You Between the Lines

Chapter Nineteen

T HE DAYS PASS, SLUGGISH AND winter-damp, and eventually it’s March. We’ve settled into a rhythm—the mad dash of weekend writing, the pre-workshop anxiety on Wednesday nights, the post-workshop debriefs at Pete’s. But now with the writing conference, that rhythm is disrupted.

I was always going to end up in a car with Will to AWP, wasn’t I? While I’d like to blame it on some sort of logistical failure or fated inevitability, it came down to something potentially even dumber: my own ego. That, and the fact that there was no way in hell I was going to stomach a fifteen-hour Greyhound journey, despite Hazel’s repeated soliloquies about it being “the most sustainable option by far .” Kacey, for her part, was going with August after a rare public acknowledgment of their togetherness landed her a coveted spot in a second-year car.

Besides, Will and I are grown-ups. We have over a year left together in the program. We need to be able to coexist without my nervous system going haywire. So I asked him, in a highly roundabout way, to prove that I’m the mature one in this equation.

“Anyone else driving to DC? I really don’t want to take the bus and I don’t have my own car, of course…” I began, as if I didn’t absolutely already know everyone’s transportation situation.

“Oh, Will, didn’t you mention driving?” Morris said, tapping Will, who was in another conversation with Jerry, on the shoulder. Easy.

“To AWP? Yeah, why?”

“Leigh needs a ride,” Morris continued.

Will’s body went taut as he looked at me, the entire drive playing across his face.

“I don’t want to put you out if you don’t have enough room,” I said, not looking Will in the eye, but rather Morris, our strange liaison.

Morris laughed. “What? Will’s driving and he has space. Don’t you?” He turned to Will, who appeared to be biting the inside of his cheek.

“Yes,” he ground out. “I have space.”

“Solved it.” Morris squeezed my shoulder with a smile.

As we walked out of Pete’s, I caught up to Will, blurted out, “Sorry, you don’t have to drive me, really. I can figure something else out.”

He turned to look at me, and for a moment, I genuinely thought he was going to take back his not-really-an-offer offer. But then he loosened his shoulders and shook his head.

“It’s fine. I’ll pick you up at seven on Wednesday.”

I nodded a thank-you and then we didn’t speak for the next week.

Until now, when he shows up outside my apartment at seven on the dot. After he texts me to announce his arrival, I wait a minute before going down to his car, staring at myself in the mirror. Trying to see what I will look like through his eyes. It’s an awful habit—viewing yourself via the lens of another—but now, smoothing out the divot in my chin and ruffling my bangs, it’s the only language I know.

When I knock on the door of his locked car, Will flinches slightly, a strange reaction since he’s expecting me. I hear the car unlock and open the passenger-side door.

“Hi.”

“Good morning.” His eyes sweep over me. It feels like scalding water the way his strained face takes me in. I shove my duffel bag in the back seat next to his leather weekender and we say nothing else until he pulls out of the parking lot and onto the road.

“Did you sleep well?” I ask in an attempt to fill the thick silence.

“No.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yep.”

It’s enough to make me resent him, how coolly he can respond to me. How nice it must be to not have to orient yourself to the comfort of others. How freeing.

We don’t talk at all for the next two hours. I play on my phone, my eyes occasionally flitting to his hand on the gearshift between us, his fingers curling over the top. Before I can stop it, my brain serves me an image of those same fingers, large and unyielding, gripping my hip bones. I push it down before the flush has a chance to paint my cheeks.

Eventually, I have to pee. I suppress the urge for thirty minutes before I tell him we need to stop. He pulls into a gas station off the highway. When I come back from the restroom with donuts from the station, Will’s filling up the tank and is on the phone, his foot tapping in an irregular rhythm against the pavement.

“It’s a seven-hour drive,” I hear him say as I approach. I want to stand outside the car to stretch my legs, but when I get closer, he opens the passenger door for me. I frown, shake my head, and make a big display of doing a quad stretch.

But he takes a step forward, toward me, until he has one hand on the open door and one next to me on the car, caging me in so I have nowhere to go but inside. We’re inches apart; I can barely see past the blockade of his shoulders, and it unlocks a longing I’ve managed to suppress for weeks.

I stare up at him defiantly and he continues to mhmm into the phone perched between his cheek and shoulder, a woman’s voice on the other end. He won’t meet my eyes, and I watch him look over my head to the other side of the gas station. I insist on eye contact from the man who’s avoided me for the last two months but is now crowding me against his car. It would only take a lean, a half step forward, to put my face in his neck and taste the salt of his skin, to tug open his jacket and find the crook of his shoulder where I buried moans on Halloween—

Please , he mouths, and the memory pops. I nod and get in the car before he gently closes the door, putting the phone back in his hand. I see his back while he pays for the gas, then he turns toward me and we stare at each other as he finishes the call. His voice must be low, because I can only hear a muffled sound through the glass. He doesn’t break eye contact, and the look in his eyes carries no smirk, no amusement. But there’s none of his usual sternness, either. He looks weary and for a second, I almost wonder if he’s seeking comfort from my gaze.

