A Storybook Wedding

Chapter 1 Cecily

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I came here toting a backpack filled with hopes, dreams, and Sharpie highlighters. Like a true first-day-of-school experience, I laid out my outfit the day before and tossed and turned all night from the eager anticipation. I was going to get to be around authors—real authors who’ve published some of the very books we carry in our library! I would meet other writers striving toward publication. Lovers of literature! People like me!

Kindred spirits.

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think I may have misjudged this whole experience based on the promotional materials. In fact, it’s possible that I may have inadvertently broken cardinal rule number one: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

“I appreciate the attempt to create a world fraught with emotion, but the drama seems a little thin overall. I mean, I get the whole ‘what’s at stake’ for the narrator—sure, high school is hard and she wants to be accepted—but it’s not quite hitting home for me. This story, in my opinion, just feels trite.”

Whoa. Ouch.

As I listen to the criticism, tears spring to my eyes. I blink them back, busying myself by frantically scribbling notes onto the first page in my brand-new mint-colored spiral notebook, now sullied by the word trite written under the heading Workshop with Nate Ellis—Day One. I read online that MFA workshops can be brutal, but jeez. I wasn’t expecting to hear a nasty word like trite in my first moment out of the gate.

Breathe, Cecily. It’s not like this random guy is your target audience.

“Please, Tim, let’s follow the standard workshop rules. We need to be sensitive to the writer, although in this case, I tend to agree that the need for acceptance as a theme is falling a bit short in terms of depth.” These words come from the mouth of my teacher, a PEN Award winner who is disturbingly (1) young and (2) handsome. I guess his novel must have ranked pretty high on the depth scale to earn him such a prestigious literary accolade, but if I’m being entirely truthful, I rode the struggle bus big time in my attempt to read it. Which sort of makes me wonder, does this guy work here just so people buy his book, since it’s required reading for the program?

“May I—” I begin to ask, hoping to defend my work.

“Hang on, Cecily. For now, let’s hear what else folks have to say.”

I clamp my mouth shut and resume staring down at my notebook.

“Harold, how about you?”

Across from me, a middle-aged man with a round face, brown bangs, and circular glasses who is wearing (I cannot make this up) a cape strokes an invisible goatee, staring out the window as if searching for the perfect words to use to describe my life’s work. Perhaps this Hogwarts doppelganger is precisely what our workshop needs: an intelligent soul who can remind the group that I worked hard on this piece, and even if it’s not perfect, I am here to learn, and I have tremendous potential.

“Overall?” he begins, and I wait optimistically for him to find the appropriate commendation. “I thought it was good. But—”

“Remember,” Professor PEN Award says, “we’re not looking for subjective opinions on the readability of the work. We’re looking for constructive criticism here. What can Cecily do to improve this piece?”

Ugh. Why’d you have to interrupt him? Didn’t you hear him use the wordgood? He thought it was good! Just leave it alone!

My heart’s pumping hard, as if I just finished an hour on the treadmill, minus the endorphins and the feeling of satisfaction one can get from a good sweat. It’s more akin to the thumping of a young deer’s pulse after hearing gunshots in the tranquil forest. Run. Hide, Bambi. You’re under siege by a literary elitist hunter who undoubtedly reads Faulkner, Proust, and Dostoyevsky for fun. No Emily Henry novels to be found here. Just the author of some critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling debut author parading around like a professor whose sole mission is, apparently, to get people to trash talk your work. My feet are anchored to the ground, and I absently pick at my thumbnail cuticle. I will not allow the words to sting me. Sticks and stones and all that. I will just breathe, and the fresh ocean air will infuse clarity through my veins, cleansing my mind and (more importantly) my heart from the toxic highbrow remarks in this workshop. Inhale. Exhale. Let the words float out to sea.

I am an island.

“Well,” Harry Potter replies, “in my opinion, the narrator, Daisy, lacked a character arc. She felt more like a grumbly teenager than a stoic ingenue.”

“Can you give us an example?”

“Hm,” Harold replies, furrowing his brow. He uses his pointer finger to scroll on his tablet screen. “Here. On page sixteen. Third paragraph down.” He clears his throat.

“‘Tony was sitting with Veronica in the cafeteria, only seventy-two hours after sliding his tongue down my throat. How could this be, after I told him how she tried to ruin my life in middle school? A slick of bile threatened regurgitation as I considered my options. I could slash his bicycle tires, of course, although that might look fairly obvious. I could throw my lunch tray in his face, but I’d never been one for theatrics. What else was there? Pull the fire alarm? Feed arsenic to his dog? I stood there for a moment, staring at them from behind the trash can, when it hit me. The sweetest revenge is indifference. I held my chin high and strode easily past them.’”

