It's the kind of day that she imagines she will wax nostalgic about many years from now as she recalls the glory of those hallowed college days, the sunlight spilled over promenades and wide arches and the sound of chatter as students frantically head off toward their classes. The austere marble of the university's classic architecture glitters in the bright March daylight and the trees hold the promise of warmth as tiny buds fleck the rich darkness of the limbs. The chill in the air is merely a whisper, tempered into a comfortable coolness that she welcomes. Around her, staff and students mingle with one another, taking a moment in their usual business to relax and indulge in the moment. She situates herself near the entrance to the English building for her current task of getting the word out about the night she's helped create, put in countless hours and even more personal bits and pieces of herself in order to ensure its success. Finally, as the doors swing open, she dons a smile that hides any hint of nervousness that she might be feeling, speaking directly to people as they make their way down the steps and offering them fliers.
"Come join us for A Song of Herself, a night of poetry celebrating women of color," she announces, handing one to someone that she imagines she's had a class with but can't quite put face to name. Still, her expression hints at familiarity and warmth and the student takes it with a grin of thanks. It's one of the things she's learned in her life, that eye contact and engagement are necessary, that people are more likely to believe your facial expression than what they might know to be true. She wants to ensure that each person that passes by her feels personally invited to the evening.
"In this building, in the downstairs media room," she clarifies before the politeness drops away and she's her normal self again, a huge grin on her face as she is greeted with the face of her dearest friend in the department.
"Liv!" Julia shouts, bounding down the stairs as the movement sets her pretty lavender curls bouncing around her shoulders, flanked by other majors in their department.
She throws her arms around her and Olivia can't help but return the affectionate greeting, J's happiness potent and infectious. Though she's not especially rambunctious or physically expressive when it comes to her friendships, her freshman year roommate served as an exception. Once the two had managed to weather an entire day before finals week without heat or electricity in the middle of December, they had become bonded for life. More than that, Julia had been one of the first to understand Olivia's love of literature and writing. Her critique of Liv's writing had been a crucial part of helping her confidence bloom, finding the perfect balance between appreciating her aesthetic and being willing to offer criticism even at the expense of hurt feelings. She just got it. It wasn't that she had grown up friendless by any means, but that it was a new freedom to share these newly discovered pieces of herself with someone who could empathize. They had grown together.
"J! Of course you're coming to this tonight," she confirms, pressing a flier into her hand before spreading them amongst the other members of the group.
"Of course! I'd be there even if you hadn't bribed me with free drinks before the after-party. But, right now, I have a paper that I somehow managed not to print the endnotes for so I gotta run, but I'll see you there," Julia explains before bumping Olivia's side lightly with her elbow and rushing off in the direction of her apartment building, the sound of her boots clacking on the brick.
"You better!" she calls after her, before looking around the group and adding, "Same goes for you all." Just to be on the safe side, she makes sure to arm them with extra copies to give to strangers. Organizing the stack against into a neat form, her head lifts as she hears voices descending down the stairs, a group of six guys who all look as though they'd coordinated their outfits using the exact same catalog. Her deep brown eyes land on the recently elected leader of the Young Republicans and go ever-so-slightly cooler as she recalls the rumors swirling around the student body regarding him. She's not a Democrat, though that has more to do with the fact that she enjoys the fluidity of being apolitical, but she's definitely not a Republican. She grits her teeth, ready to kill them with whatever kindness she can muster up when they're swarmed by another rush of people making their out of the building at the same time.
"Come join us for an evening of poetry written by magnificent women of color. A Song of Herself, here, tonight at 7:30 pm," she speaks clearly, her voice managing to find that comfortable spot between information and interest. A couple stops by, looked at the flier with genuine curiosity.
"Who are some of the writers being featured tonight?" the girl with raven-black hair, neatly plaited and hanging over her shoulder, asks, letting go of her girlfriend's hand long enough to pick one of them up.
"It's pretty varied, because it's student-orchestrated so we got to represent our own race and ethnicities. We had the freedom to explore and choose poets who influenced our own writing, our lives, our entire worldview," Olivia states and the other girlfriend makes a "hmm" of intrigue.
"Oh wow, that sounds much more interesting than the usual list of required reading poetry. I mean, Robert Frost is great but…" she trails off and Olivia's laughter is a soft sound, as gently melodic as leaves rustling on a lazy fall day.
