You Between the Lines

Chapter Eleven

T HE PROBLEM WITH WRITING WORKSHOPS is that there’s always one student who talks more than anyone else. Not because they actually have better insights, but because they like to hear themselves talk. In our group, that person is Hazel.

This is potentially an even bigger problem because Hazel may be a greater threat to the Erica Go fellowship than I initially feared, sucking up to Paul and Jen and Daniel, constantly replying-all to emails sent to our listserv. And being memorable in class isn’t a terrible campaign strategy—so I can’t even blame her. It’s essentially the same tactic I used to get elected as my sorority’s PR director senior year.

When my poem is up, Hazel decides she’s going to walk us through it.

“‘A Young Ingenue Throws Up in a Toilet.’” She pauses for dramatic effect, then reads the whole thing. She has a severe case of poet voice . Her voice lulls at each line break, drawing out every syllable of the word. We all do it for some reason, but Hazel embraces it, speaking my lines as if it’s a spoken word poem.

This is the clip the Academy has chosen

to present the nominees: all leg and mini dress

so pink you could chew me up, spit me out, don’t

bother holding back this dance-greased

hair—how it frames the lipstick smear, my sour

throat, the clumped mascara. I clutch porcelain

like an award, sink lower until my back goosebumps

against tile—something like an acceptance

speech. I watch the performance in the mirror:

the gape of glossed lips, bunched neon fabric

against sallow skin, the frat house bathroom

light bulb flickering like paparazzi, my mouth

spills saliva and I squint, arch my back as if

I’m silk-draped on a magazine cover. Applause

rings my ears and my irises shrink blind

from the knock of someone opening the door.

“Okay,” Hazel begins after I read it out loud, and I swear she licks her lips. “So here we have a one-stanza poem with a speaker who is sort of dissociating in her drunkenness and seeing it as a performance, hence the ‘young ingenue.’

“I think what’s working well is the specificity of each detail, like ‘bunched neon fabric against sallow skin.’ I’m not sure if the conceit is working, though. I question the speaker’s motives for the performance, firstly, and I think it’s overall just a mood board of ideas without any real thesis.”

A mood board. Ouch. I’ve heard that before. All style, no substance.

I’m not allowed to speak during any of this, so I simply sit and scribble comments.

“I loved the motion in this,” Penelope, the second-year, says. “Especially near the end, we get that, ‘and I squint, arch my back as if,’ and the slant rhyme is really satisfying in how it builds.”

Will raises a hand to speak and I feel the swoosh of his hand in my stomach. He doesn’t make eye contact with me.

“I disagree with the sense that this is merely a mood board. I think the conceit here is that the speaker enjoys the performance. She’s actively participating, consenting—at least she thinks she’s consenting. Or she’s consenting because she knows the performance will be thrust upon her anyway. Like a young ingenue.”

“Where do you see that, William?” Paul prompts.

“The line break at ‘something like an acceptance.’ I thought that was clever.”

My face flushes with his praise and I look up from my notes. He stares at me, but his eyes are as unreadable as they were ten years ago in Mrs. Lincoln’s workshop. I wish I had a clue how to read him.

The class continues for another minute until Paul sums up his own thoughts. Good visceral details, there’s space to play with line breaks to create more unexpectedness, rethink some of the I ’s.

We move on. August goes next, then Kacey. Then it’s Will’s turn.

Because we’re near the end of the class, everyone has volunteered to read except me and Jerry. I pick invisible lint off my pants and rummage through my tote for a spare pen.

“Leigh? You haven’t introduced a poem today—want to take this one?” Paul asks.

I feel my skin crackle like broken glass. I can’t turn Paul down. There’s no good reason why I can’t present Will’s poem. No real public reason, anyway. I scan the words on the page in front of me for the sixtieth time in the last twenty-four hours, each letter a taunt.

“‘In a Pittsburgh Parking Lot, I Break Down,’” I begin and a shiver rips through me.

