A Storybook Wedding

Chapter 2 Nate

They say, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

Well, whoever wrote that dumbass quote clearly never taught in an MFA program.

First of all, these people. What is it about adult students? They’re all either trying way too hard or have given up trying altogether. Absolutely zero middle ground.

They’re nasty to each other too. Grown-ass people who’ve completely lost their manners.

I mean, you had to be in there to see it. They just ripped this poor girl to shreds. Her work was decent too. Not my speed, but her piece was written for teenagers, so I’m not the intended audience. I’ll tell you this: it was a fuck ton better than that “Lotus Blossom Soup” nonsense that other one wrote.

They made her cry.

Then me? I just sort of panicked and left her there. I didn’t want to embarrass her. Figured I would give her some space.

I chose her piece to go first because I thought it would cause the least amount of drama. I know we’re not supposed to quantifiably judge art, but between us, it was the best submission of the four. By a lot. Yes, she’s obviously writing commercial genre stuff, but so what? Good, effective storytelling isn’t only bound to literary fiction. I thought Cecily was digging into a story with tons of potential. And it just so happened her last name starts with A, so I was able to make like it was an alphabetical order thing.

Get it together, dude. She’s a grown-up. She’ll be fine.

I splash some water on my face and grab a paper towel to dry myself off.

This was supposed to be my easy distraction. Not another heavy lift. I’ll tell you what though. When I interviewed for the job, Dillon didn’t mention anything about students crying in workshop on the first day. Or about the fact that I would have to keep a straight face around the absolutely ludicrous dress code in the room. No one said anything about grown men wearing cloaks to class as if we were all going to some Dungeons and Dragons convention instead of sitting at a table talking about writing.

I check the time. Gotta keep it moving. I take a breath and head back into the room. With a flip chart and my notes, I manage to get through my lecture pretty smoothly. Cecily acts fine, like nothing ever happened, God bless her. I teach them how to draw a map of their scene, and she draws the cafeteria where her conflict is set. It’s good. They all stay engaged, minus a couple of asinine comments from Tim and a solitary eye roll from Andrea. I give them a standard read-and-respond assignment for homework, and then we disperse, and I head to the dining room to grab something for lunch. It’s a sad attempt at pizza—small, round thin-crust concoctions of sauce and cheese on what feels like a burned-up burrito skin. Worlds apart from Ray’s on Columbus and West 82nd, but hey, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

At least I don’t have to give my seminar today. That’s tomorrow’s albatross. It weighs heavy though, burrowing under my skin all through lunch and through the seminars of my colleagues, which I attend in the afternoon because that is the expectation. I try to remain focused, but my brain is like scrambled eggs. This happens now, whenever I feel pressure, and I can’t figure out how to make it stop.

You’d think all this salt air would help. The open space and isolation. I tried that at Yaddo too though, to no avail.

What’s Yaddo, you ask? Sorry. I just assume everyone knows. Yaddo is an artists’ retreat house in upstate New York. It’s beautiful and peaceful and pretty exclusive. Big application process to get in, and if you do get accepted, they sponsor the cost of you being there.

I thought going there for four weeks would help me write my second book.

I was wrong then, so it’s no surprise that I should be wrong now—assuming that being here to dance around other people’s writing like some kind of great literary shepherd would be of any real use to me. Nope, instead, I’m just the moderator who made the overprepared student with the giant binder cry on day one.

Jesus.

I know what you’re thinking. He’s a has-been. A one-hit wonder. Well, who knows? You might be right. My debut novel, Work, came out of my own personal Tuesdays with Morrie kind of situation. My grandfather was in an assisted-living facility in Midtown, overlooking the East River. He had been diagnosed with dementia so my parents set him up there, only they live in Florida and couldn’t visit him often, so I went to see him twice a week, every week, for almost a year. He was a lifelong employee of the New York State Department of Labor in his former life, and as he started to deteriorate, I recorded our conversations. He talked about the declining state of work in our country, and I wove some of his ramblings into a story. Before I knew it, I was writing a full-length novel, my first ever. He passed away, and I finished the novel as an homage to him.

It only took me three months.

I queried ten agents. Got seven full requests. Four offers of rep. They all said the same thing. Genre-bending. A story that lives at the crossroads where speculative and literary fiction meet. I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. I just wrote a story about a man living in New York City who works for the State Department of Labor when a pandemic shuts down the country.