He looks up. “I don’t know. I get that she’s trying to work through this big moment or whatever, but I just feel like it lacks interiority.”

Remain calm,I tell myself. I try to hear the comments as if they’re not about my work. Lacks interiority, I write down.

“Thank you,” Tim says, gesturing at Harold and nodding vehemently. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Like, okay, so Tony is sitting with Veronica. And yes, we know that Veronica spread rumors about Daisy and that they hate each other, but how is Daisy not more impacted by this moment of betrayal in the lunchroom? I think that’s my issue with the story.”

“So it’s not the plotline,” Professor PEN Award says.

“No,” Tim replies. “It’s the character development.”

“This is YA, obviously,” another voice says. This time, it’s the pretty woman to my left with twin purple braids cascading down her back and bright red lipstick accentuating her high cheekbones. Her name is Andrea, but she pronounces it Ahn-dray-uh, all fancy-like. My hope is that she’s about to come to my rescue, that her comments will be as lovely as the tattoo of angel wings adorning her bare shoulder. In fact, I direct what remaining strength I have to the task of forgetting that her workshop submission, titled “Lotus Blossom Soup,” was so abstract it was nearly unintelligible. But when she opens her mouth, I am met with my own personal horror once again. “I think you’re creating false expectations for genre fiction,” she says, and the words turn her braids into horns. My mind twists her angled face into Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent; the angel wings morph into those of a black dragon as my breath catches in my throat. Seriously? This from a woman whose piece opened with the following line: To find the soul of one’s ethereal depth, one must look no further than the spoon of life. Which made me wonder if I was reading a bad fortune cookie, or if the line had been written while the author was extremely high.

“How do you mean?” PEN Award asks.

She purses her chapped lips. “It’s commercial,” Maleficent explains. “Surface. Character arc not required.” She waves her hand, as if shooing an illiterate mosquito out of the space immediately in front of her right boob.

The realization hits me like a stack of hardcovers.

I am the illiterate mosquito.

No, no. Stop it, Cecily! You are above this! You are transcendent in this maelstrom of negativity.I write the words character arc on the college-ruled page before me.

“I disagree,” Trite Tim rebuts.

This goes on for several minutes, and I will myself not to listen to any of it. I work on intentional breathing. In, two three, four. Out, two, three, four.

To be fair, none of this was on the website. Or in the welcome folder. Or even discussed at orientation yesterday! In fact, when I got my acceptance letter from Matthias University, the director of the program—a novelist and poet laureate named Dillon Norway—actually complimented my ability to write about young people with depth and verve. He also said that my work had resounding acoustic density and emotional complexity.

Those phrases were the reason I chose this school. Well, that and the low-residency model. When I began applying, my director at the library told me she wouldn’t be able to change my work schedule to accommodate regularly scheduled grad classes all year long. However, she told me to look into low-res programs, since she could convince the board to approve me taking a short stint away twice a year. That’s the model. You come away for an eight-day intensive in the summer and an eight-day intensive in the winter, and you’re paired with a mentor for the in-between time, which is technically considered independent study. You write and submit twenty-five pages a month to your mentor, who meets with you virtually to discuss the work you’ve produced. You’re also responsible for reading ten books per semester and writing craft essays on them. Lather, rinse, repeat four times for two years, and then come back for the fifth residency, where you’ll graduate with an MFA.

Sure, this might seem like a heavy lift on top of an already busy day job, but keep in mind that minus a relationship status, I’ve got more than enough time to tackle these assignments. Also, my acceptance kind of felt like a dream come true. This was due in large part to the glossy catalog photographs, because the residencies at Matthias College take place on beautiful, remote Block Island at a retreat center called New Beginnings. I mean, really—does it get more perfect than that? You get to write and be amid breathtaking scenery, and the website features New England clambake dinners at sunset with people laughing and wearing lobster bibs. My library scholarship covered half the cost of my tuition, and I had enough in my savings account to cover the other half without having to dip into my rainy-day fund. But more than all that, the chance to become an author—to write a novel, send it out in search of a literary agent, submit it to publishing houses, and ultimately see it on the shelf in my own library—now that would be a real-life happy ending.

I packed like a madwoman for this first residency. Between Amazon and Staples, I purchased every school supply one could imagine. Unsure of what the ever-fluctuating evening temperatures on Block Island would bring, I brought sweatshirts and leggings along with business-casual-type outfits for daytime workshops and seminars. I hugged my colleague Ramona and made her promise to feed Blinky, the betta fish I keep at the circulation desk, and at sunrise the next morning, I drove my car a hundred miles from Little Neck, Queens, out to Montauk to catch myself a ferry to Block Island. My large suitcase sported a duffel on top, and I awkwardly carried a backpack filled with books, binders, and my laptop strapped to my torso like a bulletproof vest. In my free hand, I clutched the folder of information regarding travel and lodging at the retreat house, flyers advertising open mic readings, talent night, and more, sandwiched in between the collage of professional pictures boasting serenity along the coastline.