I say, you look really good tonight

like it’s currency, and in your neon

pink heart, the tip’s not

included so I try my luck: You burn

the whole way down like vodka-

laced Sprite, like a high school crush,

your strawberry hair, glowing

in autumn leaves’ crunch. You’d read me

Mary Oliver as if you were silk-

caressing my jaw over candlelight

and pancakes in a rusty kitchen,

our cheeks February-flushed

magenta. You’re jealous when I thread

myself tight into slick-lipped

girls, as if I didn’t drunk-drag you

into my apartment, as if you weren’t

sipping the amber-eyed Cambridge

boys. Just once you say you want to

kiss me as if you actually want to. Another

will invite me to her bed, champagne-sticky,

and pressed against her thorny neck

I will never feel more ugly.

That same night, I dream of your wrist,

and I choke in lavender.

After Will reads it, his smooth voice sinking through the words like melting butter, I speak once more.

“This poem is composed of twelve unrhymed couplets where the speaker is lamenting the loss of some sort of love interest. I think this poem does a great job of colliding down the page. Couplets were a good structure here.”

I look back across the table to Will, who looks at me so neutrally I feel exasperation twine around my windpipe. Twenty-one-year-old Leigh wouldn’t have believed me if I told her this is where we’d be six years later.

“I don’t think it’s clear what the conclusion is, though. Is the speaker jealous? Angry? Is he actually in love with her? Was he ever? The poem asks more questions than it answers, and the final couplet feels underbaked. ‘Choke in lavender’? Why is that appealing to the speaker?”

August lets out a deep exhale. “Bro, this is intense.”

Kacey snorts.

“I’m confused as to what’s happening once we get to ‘You’d read me Mary Oliver,’ since the tense shifts,” Hazel chimes in. “Not saying you shouldn’t do it, but I’m jarred by the abruptness with which we’re now in some other timeline.”

“I think the speaker is imagining what life could be like with the love interest, since him saying ‘You’d read me / Mary Oliver’ is like the ideal state for the speaker,” I butt in.

“How do you possibly get that from the poem?” Hazel asks.

Will’s eyes jump to mine, and I realize what I’ve done. He looks back to his own paper and starts circling words. I don’t know how to answer Hazel, so I ignore her and swerve to something else I’ve been thinking about.

“I think the poem could spend more time in the turn, when we get to ‘I will never feel more ugly.’ What if another stanza or two was added before the final couplet, lingering in the regret? There’s an interesting combativeness between the speaker and the first love interest, so it almost feels like the thorny neck girl might be a better choice. If that’s not the case, can we get another beat to understand why?”

I put my pen down, shocked by how many sentences I just said in a row in poetry workshop. Paul raises his eyebrows in deep consideration, then nods.

“I agree with Leigh,” Hazel says, and I sit back, surprised. Who’d have thought.

As the class continues to debate Will’s poem, I take my own pen and circle the word Cambridge on his page.

Tufts is in Medford , I write above the line. Not Cambridge.

The entire cohort, poets and prosers, funnels into Pete’s post-workshop, ordering tall glasses of beer and cheap white wine. I sit next to Kacey and across from Will, trying not to stare or look away, either. Trying to act natural. What more can I do in the face of hot-and-cold behavior?

“I felt like Hazel didn’t get what you were trying to do in your poem,” Kacey murmurs, her chest oriented toward me, while Hazel is at the bar ordering her beer.

I bite my bottom lip. “No, I guess not. “

“It made sense to me,” Will interjects, making no attempt to pretend he isn’t listening. “The title set the conceit, and if you don’t get that, you’re actively trying to misunderstand.”

I meet his eyes for a second, then two. He’s leaning in across the wooden table, his hand loose around a sweating glass of beer. Hazel joins us and sits next to Will.

“So, workshop!” she exclaims. “What did you all think?”

“We were talking about how it’s obvious that some people just don’t get each other’s work,” Kacey says, and it takes everything in me not to kick her under the table.

