Chapter 7
I was getting ready for the reading when my phone rang. Jay’s voice was tinny and strange on the other line. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“My mom called.”
“When’s the last time you spoke to her?”
“Three months ago? I can’t remember. It was weird seeing her name on my phone.”
“What’d she want?”
“Money.” He laughed. “It’s like, what money?”
It was true Jay’s mom gambled and more money wouldn’t help her. But I didn’t mention that he was planning to fly back here in October, that he was a natural at saving, investing. That he had money.
I could hear the floorboards creaking with his uneven footsteps and knew he must’ve been turning out of his room into the hallway, that gentle dip where the board was loose.
I imagined him, uncharacteristically sullen-faced in his gray terry shorts, slinking into the kitchen searching for comfort food: almond butter on nearly burnt toast, the tiny clementines he ate five, six at a time. A pang of longing moved through me.
Milan texted that she was at the bookstore. There were no more seats. I raked my fingers through my hair. “I have to call you later, okay? I’m sorry. Maybe you make the money a condition of her getting help?”
“Yeah,” he said, but I knew he’d already rejected the thought.
“I didn’t know people actually cared about shit like this.” Milan was propped against a cookbook shelf. “Isn’t this woman gonna read from a book?”
“And answer questions,” I said.
“I don’t get it.”
The last time I was at this bookstore, I was with Jay. It was where I asked him to open our relationship. My body still housed that day’s awful heat, the shiver of freedom splintering into fear, into a gut-deep guilt.
The bookseller rattled off Professor Janine Ford’s accomplishments into the mic. When they name-dropped the university, someone screamed, “Woo-hoo!” Professor Ford was the most famous person on faculty, but I’d never actually seen her on campus.
She materialized from behind a shelf and walked onstage to a din of applause.
I thought she was going to be in her thirties, but she was old.
Her hair, white, brushing her collarbone, seemed to cause her a lot of trouble.
She flicked it behind her like a pesky fly, balancing the mic in her other hand like a flutist.
“I remember when Politics and Prose opened. I was only thirty-six. So I’m delighted to be here now.
” She spoke with her hands, flashing pink nails at the crowd.
“Each book took something different from me. But I’ve gotten more in return.
I get to live a creative life, to teach brilliant students.
And now, at seventy-six, I’ve written the book that’s been building inside me all along. ”
She read from the first chapter of her new novel. Her words knuckled me fist-up in the face. These were the kind of words I was groping for. Words you could understand only with your body. Applause rained down on the room.
The interviewer, a young woman from the Post, asked Janine questions about inspiration, process, and becoming a decorated author later in life. Then she asked her why she’d written a novel instead of a memoir. I straightened my spine.
“I wanted to draw a line through the women in my family to see how I came to be. But it was never going to be a memoir.” She twirled her foot in black kitten heels. “I’m less interested in what happened and more in what it means. I took the material of my life and gave it a new one.”
The book-signing line snaked around the room.
Not wanting to wait, Milan left, but I needed to see this woman up close.
I envied the people already at the front; a girl sporting a stylish bob drew all the attention to her.
Leaning forward when she laughed, baring all her white teeth.
She flashed a self-satisfied smile when she caught me staring.
I logged onto my student portal to see if Janine was teaching next semester. She had one class: LIT 712 When Fact Becomes Fiction: Speculative Biography and the Autobiographical Novel. I clicked on the registration link so hard the greasy whorls of my fingerprint soiled my screen.
The class was full with thirty people on the waitlist. Thirty?! The urge to cry crawled up inside me with so much aggression I was startled into silence. I suddenly believed my life’s trajectory would be derailed if I didn’t take this class.
It hit me that I didn’t even own a copy of her novel. I asked the person behind me if they could hold my spot while I bought it. By the time I reached the front, I was so stricken about the class I just stared at her.
“I’ll take that.” She plucked the book from my hands and signed her name in cursive letters. The J and the F were enormous.
“I’m a student where you teach,” I blurted.
“Really! You should take my spring course.”
“I really want to but it’s full. Maybe I can take it next fall!”
She pressed my hand between hers like a waffle maker. They were cold, lotion-soft. “I’m sorry, dear. I’m retiring after the spring.”
She let go, passed me the book, then offered a smile to the person behind me.