Let the record show that Trite Tim, Harry Potter, and Maleficent did not appear in any of these promotional materials. Nor did the model students adequately express in their motivational quotes throughout these brochures the emotional tug-of-war that could develop in one’s psyche as a result of participating in workshop, the only part of residency that was unequivocally mandatory.

I arrived on the island with my heavy luggage and, at the ferry terminal, was greeted by a shuttle van that had been arranged by the school. The driver, a woman wearing a surprisingly tight, low-cut T-shirt for the occupation of van driving, greeted me with a toothy smile. “Heading to Matthias?” she asked.

I nodded, noticing upon closer inspection that her shirt had a picture of Frog and Toad on it. A soul mate, I thought excitedly. Someone who appreciated classic children’s stories as much as me. I mean, what are the odds? But just as I was about to comment on Arnold Lobel’s brand of kid lit genius, I adjusted my glasses and read the caption beneath the screen print. Reading makes me horny, it announced, which certainly expressed a very different vibe than one might expect from a picture of a Caldecott Honor Award–winning book cover. I guess the shirt was youth-size on purpose to allow her ample bosom to present itself to anyone with eyes. I suppose that’s in the vein of the old adage, If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Just not the look of a typical livery driver is all I’m saying. “I’m Cecily,” I offered, holding out my hand to shake hers.

“Nice to meet you,” she replied. “I’m Maggie. Hop on in and buckle up. I’ll put your things in the back.”

I climbed in and sat on a bench seat, veins pumping with adrenaline, despite the attempted sedation of an earlier dose of Dramamine coursing through my blood. Maggie’s driving was as unexpected as her bookish thirst trap of a T-shirt. She sped up and down rolling hills flanked with kelly-green grass, around curves, hugging the edges of shoulder-less windy roads and making my stomach do flip-flops. Flocks of bicycles hogged the single-lane road close to the public beaches, but as we drove farther away from the center of the island, the bikes were replaced by mopeds with solo riders and the occasional compact car. I tried extremely hard not to toss my cookies everywhere and realized that had it not been for the Dramamine, this ride might have taken a real turn for the worse.

Maggie, I learned, was quite the Chatty Cathy. She disclosed that she was an employee of the retreat center who lived on Block Island all year round, she was a transplant from the West Coast, and that she once drove Nelson DeMille to Matthias to do a guest lecture. “I tried to get him to meet up with me for drinks after,” she smirked, “because I could tell he liked what he saw, you know?”

I nodded politely as her lips formed a pout. “But he said some nonsense about being married.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “He couldn’t handle all this anyway.”

We almost settled into a quiet lull after that, but Maggie decided to appoint herself my unofficial tour guide, telling me about the Mohegan Bluffs, the Great Salt Pond, and Dead Eye Dick’s, all must-dos on her list. She recommended renting a bike to get around. “You don’t realize how far three miles is until you have to walk it round trip with a bag of groceries in tow,” she explained. “There’s no delivery here either.”

I made a mental note of that as I took in the briny salt air. The luscious view permeated my senses. We turned into New Beginnings and bounced up the cobblestone road leading to the main house.

“You’re one of the first ones here, I think,” she informed me. “Lunch won’t be served until one. But if you go right in those big doors, I’m sure you’ll find someone who can get you all checked in.”

“Thanks for the ride,” I said as she retrieved my bags from the back of the van.

“My pleasure,” she replied. “I’m hoping my next fare will be that hottie, Nate Ellis.”

Nate Ellis, as in the PEN Award winner who would become my teacher in a few hours. Noted, I thought. I guess literary groupies are a thing here.

Inside the main house, an older, brusque lady with wispy, thin bangs covering half of her line of sight scurried over to me with a clipboard. She introduced herself as Lucy (no last name or title) and gave me a name badge with a lanyard to wear around my neck all week, a packet of information, and a room key. She explained that there would be a whiteboard in the lobby of the North Wind building that would have all of the important information for each day’s activities. “Any questions you have,” she shared, “will likely be addressed on the whiteboard. The whiteboard is how we keep everyone organized.”

The Whiteboard,I repeated over and over in my head, as if it was its own character in the Matthias University MFA story. I arrived at my room—a tiny little bedroom on the second floor of the residence hall fit for a Polly Pocket if she were entering a serious nunnery phase. Bare walls surrounded two twin beds, each home to a single folded threadbare towel and accompanying washcloth. A small closet featured exactly two old wire hangers and nothing else, no extra blankets or towels or anything personifying the notion of a warm welcome. A random bathroom sink, replete with greenish-teal stains around the drain and a fluorescent pull-string light topping the mirror above it, looked very out of place tucked into the corner, but alas, I came here to learn, and if my first lesson was that a low-res MFA and a high-security prison were cut from the same cloth on the accommodations scale, well, consider me schooled.