He finishes the call and gets back in the car. We’re silent until we’re on the highway.

“Who was that?”

“My mother.”

“Why wasn’t I allowed to hear?”

He sighs. “I don’t want you to see me when I’m like… that.”

“Like what?”

He pauses and it suddenly doesn’t feel like there’s any air left in the car. “Cold.”

I can’t help but snort. “No, you’re right. I can’t even imagine what that would look like.”

More silence. Eventually, I pull out the donuts I bought and hold a glazed one out to him. He accepts it.

“So what did your mom want?”

He shakes his head, and even in profile I see him roll his eyes. “She wants me to meet up with one of my dad’s old colleagues who will be on a panel at AWP.”

“Just to say hi?”

“No, to make the connection so I can network my way into a job after the MFA. I don’t think either of my parents liked too much that I graduated college without one. My mother’s taken it upon herself to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

I stare at his hand on the gearshift, his knuckles white. “Ignore her. You turned out fine without having a job right away. Mostly.”

There’s a flicker of amusement in the corner of his lip, but it fades before I can memorize it and tuck it away for later.

“Peter really wants to see me. He hasn’t seen me since… the funeral.”

Will almost chokes on the last word. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t physically stop myself from putting my hand on top of his. We haven’t touched in months, not since Halloween, and his hand flexes slightly under mine.

“Leigh,” he murmurs. But it’s not a reprimand. It’s a plea to stop the torture. I put my hand back in my lap before he has to tell me himself.

“Is this Peter a nice guy?”

Will nods. “Apparently every time I shared my work with my dad, my dad sent it to Peter, too. They were closer than I realized. Offices next to each other at Oberlin. My dad taught Intro to Fiction One and Peter taught Intro to Fiction Two. I guess my dad would warn Peter about the incoming students.”

“So Peter’s read your poetry.” I glance at his profile and his focused eyes as he switches lanes to speed past another car.

“Yep. You know, he even mentioned one poem by name at my dad’s funeral. ‘Invisible Summer,’” Will says with a scoff, more to himself than to me.

“A Will Langford Greatest Hit?”

His eyes leave the road to look at me, something dark in his gaze. “No. But that’s the only poem of mine my dad ever praised. Never got a single sentence of positive feedback on the tens of pieces I showed him over the years. Just that one.”

“Some people are stingy with praise. It’s a reflection of him, not your work. But hey, he clearly loved ‘Invisible Summer’ or whatever. You’ll always have that.”

His voice is so, so tight when he replies: “Right.”

I want to hold him close enough that his pain is absorbed by my body. I want to take his face in my hands and run my fingers over the hard line of his jaw, melting the tension he’s too stubborn to let go of. But he won’t let me. He refuses to let me.

I suppose I shouldn’t, anyway. I can’t bear to be rejected again, knowing how jarring it felt the first, second, third time. There can’t be a fourth.

“I’m sorry, Will.”

He takes a hand off the steering wheel and runs it through his hair, maybe a self-soothing mechanism. His gaze meets mine for just two seconds before he turns back to the road, and in those shards of copper, sage, and seafoam, there’s something soft and wanting. But it’s over in a blink.

“What if you just talk to Peter? It’s networking. Whatever, right? Maybe he could help you get something you love after graduation.”

“No.”

“Your dad showing his friend your work means he was proud of you, Will. It means he loved you and loved your poems.”

“Stop. You didn’t know him. My father had twenty-eight years to convince me he was proud of me, and he didn’t, because he wasn’t. I’m not going to cozy up to his colleague so he can help me out of pity and obligation when there are plenty of more… deserving writers.”

“What are you talking about? You’re just as deserving as anybody else.”

Will grits his teeth and moves to the left lane to speed past a line of cars.

All the frustration I’ve felt for the last few months boils beneath my skin. I let it simmer, let both of us calm down before I speak.

“You’re allowed to be happy,” I say coolly, without looking at him. “I’m sorry your dad wasn’t as generous with his feedback as he should have been, but just because he was famous or whatever doesn’t mean his opinion was the end-all be-all. You’re supposed to do this, Will. Instead, you’re looking for ways out. Of being a writer. Of other things, too, maybe.”

I watch the hollow of his jaw pull inward, the profile of his Adam’s apple bob. I can’t explain it, but it’s as if I see something unscramble in his brain in real time. But he says nothing more until we reach Washington, DC.

When we get to the hotel, he lets me out so he can find a parking garage. I jump out of the car and close the door. Before I can walk into the lobby, though, he rolls down the window.