In 2018.

My agent sold the book for a decent advance to a Big Five house in the first round of submissions. No huge hoopla or anything. They thought it was an interesting premise. High concept, they said.

It released the first week of January 2020.

Who fucking knew, right?

Peoplemagazine called me the “Literary Nostradamus,” a nickname that took off with the same speed as the toilet paper flying off the shelves at Costco.

You can imagine what happened next. The rights all sold—and fast—as the world basically crumbled around us. My editor suggested we submit the book for a PEN America Award. It won. I quit my day job as a copy editor for Men’s Health. I had money coming in. Surprising amounts of money.

Game-changing money.

And so, fast forward. My publisher wants to continue riding the “Nate Ellis wave of predictions,” my agent is excited about another big fat paycheck, and like an idiot, I’m like, “Sure. I’ll write another book.”

As if it’s just that easy. No pressure, right? The whole world is watching. They all want to hear what you have to say, Nate.

My agent sells the new book, an untitled void of emptiness with exactly zero pages written, to my publisher for a lot of money.

They set up a schedule for me.

I try to write. I really do. I start a few different stories, but I can’t quite figure out what I even want to write. I figure that I’ll practice by composing short stories in an attempt to test the waters in a few different genres. I write a thriller-esque thing that’s basically unreadable, a nonfiction essay about my time as a copy editor (boring as hell), and finally, a sci-fi story about humankind struggling to survive after global warming all but destroys our planet. This one, I think, has chops, but it’s in a different wheelhouse than the first book, so I submit it to a variety of magazines under a pseudonym to see if it garners the same kind of excitement.

It gets no takers.

The New Yorkerand the Atlantic don’t even bother to respond. The Kenyon Review says thanks but no thanks, and McSweeney’s says it’s not for them. Harper’s and Zoetrope offer comments in response, but they’re all negative. One even goes so far as to suggest several titles of books I should read to improve my craft. I’m tempted to write back, I’m Nate Ellis, goddammit! but all that would do is make me feel even more like an idiot. Everything just feels, I don’t know, wrong. Like, who the hell am I? I had one story, and it wasn’t even really mine. I ask my agent for help, but I’m dismissed. “You’re the creative genius,” I’m told. “Just breathe, and let it flow.”

I try. I even sign up for a yoga class, once I realize that “just breathing” is evidently something I am not very good at.

Eventually, the first deadline comes. I request an extension. Granted.

Then, in what seems like the blink of an eye, the next deadline approaches. I explain that I just need a few more months. “I applied to Yaddo and got accepted,” I tell my editor. “That’ll help.”

“Sure, Nate, but we should really get a move on. Strike while the iron’s still hot and all that.”

The iron is in the back of the damn freezer as far as I’m concerned.

I get back from Yaddo. I’m working on something now, but I hate it. There’s no passion there. It’s just words on a screen. Like fifty thousand of them, but it’s shapeless. Makes no sense. I could care less about the protagonist. It’s going nowhere.

Another deadline creeps up. “This is the last time, I promise,” I tell my editor.

“It has to be,” he says. “They’re pushing back at me from the top. I’ve done everything I can to stave them off, dude.”

“I get it,” I say. “I just got a job working at an MFA program. It’s exactly what I need to cross the finish line. I’ve got to be around other writers.”

“Whatever you need to do, Nate. Just get it done.”

Now, here we are. Tomorrow afternoon, I’m leading a seminar about character development, and holy hell, the impostor syndrome is eating me alive from the inside out. Today, I let a bunch of adult bullies make a student cry. I’ve written about twelve words since I got here yesterday, and now I have to go to lobster night, which should be great but is actually just a social experiment where just shy of a hundred people don plastic bibs and rip apart sea creatures that look like giant red cockroaches in some display of—I don’t know—New England opulence? Everyone keeps staring at me like I’m some kind of celebrity, which did not happen at Yaddo, and I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone except for Dillon Norway, the guy who hired me and who is actually really chill but is busy, you know, leading the whole residency, so it’s not like he’s available to just hang out and talk shop with me until I get inspired. The other faculty members look at me like I’m some sort of science experiment they’re trying to figure out, except this one old lady who glared at me as if I stabbed her cat with a screwdriver when Dillon introduced me. Ann? Agnes?

Alice.With a French last name beginning with D—Deville, perhaps, like Cruella. C’est une chienne, in my humble opinion. And I’m half Canadian, so I’m allowed to say that.

