Though the Flower Lady confirms that Messenger is the real deal, Alana worries she’s running out of time.
We’re looking for your stories of receiving a message from an unexpected source. Or, can you tell us what message would you like to receive—or give? We want to hear your stories - long or short, profound or pedestrian, and to collect any messages you'd like to share. Send us an email at messengerthenovel@gmail.com, and you can see some that we’ve already received on our social media pages. We look forward to hearing from you!
Lucinda's Message:
Soon after my father’s memorial service, I was walking in my new neighborhood and passed an older gentleman several times before we stopped to speak. He told me he was out on his lunch break. I marveled at his youthful appearance and he laughed and told me he was 81, the same age as my dad. He went on to tell me how wonderful the company developing my neighborhood was. He comforted, reassured and made me feel our decision to buy a home there was a good one. It would work out fine. Though I looked, I never saw him again. Why had he appeared that day? Why had he spoken of the same subject my dad had reassured me about in our last conversation? I think the older gentleman was a messenger.
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Episode 6 Complete Text 📖
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COFFEE SHOP LESSON
Messenger smiled at Alana. They sat on their usual stools at Ed’s. “Did you get all that down?”
Alana held up a finger as she jotted the last of her notes. “Wow. Great. Thanks so much.” She put her notebook back into her backpack and cleared her throat. This was it. She’d planned exactly what she would say, had even written it down, word for word, in her notebook. “Messenger, I wanted to talk to you today about a new idea I’ve had. A big idea. First, I really appreciate you spending all this time to help me with my story. But now I think this whole thing is bigger than that. Would you consider letting me expand it all into a book about you and the messages?”
Messenger was quiet for the longest time. Then she turned towards Alana. “Okay,” she finally answered. “We can try that.”
Alana jumped up and hugged Messenger so hard she almost knocked her off her stool.
“Whoa, Honey!”
“Sorry! Just got excited.” Alana steadied Messenger and sat back down on her own stool. A huge smile spread across her face, full of relief that she hadn’t had to launch into the big sales job she’d planned. “That is so great! Thank you! Because I’m all in. I’m totally committed to this. And I’m going to work my hardest to make it happen. Okay, now, can I put my notes and the posts on an expanded website? Would you agree to that? It would create more buzz and encourage people to keep posting experiences and spread the word about our project. Also, can you ask people to post on my blog when you give them their message?”
Messenger burst into the loudest, deepest laughter Alana had ever heard.
“Why is that so funny,” Alana demanded. “A book takes a lot of work and planning. I’m trying so hard here.”
“I know. Cut it out! Don’t try so hard and you’ll be surprised how much better things will go.”
“You don’t understand. We have to expand our on-line presence, now that we’re getting more engagement.”
Messenger hooted. Everybody in the shop stared at them. “That’s not how this works,” she managed to say.
“It’s not funny,” Alana snapped.
“Oh, yes, it is.” Messenger collected herself and wiped away the tears running down her cheeks with a brown paper napkin. “Oh, Honey—I’m sorry. It’s just that—well—you crack me up!”
“But I wasn’t kidding! These posts from people are deep and poignant. Why can’t we give everybody a little encouragement, you know, like you say—energy. Hope. What’s so wrong with that?”
Messenger, now serious, listened intently to each word Alana spoke. She nodded, then answered, “Baby, I know. Nobody knows more than I do. But you gotta wait.”
“Why?”
“Timing’s not right.”
Alana felt anger rise up her throat. “Well, Messenger,” steel filled each word, “when do you think the time will be right?”
Messenger sighed and wiped a lone tear which traveled down her cheek. “I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Why not now?”
“Trust me.” She touched Alana’s arm. “You’re going to have to trust me.”
ALANA’S NOTEBOOK:
Today, Messenger agreed to my request to turn our project into a book. And tonight, I’m having a panic attack. All my fears are drowning me. Do I really have anything here? Has all of this been a desperate fantasy? I’ve got to get a grip. Breathe. Breathe.
