Friday Mornings at Nine (36 page)

A READING GROUP GUIDE

FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE

Marilyn Brant

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Marilyn Brant’s
Friday Mornings at Nine
.

1. Discuss the personalities of the three main characters in the novel—Bridget, Tamara and Jennifer. How are they different? Are there any similarities between them?
   
2. This novel is told from multiple points of view. Which character was the most compelling to you? Who did you most relate to? Did you find that you had a different favorite character at the end of novel than you did at the beginning?
   
3. Consider the role of friendship in the book. Were these women good friends? Did they become closer or more distant as the novel progressed? Did one woman have a better understanding of the behavior and/or motivation of one friend versus another at different points in the story? How are your friendships similar or different from those of these women?
   
4. A fairy-tale theme is present throughout the book. Which woman was tied to which famous fairy tale? Was it a good fit? Do you think women in modern society have been conditioned to look at relationships, particularly marriage, as a kind of fairy tale come true? If so, is this a healthy expectation to bring to a committed relationship?
   
5. Has there ever been a person from your past whom you considered “the one who got away”?—a romantic relationship you’ve never had closure on, and which has haunted you for years? Perhaps a powerful physical chemistry with somebody, but you didn’t follow through on it, and you secretly still wish you would—or could—have acted upon that impulse? How far do you take those fantasies? Do you Google these people? Ask mutual acquaintances about them? And to what degree do you regret not having the chance to find out what might have happened?
   
6. Should people in a marriage be required to be faithful? Why or why not? Is your belief based upon religious principles? Family values? Personal experiences? And should fidelity be judged only by the crossing of a physical line? If so, where is that line (i.e., When a married individual hugs someone other than his/her spouse? Kisses another? Has sex with another?)? Or is the line an emotional one? Is an act of infidelity committed when emotions and confidences are shared with someone outside the marriage?
   
7. How does the author use the season of fall as a metaphor in the story? Do you see anything symbolic in having one of the major turning points of the novel happening at Halloween, specifically, at a party devoted to games of pretense and disguise?
   
8. Music from the 1970s provides the soundtrack for this novel, even though the story takes place in the present day. Were you familiar with the songs referenced in the book? If so, did you feel they were good choices for the musical subtext?
   
9. Discuss the roles of women as wives, mothers and working professionals. What challenges do women face when they return to the workforce after devoting time to raising their children? What fears do they have about themselves and their relationships when those children leave the nest and the couple goes back to being alone at home again?
   
10. What do you think the future holds for each of the women in the story? Will they all find happiness in love? What does it take to have a good relationship? A successful marriage? Can a marriage survive an affair? If not, why not? If so, what would need to happen next to strengthen the married couple’s bond?
    

Please turn the page
for a special conversation with
Marilyn Brant.

A Real Coffee Date with Marilyn Brant and Her Friends

Marilyn (pulling out a notebook while having coffee with her friends one morning): So, I had this idea. Because
Friday Mornings at Nine
involves a group of friends who meet regularly for coffee, I thought it’d be fun to have a transcript from one of our morning coffee dates at the end of the book. You know, I could write down what we chat about when we
really
get together, so readers could get to know the three of you, too.

Karen (smiling): To know us is to love us.

Marilyn: Exactly!

Sarah (with a snarky mumble): Or at least “to know us…”

Joyce: But we wouldn’t have to use our real names, would we? Because I can’t discuss the kinds of things we talk about if my real name will be out there.

Karen (furrowing her brow): Oooh. Hadn’t thought of that.

Marilyn: Well, it isn’t like we’re going to be talking about anything too wild or gossipy or inappropriate, so—

Sarah: Why not? I
want
to talk about wild, gossipy and inappropriate stuff.

Joyce: But not with our real names, Sarah.

Karen: It could be fun with fake names. (contemplating) I want to be Gretchen.

Sarah: Why Gretchen?

Joyce (squinting at Karen): Hmm. Don’t you think she kind of looks like a Gretchen? I do. The hair and the scarf and the—

Karen: Because I like the name Gretchen, okay? It’s very Germanic.

Sarah: And that’s important to you…why?

Marilyn: No, wait, you guys. I already
have
a pseudonym. You’re saying I have to choose another one now?

Sarah: Well, according to Joyce, everybody would know it was
you
if you don’t.

Marilyn: See, while that might be true, the thing is that it
is
me. It’s supposed to be “a coffee date with the author.”

Joyce:
And
her friends.

Marilyn: Right. And I don’t have any friends named Gretchen. I don’t even
know
anybody named Gretchen.

Karen/Gretchen: Well, you should. Starting now.

Joyce (nodding): I think I want to be Annette.

Sarah: Really? Why? Oh, you know what—never mind. I’ll be Alexandra then.

