” She sipped her coffee through a straw. The left side of her mouth was stuck in a permanent downturn, thanks to the facial palsy. From one side, she looked like she had just heard some terrible news.
Trout continued to chortle as she stirred her coffee.
Sylvia had been in the facility for three months, ever since the doctors had determined the paralysis of her lower body to be permanent. She was younger than the other residents by decades. Most days, she spent her time rolling her wheelchair up and down the sidewalk out front, bumping any shins that got in her way.
On other days, she planted herself in front of the window in the common room, revisiting the glories and regrets of her past.
The days paraded by, an incessant flow of pills, naps, and bad food, punctuated by visits from Trout.
Those were an excruciating penance for Sylvia. A daily reminder that it was all her own doing.
Sylvia couldn’t remember what had flicked the switch, what had changed her into someone who stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. She only remembered what she had done, and how Trout had tried to stop her.
She should have listened to Trout in the first place.
***
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Syl,” Trout had said, in an uncharacteristically grim voice.
Sylvia glanced up to where Trout stood in the doorway to Sylvia’s study.
“Please,” Sylvia said with a wave of her hand. “She’ll never know it’s me.” Within a few minutes, her day’s work was done. Sylvia logged off and settled back in her chair, allowing a smirk of satisfaction at what she had just pulled off.
“Maybe not, but you’re going to have to live with yourself if she does.”
Sylvia glared at her in response. “You’re the one who pointed the truth out to me, Trout.”
“But I didn’t think you would do this,” she said, gesturing at Sylvia’s computer. “Kim’s your daughter. She’s a great writer. You should be happy for her success.”
“Happy? Remind me, Trout, what were your exact words? What was it you said when she made the bestseller list?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I remember just fine.” Sylvia rose and marched across her study to where Trout stood. “You said, ‘Face it, Syl, Kim’s a better writer than you. You just have to accept it.’” Her finger jabbed the air at each word.
“I didn’t mean you should ruin her career!” Trout said, a flush rising on her cheeks. “You think that destroying her reputation will make you a more successful writer?”
“So, I should just roll over and give up? No.” Sylvia paced back to her computer. “She knows how hard I’ve worked to get to where I am today, all the years I struggled. And she just bats out some chick-lit drivel and suddenly she’s a bona fide respected novelist? She didn’t even bother to use a pen name! It’s not fair!” Sylvia’s voice had ended on an abruptly shrill note. She brought a shaking hand to her throat and calmed herself. She took a deep breath.
“What I mean, Trout, is that Kim needs to understand what it takes to make it as a writer. That it takes suffering and heartache. And that fame is fragile. If you can’t understand that… Well, maybe you and I have nothing else to say on the matter.” She sat down in front of the computer again, turning away from Trout’s tight-lipped gaze.
Trout stood for a moment more, then turned and walked out. Sylvia waited until she heard the front door close, and logged back onto the computer.
“Let’s see how well you’re doing today, my darling daughter.”
It had taken some time to implement her plan. Sylvia had set up fake email accounts under a dozen different pseudonyms. She was careful not to use any names with her same initials, or any variation of her name. Nothing clever. She wasn’t trying to be clever. She was trying to survive.
She was also on her own. First, her ex-husband had washed his hands of the whole thing (“I don’t want to hear anything about it, Sylvia,” he had said during a rare telephone call. “Leave me out of this.”), and now Trout had deserted her.
Who needed them, she thought.
She had started small — a comment on a blog here; a post on a book review site there. Over the course of a few months, she started a number of blogs under different names, which she updated every few hours and shared through an array of social media accounts. She spent hours commenting on videos and podcasts, and seeding one-star reviews everywhere she could. She surged into Kim’s networks with a tsunami of deceit.
Sylvia crafted each review, each comment, each blog post, in a different voice. She lived and breathed a multitude of personas, styles, and perspectives. She had to start a database to keep it all straight.
If Sylvia ever had doubts about what she was doing, she told herself it was for Kim’s own good. When Kim had first expressed an interest in writing, Sylvia had indulged her daughter’s dreams, even encouraged her. But for Kim to have launched herself into literary fame on the basis of a few short stories and one novel? She was simply riding on Sylvia’s more luminous coattails. Sylvia had spent her life working for the kind of recognition that Kim had achieved overnight, without any real effort.
The literary world was a harsh and cutthroat place. The bad reviews, the negative comments, the cracks in Kim’s fledgling writing career — were those all that different from the years of rejection and toil that Sylvia herself had endured before her talent was finally rewarded? Why should Kim have it any easier?
In those moments, Sylvia told herself she was being a good mother. She was protecting Kim from delusions of grandeur, and teaching her what to expect when entering Sylvia’s domain.