Just calm down, man,I tell myself. Bitching about eating lobster. You’ve got some real first-world problems, huh?

So I do. I take a breath. I sit at a picnic table. I put on the white bib. The lady with the too-tight-T-shirt who drove me here in the school van serves me a lobster. I smile, because I’m polite. The faculty and students around me chitchat about something or other. Then I crack the stupid red shell open, dip the meat in some hot butter, and eat it.

Never for a second thinking that I’m about to look death in the face.

When I wake up, I’m in a hospital bed, in some sort of—I don’t know—hallway, maybe? There’s an IV in my arm. And I’m definitely hallucinating, because I look to my left and see the girl from my workshop—Cecily—on the opposite side of the hallway, dry heaving into a bucket in a bed just like mine.

I mumble something incoherent.

She looks over at me, appearing oddly reminiscent of an owl. All I see is a pair of blue glasses over big brown eyes, the rest of her face covered by the rim of the oversize orange Home Depot bucket. White stenciled block words on the side of the bucket read, You can do it. We can help.

I’m in the fucking twilight zone. This is one hundred percent not real.

Except when she stops retching, she says, “Huh?”

I try to move, but my middle cramps up and sends a sharp wave of nausea over my body. “Oh, shit,” I say. At least I think those are the words that come out of my mouth. The pain is blinding.

“You okay?” she asks weakly.

My eyes are squeezed shut, and I am rendered mute, afraid that if I open my mouth again, I’m going to puke all over the place. I shake my head no. Definitely no. I am not okay. I am the opposite of okay.

I hear her shift in the loud-as-fuck bed she’s in, and there’s some kind of sound, like a buzz or something. Within seconds, I can sense a third person in our general vicinity.

“You rang?” an unfamiliar female voice says.

“For him,” Cecily replies. Her voice sounds hoarse.

“Ah, he’s awake. Well, good morning, Mr. Ellis,” the voice croons. Yes, croons, like as if she is trying to sing me a lullaby. “And how are we feeling?”

I try to open my eyes, but my intestines are waging full war with my colon, and something is about to happen that I most definitely cannot watch. My body lurches forward involuntarily, and then, there it is. An overwhelming amount of vomit comes out of me, caught miraculously by the unnamed lady who I cannot look at. A hand appears on my back, making gentle circles that do nothing to soothe me as the contents of my entire gastrointestinal system unleash themselves into—I peek—another orange Home Depot bucket.

Are we at the Home Depot right now?I wonder.

Once a few waves of sickness pass over me, I somehow feel momentarily a little better, and I push the bucket away, unable to view its contents. I have a real thing about puke. Not a fan. I’m one of those if I see you vomit, then I’m going to vomit people. So you can imagine the gravity of a moment like this—where I’m not only sick but sick in mixed company, in front of a student, of all people. And in public. Like, are there no rooms here in this long-ass hallway?

The hand moves from my back to the front pocket of her nurse-uniform shirt, where it procures a pocket pack of tissues, which the lady (who looks a lot like my aunt Rose: tall and skinny with pockmarked skin, a winning combination if there ever was one) hands to me. “That’s it, Mr. Ellis. Get it all out,” she encourages me. “You all done for now?”

I nod, and the small movement sends a fresh wave of nausea over me. “Where are we?”

Aunt Rose’s doppelganger smiles. “You’re at the Block Island Medical Center.”

“A hospital?”

She shakes her head. “No, my friend. This is actually a very modest primary care facility, but with the absence of a hospital on the island, we also offer urgent care as needed.”

I look at Cecily. “What happened?”

Aunt Rose goes on. “It appears that you and quite a few others from your program suffered from paralytic shellfish poisoning. Happens every now and again in this area, unfortunately.”

“What is that?” I ask.

“It’s caused by a marine biotoxin. Essentially, you ate a lobster that ate some toxic microscopic algae. But don’t worry, Mr. Ellis. You’ll be okay. You were brought here for monitoring because you passed out.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It appears you may have had a panic attack. We gave you some Klonopin, and now that you’re awake, I’m happy to give you some anti-nausea medication.”

“Please,” I say weakly.

“Sure thing,” she agrees. “Be right back.”

“Wait,” I manage. “Can I be moved into, like, a room? Please?”