"Yeah, totally. It was a great process for me, actually, to explore how I became the writer and person I am today. I'm doing African-American writers, so I chose some Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove and Tracy K. Smith. Maybe some Sonia Sanchez if there's time."
"Poetry reading? On a Friday night?" one of the Young Republicans wants to know with a dismissive laugh, his eyes a pale shade of green as she slides his sunglasses down from the top of his nose to rest on his nose.
"Yep," she affirms, her polite smile still intact though she knows her eyes no longer held any semblance of welcome.
"Why would anyone want to waste their time with that?" he begins and her mind comes alive with indignation. She's no stranger to his particular type, but the constancy of such behavior never fails to dishearten her. Her lips part as the bitter retort sinks into the tip of her tongue, but he speaks first.
"You know Jake, there is more to life than frat parties on a Friday night," the Republican leader interrupts, stepping leisurely down the steps and stopping before her. Behind him, Jake's eyebrows knit together in feigned confusion.
"Like Young Republican keggers?" Jake retorts, the other members of the group chortling in unison as though this was the funniest joke they'd ever heard. The curly-haired president ignores them, holding out his hand for one of the fliers and Olivia doesn't stop herself from blinking down at his hand and then back up at his face, her disinterest clearly visible in the straight line of her mouth. Undeterred, he reaches forward and slides one of them out of the pile in her hands. Despite the sunglasses, Olivia can feel Jake's stare throwing tiny daggers in their general direction and she stares back at him, unfazed.
"Whatever, man, you wouldn't catch me dead at some stupid shit like this."
"I don't think anyone wants to catch you, period," Olivia snaps at him finally, her annoyance boiling over at his last words. His steps sound along the stairs as he moves towards her, but the president deftly moves in his path, stepping between the two of them. Fury replaces irritation instantly, her chin lifting defiantly in his direction.
"Jake, dude, let's go," one of the others in the pack encourages, slapping a hand companionably against his back. With another disgusted glance in her direction and the tiniest of pouts, he finally heads off in the other direction, leaving her alone with the dark haired leader.
"Uh, I'm sorry about Jake. I'd tell you that he's normally a good guy, but I can't make those kinds of assurances about someone I barely know," he offers in way of an apology. Her spine is straight, stiffened by the exchange, and her gaze holds no inkling of welcome. His chagrined smile does nothing to erase the tension.
"I'm more than capable of defending myself against idiots," she counters, though his attention is now on the flier, peering down as his eyes wander over the words before lifting up again after she speaks. He looks as though he's about to speak but there's a light tap touching her shoulder and she turns away. The touch is accompanied by the presence of one of her fellow department majors, relieving her of her advertising duties for the time being. With a grateful smile and a few quick words, Olivia hands off the stack and grabs her purse, swinging it over her shoulder without further conversation.
She's already a handful of steps away, her stride surprisingly quick for someone of her petite form, when she feels a brushing against the back of her arm. The glance she throws him over her shoulder clearly states she's not interested, especially when combined with her refusal to slow her gait.
"Hey, wait up," he calls. "I didn't even get your name."
"I imagine it's because I didn't give it." She speeds up the slightest bit, hoping to make the crosswalk sign but the hand is blaring at her and she stops in her tracks. He's beside her now, his breath coming in harsh puffs from the exertion before he responds.
"Ouch. Am I going to suffer the punishment for Jake's crimes?"
"Maybe. It would be a good lesson in the need to be more picky of the company you keep. Quantity and quality don't always go hand in hand." The light changes and she's off again, her footfalls measured and brisk.
"The company chose me," he tries to explain, but her head shakes indifferently. "I was just trying to head back to my apartment from class when they stopped me to talk to me."
"You knew his name," she reminds him, turning right at the corner onto the street where her apartment is located.
"I've seen him around," he admits and she throws him another pointed look, his hands lifting with his palms up towards her. "But he's not my friend. I'm not…"
"Like him, I know," she finishes, stopping as she gets nearer to her apartment to rummage around in her purse for her keys. "I'm sure."
"I'm not. I like poetry. He might be friends with my friends, but he's not one of mine."
"Everyone likes poetry. Anyone who says they don't hasn't discovered the right poem yet. But, okay."
"Okay?" he repeats, the blue of his eyes brightening with hope as he looks up at her. She nearly chuckles at the eagerness in them and looks back down at her purse to hide her amusement.