Hazel takes a sip of beer. “Yeah, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t understand a single word of Jerry’s poem.” She lowers her voice even more so Jerry, at the end of the long table, can’t hear. “It was just, like, word soup.”

Hazel is annoying, but she’s right on this one. Kacey nods emphatically. “Like, what ?”

“Your poem, though,” I say to Will, emboldened by wine and the fact that we have witnesses. He’s a deer in the headlights, but he plays it off casually.

“What about it?”

“I was surprised by it.”

His face reddens, almost imperceptibly. “Mhmm?” he murmurs. I can tell he has no idea where I’m about to take this. I’m not sure I do, either.

Twisting the stem of my wineglass around and around, I land on: “It felt very female-gaze.”

“Meaning?”

“I totally agree, Leigh, it was refreshing to see a male poet talk like that. The bit about wrists, for instance,” Kacey says.

“I thought it was hot,” Hazel adds, and I cross my legs tightly.

“Hot?” Will laughs, eyes glittering. She turns cherry red.

“It’s like the shit women notice all the time. Women are into rolled-up sleeves and forearms and veins and eyebrows, and I feel like men are just, like… boobs. Y’all are much simpler,” says Kacey.

“ Your wrist / and I choke in lavender ,” I recite part of his final couplet. “Your speaker hasn’t even touched the object of his desire, and yet he’s completely overwhelmed by, like, her fucking wrist.” I pin him with a look and he doesn’t avert his gaze, his eyes now as dark as his stout.

“It’s very Victorian,” Kacey says.

“There’s like ass men and boob men and William’s a wrist man,” Hazel cackles.

“Hey, the speaker is a wrist man.” Will smiles. Like this is a game to him.

“Riiiight.” Hazel stares pointedly with a grin, looking at him through her eyelashes. “Convenient that we poets always have that excuse.”

“Gotta have plausible deniability, of course.”

I continue twisting my wineglass as they volley conversation back and forth. Hazel has pretty wrists, adorned with stacks of bracelets in mixed metals. Her fingers look smooth, her nails painted silvery black.

“Anyone need another round?” Kacey asks.

I shake my head, my glass still half full. But Hazel nods, says, “Actually, I think I need fries. I’ll come order, too.”

She and Kacey scoot off their stools and go to the bar, leaving Will and me alone at the end of the table.

“I’m glad you liked the poem,” Will says softly before I can change topics.

“I never said I liked it. I said I was surprised by it.”

Will grins. “I already read your comments. Lots of underlines. I think even a checkmark, if I remember correctly.”

“I give everyone checkmarks. It’s important to find the positive even in work that doesn’t speak to me.”

“Well, thank you so much for your positivity.”

“You’re very welcome. I’m thrilled you’re always seeking improvement.”

Will glances behind me to the bar where Kacey and Hazel are waiting to pay. Then his eyes flicker back, golden and speckled.

“So did you think it was me?”

I choke on a gulp of wine. “I’m sorry?”

“My poem. Was the I me? Or was it in persona?”

“Only you can say. I wouldn’t dream of projecting,” I bite out.

A small smile. His eyes move down to my fingers. He pauses before speaking again.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

I look around the table to see if anyone else heard. “No. What?”

Will leans in so close over the narrow table that his mouth is inches away from mine. “You can’t stop twisting your glass. It’s been nonstop for the last ten minutes.”

I don’t know what color my face turns, but something in my chest tightens and I move my hands under the table. “Weird habit.”

“Mhmm.” Something flickers across his eyes, and I can’t interpret it, but I feel suddenly like I am naked in this bar.

The girls return, setting down beer and fries.

“I’m going to the bathroom.” I stand, swallowing my last mouthful of wine. “And then I think I’ll go home.”

“So soon? It’s Thirsty Thursday.” Kacey pokes my arm.

I shrug, poking her back. “I really want to finish the reading for nonfiction.”