“You’re right,” he says. “But you’re looking for ways out, too.”

And then he rolls up the window before I can respond.

Kacey and I wake up at 8:00 a.m. sharp to the annoying trill of our phone alarms in sync. After we all arrived in DC yesterday, we went out for sushi as a cohort, glasses clinking in frivolity, Will and I on opposite sides of the table. After a nearing-on-sloppy toast by Houston promising that the Perrin MFA program will “run this town” this week, we found our way back to the hotel where about half of us are staying. I’m sharing a room with two double beds with Kacey, Hazel and Wiebke are next door, and Will and Morris are down the hallway, a fact I tried to ignore as I fell asleep.

Today the agenda is all panels and some evening readings. Tomorrow will be about going to speakers, and then in the late afternoon, we’ll begin the journey home.

Kacey and I sit in front of the mirror behind the desk and put on our makeup together. For a long day full of networking and readings with poets who are definitely cooler than me, I’ve chosen wide-leg black trousers, an oversize button-down, and pearl earrings—my signature accessory when I led Delta Gamma’s PR meetings.

“What panels were you planning on going to today?” Kacey asks, scrunching up her forehead to apply mascara.

“‘Feminism in Poetry in the Age of #MeToo.’ Then one about ‘Reclaiming the Use of Meter in Modern Poetry,’ and the last one before the book fair is about using the features of pop music to write poetry.”

“Very you.” She nods. “I’m going to the meter one, too. Should be fun.”

“I’m just biding my time until the Erica Go reading tonight.” I take a vial of shimmery liquid eye shadow and throw it in my bag for tonight’s reading and bar run. “I want to get a glimpse of my future fellowship professor. Kidding.” I grimace to make sure she knows I’m joking.

Kacey shakes her head so violently she smears her left eye with eyeliner. “No, no kidding. I genuinely think you’ll get it. Jerry could never, it’s just not remotely his kind of work. William is good, but no offense, he’s like your standard poet bro. I say it’s between you and Hazel, strongly leaning toward you.”

“I really hope you’re right… you just never know.”

“I have a good feeling about this. When Erica reads your work, she’ll see you’re the one.”

We don’t bother making the beds and leave the hotel to make the short trek over to the event center where the AWP festivities are taking place. I enter the room for the first panel and see Hazel. We sit together and listen to the three poets and one moderator discuss how the #MeToo movement has changed poetry programs for the better.

An hour later, I meet Kacey and Jerry for “Reclaiming the Use of Meter in Modern Poetry.” The crowd here leans significantly more male and poet-bro-y, all dressed in corduroy pants and denim shirts. Nonetheless, the panelists make me want to try out iambic pentameter—a first for me.

After a quick lunch, I head to the last panel but don’t see any of my classmates there. We talk about pop music and poetry, and oddly enough, it’s the session I find the least interesting. Maybe it’s just that it’s already familiar. Something I’ve mastered. Maybe I’m looking for new tools to add to my toolbox.

Most of us meet up at the restaurant Busboys they said in our MFA group chat that they wanted to hit another reading with a famous literary fiction author. Will looks particularly good tonight, in gray corduroys and an airy button-down with a sweater-vest over it, that unruly lock of caramel hair hanging in front of his forehead. He looks like he’s about to hop on stage himself.

They join us at the table, Will a few seats down from me on the opposite side. He glances quickly at me, then does a double take, and my entire face heats. I added smoky eye shadow around my eyes and unbuttoned my shirt a bit to feel more Poet at Night, rather than my usual Lost Sorority Girl. But judging by his look, maybe it was too much.

“How was y’all’s reading?” Kacey asks.

“Incredible,” Morris gushes. “You know who we saw in the audience? Colson Whitehead. He was sitting right in front of us.”

“Guess who had to go shake his hand and get his book signed?” Will adds, a glint in his eye. We make brief eye contact across the table, and there’s a thrill in being the one he chooses to show his sarcasm to.

“I’d be stupid not to take the chance,” Morris says.

“Who was actually reading, though?” Kacey asks.

“Peter Merriman,” Morris says between sips. “William knew him, so we were able to skip the line.”

My eyes flit to Will, who I can tell is trying not to look at me. But I don’t care. The smile that erupts from my mouth is genuine. He did it.

Once it approaches 8:00 p.m., the lights dim, and an overhead voice tells us that Erica Go is up in ten minutes. We cram into a small seating area in the back of the bar. At the front of the room is a stool and a microphone, and that’s where Erica is sitting, about to read from her poetry book. The seats are a hodgepodge of stools, wooden chairs with backs, and the long bench most of us are packed onto. I slide in next to Christine, and because Kacey went off to pee, Will is next to me, two inches between our thighs. He surveys the room like he potentially wants to see if he can sit elsewhere, but stays put.