I set about unpacking my wardrobe into the miniature chest of drawers, placing my toothbrush, face wash, and other toiletry items over on the shelf by the sink, and putting my Tbr stack of novels on the nightstand that lived between the twin beds. All of a sudden, the door handle jerked, and the plank of wood disguising itself as a privacy barrier flew open.

In walked a woman. Let me be clear: this was not a girl in her twenties or thirties; this person could easily have been my mother’s age. Possibly older. I’m not an ageist, though, so I perked up at the thought of this lost soul accidentally stumbling into my room and being offered not only directions to her own dormitory assignment but also a warm welcome from a potential new friend. Unfortunately, this particular woman had a rolling suitcase and a large yellow purse, cropped white hair, glasses, the pointiest canine tooth I’d ever seen on a human, and a chip. On. Her. Shoulder.

“Is this room two twelve?” she asked.

I nodded and gave her my best photo-day grin. “Sure is!” I said.

“Who are you then?” she demanded. A wily chin hair wriggled at me as she spoke, threatening my smile with its ferocity.

“I’m Cecily.” I reached onto the spare bed—the one I was using to house my luggage and my welcome folder—and showed her the page with my room assignment. “This is my room.” I pointed to the sheet of paper. 212, it read. “But I would be more than happy to help you find yours.”

“No need.”

I felt my smile fade as fear bubbled up in my belly to replace it. She sized me up and down with a death stare, as if she was considering her options with regard to how she might dispose of my body and make it look like an accident. “Looks like we’re sharing,” the obviously formerly incarcerated woman decided. “I requested a single,” she grumbled to herself.

We had torequest a single? They actually expected two people to fit in each of these tiny rooms?

I didn’t know how to properly respond, so I tried on a fresh smile and went the route of If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all, which somehow immediately made things worse.

“Perhaps you’d like to remove your items from my quarters,” Sergeant Snaggletooth declared.

“Um, sure,” I replied, quickly gathering up my things and dumping them onto what had now become my side of the room.

As my life was rapidly deteriorating into a bad episode of Orange Is the New Black, I tried to find the humor in the situation. Of course I should imagine that this older woman might be a seasoned writing pro who could guide and coach me as we become unlikely friends, like Matilda and Miss Honey in Roald Dahl’s classic of the same name. But instead she quickly morphed into an R. L. Stine–esque haggard creature of my nightmares. It’s okay, I told myself. All potential fodder for future stories I could write. Still, I’m the type of person who tries to see the rainbow beyond the thunderstorm, the glass as half-full, so I tried to engage her in more conversation.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“You can call me Gert.”

“Gert? That’s a nice name. Is it short for something? Gertrude?”

“No.” She glared at me. I saw that indeed, her name was Gurt, as per the thick piece of masking tape across the side of her hard-bodied suitcase that read GURT LAWRENCE.

“Is that how you spell it?” I asked, pointing to the tape.

“Do you always ask so many questions?” she snapped.

I’m sure it’s a sensitive thing when your parents inadvertently give you a name that results in you spending your entire childhood being called “Yogurt,” but I was not even conceived when she carried that weighty cross, and I had been nothing but nice to her thus far, so I did not appreciate being spoken to with such a sharp tone.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” I tried.

At this, Gurt coughed—not a dainty little let me clear my throat cough but more of a full rabid raccoon with a garbage hair ball cough.

I checked my watch, and seeing as how there were only twenty uncomfortable minutes with Gurt standing between me and my orientation lunch, and she was making it extremely clear that friendship of any sort was not in the cards for us, I decided to leave her to unpacking. Figured I could check out the makeshift “Matthias Bookstore” downstairs (which is essentially a hallway lined with books for sale that were written by faculty members) and maybe meet a person who wouldn’t have their sights set on killing me in my sleep. Donning my all-important name tag lanyard, I slid my room key into my pocket and bid my adieu to Gurt.

Now that it was early afternoon, students were beginning to arrive en masse, and the dormitory hallway was pulsating with energy. I tried to look casual as people walked by in groups of two and three as if they’d known each other forever. I passed a casual smile at some of them, but seeing as how my cheer tank was all spent on Gurt, I immediately felt foolish and decided no more of that would be necessary for right now. The “bookstore” was in such a narrow space that my presence in front of it created a physical barrier between incoming students and their room assignments, so I moved myself down the hall to a larger space in the lobby of the North Wind.

Ah, there it was. The Whiteboard.

