conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about Davitch, Rebecca, Joe with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Women's Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'Back When We Were Grownups'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a story about Davitch, Rebecca, Joe.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Back When We Were Grownups: Tyler\'s 15th novel, like most of her work, is set in Baltimore, Maryland.\nIt opens with the sentence, "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person".\nThe woman in question is Rebecca Davitch, a 53-year-old widow, mother, grandmother, and proprietor of a party and catering business run from her home called Open Arms.\nUp until age 20 Rebecca\'s life had been following a fairly predictable straight-line path towards both marriage to her high school sweetheart and a PhD.\nin history.\nThen Joe Davitch came along and she was "swept off my feet by a fully grown man, someone who.\nwas already living his life.\n" Joe was a 33-year-old divorcee with 3 children whom Rebecca met at a friend\'s party that happened to be at the Open Arms.\nOne month later, Rebecca had quit college, had married Joe, and—as she quickly discovered—had married the Davitch family, with Joe\'s 3 daughters, his mother, his brother Zeb, his huge old Baltimore house (Open Arms) and its business as a venue for celebrations of all sorts—weddings, graduations, christenings, anniversaries, etc.\nBefore too long she also discovers that she has become the de facto manager of the Open Arms and the mother of Joe\'s 3 girls and their own new baby daughter.\nWhen Joe himself dies after only 6 years of marriage and Joe\'s uncle Poppy moves in, she finds herself with even more responsibility.\nHaving cheerfully and exhaustingly raised four daughters, run the "celebrations business," and helped her daughters through 6 marriages (+ 2 divorces) and 7 grandchildren, Rebecca is now taking a breath to ask, "What happened to the 20-year young woman who was a serious scholar, politically-involved idealist, engaged to be engaged….\n" [Note:By this point in the novel, the reader may also be a little exhausted from having met 24 individuals (by name and by nickname) that are associated with the Davitch clan by marriage or blood, spanning four generations.\n] At an engagement party for one of her stepdaughters, Rebecca finds herself questioning everything about her life, and decides to take steps to resurrect her former self.\nHer self-improvement project includes a visit to her hometown in Virginia, picking up old hobbies, reading storys that she had read in college, and renewing her intellectual interests, without abandoning her many matriarchal and professional duties.\nShe also eventually gets reacquainted with her old college/high school sweetheart.\nWill Allenby is a somewhat stodgy and constricted person (much as he was in college, way "back when they were grownups") and is now a divorced physics professor working at the same nearby college that they had both attended.\nWhile Rebecca is touched by certain remembrances and traits of Will, her fantasy of re-kindling their old affections is spoiled by his sad, staid, and inflexible demeanor.\nRebecca eventually realizes that the path that she chose (or chose her) decades ago may have resulted in her "right person" after all.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: \nRebecca eventually realizes that the path that she chose (or chose her) decades ago may have resulted in her "right person" after all.\nIt opens with the sentence, "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person".\nThe woman in question is Rebecca Davitch, a 53-year-old widow, mother, grandmother, and proprietor of a party and catering business run from her home called Open Arms.\nUp until age 20 Rebecca\'s life had been following a fairly predictable straight-line path towards both marriage to her high school sweetheart and a PhD.\nin history.\nThen Joe Davitch came along and she was "swept off my feet by a fully grown man, someone who.\nwas already living his life.\n" Joe was a 33-year-old divorcee with 3 children whom Rebecca met at a friend\'s party that happened to be at the Open Arms.\nOne month later, Rebecca had quit college, had married Joe, and—as she quickly discovered—had married the Davitch family, with Joe\'s 3 daughters, his mother, his brother Zeb, his huge old Baltimore house (Open Arms) and its business as a venue for celebrations of all sorts—weddings, graduations, christenings, anniversaries, etc.\nBefore too long she also discovers that she has become the de facto manager of the Open Arms and the mother of Joe\'s 3 girls and their own new baby daughter.\nWhen Joe himself dies after only 6 years of marriage and Joe\'s uncle Poppy moves in, she finds herself with even more responsibility.\nHaving cheerfully and exhaustingly raised four daughters, run the "celebrations business," and helped her daughters through 6 marriages (+ 2 divorces) and 7 grandchildren, Rebecca is now taking a breath to ask, "What happened to the 20-year young woman who was a serious scholar, politically-involved idealist, engaged to be engaged….