In the dingy bathroom, I stare at myself in the mirror. Brown eyes, jut of collarbone peeking out from my striped boatneck. Full curve of hip in black corduroy pants. Eyelashes thick with mascara. I run my hand through my hair, my bangs slightly limp after a long day. I scan my body, looking for clues, something to romanticize.

When I open the door, he’s there, waiting, as if I manifested him. He looms over me, leaning against the wall, hands at his sides. And for a moment, neither of us says anything. I peer over his shoulder to see if anyone else is in the small vestibule. He breaks the silence first.

“Leigh.”

I fold my arms, carefully distributing my weight on my feet equally.

“I thought about it,” I say.

“What?”

“It’s not persona. And the speaker isn’t William , either. It’s Will.”

His Adam’s apple bobs and his jaw tightens, blink-and-you’d-miss-it. He takes half a step toward me and reaches for my wrist, gentle, feather-light.

“Do you want it to be Will?” he murmurs.

I feel like I can’t breathe, like all the heat in my body is concentrated at my wrist, where his thumb meets his pointer. I try not to blink. I am twenty-one years old again, that afternoon at Middlebury imprinted in the blueprints of every movement I make. And he seems to know the effect he’s having on me, because when my breath hitches, his hold on my wrist tightens just a hair. I’ve had only one glass of wine, but I am drunk.

“Are you in line?”

Jerry, coat buttoned, Fj?llr?ven on his back and clearly needing to pee, is staring at us, oblivious. Will takes a big step back, and I release my hands from their tight cross.

“No, sorry, all yours! See you guys tomorrow.” My voice is high-pitched as I walk from the vestibule, through the bar, and out into the night.

At home, I go through the entire conversation and workshop again and again. Entirely unsure of what just happened.

“Did you see it coming?”

Bridget peers through my phone at me, unblinking. Unknowingly, I’ve maneuvered the conversation to my parents—either by accident or by Bridget’s witchcraft. They’re not usually a topic I’m in the mood to discuss.

“No. I mean, I don’t know. Yes? I had a happy childhood. I could tell they argued a lot, but it always seemed to end up fine.”

“How did you react to the separation when they told you about it?”

“Honestly, it was a bad time for me in general. I was already struggling at work. That, plus my parents’ big news… that’s when I had that panic attack in the bathroom. I was obviously very upset.”

“Why obviously?”

I sigh. “It’s ridiculous to say out loud, and I know intellectually it’s not true, but I think I thought it was my fault. That I could have prevented it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like I should try to fix it.”

Said out loud, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. When you’re an only child, you’re part of a three-person clique. And when the equilibrium of the clique is off-kilter because two members are fighting, it’s on the third to comfort and appease and fix in a desperate attempt to make everyone like one another again.

“That’s a pretty big burden for you to carry.”

“My mom complains about my dad to me, tries to get me on her side. Can you believe he did this? Et cetera, et cetera.”

“It’s not appropriate for her to talk about her relationship issues with her daughter. You weren’t responsible for their marriage.”

I shrug. “No, I guess not.”

“Do you see yourself getting married?”

“Yes,” I say right away. “But I know my parents’ marriage isn’t working out because they’re too different. They’re from totally separate worlds. I need to find someone who is like me. Who sees the world the same way, who understands me. Someone who doesn’t want to change me. The problem is, I tend to be attracted to the other types of guys more.”

“What type is that?”

“I’ve always wanted the scholar, the intellectual who knows everything about the world. I’ve always wanted someone I could chase. People I maybe couldn’t get. Someone super smart and successful and worldly.”

Bridget laughs. “Couldn’t those words also describe you?”

“No, I mean, no. I don’t think I’m dumb, of course. But there’s still, like, this difference. You know what I spent the most time doing in college? It wasn’t reading literature on the weekends like the people here.” I laugh, thinking of my fellow English majors who flocked to the library’s reading room with its dim light and austere bookshelves. That crowd—too pretentious for its own good—was never where I’d felt welcomed. Greek life maybe wasn’t the perfect fit, either—I’ve stayed in touch with very few of my old “sisters”—but they never made me feel like I wasn’t smart enough to be there.