It was the size of a small house and contained enough information that one could stand there for quite some time and never appear foolish. It listed the date at the top, exclaimed Welcome Students! and had a detailed account of the events for the remainder of the day. I breathed a deep sigh of relief as I could easily stand in front of it and be overwhelmed by its majesty, its neat handwriting in red Expo marker, its plethora of intel, and most importantly, its lack of judgment.

Thank you, beautiful Whiteboard,I thought, for spending these few peaceful moments with me.

My pleasure, Cecily,I imagined it responding in much the same voice as Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. Come, look at my many offerings. After your orientation lunch, there is some time to unpack and settle in. Then, at three p.m., there is a mixer for everyone on the lawn. At five p.m., dinner will be served. Tonight you may choose from a bounty of options, as it is Taco Night. I will list every ingredient selection here in this fun little corner, titled Fiesta! But wait, there’s more! After dinner, at seven p.m., you can attend a reading in the Spiritual Sanctuary, led by Professor Dillon Norway, director of the MFA, and after that, there will be an informal gathering in North Wind Room B.

Ka-chick.

I looked next to me and found an annoyingly good-looking man snapping a photo of the whiteboard with his cell phone. His facial hair was the first thing I noticed about him. It wasn’t a full beard, far from it. Just scruff, as if he opted not to shave for the last few days. Under the fluorescent lighting, it looked almost auburn. But his hair was brown. Or maybe chestnut. Hard to define in that weird light. I tried to place the color—sort of like hot cocoa with a cinnamon stick in it—when he asked me, “You good?”

“Um. Yeah,” I replied.

“You were staring,” he noted.

“Was I?” My face flushed, and I could feel my neck turning red and splotchy as if just speaking to another human person could result in a fresh case of contact dermatitis.

“You were.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Was I staring? I didn’t think so.

“I think you’re just supposed to take a picture and move on.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. My eyebrows knit together. The nerve of this one.

He pointed at the whiteboard. “It’s too much to remember. So you just take a picture and then you’ll have it with you on your phone.”

“Oh my God. You meant that I was staring at the board.”

He nodded.

“I thought you meant that I was staring—” I began. “Forget it.” My cheeks became engulfed in flames of self-inflicted arson.

“I’m Nate,” he said, shifting the messenger bag draped across his chest. I looked at his lanyard. Nate Ellis, it read.

“You’re Nate Ellis?” I asked. He looked nothing like his author photos, where he was clean shaven, hair parted neatly to the side, and wearing a shirt and tie. This guy did not resemble an award-winning supernova of the literati. He looked…hot-guy normal.

I cleared my throat and stood up a little taller, trying to compose myself. “Cecily Jane Allerton,” I said. “I’m in your workshop.”

He smiled and reached out his hand. I gripped it hard and gave him the firmest handshake possible. Here is a career author, Cecily. Big leagues. Act like you belong.

“Ow,” he said, pulling back reflexively. “You’ve got some grip.”

“Sorry.” I ran the offending fingers through my hair in a poor attempt to illustrate how soft and gentle they could be, or perhaps how skilled with a pen and words and such.

He shrugged, rubbing his hand on his thigh. “Anyway, nice to meet you. I’ll see you around.”

With that, Nate Ellis walked away. It was at this moment that I realized he was wearing a T-shirt and khaki cargo shorts, low white socks, and sneakers. Like a typical person my age who was going out on a Saturday for, I don’t know, groceries or something.

I looked down, considering my own outfit: a wrap dress and a chunky statement necklace paired with gladiator sandals. I looked classy, I decided. Very business casual. Appropriate. This is higher education, not Stop Shop, I told myself. I flipped my cell phone over in my hand and checked the time, then begrudgingly snapped a photo of my one friend so far, the Whiteboard, and left for the orientation lunch.

As I walked to the entrance of the dining hall, located on the side of the adjacent main house, I could smell burgers and hot dogs being grilled and saw smoke off in the distance. There were two lunches, separate and distinct from one another, for this day. The outdoor offering, overlooking the beautiful blue-gray Atlantic, was being prepared around back and was for faculty and returning students to partake in. My lunch—the indoor one—was for the incoming class. Professor Dillon Norway, the fine gentleman who wrote about my submission with such generous praise, would be in attendance, along with eight other new students, plus me.

The room itself was set up with round tables, each seating ten people, with a buffet-style line running through the center of the room. Sandwiches, several salads, and a soup tureen labeled tomato basil were all displayed down the buffet in a sightly exhibit of culinary art. The tables were dressed in burgundy cloths, a fine match for the cedar-planked walls of the room. Sconces lit up the space and made it feel like a New England tavern on a brisk autumn day. Truly, it was lovely, a stark contrast to the holding cell I was sharing with Gurt.

