Chapter 13
13
In the next class, he asks everyone to write a confession. He says, and there’s that smile again, I’m going to write something about my son. Hands over eyes. Everyone laughs. And go.
Avoid the urge to write about him. Instead, write about how you’ve fallen in love with the city. Write about the comfort of garbage trucks, the guy who has honeybees on his roof across the way, coins of old gum, kebabs, the poetry bookstore with all the cats. Write about the pasta place where you and Margaux go and sit under the Christmas lights and drink red wine on Tuesdays. Write about the hawk that has three different lovers in Central Park. Write about buying blueberries on Columbus, jazz on the C train, and the flowers that grow up out of the sidewalk cracks. It’s the city that’s the spell.
That’s not exactly a confession, he says when you read it out loud. It feels more like a review. But I like it.
Say thank you. Do not beam. Try not to take it more personally than is right.
The next class, he asks everyone to write about love. Do yourself a favor. Don’t. Instead, write about your high school boyfriend, Andrew. Write about how kind he was, how he wrote you a song in G-flat, how he tasted like milk, his forearms (nothing much), the leaf wallpaper in his hallway, his parents’ club on the hill, and the way he hummed in his sleep. Write about how sometimes, you had the urge to punch him in the face. Finish it with a thing about love but not in love, et cetera.
Where is Andrew now? he asks.
Wall Street, you say.
He nods knowingly, but you’re not sure what he knows. He scratches his beard.
What do you think? he asks the class. No one says anything.
Finally, he says, You’re still writing around it. You’re circling.
I know, you whisper.
In your apartment, when your roommate is doing an extra shift at the tavern, turn your lamp down low, put on jazz, light a candle that smells like leather. Cover your bed with books that you know he likes and you like too, mostly. Some you don’t understand. Spend hours, afternoons, evenings, writing about him. Little anecdotes, things you’ve gathered. You’ve heard he has a wife and his son is young. You’ve heard he lives near the Park. You’ve heard that he doesn’t sleep around, but once, you saw him with a TA from a couple of years before. She was very beautiful, red-haired. They were laughing in the lobby and she was in a blue dress that lit up her whole face. It felt as if they were either in love and everyone knew it or they weren’t and didn’t care what anyone thought. Recognize the inconsolable feeling. It makes you feel so alive you’re almost dead. It’s not that you have violence in you. It has something to do with your father, maybe. And your mother. That you’ve avoided stepping on ants your whole life, and just once, you’d like someone to step over you. You don’t like to think about it head-on. You don’t want to go sour in your heart.
When Margaux asks about the class, lie. Tell her that you’re writing about your mother. Realize you haven’t mentioned him to anyone. Maybe there’s nothing to tell. Maybe you don’t want to jinx it. Maybe you worry that once you tell anyone anything, you’ll have to tell them everything.
What even is everything? Margaux looks confused.
A couple of weeks later, after work, go to office hours. The sun is long gone and there he is, reading in the dark, his feet, socked, on an ottoman. He has a child’s backpack on one shoulder, but he’s not going anywhere. He looks relaxed but also poised. Wait for him to make eye contact. You’re wearing a camel coat with a tie that cinches your waist. Be a silhouette in the door. Be a prism. Cough once.
Hi, he says. What’s up? Resist the urge for small talk. Your mother says it betrays agita. Instead, tell him you have a confession. Tell me, he says. And something about how he says it, you almost do. You almost tear up. Don’t.
I’m working on the thing I’m meant to, you say. His eyebrows ascend. Be prudent with your words.
How does that feel? he asks.
Touch your chest once. Think about all the pages you have of him. Don’t tell him specifically about having written about him, sitting just like that, there. Instead, wonder out loud about the difference between déjà vu and projection. Also, inevitability. Wonder if writing makes you ever so slightly prophetic.
Now you’re getting it, he says. And then drops the bag, looks around fretfully. Do you know the time? He picks it up again, curses, tells you that he doesn’t know when he became a person who is always late.
Another day, ask him to help you with your opening paragraph. He’s in his office. He sits up in his chair. Want to come in? he asks. Go in. He offers you an apple from a paper bag. It’s from an orchard, you can tell. Imagine him at an orchard. Plaid scarf. Leather boots. Wife? Stop imagining.
He asks you to tell him about yourself. Tell him about Scarsdale. Tell him about your mother. Tell him about your first job as a camp counselor, second in a dermatologist’s office next to a bookstore, third selling watches for your mother’s jeweler, after college. Well, you say, she sold him all her things when my father left. He owed her. Then tell him about your ex-stepdad, the one who brought all his books and then took all his books and still sends you ghost stories and Dickens and sometimes earrings—aquamarines, peridots, opals—on your birthdays.
Is that right? he says.
Ask him what he wrote at your age. Crap. Ask him if he studied fiction. No, he says. Business. I’m self-taught, which is a slog, and I do not recommend. Take my word for it.
You’re not sure what he’s referring to exactly but it seems as if the door is shut, if not locked.
Ask him what he’s working on now. He dangles a manuscript between two fingers. It’s a big one, he says. Hopefully, the one. He seems proud.
You want to be in it. How can you be in it?
Ask him how often he does this. What? he says. Care about my students? Always. For you, with him, hope is always on the brink and so very very very personal.
