In 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics, Jesse Autsin wins a silver medal in the Women's 100-Meters Freestyle. She would have won the gold if it hadn't been for her closest competition, the mysterious and seductive Marty Finch.Flash forward to July 1990. Jesse is about to turn 40, but is she happy with the choice she made immediately after winning the silver? In an unusual novel, author Carol Anshaw gives us a look into three posibile presents for Jesse.
In the first, she has been married for 20 years to Neal Pratt and still lives in her small hometown of New Jerusalem, Missouri. Her mentally retarded brother lives with them and helps with the upkeeep of Pratt's Caverns, the small business left to them by Neal's parents. Her godmother, Hallie, talks of the upcoming retirement party for Jesse's mother, an English teacher at the local high school. Jesse is content but still wonders about her first love, Marty Finch.
In the second, Jesse is an English professor in New York City, something she thought her mother would be proud of, but isn't. She also lives with her lover, Kit, who plays vampy Nurse Rhonda on a soap opera. Jesse is taking her to her mother's retirement party in New Jerusalem, Missouri, unsure of how the family will react to the two of them together. Her godmother Hallie has always known. Jesse thinks that Kit is going to leave her, especially when Jesse's mother asks her to take in her retarded brother Willie. But, in the back of her mind, she still wonders if she was being used by Marty Finch on that day in Mexico City.
In the third, a divorced Jesse lives in Venus Beach, Florida, with her children Anthony and Sharon. Anthony's had a run-in with the law, and now, his father is on his way from New York to "take care of things." Just what Jesse needs. Her godmother Hallie, who moved to Florida a few years after Jesse, is returning from Jesse's mother's retirement party back in Missouri. She feels as though life has passed her by and wonders if anything really happened between her and Marty Finch, or if it were all just a dream.
Each scenario has many of the same characters (Kit, Hallie, Willie, Jesse's mother, Marty Finch) and similar situations, giving the reader a feeling of looking at lives running parallel to one another. This novel does a marvelous job of weaving together these three scenarios of choices made or passed by and how these choices affect the future and the emotional ties between Jesse and the people in her past. A thought-provoking book, definitely worth reading.