I positioned myself at the one table set with cutlery, facing the door so that I could see people as they entered the space. Students trickled in. The first one was a girl younger than me, probably fresh out of undergrad. She wore short shorts, high-top Chuck Taylors, and a T-shirt with a picture of Harry Styles on the front. She gave me an awkward half smile and sat down several seats away from me. “This is the orientation thing, right?” she asked.

I pushed my glasses up on the bridge of my nose and nodded. “I’m Cecily. What’s your name?”

“Ashlyn,” she said, taking out her phone and swiping at it.

“Pretty name,” I replied. When she didn’t respond, I didn’t want to repeat myself and seem weird. Instead, I figured I’d speak a little louder to make sure she could hear me. “So you a big 1D fan?” I asked at a significantly elevated decibel.

She startled. Too loud, I noted. My bad.

“1D hasn’t been a thing since 2015,” Ashlyn said, setting her eyes back on her cell phone screen and keeping them there.

“Right.” I laughed awkwardly as another girl about Ashlyn’s age entered and sat down right next to her.

“Orientation?” the new girl asked.

“Yeah,” Ashlyn said. “I’m Ashlyn.”

“Kelsey,” the girl replied. “Cool tat.” Kelsey looked at Ashlyn’s wrist.

“Aw, thanks. I just had it done, like, a month ago.”

“Oh yeah? Let me see,” I said, trying to remain involved in the conversation.

Ashlyn rolled her eyes and reluctantly showed me her wrist. On it, there were four small black birds flying in no particular formation. “That’s wicked dope,” I followed up in an attempt not to seem like an old lady who still equated Harry Styles with One Direction.

Evidently, wicked dope is not trending, because the girls just sneered at me. A third girl came in and sat beside them, and the three began chattering away about where they were from and some show that’s all the rage on MTV.

“Is that like the Jersey Shore?” I asked, feigning interest.

Again, they snickered, but neither Ashlyn nor Kelsey even bothered to answer the question. The newest of the three, who introduced herself as Trix (Like the cereal? I wondered), just said, “Jersey Shore? I don’t know. I think my parents used to watch that show.”

“Yeah, for sure. Mine too,” I replied, faking a laugh, even though my parents only watch Jeopardy and Law and Order: SVU.

I’m twenty-nine years old. I’m not a dinosaur, but I began to feel like these girls were working hard to make me feel like one, so I kept quiet as the remaining members of our cohort trickled in. I was confident I would be among the older students in the group but was surprised to learn that more than half (count: five) of the students in my cohort were entering straight out of undergrad. The Gen Z trio began giggling with each other as they discovered their shared love of Post Malone over pasta salad and turkey clubs. One young man had AirPods in throughout the entire meal, signaling (at least to me) that he would prefer not to speak at all, and the other younger man spoke in short, one-word answers. In addition to those five, there was an older man with a handlebar mustache, like the kind you might see at a three-ring circus in the 1940s. Sandwich crumbs crept into his pubic upper lip and nested there, and I tried not to look so as not to upset my (sometimes sensitive) gag reflexes. The last two people at the table were a real feast for the eyes: a set of middle-aged women, possibly about fifty years old, who were identical twins. All the way down to their outfits, like schoolchildren. They wore matching purple sleeveless mock turtlenecks and knee-length denim skirts. Their synchronized hairstyles were coiffed in tufted layers, like a halo of dirty-blond feathers reaching up toward the sky on top, out to the east and west on the sides, and limply falling in the back, just grazing their shoulders, with enough Aqua Net holding it all in place to power a small blowtorch for days. And their makeup. All I can say is turquoise eye shadow.

Cat and Pat.

Yes, I am serious.

Needless to say, it took a laborious amount of conscious effort not to stare.

That woman from before (Lucy, I remembered) was at the table as well, seated alongside the one and only Dillon Norway. The MFA gatekeeper. The admission decider. He personally chose these individuals to be in this program along with me, so who was I to judge their makeup or their choice of facial hair? Artists come in all shapes and sizes, I reminded myself. Dillon Norway himself was about five feet, eight inches tall, with thick, gray, wavy hair and wire-rimmed glasses thoughtfully perched along the bridge of his long nose. He wore a hunter-green polo shirt tucked into tan pants with a classic leather belt and brown shoes. He could have been a walking advertisement for Banana Republic if he was about thirty years younger and Banana Republic was still a thing. (Is it? I have no idea.)

He gently tapped the end of his soupspoon on the side of his water glass, quieting the small group of diners. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Hi, there,” he said, immediately channeling his inner Mr. Rogers. He should have been wearing a cardigan, removing his shoes while “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” played in the background. “I’m delighted to welcome you to Matthias University’s MFA program, and thank you for joining us at this little introductory lunch.”