Marilyn: You guys, seriously. I don’t think we need to have made-up names, but if we’re going to do that, two of us shouldn’t use a name that starts with the same first letter. That gets confusing for readers. They’ll start mixing up Annette and Alexandra in the text. Think of this like a few main characters in a book, chatting around a table—

Sarah/Alexandra (in a totally mocking aside to the other two): You’d think she was a writer or something.

Marilyn (shooting Sarah a well-deserved look of disapproval before clearing her throat and continuing): You’d want each person’s dialogue to come across as distinctly as possible, right? So, we want our names to be as different as possible, too.

Joyce/Annette: Sarah, how about a shortened version of Alexandra? Like Lexie?

Karen/Gretchen: I like that. It’s cute.

Sarah/Lexie: Fine, that works. What about you, Author Girl?

Marilyn: I don’t
know
. The first name I thought of was Adriana, but that starts with an A, so—

Joyce/Annette: That’s okay. I’ll change mine. I’ll be Millie instead.

Karen/Gretchen: Good. Now we’ve got Gretchen, Lexie, Adriana and Millie.

Marilyn/Adriana (agitated and scribbling some notes): But I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t even thinking about a pseudonym. And I’m not sure I’d really make a good “Adriana”…(losing her pen cap under the table) Can’t we just talk normally?

Sarah/Lexie: Joyce, why do you want to be Millie?

Joyce/Millie (shrugging): Because I like it, and I had a Grandma Millie, who was really sweet. Well, no—not really.
She
was German.

Karen/Gretchen: Oh! Oh, I want to change mine. I’m going to be Betty. Definitely Betty.

Sarah/Lexie, Joyce/Millie and Marilyn/Adriana:
Betty?!

Karen/Betty: It was my grandmother’s name.

Sarah/Lexie (groaning): Well, now I can’t be Lexie, not if you two are choosing names that are meaningful to you. I’ll be Erma.

Marilyn/Adriana (retrieving the pen cap): Like the restaurant? Max & Erma’s?

Sarah/Erma: No, like Bombeck. Because she was funny and I always liked her. Now, if you’re not going to be Adriana, who
are
you going to be?

Marilyn/Adriana (with an exasperated sigh): I’m the author. The one who’s trying to write this conversation down or, you know, I
would
write it down if we all had names chosen.

Sarah/Erma: Seems to me, you’re the only one who doesn’t have a name picked out yet.

Karen/Betty (wagging her finger): Sarah, that’s not helpful. What about one of your relatives, Marilyn?

Marilyn/Adriana: Um, my grandmother’s name is Lily, and my aunts are—

Joyce/Millie: Lily’s nice! How about that?

Marilyn/Adriana (finally realizing the name thing isn’t a battle that can be won): Thanks, ladies. That’s a good idea. I’ll be Lily. So—at last—we have our assumed identities. That only took a half hour. Perhaps
now
we can actually talk about some stuff over coffee, like we’re supposed to.

Joyce/Millie: Oh, the coffee! (taking a cautious sip from her mug) I’d almost forgotten about it. I think we should stop and drink some of this before it gets cold.

Karen/Betty (sipping hers): Mmm, this is good.

Joyce/Millie: We need some biscotti. Oh, wait! (clapping) I’ve got something we can talk about. A few weeks ago I went to this birthday party—

Sarah/Erma (sipping her drink also): Great coffee. I have a shot of espresso in mine.

Karen/Betty: You ordered it that way?

Sarah/Erma: Yeah. I just told the lady to—

Marilyn/Lily: Hey, you two! The coffee
itself
might be an excellent topic for later, but Joyce—I mean, Millie—wanted to say something.

Karen/Betty (blatantly ignoring this attempt at redirection): Well, it would make me really wired if I did that. Too much caffeine.

Sarah/Erma: No, no. The extra caffeine is a good thing. Trust me.

Joyce/Millie (waving her hands in front of the group): Okay, am I going to be able to speak?

Marilyn/Lily:
Yes
. Please talk. I’m ready. I’m taking notes.

Sarah/Erma (sifting through her bag and pulling out her phone): You don’t have to take notes. I have a recording feature on my cell. See?

Joyce/Millie: Oh, fun. (grabbing it) Let me look at that.

Marilyn/Lily: Excellent. That’ll really help.

Karen/Betty (looking suspiciously at Sarah’s phone): Those electronic devices don’t really work, do they?

Sarah/Erma (raising a single mischievous eyebrow): Depends on the device—and what you’re using it for….

(Everyone laughs as Joyce hands the phone back to Sarah.)

Marilyn/Lily:
Now
we’re edging toward inappropriate.

Joyce/Millie: Good thing we have those fake names, eh?

