Chapter 40
Campus had frozen overnight. Tiny icicles hung from the railings outside like little spears. Students slipped on patches of ice then turned it into a dramatized TikTok dance with “Murder on the Dancefloor” playing in the background.
When I turned inside the humanities building, CNN was on in the lounge: The President had signed a flurry of executive orders, had told federal agencies to unwind all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. My mom had gotten a memo from her head boss about the changes.
“In my twenty years, I’ve never seen anything like this,” she’d said the other night, kicking her pumps off at the door.
She was trying to hide how rattled she was, but I could hear it in her voice.
Janine was hunched over her desk in Dijon-yellow glasses, marking papers with a red pen.
I could just make out a comment in her huge handwriting: “But what does this MEAN? Meaning first. Language last. The language has to be in SERVICE of something.” She proceeded to cross out more words.
I felt secondhand embarrassment for the student whose work she was tearing apart.
She looked up. “Oh, good, you’re here! I want to talk about what you submitted to me.” She held up the pages. They were mine.
I stumbled into the seat across from her, peeling off my coat.
“This is part of a larger project, correct?”
“Yes.”
“I like what you sent. I highlighted some lines I thought were beautiful. You have a strong sense of character, but I’m noticing you struggle with emotionality. What a character is feeling, the calibration of emotions at a given point.” Her eyes flickered across my face. “Am I being clear?”
This wasn’t the first time I’d been told that about my work. My characters either didn’t react or overreacted. I mostly saw emotions as accumulated junk: You didn’t take out the trash until it was full, the bag bursting at the bottom. “Yes, thank you. That’s… the way you explained it was helpful.”
She flattened her scarf against her chest. “I’m glad. Now, this is our first one-on-one. What do you need from me?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I can give you feedback, sure, but what’s most useful to you at this juncture?” She patted the papers in front of her. “Which draft is this for you?”
“My second.”
“Hmmm.”
“Is that not… good?”
“No, no, but you’ve probably got twenty more to go, if this is a book.”
I cried, “Twenty!?”
Janine grinned. “You know how many drafts it took me to write my latest novel?”
“Is it gonna break my heart?”
“It should hearten you to know that it doesn’t get easier.” She paused for impact. “I’d say upwards of thirty-five drafts, though I’ve lost count.”
There was no way she went through thirty-five drafts and was here to tell me about it in a stylish scarf instead of throwing herself off a bridge somewhere.
“Why so many?”
“Because!” Her cat leapt from her bookcase, screeching. I hadn’t seen it until then. Janine dragged it into her lap. “The real story doesn’t emerge until you’ve told it to yourself several times. And what’s your hope for this project anyway?”
“Um, a book.”
“Okay, but artistically, creatively. Why does this story need to be told and how? Why a novel? Why now?”
My mind went suddenly dark. I just knew I needed it out of me, like vomiting after a hangover so you could go about your day. This didn’t seem like the kind of answer Janine wanted to hear.
I told her I needed to think about it.
She passed me the marked-up pages, but said I was allowed to disagree with her. If that were the case, why was she the professor? I slipped up and told her about the other novel with Amira, my literary avatar, half-assing her way through polyamory.
“Now that sounds like something I’d read.”
“Are you just being nice?”
“I’m never just being nice. I love a spin on an old love story. It takes me back to—oh, I digress.”
I thought of Nia, her distracted smile.
I wobbled to a stand, excited. “Thank you.”
“Of course, dear. Close the door on your way out, would you? I have to make a nasty phone call to someone who deserves it.” She laughed, her cat arching its back to greet her hand.