Simultaneous nods permeated the space, along with polite half smiles.

“I’m Dillon Norway, and I’m happy to see each of you. Hope you all had safe travels to the island and have had a chance to settle in a bit.”

More head bobs.

“My role here is technically MFA director, but I really prefer to think of myself as the conductor of a symphony. You all represent the instruments, and with the help of my colleagues, our goal is to turn your work into beautiful music.”

Ah. Such a gorgeous metaphor. I love you already, Dillon Norway, I thought.

He gestured at Lucy, who was seated to his right. “I’m happy to introduce Lucy Jones, my assistant. She’s responsible for all the meticulous items in your welcome packets, the surveys, the room assignments, basically everything that makes our world go round here on the island. She’s your point person for questions about anything in the weeds, anything specific.”

The woman beside him, who was collating and clipping stacks of paper (instead of eating lunch), raised up a hand as if in solidarity but failed to give any further introduction.

“I’m good for your global issues,” Dillon Norway continued. “I’ll help assign you to a mentor who you’ll work with for the semester. I’m here if you feel yourself gravitating toward a specific concentration, like poetry, perhaps to your own surprise or even chagrin,” he chuckled. “I keep office hours, which are on your schedule, and so does Lucy, so you can check your folder to know where and when to find us should you need to.” He paused to take a sip of water. “Now, I’m not great at this part, but we should really all take a turn to properly introduce ourselves. Maybe just share your name, where you come from, what you do there, and a goal or two that you have for the program. Who would like to start us off?”

Sudden, deafening silence swept the room. Not wanting to disappoint Dillon Norway, the only breathing soul in this entire program with whom I felt a kinship, I raised my hand.

“Sure. You.” He pointed at me and offered a friendly nod, then sat down and took a spoonful of tomato soup.

I stood up and smoothed out my dress.

“Oh, you don’t have to stand,” he said. “I mean, you can if you want to, but this is, like, informal.”

Heart pounding, I sat back down. “Sorry,” I began. “I’m Cecily Jane Allerton. I write fiction, and I’m a children’s librarian in Queens, New York, which is where I’m from. This is my second master’s degree. The first is in library sciences. I’d say my goal here is pretty simple. I want to become an agented, published author of commercial novels with strong heroines.” I smiled my best just passed my road test driver’s-license smile and added, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here.”

I thought I heard a sidebar comment at the table, but I ignored it. Dillon Norway thanked me, and Mustache Man went next. The salutations continued until everyone had a turn. Despite my determined efforts to be nonjudgmental, I unfortunately did not leave that particular exercise feeling the potential for kinship with any of my cohort members. None of the rest of them shared goals that seemed like goals to me. Mustache Man said his goal was to “harness his inner power,” and one of the Post Malone fangirls said she wanted to “just, um, figure out my life.” I had to physically restrain myself from shaking my head. And I have to be honest—it made me wonder a little about Dillon Norway’s sense of good reasoning as a gatekeeper, but that sounded rude, even locked up in my own brain, so I admonished myself by pinching my thigh and continued smiling courteously at the group. After everyone had a turn, Lucy took over the meeting. She gave us the rundown on what to expect for the next nine days, explained the importance of the whiteboard, and shared how to submit surveys at the conclusion of each seminar, disseminating a packet of them to each of us.

The rest of the day continued as per the schedule. There was far more free time than I was comfortable with, so I grabbed one of the new YA novels I’d brought along and made my way down to a quiet bench overlooking the water until the 3:00 p.m. mixer, which I could easily have done without. I decided to stay on that bench (a safe haven, seeing as how my bedroom had been invaded by Gurt) until the very last minute when the mixer began, and as a result, I arrived with my book in tow. My paperback became its own sort of icebreaker.

“Pep Rally Pretender?” an older man asked. “What’s that about?”

“Oh! It’s a story about a dead girl whose ghost disguises itself as a high school student and becomes really popular. It’s super interesting.”

He stroked his beard while I spoke—a fully-grown-in-mountain-man situation, mind you—and then replied, “That sounds like a children’s story.”

“Well, it is. I mean, it’s YA, actually. It’s trending on TikTok though, so…”

“I’m reading Perimeter Spaces by Ulto Blankin. It’s an allegory about the machination of our borders by the man.”

I coughed. The fuck? “That’s nice,” I said. “Did you say the author’s name was Ulta? Like the cosmetics store?”

Scruffleupagus dug his fingers deep into his beard and gave a hearty tug. What is it with men and their chin hair? I wondered. “No,” he said. “I’m not familiar with that store.”

I nodded. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m just going to go grab another drink.”

Another dude, this one a giant at easily six feet five inches, completely bald (a welcome change), and thin as a rail, opened with a similar line. “Whatcha got there?” he said in an unexpectedly thick Irish brogue.