Marilyn/Lily (grinning): Start recording, Sarah. Our conversation is going off on all of these tangents. Maybe if I listen to it later it’ll help me organize my notes.

Joyce/Millie: Hey, when am I going to get to tell my story?

Karen/Betty: I know the one she’s talking about! It’s funny. She told it to me already.

Marilyn/Lily: I want to hear it, too. I know it’ll be really great—

Karen/Betty: Oh, but Joyce. You can’t say anything about…
you know what
…not if Sarah’s recording.

Marilyn/Lily (shaking her head and muttering to herself): You see how I can’t write this down? This conversation is All Over The Place.

(Joyce and Karen whisper indistinctly to each other.)

Sarah/Erma: Marilyn, that’s because the closer a group of women are, the more likely they are to have multilinear conversations.

Marilyn/Lily (in a sarcastic tone): Sure. Pull out the whole psychologist thing on me now, Sarah. Complicate my task even more. But here’s the problem—I need to somehow give readers a sense of our conversations. And I’m making a mess of this. All we’ve managed to do is choose names that aren’t ours and interrupt one another. Well, and drink a little coffee. (pauses) I do love this hazelnut mocha, though.

Sarah/Erma: But it would sound more realistic if you wrote it that way. A lot of times when you read a scripted conversation, the characters sound stilted. It’s hard to show the overlapping dialogue—the cross-talking—of a real conversation.

Marilyn/Lily: No kidding.

Joyce/Millie (interjecting): Eventually we get around to a point. It just takes a while.

Sarah/Erma: Yeah. Conversations with true friends circle around. We hit lots of different notes, not just one. There’s a theme, but not everybody plays the melody.

Karen/Betty: And there are variations on that theme, too.

Marilyn/Lily: Oh, that’s cool. It’s the symphony of us.

Sarah/Erma: Yes! Totally right. Go with that. Say something lyrical about us.

Marilyn/Lily: Okay, how about this. We’re like a string quartet, each playing a different instrument. The violin might have the solo, then the cello, and so on, but we all support each others’ songs. When we’re together, we try to play harmoniously, but the tunes change, depending on the topic.

Sarah/Erma: Yeah, it’s like classical to talk about the fam.

Karen/Betty: The
fam?

Sarah/Erma: You know, family, husband, children—

Joyce/Millie: Blah, blah, nice things.

(Laughter at the table and more coffee drinking)

Marilyn/Lily: Yeah, that makes sense. The family stuff is like classical music. What else?

Karen/Betty: There are movie sound tracks, too.

Joyce/Millie: And Broadway show tunes.

Sarah/Erma: Right, that’s like the funny things we have conversations about. It shows our range. Our intelligence, humor—

Karen/Betty: And passion!

Sarah/Erma: Yes, and passion. The hot stuff.

Karen/Betty (bobbing her head): That sounds exactly like us.

Joyce/Millie: We’re obviously very smart.

Sarah/Erma: And we say brilliant, insightful things all the time, but no one ever knows about it.

Marilyn/Lily: This time they will.

(All nod sagely.)

Joyce/Millie: Now, can we talk about the party…?

Addendum
(a week or two later):

Marilyn: Hey, you guys, I wrote down our conversation from last time. Well, I kind of did. The parts I could transcribe, anyway. Wanna see?

Joyce: Sure.

Marilyn (passing out copies): Okay, if you want to change anything—if I didn’t quote you accurately, spell your pseudonym correctly, anything like that—just mark it on the page and I’ll fix it. I’m used to revising.

Karen:
I’m
not changing anything.

Joyce: That’s because you have a problem with change.

Marilyn and Sarah: Oooooooh.

Karen (rolling her eyes at Joyce): Nice. Let’s make sure we put
that
in there.

Sarah (chuckling as she reads the first page): This is hilarious. It sounds just like us.

Marilyn: It
does,
but readers don’t know us. Are we the only ones who are going to think this is funny?

Joyce: Probably.

Marilyn (to Joyce): Do you want to make any changes to the text?

Joyce: Look, if I’ve got a pen in my hand and am making changes, I want some royalties.

Marilyn (laughing): Well,
Millie,
you’ll get acknowledgments and a free copy.

Joyce: You know, maybe we should keep our real names….

Marilyn: What?! After all the time we spent—

Karen (yawning): I’m tired. You guys wear me out.

Joyce: And I never did get to tell my story.

Sarah: Yeah, I wanted to hear that.

Marilyn: Sure you did.

Sarah (narrowing her eyes at Marilyn): I
did
.

Karen (glancing around the table): Does anyone even remember it now?

Joyce (considering): Actually, I don’t. But I know I want some more coffee.

Marilyn (making a final note on the page): To be continued…