What’s it all about, anyway? What would I tell Mary? Okay, there’s this woman—I don’t know how old. I don’t know where she lives. I don’t know anything about her past or her family, if she even has a family. I’ve only met a few people I suppose you’d call her friends.
Okay, so no back story, obviously. She won’t really tell me much of anything about her daily life, beyond the focus of the inquiry. And what is the focus of the inquiry? Well, every day, so she says, she receives a message. She writes it down. It’s never very long—a few sentences, at most. Then she starts to walk. She walks the streets slowly, until through a physical sensation or a feeling she gets, she knows who the message is for. She finds them and gives it to them. That’s it. Wow, writing it down like this really makes it sound like I’ve got one great big nothing on my hands. What a query! Pretty lame.
I just thought I’d have made more of a name for myself as a writer by now. After all, I wrote my head off for free, served my time at that click-bait job—I did all of it. But what do I have? Nothing. Nada. Just this lame story about a sketchy old woman who tells me to call her Messenger. Sometimes I pray, “Is this all you got, God? Is this all you got for me?” Whenever I read about a new writer, or even a favorite writer of mine, I’ll figure out their age when they made it—I’ll do the math and compare it to my age now and then a voice inside me screams, “Hurry up, Alana. Hurry up! There’s no time! You’ve fallen behind. You’re running out of time.” Some days the voice yells, “Too late! You blew it. Forget about it and take a good desk job. That’s all you’re good for anyway. What a fool to hope for more.”
But I’ve got to keep going. Mom always said when I’d get discouraged, “In this family, we don’t quit.” Lots of journalists do get their start with just one story—not necessarily a big one—and go from there. First, they publish it as an article. But they can’t stop investigating. They get obsessed with it and just keep going. The story morphs into a book. A big book! A best-selling book. Is that what’s happening here? Is this my destiny? Is my future staring me in the face?
Or am I the crazy one—so desperate for what I want, like those loonies who see the face of Jesus in a pepperoni pizza? The Blessed Mother statue crying oily tears that can heal people? A callus on a tree that looks like the monkey god?
No. What holds all this together, is a change. A real change in people’s lives. Not everybody. Far from it. Some ignorant people don’t even read their messages and throw them away. How stupid can you get? But some are truly changed—their lives turn. Even if it’s subtle. The point is—the messages carry weight. From the moment they’re received, they have the power to change a life. One life at a time. One person at a time. That’s how she works.
MESSENGER’S COMPOSITION BOOK: THINK OF A PLAY
Think of a play. You sit in the audience with all these other people (souls), watch the action. Sometimes it’s right in front of you on the stage or sometimes the actors come from the sides or even from out in the audience. It’s all still part of the play. So, you have your own life, your reality laid over the reality of the play—the drama before you. But if it’s a good play, or a good night for the actors, or both, you lose touch with your own reality—the big man wedged into the seat to your left, crowding your space, or the middle-aged woman’s pungent perfume on your right. Somehow, they disappear, and you become part of the world of the play.
But all the people who came to see the play with their homes and their joys, their bills to pay, their mother dying in a nursing home who doesn’t know them anymore, their kid strung out on drugs and in despair at 17, their grandchild sick with leukemia—are all still there. Even though you forgot all about them, they’re in the dream of the play.
Okay—look! It’s the same thing. The drama of your life and mine, plays out each and every day. But there’s a bigger drama going on, too. People love drama—watching it on TV and creating it in their own lives. And there’s an audience of Helpers watching us all, aware of our every move, every thought, every notion that crosses our minds, even if we’re unaware of them.
Now think of New York or London, with dozens of plays, not to mention concerts, movies, ballets, lectures, any event. All presented at the same time, for different audiences. That, at a very basic, primitive level, is what’s going on. How to cope? Divide your attention, Honey. Become aware of the play and of yourself and of those with you in the audience, all at the same time. The unity. That’s how it really is. It can get very complicated. No matter what seems to be going on, you must train yourself to look deeper.