\n" [Note:By this point in the novel, the reader may also be a little exhausted from having met 24 individuals (by name and by nickname) that are associated with the Davitch clan by marriage or blood, spanning four generations.\n] At an engagement party for one of her stepdaughters, Rebecca finds herself questioning everything about her life, and decides to take steps to resurrect her former self.\nHer self-improvement project includes a visit to her hometown in Virginia, picking up old hobbies, reading storys that she had read in college, and renewing her intellectual interests, without abandoning her many matriarchal and professional duties.\nShe also eventually gets reacquainted with her old college/high school sweetheart.\nWill Allenby is a somewhat stodgy and constricted person (much as he was in college, way "back when they were grownups") and is now a divorced physics professor working at the same nearby college that they had both attended.\nWhile Rebecca is touched by certain remembrances and traits of Will, her fantasy of re-kindling their old affections is spoiled by his sad, staid, and inflexible demeanor.Back When We Were Grownups: Tyler\'s 15th novel, like most of her work, is set in Baltimore, Maryland.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first three paragraphs for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Back When We Were Grownups
  Rebecca collected her purse and followed the woman through the swinging doors, down a linoleum-floored corridor. "How is he?" she asked, but the woman said, "Doing just fine!" so promptly that Rebecca suspected she had no idea. They entered a large, uncannily quiet area where doctors were going about their business without any appearance of haste, thoughtfully studying clipboards or conferring at a central desk. Curtained cubicles lined three walls, and the woman slid one curtain back to expose Poppy's yellow-soled feet poking forth from his stretcher. "Company!" she sang out, and then she left, her jogging shoes squeaking as she turned to close the curtain behind her.
  Rebecca walked around to Poppy's head and found him wide awake, scowling at the machine that chirped and blinked beside him. "How're you feeling?" she asked him.
  He was wearing a pastel hospital gown that made him look frivolous and pathetic. An IV needle was attached to the back of one hand. She covered the other hand with her own, and he allowed it. He closed his eyes and said, "It's okay with me if you stay."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me four more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: But NoNo said, "I'm sure there must be more to it than that" and she popped a bite of ham into her mouth.
  It was a sign of how well the evening had gone that everybody stayed on after dinner. Min Foo got over her snit and agreed to accompany people on the piano; Troy and Biddy did their Nelson Eddy—Jeanette MacDonald routine; and Barry turned out to be a wonderful tenor, although perhaps "The Lord's Prayer" was not the piece Rebecca would have chosen. It was nearly midnight before they all left.
  Then she led Will to the kitchen—"Just to keep me company while I see to what can't wait till morning," she said—because she figured that would jog Poppy into going to bed. She was hoping she and Will could have a little privacy.
  But no, Poppy came along with them, claiming he needed warm milk in order to sleep, and while he was waiting for it to heat he took it into his head that Will should be shown the family album. This came about because of a chance remark that Will made to Rebecca. "I had a little trouble," Will said, "sorting out who was who. Why is that one stepdaughter Chinese? And that person Troy: is he Biddy's husband? He seemed, er, not the husband type."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I was a rough-and-ready kind of kid, despite my differences. I was clumsy but enthusiastic, eager to join whatever pickup game was happening on our block. Mom would literally wring her hands as she watched from the front window, but my father told her to let me do whatever I felt capable of. He wasn't as much of a worrier. But of course he was off at the office all day, and middle-aged by then besides. He was never the kind of father I could toss a football with on weekends, or ask to coach my Little League team.
  So I mostly spent my childhood fending off the two women in my life—my mother and my sister, both of them lying in wait to cosset me to death. Even that young, I sensed the danger. You get sucked in. You turn soft. They have you where they want you then.
  The first time she saw me, she said, "What's wrong with your arm?" She was wearing her white coat and she asked in a brusque, clinical tone. When I explained, she just said, "Huh," and went on to another subject.
  The first time she rode in my car, she didn't so much as glance over, not even at the very start, to check how I was driving. She was too busy huffing on her glasses and polishing them with her sleeve.
  She was unique among women, Dorothy. She was one of a kind. Lord, she left a hole behind. I felt as if I'd been erased, as if I'd been ripped in two.