Kacey comes back and makes everyone scoot over to let her in, and suddenly Will is flush against me, our legs completely touching on the bench, the heat of him overwhelming.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, and I shift only a centimeter, knocking into Christine, who doesn’t seem to notice.

“It’s fine.” But my whole body is filled with the awareness of his proximity, and I barely register when Erica starts talking. We haven’t been this close to each other in months, and I wonder if his body is reacting anything like mine is.

Even though I moved over a centimeter, he spreads his legs slightly, enough to have them touch my thighs again, and I can’t tell if it’s intentional. The contact feels so satisfying, and almost as a test, I put my hand flat above my knee, not touching his leg, but only slivers apart. He seems to register this; out of the corner of my eye, I see his eyes flicker down to my hand. He continues staring straight ahead, and I’m so tempted to put my hand away but feel as if now I need to keep it there to look natural.

After minutes I start to relax and focus on Erica, her poet voice so soothing and soft, everyone is barely breathing, hanging on her every word. She reads some poems I recognize, the ones that receive thousands of likes on Instagram. I love her words, her voice—and I want her all to myself in one-on-ones next fall.

She keeps reading, pausing between poems to make jokes or tell anecdotes that lull me into almost-complete focus. Almost.

What jolts me out of her voice is Will’s hand next to me, the side of his pinkie pressing into mine. I know then and there that everything has been intentional. He doesn’t look over at me, or at our hands, just stares at Erica as if mesmerized. I, too, don’t look up, but I exert the smallest bit of pressure to his hand and then, as if he’s teetering on some edge and needs to hold me still lest I push him off it, his pinkie is on top of mine, covering half of my nail, pressing my finger down harder into my thigh. The room is dim and I don’t think anyone is watching us, but it feels like a delicious secret, and I feel my body crave even more contact, more pressure, more .

He keeps my pinkie pinned under his until the reading ends, then abruptly moves his hand away and stands. I get up, too, and we don’t look at each other and my stomach swoops in anticipation.

“Drinks time,” Christine says before I can open my mouth to say something to Will.

He turns his back to me and we file off of the bench and into the bar section of the space, where Kacey orders a bottle of wine for the group. We crowd around a table lit with votives in the corner of the room. As if he’s a magnet, I stand next to Will, slightly closer than maybe is standard among friends. He plants his shoe right next to mine, our feet touching, and another shot of awareness wedges between my ribs, dripping down to my center.

“So what did y’all think?” Kacey asks the group.

“I thought it was great,” Will says. “Her poetry has such a… pulse. It’s just so much movement and tension .” The way he says it almost feels like the universe is mocking me, and I cough to get ahold of myself.

“I will literally die if I get to work with her every week,” Hazel gushes, and I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, frowning. “Anyone else going to get their books signed?”

“Me,” I say quickly, and pull out Erica’s latest collection, One Day I’ll Be Famous , which I bought earlier at the book fair.

Hazel and I make our way up to the front, where Erica’s leaning against a table. There’s a line, naturally. She talks to each person, sometimes letting out a big, booming laugh, before scrawling her name dramatically over the title page of their book.

Hazel’s first. “Erica, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m a first-year poet at Perrin.”

Erica’s face lights up. “So fabulous! We’ll be learning from each other next year.” She takes Hazel’s book and opens it to sign, asking Hazel for her name so she can individualize it.

I blank out, completely starstruck. One day, maybe I’ll be giving a reading at a cool city bar at the AWP conference.

“Hi there!”

Oh fuck, it’s me.

“I love your work,” I blurt out. “I’ve been reading you since high school.”

Erica scrunches up her face in delight and puts her hand on her heart. “That’s really nice to hear. Truly.”

I have literally no idea what to say next, I’m already at the end of my pre-rehearsed script.

“Shall I…?” She motions to my book, which I give her, wordlessly. “What’s your name, baby?”

“Leigh. L-E-I-G-H.”

She tries to scrawl, but her pen’s run out of ink. “You got a pen with you?”

I rummage through my tote. I knew I should’ve taken the free pens they were giving out hours ago. “No…”

“Hey, you going to the keynote tomorrow? I’ll sign your book after that. No problem.”

“Yes, okay!” Maybe this is better. I can get the celebrity awe out of my system and plan a more impressive conversation.

“See you tomorrow,” she says, and I nod three times too many.

We stay at the bar for another hour, talking about Erica and what seminars and readings we’re going to tomorrow. Kacey wants to go to another bar for a second round, and Jerry wants to go back to the hotel. I’m too frazzled to stay out, and I definitely don’t want another drink. I just want to get in bed and think about how to impress Erica after the keynote.

“I’m going back to the hotel, too,” I say. “I’ll take a cab with you, Jerry.”

Will’s eyes meet mine across the table. “Same.”

Suddenly, the air feels thick and hot, crackling like broiled sugar, between us.