THE FLOWER LADY WEIGHS IN
It was a clear, cold day after a snowfall the week before. Alana walked down Fifth Street and tried her best not to look into the nasty piles of snow, even though some of them were so big they were at her eye level. They stunk of garbage and urine.
Alana passed a guy who sat on one of the benches. He wore a black ski jacket, a stocking cap down over his eyes, his sneakers worn into grotesque shapes. How can he even walk on them? she wondered. Crusty kids, eyes wild, strung out, strolled down the middle of the sidewalk. Alana cringed. A man lay on a thin sheet of cardboard flat out on the sidewalk against a building with his back to the crowds. Moms pushed their babies in strollers right past him and kids scooted by on their skateboards, ignored him.
So did Alana. She took a deep breath of cold air, pushed these images away and mentally reviewed the questions she’d planned for today’s interview with the Flower Lady. Alana had arranged it because she figured she should talk with Messenger’s friends, get their take on her.
Alana found her at her usual spot on Second Avenue and was glad to see the Flower Lady bundled up in a purple down coat, with a red plaid blanket covering her legs. “Thanks for agreeing to talk.”
“Okay, I guess. I don’t usually talk to people. But given you’re Messenger’s friend...”
Am I? Alana wondered. Just hearing the Flower Lady call her that gave her a lift.
“Ready? Okay. What’s your name—your real name, I mean.”
“Listen, Girlie. My name’s Esther, that’s what my mama named me, but I hate it. Just call me ‘the Flower Lady.’ Especially if you write something about me. Are you planning to do that? Will I be in the story, too?”
“Probably.”
“Okay, good. Call Messenger ‘Messenger’ and call me ‘the Flower Lady.’ It’s better that way.”
“Why,” Alana asked.
“Oh, we have our reasons.” She leaned way over and fluffed some red carnations that had gotten twisted together. Alana wondered if the Flower Lady was a source of Messenger’s funding. She really didn’t understand how she sold much because her flowers usually looked really rough, with a slight brownish cast to them. Sometimes the water in the white plastic bucket smelled funky.
Alana waited while a guy with a guitar strapped to his back, wearing a fleece vest and a short-sleeved polo shirt in the cold, bought one red carnation.
After he walked away, the Flower Lady turned back to Alana. “One thing I’ll say about Messenger—she is doing good in this world. I haven’t known her all that long. I just moved here myself a year or so ago. I’ve had trouble, but the good Lord has always seen me through. I really have got a good life. In my line of work—flowers—people are almost always in a good mood. If they come to buy one flower, they’ll usually buy two instead. Double up. They’re happy, smiling. They think about the magic moment when they’ll hand these flowers over to their love.” She gestured with her hands as she talked, like an orchestra director.
“Love comes through them to me. I can’t explain it, but it does. I’ve never talked with another person about this or even tried to put it into words. I feel it—like an energy. Like everything good in the world. Like everything’s going to be okay. Even though I have no money to speak of and my legs are like this and I can’t walk.”
Can’t walk, Alana noted.
“People help me. They smile at me. No, not everybody. There are some dip-shits out there—we all know that’s true. But overall, we’re doing good.” She laughed and Alana was surprised how deep her laugh was.
“Enough about me. I know your story’s about Messenger. Don’t worry—I’m getting there.”
“Okay,” Alana said. “Great.”
“Since I started hanging out with Messenger . . . I know that’s not her real name but who cares? She must have a reason not to tell it to us. That’s okay. Fine by me. What does it matter what you call yourself if you’re a good person? She’s the real deal.”
Alana scribbled ferociously to keep up with this monologue. “So you know about the messages she gives people?”
“Uh-huh,” she answered. “I watch a lot of stuff go on around here. I see a lot. I’m on this corner every day until my buckets are empty and I’m sold out.”
Really? Alana wondered.
“Well, I don’t always sell out,” she added.
Alana stared at her. Is she reading my thoughts, too?