“I’m sorry, but we only have three private rooms, and they’re all at capacity. You were asleep, so we placed you out here in the hallway instead,” Aunt Rose explains. “We’re not really set up for this many visitors, you understand.” She smiles, and I cannot discern whether it’s intended to be sweet or condescending. “Several others in your program ate the bad lobster as well. In fact, had there been any additional, we would have had to airlift some of you back to the mainland.”

Still, three rooms? For an entire island of people?I wonder. Really?

“What about her?” I ask, gesturing in the general direction of Cecily.

“She was willing to stay out here as well,” I am told. “And thank you again, dear, for being so accommodating.” Aunt Rose pats Cecily on the hand before turning back to face me. “Now, let me go grab those meds for you before you get hit with another wave of nausea.” She winks at me, as if we are both in on a little secret.

I look across the hall at Cecily, who has pushed her bucket to the far edge of her bed. Her knees are bent, and her forehead rests on them. Her eyes are closed; her glasses press into the thin skin of her kneecaps, leaving a mark. There’s no room in our shared area to pretend like she’s not there, but I swear, if she starts crying again, I won’t know what to do with myself, and the position she’s in certainly feels reminiscent of one a person might choose when they’re about to begin sobbing.

Try a little small talk,I decide. I clear my throat. “Bad day, huh?”

She turns her head sideways, still resting on her knees, and pushes her glasses up on the bridge of her nose with her pointer finger. I must be drugged, I think, because that little thing she just did there was surprisingly really cute.

“This wasn’t in the brochure,” she says. It strikes me as funny, but when I chuckle, my stomach squeezes so hard I feel like I might black out from the pressure.

I wince, and she gives me a sympathetic half smile.

The nurse who looks like Aunt Rose returns and adds something to my IV—the anti-nausea meds, God willing. We sit quietly after she leaves, and yes, by some saving grace, I manage to start feeling a little less disgusting.

“Did they give you this stuff too?” I ask, gesturing at the IV.

She nods gently. “A while ago. You were asleep.”

“Then how come you were still getting sick?”

She shrugs. “Aftershocks, I guess. I feel better than before, by a lot. Just exhausted.”

“What time is it? Any idea?”

Cecily is wearing a watch—an actual analog silver bracelet thing that ticks. She checks it. “Almost midnight,” she says.

“Damn it,” I mutter.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I reply. “It’s just—I’ve got this presentation tomorrow.”

“I know. Character development. Three o’clock in the North Wind building.”

“And we have workshop.”

She groans and buries her face back in her knees. “Don’t remind me.”

I swallow back a burp. “Did you read my feedback letter?”

“No,” she admits. “I was giving myself some space for the dust to settle, but then I ate deadly microscopic algae and, well, you know the rest.”

Surprised by her snarky response, I shake my head and almost grin.

“Please don’t rehash it though. I’m still in a pretty fragile state, and I have to be honest, just the thought of your workshop is already doing things to my stomach that I’m trying to consciously ignore. I don’t think I can handle your verbal venom at this particular moment.” Her glasses make her look like she’s a terrified woodland creature, some small animal with big, curious, wounded eyes.

I’m struck by it, rendered unable to return the conversation volley.

“I’m sorry,” Cecily continues. “I’m not a rude person, and that sounded rude.” She sighs. “I just wasn’t expecting this all to suck so bad.”

My brow furrows.

“Ugh. Now I sound like I’m complaining.” She shoots me a glance. “I’m just going to stop talking. Hope you feel better.” She sets her bucket on the ground between us, puts her knees down, and lies back onto the standard-issue flat pillow at the head of her hospital bed. Then she rolls to the left so that when I look over at her, I’m faced with the entire length of her back.

One would expect that I’d feel relieved at the break in conversation, but I’m bothered by it. I get that she’s not a big fan of me or my workshop. Fine, that’s fair. But we can’t be stuck in this remarkably small hallway area mimicking an urgent care facility and not speak to each other. That’s just awkward. And it’ll only get worse when I inevitably need to use this bucket again.

“I won’t force you to talk to me, Cecily. But I think you should know that your writing has a lot of potential.”

“Huh?” she asks, still facing the wall.

“That’s what I said in my letter.”

Nothing.

“I believe I wrote that even if it wasn’t a workshop piece, I would be happy to read on and see where you take the story and how you connect the dots.”

“Really?” She stays put, but single-word answers are better than nothing.