I had to stop myself from laughing because my immediate thought was, You’ll never get your hands on me Lucky Charms! Instead, I remained silent in an attempt to keep my face from exploding and simply held up my book so he could see its cover. “Ah, Pep Rally Pretender then. Is that the one where the woman goes on a journey of self-discovery after a divorce?”

At this, I couldn’t help but giggle. “I think you’re thinking of Eat, Pray, Love.”

I think I embarrassed him though, because he side-shuffled his way into a conversation with a person to my left almost immediately after I laughed at him.

My bad.

From what I’ve heard, most writers aren’t natural extroverts, and I’m no exception. So the fact that this wasn’t going well for me was kind of to be expected. Dillon Norway was in a circle with several very comfortable-looking people, so I thought perhaps it would be wise to veer in that general direction. Only I had no idea how to insert myself into their conversation (read: mingle), so I sort of maneuvered my way next to them, pretending to study the back cover of my book while technically just eavesdropping on the conversations around me.

Norway was listening to another faculty member discuss a recent stint at Yaddo as a few others looked on in awe. Only when I heard a lady behind me comment under her breath, “I guess they’re just accepting anyone at Yaddo these days,” did I realize the speaker in Dillon Norway’s group was that Nate Ellis guy again. I turned around to check out the hater and glimpsed her name tag: ALICE DEVEREAUX, FACULTY. She was maybe a hundred years old (fine, seventy) and was sharing this particular opinion with another similarly bouffanted fossil in orthopedic shoes whose name tag I couldn’t see and Lucy, who surprised me by nodding in agreement. That struck me as being off-brand for her. One would think that a prerequisite skill of the assistant to the director of this program would be the capacity for professionalism and the ability to keep her opinions to herself. I made a mental note of the observation and filed it away into my cranial Haters Gonna Hate folder.

Did Nate Ellis deserve such a scathing sidebar commentary?I didn’t know, seeing as how our only interaction up until that point had been a brief moment of confusion at the whiteboard.

But now, in his workshop, while these three demon writers try to terrorize me, I suspect that yes, perhaps he is just another highbrow literary snob, and perhaps Alice Devereaux and her centenarian cronies would like to partake in a Mike’s Hard Lemonade with me later on this evening.

I shall ask,I decide, as Trite Tim continues to wax academic about all the things that are wrong with my submission.

It’s as I am daydreaming about my imminent future befriending Alice Devereaux’s mah-jongg group that I am interrupted by Professor PEN Award himself. “Cecily? Do you have any questions for the group?”

I shake my head no. Of course, I am awash with questions, from How dare you all? to What the actual fuck? but for now, it just seems wiser to let sleeping dogs lie, as they say.

“Are you sure?” he prods. “Earlier, you wanted to say something.”

I nod primly. “I’m sure.”

He emits what might be a sigh, but it’s clipped, so I can’t be sure. “Well, everyone, please make sure you submit your responses to Cecily so she can review them. Also, it’s required that your signature be on your critique letter. Okay, guys. Let’s take a ten-minute break, and then we’ll dive into a lecture on setting. Go ahead and grab some coffee or a snack, and I’ll catch you back here in ten.”

Three loose pieces of paper slide my way from the offending parties in my group, letters that will undoubtedly not make my “instrument sing,” or whatever Dillon Norway’s exquisite metaphor was. I place them in a pocket folder that I’ve strategically hole-punched and added to the back of my binder for handouts and such as my colleagues stand, stretch, and leave the West Room in the annex, where we are gathered.

Before I can escape to the restroom, Nate Ellis hands me a letter. His, I’m guessing. He looks around before speaking and lowers his voice when he does.

“I’m sorry, Cecily. That wasn’t supposed to go down quite the way it did. Are you okay?”

This, I think. This whatever-this-is pretending to be kindness. This will be my undoing. Tears well up in my eyes. Stop it, stop it! Don’t even think about getting upset in front of this man. I gulp, eyes fixated on my binder in all its organized glory. A drop splashes against a divider tab, but I ignore it. Instead, I nod silently, swallowing my humiliation in much the same way that I have learned to swallow my optimism and hopefulness over the past thirty-six hours.

“You sure?”

I nod again, harder this time, willing him to leave.

When he does, I exhale and cautiously look up. I’m alone. I can breathe. You’re fine. You’ve got this, I tell myself. I put away Professor PEN Award’s letter of defamation in my pocket folder without allowing myself to read any of its words. Then I duck into the ladies’ room and dab at my tears. I check myself in the mirror.

Okay, so it’s not exactly what you thought it would be. But it’s a learning experience.

Youwill become a published author.

The girl in the mirror doesn’t look so sure.

You. Can. Do. This,I tell her.