“No, I was deciding if we should do blue Delta Gamma letters on a pink T-shirt or pink letters on a blue T-shirt. I was debating the merits of an ‘Under the Sea’ formal theme. Like, most weekends, I was hanging out with my big and my little discussing shit I’m almost too embarrassed to tell you , much less my cohort. You know, I love pink and pop music and shopping. That’s the stuff I’m into. But I’m not into guys who are into the same things.”

“So if you found a guy who also loved pink and shopping, you wouldn’t be into him?”

I scan over my mental spreadsheet of every guy I’ve hooked up with or wanted to. “I mean, not as a rule. I don’t know.”

Bridget scribbles something in her notes and I narrow my eyes. “Do you have any other rules?” she asks.

“For what?”

“For life.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“We all have internal rules we live by, that we’ve created for ourselves. You know, like, ‘If you’re not five minutes early, you’re late.’ That’s a cognitive distortion. It’s black-and-white thinking our brains develop as a shortcut to help us process a ton of information. They can create deeply ingrained patterns within ourselves.” Bridget pauses. “I think you’ve created some ‘rules’ to follow to avoid pain.”

“Like what?”

Bridget shrugs. “It sounds to me like you’ve created a rule for yourself that certain types of men are never going to genuinely love you, and so you should avoid them to avoid getting hurt.”

I’m not sure why my eyes are watering, but I brush the tears away, embarrassed.

“But how is it a distortion if it’s true? I have been rejected by guys like that, multiple times. In college, Andrew broke up with me because I didn’t ‘fit in’ with his life. He essentially confirmed what I’d already been suspecting.”

“He sounds like a jerk.”

“Well, fine, let’s talk about my parents again. They’re basically proof that opposites shouldn’t attract. They have completely different communication styles and interests. And here’s what gets me: When my mom tries to get me to take her side, I do. She makes excellent points. Sometimes I even find myself telling her, out loud, that I agree with her. But then I feel unbelievably guilty that I just took sides, and I put myself in my dad’s shoes, and then I’m on his side. The saddest thing about their marriage is that no one is wrong, no one is right. They’re just incompatible.”

“Is one example enough to be proof? To think that two people with disparate interests or personalities can make it work together?”

I shake my head. “No, but it happened after Andrew, too. There was this guy from high school I had a massive crush on. He was maybe a bit of a douche in school, but I can’t explain it: There was always something there. The summer before my senior year of college, I went to a summer program at his college, and I ran into him. And I thought maybe he was going to be the exception to my rule. The rare hot, smart guy who liked me. But then he proved me right, too.”

It’s almost a relief to say the words out loud. In the years that followed that moment, I’ve revisited it with Gen, with my sorority big sister (in less detail), and once, drunkenly, with some colleagues at Coleman + Derry. The reaction has always been a defiant His loss! And sure, maybe. But somehow, it’s always felt more like mine.

“How did he prove you right?”

“It’s almost too embarrassing to discuss,” I sigh. “I barely knew him at the time and I think over the years I’ve made this into way too big of a thing.”

Bridget gives her usual noncommittal shrug and a smile. “We have time.”

She’s right. We have thirty minutes left.

“Basically, he made me feel safe. He apologized for being a dick in high school. There was a vibe. And for once in my entire life, I put my heart on the line. I never do that shit. I don’t know what came over me, but it felt like a sure thing. It didn’t feel like other guys or my parents’ relationship. It felt like something else. And then he rejected me, plain and simple. So if that’s where my ‘rule’ comes from, I think I have pretty good reason to believe it’s true.”

The words come out in a rush, and I take a deep breath.

Bridget nods. “When you say he rejected you—what exactly did that look like?”

As if she snapped her fingers, my brain is there —the sharp grip of that Sunday afternoon still bruising my skin six years later.

But I want her to know. So I tell her.