“You juggled all the pieces well without dropping the topic,” I continue. Please turn around.

“I thought you said it was shallow,” she replies. I strain to decipher the words because she says them not to me but to the wall.

“I said you could have done more to develop the theme. Have you read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas?”

“Of course.” Her knees bend in again, up toward her chest.

“You know how, in the book, Starr struggles to find her voice? How the whole book is like an internal dichotomy?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you need more of that.”

She swings her knees in a rainbow, up toward the ceiling and back to face me. “The Hate U Give is a masterpiece though. It’s a powerful statement about our society. It’s literally about life or death.”

“That’s true. But you see your reaction to it?”

“What? You mean, right now?”

“Yes. Right now. You need to bring that kind of intentionality to your own work. That kind of urgency.”

“I am not Angie Thomas,” she says.

“No, you’re not. But you’re Cecily Joan Allerton, and if you don’t believe that your characters are the most important thing in the world, then nobody will.”

“It’s Jane.”

“What?”

“Cecily Jane Allerton.”

“Oh. My bad. How about if I just call you CJ?”

“I would prefer if you called me Cecily.”

“Too late. It’s already done. You’re CJ now.”

She knits her eyebrows together. “You’re maddening,” she mutters.

“Fight me on it then,” I say.

“I have no energy for that. I’ve been puking for the past five hours, thank you very much.”

“Fine. You get a pass for illness. A proverbial doctor’s note, if you will. But you’re missing my point.”

“Which is?”

“You need to live so deeply inside your character’s head that you share her spirit. You feel her passion. If she’s hurt, you’re hurt, and it spills out onto the page like an overflowing bathtub. Go deep. Like, so deep that you can’t even find your way back out again. That’s where the best writing lives.”

She cocks her head quizzically but stays silent. The uncomfortable beat lasts a moment too long.

“What?” I ask. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Is that what you did?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you won a PEN Award for your novel. So I’m asking if that’s what you did when you wrote it.”

“I guess, yeah.”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How did you do it?” she wonders aloud.

I take a deep breath. “The story was inspired by my grandfather. He had just died when I really took up the task of writing it. I don’t know, I felt some sort of way about that and wanted to pay tribute to him.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “For your loss.”

“It was a long time ago,” I reply. “But thank you.”

She nods quietly.

“But that had nothing to do with the award I got,” I add.

“Hm?”

“That part was really just luck.”

“What? That’s insane. How can you say that?”

“It was all timing. The stars aligned.”

She squints at me as if I just shone a flashlight in her eyes.

“You didn’t hear about the nickname they gave me?”

“Literary Nostradamus?” she asks. “I heard it. Certainly beats CJ.”

I smile. “I think CJ’s a perfectly acceptable moniker.”

“Focus up, Professor PEN Award,” she says. “Finish your thought.”

“Now that’s a nickname,” I say.

“I can be surprisingly clever,” she retorts. “But I’m honestly trying to understand the point you’re trying to make. So”—she waves her hand—“on with it, please.”

I nod. “My book released the same week as the coronavirus made its first appearance in Washington. Do you remember that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And it was about a guy who worked for the Department of Labor who watched the state of work in America unravel as a result of a pandemic. Early reviews were like, It’s an interesting social commentary, but then it all started to come true. It brought the notion of ‘Life imitates art’ to a whole new level.”

“So you think if there hadn’t been a pandemic at that moment that you wouldn’t be famous?”

“Exactly,” I say. “And I’m not famous. In fact, I’m weeks away from being dropped by my editor.”

“Excuse my language, but I call bullshit—to all of that,” she says.

“I mean it. I can’t get it together to write my second novel.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I’ve pushed back the deadline a bunch of times.”

“Why?”

“Because lightning doesn’t strike twice. Nothing I write will be able to compare with the first book, and that had nothing to do with me. It was all a huge coincidence.”

“You really think that?”

“100%.”

“But you won a PEN Award.”

“So what?”

“You’re a big deal.” She blinks those giant night-bird eyes at me.

“Listen, CJ. I’m just a regular guy. You know I don’t even have an MFA, right?”

“Seriously?”

“I was a copy editor before the book took off. I’ve got a bachelor’s in English and a subscription to Grammarly. That’s about it,” I admit. “In fact, our workshop? It’s the first fiction workshop I’ve ever been in.”

“How is that possible?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It just is?”