“But most days I make enough to eat and have enough to buy some more tomorrow. Even the cops in the neighborhood help me out. They look the other way when they see me here. That’s why I left my old neighborhood. Cops said, ‘Get a license or else.’ So, okay, I left there. I hated leaving my regulars, but what you going to do? I know I wouldn’t do too good in jail. Outside is the place for me. I need lots of air and light.”
“Me, too,” Alana said, nodded, maintained eye-contact to encourage her to talk while she scribbled notes.
“That’s what those doctors always told Mama. ‘Your daughter needs fresh air and sunshine. Do her a world of good.’” She laughed again. “What they didn’t tell us was, it won’t fix her legs. Won’t make them grow. We can’t do anything about that. Doctors always have a real hard time telling people the truth, I’ve found. I know they try their best. But, believe me, they don’t know everything.”
“Uh huh.”
“So, my dear mama always took me outside every single day. Didn’t matter the weather. She’d tell me to hold my head up (I did the very best I could cause there’s something wrong with my back, too) and smile. Mama said, ‘Sweetie-pie, have the prettiest smile anybody’s every seen and they won’t notice your legs.’
“Well, that worked—sort of. Better than you might think. I always tried my best and I still do, for Mama’s sake. Mama felt real bad about my legs. But it’s all I’ve ever known so I wished she wouldn’t worry and wished she didn’t have to work so hard for us. Mama would bring back doughnuts from her job at the pastry shop. The sprinkles were my favorite, a whole sea of them floating on top of that chocolate glaze.
“Now, let me tell you, Mama was rail thin, even though she worked around sweets all day. She’d eat them, too. She just never gained weight. Guess she was on her feet so much.”
Alana nodded. She knew skinny. Her mom had been tall, like Alana, but nobody was skinnier than Mom. That’s what coffee, cigarettes and working 12-hour nursing shifts did for you.
The Flower Lady gulped air, then continued her story. “Oh, how I loved it when she came home with those doughnuts. Those were happy days—back when Mama was still with me. I miss her every day of my life. Is your mama still with us?” she asked Alana.
It took Alana a moment to realize the monologue had ended and the Flower Lady had asked her a question.
“No,” Alana said. “She died four years ago.”
“Okay, then. You know exactly what I mean about missing your mama, don’t you?”
Alana nodded, kept her eyes on her notes.
“To be honest, the only thing that really bothers me is I can’t dance. I twirl around in my chair but it’s not the same. That’s a real sorrow.” She looked up as two men approached from Sixth. “Hope that helps you with your story, Dearie, if that’s what makes you happy. You have definitely got a big story! A great one. Believe me! A lot is going on here. Excuse me now. I’ve got customers.”
Alana walked down to the bench near the school playground and jotted more notes, trying to capture the Flower Lady’s words. Even though the interview had ended up being more about the Flower Lady than Messenger, the Flower Lady’s words of encouragement had reignited the spark that burned inside Alana whenever she thought about the project. Yes! She wasn’t the only one who thought she had something here. Okay, you need to guard this story. You need to interview as many people as possible. You need to organize all notes and interviews into an expanded website, to continue to build momentum, ready to go when Messenger agrees. Then you need to write a killer query letter. Before Alana could jot all these ideas down, raindrops wet the pages and soon it started to pour. She wiped the notebook off with her hand and stuffed it into her backpack. Of course, she’d forgotten her umbrella. She covered her head with her scarf and ran. By the time she got to the train she was completely soaked.
MESSENGER’S COMPOSITION BOOK: 11 THINGS EVERYBODY WANTS TO HEAR
POST: ANTHONY
There ain’t no way around this goddamn system. Makes no sense at all. Punishes people for doing right and rewards people for doing wrong. How can I get ahead?
Look at my mom. Knocked up with six kids. Mouths to feed. Bodies to clothe. She just kept doing it over and over again. I’d watch that damn belly of hers growing, when I got old enough to know what it meant. Another and another. She wants a man to stay so bad she can’t keep herself straight. I hate the word “baby” worse than anything. It means only one thing to me—less. Less food, less bed, less time my mom calls my name, sees me. Answers me. Notices my needs. Sometimes I could kill her but then what? Five others on me then. I could just run. That’s what most dudes do. I can’t though. I want to, but I won’t.
