My Life as a Doormat (in Three Acts) Read Online Free PDF Page B

like a good idea at the time. I see now that it wasn’t. I’ve embarrassed you.”
    A smile returned to his lips and he took my hands. “You don’t need any of this fancy stuff, okay? That’s not who you are. You’re Leah Townsend, not Julia Roberts.”
    â€œI know.” I returned his smile and let him lead me toward the others. The tension was gone, and everything returned to normal. At least outwardly. I walked beside him now, and as we entered the house through the French doors off the patio, I mumbled, “Right. For tonight only, I’ll answer to Miss Cotton Candy.” But I don’t think he heard me.

Chapter 4
    [Shocked, she opens the envelope.]
    I really need more zest. You’re putting too much of yourself in me. This isn’t an autobiography, okay? And don’t get me wrong. You have some really good zingers, some one-liners that could knock a person on their back if they ever made it past that roadblock called your tongue. But I’m not you. I’m Jodie Bellarusa, and I have no problem with my tongue. You’re going to have to let me soar. Stop reining me in.
    Jodie was right. I was inhibiting her. She was sassy, strong, and satisfied without a man. I stared at the cursor on my screen. It blinked monotonously, as if tracking the time ticking away this morning as I struggled to write.
    My play didn’t have a title yet. Titling was not my gift. But if I was honest, my play also seemed to lack direction, and even a theme. All I knew was that I had this fabulous character named Jodie Bellarusa who thought she was ready to make her public appearance on the stage. I had to remind her she was barely ready to make her appearance on the white page.
    Jodie had been around for about three years. She first appeared the night an actor named James stood me up. I’d sat in a little café for an hour after our scheduled date, believing that he would come. I kept feeding myself all the excuses I wanted to hear, from the idea that we got our times mixed up to the hopeful possibility that he was in a horrible car crash on the way to see me and was in a hospital somewhere unconscious and unaware that he’d never arrived.
    Suddenly this woman appeared. It wasn’t kooky, like she was sitting across from me as a ghost. It was all in my head. Maybe that sounds kooky too. Anyway, she was the one that talked me out of the whole thing. She explained that there was no misunderstanding and no tragic accident. He just didn’t come.
    I named her after the waiter, Jodie, a guy who seemed genuinely distraught as each minute ticked by. He bought me a drink and told me the guy was an idiot. And Bellarusa came from the name of the café.
    Jodie Bellarusa was born that day. She hasn’t left me alone since, and last year she became a little headstrong, wanting an entire story built around her.
    Writing a story with Jodie at the center wasn’t hard. She was an easy character to develop. She was a die-hard antiromantic who was certain love would never be for her. She turned off the guys she met, challenging them to break down the thick wall of sarcasm she’d built around herself. They all failed. But she had yet to meet Timothy, the handsome dentist who lived next door.
    I could admit that, yes, Jodie was the anti-Leah. We were polar opposites, but she didn’t represent everything I wanted to be. That would make for a very boring character. Jodie was full of flaws and drama, and I was banking on her to be my Next Big Thing.
    But unlike most days, this Monday morning brought nothing new and extraordinary to the page. In fact, the entire story seemed to have stalled out. I couldn’t type a thing, and so Jodie sat mid-sentence, her mouth hanging wide open as she quipped to her friend, “I couldn’t be happier that . . .” This was where it all stopped. Poor Jodie was suspended between happiness and complete failure. It was up to me to fill in