Chapter 75
The ache of the week’s events began as a hollow one in that falsely hopeful post-sleep haze.
It leadened as I remembered everything: fascism, genocide, breakup, assault, breakup, jail (release!), pissed parents, another breakup.
I had no texts from anyone, no emails from Anwar.
Milan never responded to my message. I didn’t try again.
How could I say to her what could not be said?
But, according to a pale pink email at the top of my inbox, the skin care brand wanted to hire me—could I come in tomorrow for training?
I was unemployed, had ruined all my relationships, and wanted to vomit at the thought of working on my novels, so, sure, I thought I could make it.
When I scrolled my inbox, there was another email from an address I didn’t recognize, sent days ago.
Dear Catherine, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA.
By now you’ve probably heard the news of my untimely departure from the university.
I had tried to keep it hush-hush but things escalated rather quickly.
Anyhow, I wanted to reach out to you directly because it was such an honor to be your teacher in the short time that I was.
You are a great talent, but more important than that, you are asking all the right questions.
Your future is bright even if the world feels dim. Please keep in touch. My cell is below.
—J. Ford
I called her and asked if I’d ever see her again. She said I could see her now: She was at Malcolm X Park.
The park teemed with bike riders and people on picnic blankets. Janine was on a bench, airy peach scarf blowing around her neck, chucking baguette bread at pigeons, their gray heads bobbing like their brains were short-circuiting. One flew in my face. I screamed.
“You’ll scare them,” she said.
“I don’t understand why they have to be so gross.”
She sighed. “Sit, sit. How are you, dear?”
“I’m all right. How are you?”
“I’m alive.”
The paper bag crinkled in her hand as she passed it to me. I broke off a piece of bread and threw it as far as possible so the pigeons would go away, but it hit the back of a man’s head.
“I’m sorry they fired you,” I said.
“I’m not.”
I looked at her. “You’re not?”
“No! The university did what cowards do.” She laughed. “But someone’s got to be unafraid, don’t they? We can’t all afford to be afraid. What a luxury that would be. You saw, though, that they released those students who’d been detained, one at Columbia, one at Tufts?”
This must’ve happened while I was in jail. I let myself feel hopeful though I knew it wasn’t because of our lock-in. That didn’t matter. Someone’s shouts somewhere had been heard.
I told her I was leaving the program because I’d lost my scholarship. I left out the part about being expelled.
“Nonsense. We’ll figure something out. When were you set to finish?”
I swallowed. “In 2033.”
She looked at me for a long time. She said the next word with her entire face. “What?”
I explained that I could only take a class a semester because of my financial situation.
“What was your plan with this program? Were you ever going to finish it?”
I felt so stupid my words caught on themselves. “I just thought if I kept taking classes, I could write a novel and get published and then with that money pay to finish the program. I don’t know.”
“How much were you paying out of pocket?”
I paused. “Two thousand dollars per semester.”
“And this is for one class?”
I nodded.
“Two thousand dollars is too much for a writing class.”
This was easy for her to say. She’d been the one teaching the two-thousand-dollar classes.
“But if I hadn’t done the program I wouldn’t have met you.”
She smiled sadly, reaching into her purse for a cigarette. “Meeting me was not worth two thousand dollars.”
She tapped the ashes onto a glass tray on her lap. I was going to miss her regal profile exhaling smoke. “You have a career ahead of you, do you know that? You don’t need that silly program.” Smoke tumbled from her lips when she said, “I don’t either.”
I wondered if Nia had told her what I’d done. I didn’t entirely understand their relationship, but I somehow understood that was not something they’d talk about. I’d drafted an apology text but deleted it. There were no words I could say to fix this.
“What’re you gonna do now?”
Janine coughed into her fist. “I’m retiring.” But then she cracked a smile. “I’m starting a publishing imprint, of course.”
“Really?! What’re you naming it?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll need some help.” She looked at me, and I got the message.
I straightened against the bench. “Like, like, an editor?”
“Have you edited anything before?”
“No.”
“Think smaller.”
“Like an assistant editor?”
She pinched her fingers.
I frowned. “Like an editorial assistant?”
“Yes! Or even just a regular assistant.”
That sounded awful.
She patted my hand. “Oh, don’t make that face. Think about it, that’s all. How’s your writing coming along?”
“It’s not.”
She laughed. “It will, trust me, at the absolute stupidest moment, it will reveal itself to you.”
Her cat poked its head out of her bag like it’d been drugged and stuffed there, stretching its slinky body into my lap.
“She remembers me?”
“No, dear. She just likes the color yellow.”
I looked down at my yellow top. Sure enough, the cat rammed its furry head into my chest as if to get closer to the yellow on it.