Chapter 21 Summary

Following her memories about the encounter with Ben, Reta once again becomes totally absorbed in the task of creating a fictional, yet believable world for her characters. She worries about the development of Alicia's personality, her upcoming wedding, her choice of career, her age, her appearance. Should she write the novel in the first person? How should she detail something of Alicia's personality in the vocabulary she uses? How should she dress?

Reta realizes that she cannot create a perfect woman as the heroine of this novel. There must be some imperfections; this is not a romance with impossibly beautiful people. Reta senses that in some ways, this constant preoccupation with a world that only exists in her imagination is not a normal activity to anyone but writers. "This matters," she thinks, "the remaking of an untenable world through the nib of a...