“They hired you for star power?” she asks.

“I guess. I don’t know. I just took the job so that I could be around other writers. I thought that would help me get my flow going.”

“And has it?”

I shake my head. “Nope. So far, all I’ve gotten is food poisoning.”

She exhales. “Wow.”

“My point is I’m sorry about the workshop. But don’t let those other guys get you down. It’s easy to be critical of other people when you’re feeling insecure about your own stuff. Takes the spotlight off you.”

“I suppose.”

“And listen, I may have just confessed to you that I’m not the best writer, but I’m a damn good reader, and as a reader, I’m here to tell you that your work is solid.”

She nods.

“I mean it. You’ve got tremendous potential, CJ.” I shift in my bed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you want this?”

She scrunches up her nose. “An MFA, you mean?”

I shake my head. “No. A degree’s a degree. I’m talking about the big picture. Why do you want to be a writer?”

“Hm.” The faintest hint of a smile turns the corners of her mouth up, and she looks off into the distance, awash in some kind of memory. “Well,” she begins. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve found myself in books. I don’t know if that sounds weird, but it’s true. I set the house on fire when I was in the second grade—”

“Wait. What?” I interrupt.

“It’s a funny story—well, kind of,” she chuckles. “I was little, and I wanted to light a scented candle that sat on our kitchen counter, so I took a box of matches from the drawer, struck one, and touched it to the wick of the candle. It took a few seconds to catch. As the match flickered, it got close to my fingers, and I was scared I’d get burned, so out of instinct, I dropped it and accidentally set the dish towel on fire. I didn’t know what to do with the flaming dish towel, so I picked it up and shoved it in the food pantry. I shut the door and pretended I had no knowledge of where the smoke was coming from. But I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.”

“All out mayhem?”

“Yeah. The smoke alarm went off. My father rushed in and grabbed the fire extinguisher, and my mom screamed bloody murder and called 911. She got my sisters and me out of the house, and somehow, my dad was able to put out the blaze, but the smoke was nuts, and a big red hook and ladder truck showed up, and it was just really, really bad. I was extremely shook. Like, I had nightmares for months afterward. And my mother gave me the spanking of a lifetime once my dad got out okay.”

“Yikes,” I say, waiting for her to connect the dots and tell me what on earth this story has to do with writing.

“Anyway, I never let my budding curiosity get the better of me again. First of all, I was grounded. No TV or anything like that for a month. So all I had left was books. And I was lucky enough to be a good reader, so I just started vicariously living through the pages of other children’s rule-breaking adventures.”

“You really don’t strike me as the type to get in trouble.”

“I’m not. That’s the thing! I’ve always been a nerd,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Don’t say that,” I rebut.

“It’s true,” she declares. “And the fire thing scared the crap out of me, to be honest.”

“I’m sure.”

“But even before the kitchen incident, I was always different. I have three sisters, and I’m nothing like them.”

“They’re not pyromaniacs?”

“Ha, ha,” she deadpans, a cute smirk playing on her lips. “No, even worse. They’re ‘cool girls.’” Here, she throws up air quotes before continuing. “They all developed an early love of makeup and clothing and unnecessary trips to the Queens Center mall. The older ones—Anna and Melanie—shared a bedroom, and my little sister, Jamie, was stuck with me. She was the top bunk to my bottom bunk, the wild and crazy to my quiet and shy, the yin to my yang. I would read books by flashlight, while she’d watch music videos and pose in front of the full-length mirror in one of Anna’s training bras.”

“Wow,” I respond, careful not to say anything that could be misconstrued as inappropriate or disrespectful.

“Yeah, well, they say that when you come from a big family, the younger children are way less disciplined because the parents are outnumbered. In my opinion, that tracks, minus incidents of accidental arson.”

“I don’t know. I’m a younger sibling, and I think I was pretty tame.”

“I’m sure you’re just an anomaly in all sorts of ways,” she retorts.

“Doubtful. But what I’m hearing you say is that you want to be a writer so that you can stop lighting things on fire.”

“No,” she laughs, but something in her eyes changes. “Obviously, my storytelling needs work. I want to be a writer because…” There’s a long pause during which Aunt Rose rounds the corner and reenters our section of the hall.