Checking each blog, social media account, and online literary news site took all Sylvia’s time. Her days were measured by the steady exercise of logging in, logging out.
Her reviews were smart, biting, erudite. Sylvia nearly wept at not being able to use her own byline — this was some of her best work. Her favourite online weapon was CanLitQueen, a persona she had based on a theatre critic she knew.
“Kim Woods must be some blessed breed of new writer, one who can ignore the careful construction of plot, the painstaking analysis of character, and the tricky notion of pacing. For a writer with such a promising pedigree, this reviewer is beyond disappointed. Her dialogue? Stilted. Conflict? Predictable. Characters? One-dimensional.”
Sylvia neglected her own work. The deadline for her latest manuscript came and went. Sylvia ignored the onslaught of emails and letters from her agent that spring and summer. Her agent left initially frantic and later fleeting voice messages, and then nothing.
Slowly but surely, the blistering reviews and negative commentary had started to get more agreement from regular readers and the literary elite, and it all started to feel worth it. Sylvia’s eyes danced across the screen as others added their own critiques. Her heart sang each time the thumbs-up icon flashed a higher number. Her poison pen campaign rolled on.
Let Kim find another profession, Sylvia thought. Writing is mine.
Sylvia checked the bestseller lists constantly, and her vigilance was rewarded with Kim’s book nudging inexorably down, until it fell off the charts completely. Reviews on BookTok swung from positive to negative, and readers stopped buying, or even caring. Sylvia knew people in the retail world—she learned that Kim’s books were being dumped into the remainder bin almost as soon as they were shipped out. The returns department must be overwhelmed, Sylvia thought with glee.
Kim was stricken from book award short-lists, then even the long-lists. She was left off the invitation list for the Carter Press gala. Of course, it helped that Sylvia knew the chair of the gala committee, and was able to clue him in to the less-than-laudatory online chatter.
It took time and effort, but Kim Woods was eventually relegated to one-hit wonder status.
“Mom, I don’t know what happened,” she cried into Sylvia’s shoulder, having dropped by Sylvia’s brownstone for a rare visit. “I thought I was doing so well.” She looked up at her mother, her eyes red and earnest. “I guess I’ll never be a great writer.”
Sylvia waited until she heard the magic words.
“I guess I’ll never be as good as you.”
“Hush, darling.” Sylvia had patted Kim’s head, making soothing noises—all while silently congratulating herself on her campaign.
***
Damage done, within a few weeks Sylvia’s online personas vanished from cyberspace, except CanLitQueen, for whom she had a soft spot. She deleted any clues that might lead any keen investigators back to her.
Later that year, Kim moved with her husband to a suburb of Toronto, where she started a family and redeployed her skills as a freelance copywriter.
Sylvia couldn’t resist. She called Trout and trilled about her success. Trout’s sarcasm stung.
“That’s great, Syl, you’ve ruined your daughter’s life, well done. I’ve been meaning to ask, how’s that novel you’re working on?”
Sylvia had hung up in a grump, her triumphant mood spoiled. Kim’s life wasn’t ruined; it was just . . . redirected. True, Sylvia had missed a deadline or two, but with Kim out of the way she was free to focus on her own success.
Sylvia Woods returned to her study in the townhouse, ready to reclaim her literary throne.
Four years and two moderately well-received novels later, Sylvia was on a cross-Canada tour to promote her latest book. One town to the next, in an exhausting sequence, she handed out sincere smiles and heartfelt handshakes with signed copies of her book. Her readings were well attended, and audience members asked insightful if repetitive questions. She was written up in practically every newspaper from Victoria to St. John’s. Sylvia could not remember a time when she felt so sure of her own relevance.
Sylvia emailed her assistant more than she did her friends and family. She heard snippets of news from Kim about her growing brood — a birthday party here, a confirmation there — but Sylvia was too busy focusing on her own work to pay much attention to what her daughter did in the backwoods of suburbia. The last two times Kim had called, Sylvia had let it go to voicemail.
She missed Trout.
She lost track of which hotel she was staying in. It was only when she picked up a newspaper that she could orient herself. The Milltown Record had a books section that Sylvia flipped to, hungry for praise of her latest book. If the marketing department had been doing its job, a review copy should have landed on the editor’s desk weeks ago.
But right where she expected to see glowing praise for Sylvia Woods’ Lighter than Air, she was confronted instead with a gorgeous photo of her daughter. Kim Woods, as interviewed for the Milltown Record by features reporter Angie Varashyanan. Kim Woods, talking about how she balanced the demands of motherhood with refreshed literary fame. Kim Woods, the bane of Sylvia’s existence.
“How the hell did this happen?” she yelled at Trout over the reverb of an unsteady cell-phone signal.
“Don’t you read your email? You must have known she was writing again.”
