A conversation with the guide, written out in advance

Peggy is trying Preview on her own record. She asks the kinds of questions her daughter and grandchildren might ask one day, to see what they will see.

1. Question: Tell me about the station wagon.

   A reminder: this guide is an AI. It is not Peggy and never speaks as Peggy. It finds what Peggy recorded and shows those words as dated quotes.

   The guide, an AI

   Peggy wrote about the station wagon in two entries. The first is about the day it arrived:

   "Gus came home one April afternoon with a used station wagon the color of a buttered biscuit, so of course we called it the Biscuit. It had wood paneling on the sides that was not wood at all, a radio that only worked going uphill, and a back seat big enough to nap in. I pretended to be cross that he had bought it without me. I was not cross for one minute."

   In the second, Peggy described the summer trips she and Gus took in it:

   "Every summer we pointed the Biscuit somewhere new. Maine for blueberries, the Blue Ridge for the views, and once all the way to the Grand Canyon with a cooler of egg salad sandwiches that should not have lasted as long as it did. Gus drove and sang, badly and with total confidence. I read the map and the road signs out loud like they were poetry. Some of the happiest hours of my life were spent in that car."

   Recorded · Peggy's own words answer this

2. Question: Why did Grandma retire early?

   The guide, an AI

   Peggy wrote about her decision to retire:

   "I retired at fifty-eight, earlier than anyone expected, and people kept asking me what was wrong. Nothing was wrong. I had spent thirty-six years with other people's stories, and I wanted time for my own people: Gus, Claire, my friends, long lunches and longer drives. I have never once wished I had stayed."

   Recorded · Peggy's own words answer this

3. Question: What was her work in publishing like?

   The guide, an AI

   Peggy described her years at the press, from her first job there to running it:

   "I started at the press as a copy editor at twenty-two, with a red pencil and no idea what I was doing. By the end I was running the place. I loved the smell of a new book and the look on an author's face holding one for the first time. I did not love the budget meetings. For years our kitchen table was buried in manuscripts, and Claire learned to read partly by sitting on my lap while I worked."

   Recorded · Peggy's own words answer this

4. Question: What did Peggy write about Claire?

   The guide, an AI

   Peggy wrote about her daughter, Claire:

   "Claire is the best thing I ever did. I published a great many books I am proud of, and not one of them comes close. She was a serious, funny little girl who asked why about everything, and she grew into a woman who still does. When people tell me she is just like me, I say thank you, and I mean it."

   Recorded · Peggy's own words answer this

5. Question: What did Grandma love about being a grandmother?

   The guide, an AI

   Peggy wrote about her grandchildren, Owen and Josie:

   "Being a grandmother to Owen and Josie is the best job I never applied for. Owen tells me very long stories about dinosaurs, and I ask all the right questions. Josie beats me at cards and gloats about it, which she learned from me. I keep a jar of butterscotch candies just for them, and I do not tell Claire how many."

   Recorded · Peggy's own words answer this

6. Question: What would Grandma think of Josie moving far away for college?

   The guide, an AI

   Peggy didn't speak to that directly. Here is something related from Peggy's record:

   "When Claire moved to Chicago for her first real job, I cried in the car the whole way home from the airport. Then I went to the bookstore and bought her a map of the city, the way my mother would have. Watching your child go somewhere you cannot follow is hard, and it is also the whole point."

   This entry is about Claire moving to Chicago, not about Josie.

   Related · nearby things Peggy said

7. Question: Which book was Grandma proudest of publishing?

   The guide, an AI

   Peggy didn't record anything about that.

   Unknown · the record holds no answer

   In Preview, this is where Peggy could add an answer to her record, in her own words.