So when this dirty old woman sticks a piece of paper in my hand after we get off at the same stop, says, “Here, Baby, this is for you.” When I see it’s not money, I drop it right there on the ground. Look her back in the face, like, what you going to do about it? She still smiles at me. Neither of us moves. We’re frozen there. Then I run.
POST: STEVE
It’s just plain weird how it happened. We were packing up all our stuff to move and I was going through my desk drawer and found it again, after all this time. Twelve years, actually. We were leaving the hospital after my daughter’s birth. I was so relieved my wife was okay, the baby was okay and I was totally happy. And exhausted. I walked to the hospital parking deck to my car.
You know that weird, other-worldly, under-worldly atmosphere parking decks always have, especially at night? I also had no idea where I’d parked. I couldn’t even remember parking, even though it had only been about ten hours before.
My wife had had a doctor’s appointment that morning and her water broke during the exam. She called me from the doctor’s office, “You’re going to become a dad today!” I heard tears in her voice. That was before the pain really started. No contractions yet. That would all come later.
Anyway, after my daughter was born and everything was okay, the nurse had taken the baby to the nursery, so I headed home to get a shower and try to sleep a few hours myself. But I couldn’t find the damn car. I walked back and forth down the long rows and up the ramp to the next level. I was so mad at myself and getting madder by the minute. I noticed this old lady with all these bags just standing there. I hadn’t noticed her on my last round, but she must have been there. I didn’t remember hearing her footsteps, although mine had echoed the whole time in that two-note sound your steps make in a parking deck. I felt drunk, even though I was stone-cold sober. I passed the woman, looked up and met her eyes. Nodded.
Something about her face made me stop. I don’t know how to explain it. Her eyes, I guess. I recognized her, in a way, but couldn’t remember how. She didn’t speak but smiled at me.
“Do I know you?” I asked, suddenly so tired from all that had happened, it was all I could do not to lie down on the oil-stained, dirty, cold concrete and close my eyes.
“Nope. Here. This is for you.”
Oh, no. One of those, I thought. But I was so tired, you see, everything weighed down on me like a low-pressure system. I just took the slip of paper and stuffed it in my pocket, hoped that would satisfy her and she’d go away.
I looked over and right ahead of me was my car. It had been there all along. I didn’t realize until I had almost gotten home that I hadn’t seen the woman again as I drove out.
I didn’t find the slip of paper until the next day, when I was in the same parking deck, heading back to the hospital to take my wife and new baby daughter home. It was cold and I stuffed my hands in my pockets and there it was. I’d totally forgotten about it—hadn’t slept those few hours with everything and then some on my mind. I pulled it out and saw handwriting. I guessed it was the woman’s. I stopped dead in my tracks, even though I knew the nurse would be down with my wife in no time.
DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT MESSING WITH THAT OTHER WOMAN.
Something clenched inside me and I didn’t have enough air. Man, it freaked me out. It still does right now, holding it again after so long. I’d forgotten all about it. It was meant just for me, though, at that very moment. Nothing had happened, but it could have, I hate to admit. It seems so long ago now. Like I was another person. That old lady didn’t know me from Adam. But she knew I was playing with fire. How?
POST: GLORIA
For me, the thing was: the message brought me the words I needed at that very moment. It also told me I wasn’t alone. UNSEEN HANDS GUIDE YOU. THE WORST IS OVER. I cannot tell you what that meant. I’d had to put my husband of 50 years into an assisted care unit for Alzheimer’s patients. I’d just left him in the Center for the first time, fought back tears until I could get to the privacy of my own home. She stopped me on the street and handed me the paper with my message written on it.
To receive that message gave me courage I didn’t have. Oh, yeah, I’ve got friends and my kids. But there’s a hurt too deep to explain, when you have no choice but to do this to your life partner. No other person can make it better. But to know there’s a plan, that something or somebody’s looking out for me, no matter how bad things seemed. I could believe everything would work out.
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