I Give a Character a Name and Reminisce About An Old Crush Named Fawn

This is not Fawn but it's a nice enough photo

I’m writing the sequel to my much-beloved novel, Threat of Night. I needed a name for a character. Sometimes a name will just pop into my head. Other times I have to craft one. Sometimes I honor someone from my past by using their first or last name or even both. I spend a  lot of time on names. They’ve got to be just right in order for the character to come alive for me. I can’t just use a filler and, for example, call someone Bob Jones, until I think of a permanent name. I could no more do that than not know whether the character was male or female, old or young, black or white. So like I was saying I added a character as I was writing today, the secretary for a mob lawyer. I immediately pictured the woman. She was young and pretty. Also reserved, someone more comfortable having tea with a friend than sitting in bar sipping cocktails waiting for a man to come along. She had a good, if in some ways stifling, upbringing. She’ll probably meet the right guy soon enough and let her hair down, so to speak. This will put her through some changes, getting out more, expressing her opinions, having sex, maybe regularly. Things could turn sour but likely she’ll start to enjoy life more and feel closer to a liberated woman, though the novel and thus the character are set in 1942. So the name that occurred to me for this character was Fawn McLaughlin. For half a second I thought I’d made it up out of thin air. Then I realized there was a person of that name in my life many years ago. I was a nineteen-year-old university sophomore at some random party the likes of which were all over Chico in those days (and maybe still are). There was a keg or two or three and a lot of young people milling about. I saw a really cute girl and having had a few was feeling bold. I approached and her said, “don’t you know me from somewhere?” This was, of course, a clever turn of the phrase, “don’t I know you from somewhere?” She recognized my clever wordplay so was amiable to chatting with me. Why not? I was pretty cute in those days.

Her name was Fawn and I thought it the most beautiful and perfect name for a pretty girl imaginable. She was also a high school student, though a senior and only a year younger than me so don’t get any ideas there was anything creepy about this. Actually it was an unwritten social rule that college boys didn’t date high school girls, even if the age difference was only a couple of years or less. After all you were in college to date college girls. But this was a hard and fast rule that was neither particularly hard nor fast. No one said anything or looked at me askance when I squired the young lady about.

The truth is I remember very little about our time together. For one thing it was fifty years ago and for another it came at a time when I was a heavy drinker — indeed most of my youth was at a time when I was a heavy drinker.

I remember having dinner at her house. It was a grand place. Big. Really nice furniture. During the course of the meal Fawn’s step father decided to mess with me by asking the stereotypical question: what exactly are your intentions with my daughter, young man? He was just messing about but it took me a few terror stricken seconds to realize it.

Fawn and I never consummated our relationship. I don’t know why. It could have been that she was a virgin and meant to stay that way for the time being. There were also logistics. For the last time in my life I was sharing a bedroom and of course she lived at home.

A few months later I went to Europe and by the time I returned Fawn had gone off to college. I have a vague recollection of seeing her again and wondering why I didn’t forgo Europe and follow the lovely Fawn to the ends of the Earth. I’d enjoyed every second with the totally unpretentious and charming Ms. McLaughin.

A few years later I had a brief and oh-so-strange flirtation with an evangelical church (that made for this popular blog post). At the church I met a young woman who had been a classmate of Fawn’s and remembered me being with her. She suggested to me that Fawn could have really used some ministry. I’m sure that nothing could be further from the proof.

Of course I googled Fawn and she’s doing well. You can check her out yourself if you’ve a mind to. She’s both a wonderful memory and a source of regret. Should I have made more of the relationship? Could I have? I guess in some respects we were the proverbial two ships passing in the night. In any case she had and still does have, a great name. One she now shares with a fictional character of my creation.