Don’t overstay. Instead, make up something about a museum. Meeting a guy friend there. Too much. He tells you he’s happy for ya. But you misunderstand.
You’re happy? you say, taking it as an insult, thinking about his wife.
He laughs, maybe blushes, balks. Happy for you, he says. He means about the writing. Oh.
And, he says, smiling. Happiness is fleeting anyway, isn’t it?
Whew.
Count the months till the end of the semester, when you must have one full piece of work. A short story with a beginning, middle, and end. He once said that beauty is not enough. Something must happen. It must be intentional.
In the next class, he has everyone write down a dream with as much detail as they can muster. You write about the one you have again and again where you’re on a boat; no waves, everything is very still and peaceful. You’re trying desperately to get off. You’re dying for something different. When you finally manage, you realize you’ve not been on a boat really but there’s been a blue membrane over everything, like dried glue. It was a trick of the eye or the mind or whatever. That’s when things go wild: the waves, the dips and doozies. There is more to life than floating, you think. There are patterns, drama, art. You want to start over. Or start again. You long for life, stirred. You write about all that.
He doesn’t read yours aloud.
Go to his office before the next class. Explain the dream piece, but before you can finish, he cuts you off. You’re still avoiding it, he says. He mimes stirring something tiny with his pointer finger in the air. Around and around.
Finally, use him. Use everything. For the next class, write a scene full of tension. It’s about someone who might be you. She is a writer. She is alone on a front porch around the holidays. In the meantime, everyone is inside. She is unhappy in her relationship. It has gone flat. But it is more than that. She is looking for something.
A man comes out and everything changes. He is mysterious: darkened with smoke and work and cold tides. The conclusiveness of his shoulders as if they are demanding her smaller. Tension and yet no one moves. Something about slow dancing and potential for magic in everything. That charged and melted feeling. Angst and conflict. Everything cinematic. Like clouds that don’t cloud the sky.
And still, nobody moves.
In the piece, in the end, not much happens. The woman’s boyfriend is drunk somewhere. The man is married. After a while, he gestures to inside. He says, Me too, or maybe, Me either. But something has happened. The moment shimmers. Time lengthens. In story, it can do that. He said so. It is a question of weights and measures. And how some moments matter more.
In class, he asks you to read it out loud. Stand up. Your heart is pounding. Go slow. Once, your voice cracks. You’re not going to cry exactly, but it’s hard to speak. When you’re finished, you keep your eyes closed.
Now we’re talking, he says quietly and claps once. Atta girl. Open your eyes. Take him in. Let him do the same for you.
Now we’re talking, he says again. But, for the next draft, he says, work on the male character. I don’t believe him.
Feel like he’s somehow letting everyone in on your secret. Which makes you wonder if there was no secret at all.
Go up to his office. Feel ready to explain. He beckons you in with his arm. He’s balancing a stack of books with the other. There is a mug of coffee steaming on his desk. His phone rings. The books drop to the floor.
Excuse me, he says, holding up a finger, looking at the mess. And then, Hi there.
Go in. Start to pick up everything. Hear that her voice is soft and gentle. The ups and downs of her tone. A hummingbird nose-deep on a purple lupine or maybe bees in the sun. Watch him listen, nod. He tells her he’ll be home just after class. They can deal with it then.
When he gets off, he looks at the ceiling as if for weather or maybe just breath. He looks at you as if you’ve woken him up from a deep sleep. It is then that you feel you have no place here. Stop with the books. You were just getting somewhere. It is possible to back up without moving. Do.
Or maybe go to him. Don’t move too quickly. He’s a broken bird. Be soft and strong. Do the opposite of shrink. Put your hand on his shoulder. You’re not trying anything exactly. In some ways, it just feels like the right thing to do. When you touch him, his arm twitches once. It settles. Let him look at you then. Hold your face just so. In the beginning, it’s as if you’ve shattered. All the pieces are shiny and new. You are a white blouse. Empathy. Youthfulness. A long neck. Cold fingers on his shoulder. The faintest smell of rose and jasmine. Not yet the sum of your parts. Be a sudden gift.
After a while, you could take your hand off. Don’t. Leave it on longer than expected, than you mean to. Something takes over. He doesn’t move away.
For a moment, you think about your story. Consider the trigger. The moment that changes everything. Is this it? Consider how nonaction can be action too. He is still looking at your face. In the beginning, everything is only the slightest bit distorted. Like a face flattered in a car window.
Has anyone ever looked at you like that?
I’m sorry, you say without thinking about it. It is instinct: second nature because of your mother, or maybe because you’re not a man. It is then that you see something pass over him. It is lightning quick. Like a shadow from outside but sort of the opposite. A spark. You would have missed it if you weren’t poised. And hoping.
Let go only when you see a balloon out the window, floating up. He sees it too. He moves back and everything drops. As if you’ve been holding something with your eyes between you two.
Hope, he says, cracking the silence like a wake. He points at the balloon. Hope personified, he says. You know what I mean?
Nod.
That day, as he teaches, he looks at you again and again and again. He’s downtrodden, clearly. He’s rallying. You can support him just by being there. By being you. Once, you make a comment about rhythm. How sometimes short sentences can make a story hustle and pant. He smiles and nods, hands clap. That’s it, he says.
There is seeing and then there is being seen.