“How nice. You’re both looking a little better.” She grins. “Scale of one to ten, how’s everyone feeling?” She hands each of us a miniature can of ginger ale and a package of individually wrapped saltines, like you might get at a diner with your soup if you were over eighty and meeting your bridge club for an early bird special. “Ten being the best you’ve ever felt.”

Cecily accepts the snack and sets it on the nightstand beside her. “Thank you,” she says. “And I don’t know. Maybe like a five?”

“Nausea gone?”

“Not all the way,” she admits. “But I think I got most of it out.” She opens her mouth in a yawn, covering it with her hand.

“Tired?” Aunt Rose asks.

Cecily nods.

“How about you?” she asks me.

I think about it. The room’s not spinning, so that’s good. Talking to Cecily has been a good distraction. “Probably about the same. Like a five.”

“Okay. Well, like I mentioned, there are others from your school here, and the doctor wants to keep all of you overnight for observations. Give you a chance to rest, and if you feel closer to a seven or an eight in the morning, we’ll let you go.”

“How will we get back?” Cecily wonders.

“Oh, don’t worry. They’ll come get you.”

“Will it cost a lot more if we stay? My co-pay for an ER visit is fifty bucks, but an overnight is a lot more. I think I’m okay enough to go back now.” She sits up a little straighter.

“Nope. There’s no cost to you at all. Matthias is footing the bill. It’s included with your residency.”

“Oh,” she replies.

“So make yourself comfortable—I mean, as comfortable as you can, and definitely get some sleep. I’ll bring you both some fresh buckets, and I’ll dim the lights as much as I can out here. Bathroom’s straight down on the right there, so help yourself. I’ll be in the office, but you can just buzz for me if you need anything.”

“Okay,” Cecily says. “Thank you.”

“Thanks,” I echo.

Aunt Rose leaves, and Cecily breaks into her crackers. “In the absence of a much-needed toothbrush,” she shares, crunching, “I’m hoping this will make me a little less offensive in the morning.” Crumbs cascade down her shirt. She wipes them away.

“I’m not worried about you,” I say. “I can’t even look at food right now though. So if you want mine”—I hold up the flimsy package—“have at it.”

“I’m good, thanks.” She sets the wrapper on the tiny tray table attached to the side of the bed and scoots down under the thin white blanket, pulling it up to her neck.

“I guess the rest of the story will have to wait?” I ask.

Cecily sighs. “Yeah. I guess.” She rolls to face me. “Long story short, books can’t hurt you.”

“That’s a loaded sentence,” I reply. “You mean books can’t hurt you like fire can?”

“Well, that’s certainly true. But I was thinking more like books can’t hurt you like people can.”

I swallow. “Wow.”

“Well, it’s true, don’t you think?”

I stifle a yawn, feeling exhaustion settle on top of me like a weight. “Honestly? I think that’s true if you’re a reader. You’d be surprised at what books can do when you’re on the other side of the page.” I catch myself, surprised at my own words.

“Hm,” she mumbles into the darkness.

I close my eyes. For some reason, I don’t want to see her reaction to my admission. It feels…vulnerable. Or like I’m some kind of fraud. In the silence, I notice the gurgling in my stomach is gone. I hear the whir of an exhaust fan and the slow drip of my IV.

“Hey, Professor,” she whispers.

I smile at the ceiling. “Just call me Nate, please.”

“Okay. Nate,” she repeats.

“Yes, CJ, how can I help you?”

“You want to know something funny?”

“Sure.”

“This is actually a way better sleeping situation than the one I’m in currently.”

“In the middle of a pocket-size health facility?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, at school, they’ve got me rooming with an elderly woman who I think is plotting to kill me. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the fact that other people got sick too, I would have guessed that she was the one who poisoned my lobster.”

“Who is it?”

“Her name’s Gurt.”

“Haven’t met her yet.”

“Better for you. I’m sure she’s thrilled I’m gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she says, yawning.

Several beats of calm pass, and I feel myself drifting in and out of sleep. “You know what?” Cecily whispers.

“Mm?” I reply.

“You’re not so bad after all.”

“Thanks?”

She lets out a sound that’s like a half stretch, half moan. It’s reminiscent of the muted soundtrack of a cat curling up for a nap in the afternoon sun. Cecily carefully removes her glasses, folds them, and sets them on the tray table beside her ginger ale. “You’re welcome,” she says. “Good night, Nate.”

“’Night, CJ,” I say, my heavy-lidded eyes closing involuntarily.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I fall asleep smiling.