Fourteen Years Ago
“I should never have worn this,” I say, fidgeting in Caleb’s front seat as I attempt to pull down my mother’s black pencil skirt that I insisted on borrowing. I thought it would make me look mature. It does not. I look like I’m playing dress-up. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You look great,” Caleb says. He’s hunched forward over the steering wheel, his eyes bulging out as he stares at the rearview mirror. This is his first time driving in Toronto and I think he’s fighting off a panic attack as he parks outside the café. “Oh, sweet mercy,” he whispers.
“Where are you going to go?” I say, nervously watching the intersection ahead where cars, cyclists, and pedestrians all seem to be making life-and-death decisions flippantly.
“In there.” He points to a parking garage with a sign that says $20 two-hour parking . “I’m going to read my book, chill the fuck out, and pretend I don’t have to drive us out of here after your meeting.”
“I really appreciate you driving me,” I say, brushing my hand over his cheek. “I’ll cover the cost of parking. Thank you.”
“No. Consider it an investment in your career.” He leans in over the center console for a kiss. “I love you. You’re going to be great. You deserve this meeting, and Cecelia is going to be your biggest fan. Just try to just put everything else that’s going on to the back of your mind.”
The everything else comes immediately rushing back into my thoughts, though they had momentarily been preoccupied by this stupid choice of skirt. Mom’s sick. Really sick. Forever sick. “I love you too,” I reply instinctively.
“You’ve got this,” he says, nodding as if he wants me to say the same.
“I’ve got this,” I repeat, grinning softly.
“You’re the next big thing in writing,” he says. I giggle, covering my face with both hands. “C’mon!” he jeers.
“I’m the next big thing in writing,” I mumble.
“Nope! Louder!” he shouts, making my laughter build some more.
“I’m the next big thing in writing!” I yell back.
“There she is!” He leans over me and opens my door toward the bustling sidewalk, nearly taking out a mom with a stroller passing by. “Sorry!” he yells at her, wincing, then turns to me, his bewildered smile steadying on a sigh. “Kick ass, Green.”
“I’ll see you after, wonder boy,” I say, unbuckling my seatbelt and stepping out onto the sidewalk. “Drive carefully!” I watch as he crosses himself, incorrectly despite my mother’s best efforts, and then pulls away.
Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting across from my favorite author, fighting off tears…and not the good kind. “Shallow.” The word sticks onto my tongue. “You thought my story was…shallow?”
“That might not be the right word,” Cecelia says slowly, licking a crumb from her upper lip. Her voice is muffled by the food she’s still sucking out of her teeth before she swallows. “Vapid, maybe?”
I huff out a wounded breath unintentionally, as if I’d been struck.
“Don’t sweat it, though. Being a writer is not all it’s cracked up to be, trust me.” She laughs bitterly, digging around in her oversized purse. “You’re better off—” She curses under her breath, her eyebrows furrowing as she loses half her arm into the bag. “God dammit, where is it?” She seethes.
I’m slack-jawed, staring at the deep, heart-shaped scratch in the linoleum diner table between us. The space that seems to widen as the world ebbs out of focus.
“Ah, here.” She taps a pen to the table where I’m stuck staring. “He-llo?” She laughs, short and cutting. “Anyone home?” I glance up to her face, feeling a potent mixture of confusion, embarrassment, and disbelief. “I found it,” she says, gesturing with the pen, seemingly waiting for me to say something. “Didn’t you have something you wanted signed?”
I look down to the tote bag at my feet, filled to the brim with Cecelia’s books. The ones I spent part of my prize money to get just last week. I should have given the money to Mom. She just quit her job. Trips to the clinic are going to be expensive.
“No,” I answer, tucking my foot against the bag, keeping it firmly in place and, hopefully, out of her view. Cecelia leans back in her chair, putting her pen away as her eyes find the star-shaped clock on the wall. “W-what—” I stutter, then stop myself, straightening in my chair. If I fake confidence, perhaps it’ll find me. I am not a quitter. Us Green women do not quit. “What could I improve?”
Cecelia blows out a long breath. That bad then. “Well, you could start with writing what you know. Your piece lacked nuance. It had no real, individual perspective. I could tell you hadn’t experienced half of what you wrote about.”
I cross my arms as my cheeks begin heating. With wounded pride gathering in my throat, I scoff as if to clear it. “I’m seventeen…. It’s not like I can travel or drink or—”
“Henry Thoreau said, ‘How vain is it to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.’?” She stands, pulling her bag to her shoulder before she brings the sunglasses from the top of her head down to cover her eyes. “It’s not your fault, honey. Plenty of kids your age think that being a writer is their ticket out of whatever pass-through town they had the misfortune of being born in. But the truth is there’s no money in it. You’re a pretty enough girl and you’re clearly not an idiot….” It’s sad that this is the closest thing to a compliment she’s given me. “So the good news is that you have time to find something else.”
“But…What? I don’t…I don’t like anything else. I don’t want to do anything else.”
“I’m sure you’ll find something.” She drops a twenty-dollar bill onto the table then tilts her head in my direction. “And if you want me to sign those some other time,” she says, pointing to the bag at my feet, “let me know.”
I watch helplessly as Cecelia walks out of the café, feeling as if she’s taken every semblance of hope for my future in writing I’d had with her.