“Sure, but I thought she was just sticking to magazine articles. She wasn’t supposed to make an actual comeback! She was finished. I made sure she was finished.”
“She deserves this, Syl. You’ve been on tour so long you didn’t even notice that she had published a novel again.” Sylvia’s rant had weakened into a whimper, and Trout’s voice softened. “Let her have her day in the sun. Your books will keep selling, don’t worry. Nothing can stop you from publishing.”
Sylvia rose from her chair upon Trout’s words.
“You’re right, Trout. Nothing can stop me from publishing.” She hung up and raced to her laptop.
She emailed her assistant: “Get me to YYZ on first flight out. Cancelling tour, family emergency.”
***
Back in her townhouse, Sylvia resurrected her old pen names and started whipping through blogs with renewed frenzy. Her fingers flew as she executed an impromptu campaign.
It was going just as smoothly as last time, she thought as she surveyed her work on multiple monitors, although she may have abandoned care for speed. She let fly her sharpest quills, each designed to pierce Kim’s skin and burrow under where the poison could be released. It was time for CanLitQueen to strike again.
“I write this only in the sincerest hope that Ms. Woods should return to minding her hearth and home, and not attempt to dilute the essence of the Canadian canon with this forgettable piece of trash.” Her comments as CanLitQueen never failed to elicit a chorus of electronic hear-hears by an audience desperate to have every work savaged but their own.
A few weeks into the campaign, Sylvia was surprised one morning to find only one comment on her latest blog post. The chorus was silent. She had to read the comment twice before it sunk in.
“Hey @canlitqueen, don’t bother with the pen names. I know who you are. Haven’t you read today’s paper yet, Sylvia Woods?“
It was posted by KimWoods95.
No. It was impossible. She had covered her tracks too well. She read the post again, and checked into the back-end of the blog to see what could have happened. There was no sign of any hack, nothing had been changed, but Sylvia knew that she had been discovered.
Haven’t you read today’s paper yet?
With a cry, Sylvia flew downstairs and out the front door to retrieve the newspaper from the driveway, not caring that she was wearing her pajamas. She stifled a rising wail of frustration as she wrestled with the too-tight elastic that secured the paper. Inserts scattered and fell as she tore through to the right page.
Sylvia recognized her own photo right away, one that her agent had taken a few years ago. The effect was meant to be thoughtful and moody, but Sylvia had been squinting into a setting sun. Her lips were pursed and she looked older than she was.
The interview ran above the fold in the Arts section. How long Sylvia had wished to see her name in boldface in the national newspaper, and this was how it finally happened.
“Review Reporter: How did you find out that this online critic, CanLitQueen, was Sylvia Woods?
Kim Woods: I’ve been reading my mother’s books all my life. It took me a little while, but the phrasing was so familiar. It had to be her. She writes with a raw, beautiful edge that I’ve often tried to mimic.
RR: You know what they say about flattery. You must be furious! Are you planning some terrible kind of revenge?
KW: [laughing] No, no, that’s not my style. She’s my mother. And she used to be an important writer. It’s really something to be worthy of being slammed by the great Sylvia Woods.
RR: Back to your book, which is phenomenal by the way. There is a refreshing delicacy in how you handle the main character’s struggle with self-doubt . . .”
Used to be an important writer.
The blow had been deft; the poison fatal. Sylvia stood halfway up the stairs outside her townhouse, and knew that she would never publish another book.
As Sylvia staggered blindly back up the stairs, the force of her disgrace hit her. She crumpled, dizziness and anger overwhelming her. Reeling forward, her foot slipped on an errant flyer from the newspaper. Her mouth opened in what would have been a scream, if she had had the breath.
She reached for the railing as she lost her footing but caught only empty air.
It was Trout who found Sylvia unconscious at the bottom of the staircase leading up to her townhouse, sprawled on a heap of newspaper pages and glossy flyers. The doctors assumed that the force of her head striking the stairs, combined with prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain, had caused the stroke-like paralysis. They told her she might see some improvement, if she committed to regular therapy. They asked if she had a family member who could take care of her.
Trout kept the initial barrage of reporters at bay while Sylvia recovered from her physical injuries and finally moved into the long-term care home. Soon the media stopped caring and moved on to the next literary scandal.
Trout continued to visit every day. She never once said I told you so.
***
Maria Hypponen is a writer, indexer, and creativity mentor. She is also one of the founding members of the Restless Writers, a critique group that has been active for more than 15 years. In her own creative projects, Maria writes about confused hearts and the things that might have been. Her work has appeared in the Globe & Mail, Scrivener, Every Day Fiction, CommuterLit, and (under a pen name) Best Women’s Erotica of the Year Volume 6. Maria is one of CommuterLit‘s volunteer submission readers and is based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
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