"I'm willing to allow for the possibility that you're not as horrible as the company you keep," she clarifies, waving her hand in his general direction.
"Willing enough to give me your name?"
"Maybe," she responds before finding the keys and climbing gracefully up the steps of her apartment building. He's frozen in his spot, staring after her with a frown working its way into an entire pout before she turns around and adds, "Come to the event and find out."
..._...
His grin is instantaneous, almost childish in its utter simplicity. His eyes stay glued on the space she has only recently vacated and continue to stare long after the door shuts quietly behind her. The lightest of scents still lingers in the air, a delicate mixture of something clean but faintly fruity. His mind is a tangle of desires mixed with curiosity, a strange newness brought on by his first impression of her.
Fitzgerald Grant III had been born into a wealthy family. He imagined that one day in the future, when he'd achieved whatever measure of success his parents had bred him for, they would begin his biography with that sentence. They would leave out the ugly side of reality, the memory of watching his mother hide her face in her hands as she tried to rid her body of her sorrows through sobs, the sounds of his father cheating on her with whatever young new secretary he'd recently hired. These would only mar the fabled Grant legacy, the facade of perfection he'd been taught to uphold at all cost.
He had believed that college would be a brief respite from that endless expanse of boredom, but he had been proven wrong. It seemed that not all of those who shared his privilege felt the same sense of resentment and frustration. Instead, most of the friends and acquaintances he had made in his four years here seemed to celebrate their affluence. The most passion any of them seemed to express was when one of their fathers was late to pay their Visa bill. But hearing the nameless poet discuss the things she had read and how she'd taken those words to heart, had believed in them and allowed them to touch her, had sparked something inside of him that he had long been afraid to explore.
With a shake of the head, he slowly folds the flier into a neat square and tucks it safely away inside of his backpack before he remembers that he's already made plans for the evening. His groan is muffled against his hand as he runs his palm over his face in displeasure, knowing what he has to do but sure it won't be an easy task. His thumb slides across the screen until he finds her number, says a silent prayer that it goes straight to voicemail. After five rings, it seems the odds might actually be in his favor today.
"Hey, you've reached Mellie. Leave me a message and I'll call you back when I can. *giggle* Or just text me. This is the 21st century after all." Somehow, the message manages to become even more annoying every time he hears it.
"Hey Mel, it's me, Fitz. Listen, I have to back out of Sam's party tonight. I'm sorry but I just…" he pauses as he decides whether he should be honest or soften the blow. "Something came up and I can't get out it."
Lies it is. Feeling disgusted with himself, he hangs up and turns back to stare the entrance, the memory of her turning over her shoulder as she issued her invitation replaying again in his mind. As he sets off in the direction his own apartment, a tiny smile finds a permanent place on his face.
..._...
Her heels make a lazily rhythmic sound as she strides across the floor to the podium, polite applause accompanying her journey. The lights are low and the faces of those in the audience are barely visible, for which she is sincerely grateful. Nervousness is a tightly wound ball lodged in her stomach, scraping against her insides until she has to clench her hands together for a moment. Closing her eyes, she inhales deeply to capture the moment inside of herself. When she finally releases her breath, her eyelids lift and she manages to tether her courage long enough to feel finally still. She begins with Rita Dove, because she had taught her how to harness the magic of the past within herself despite the passage of years.
"When I was young, the moon spoke in riddles
and the stars rhymed. I was a new toy
waiting for my owner to pick me up."
She moves on to Gwendolyn Brooks, who taught her how to live with conviction and meaning,
"Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind."
to Nikki Giovanni, who reflected back the faces of love,
"I love you
because no two snowflakes are alike,
and it is possible
if you stand tippy-toe
to walk between the raindrops
to Tracy K. Smith, who had guided her to mine for the ink of her poetry inside of her blood.
"And in this night that is not night,
Each word is a wish, each phrase
A shape their bodies ache to fill."
Again and again, her mouth opens and their words take on wings, flying out of her throat and into the universe. They flutter around this room, fill the empty spaces with their weighty presence, and claws digging into their shared skin. And somehow, the mere act of it is both liberation and loss, the feeling of chipping away some piece of herself in order to share it with them, but comforted by the knowledge that she is imparting this magnificence onto others who may have need. When she finishes the last poem, she gingerly closes the book and places her palms on top of the cover, a sign of reverence.
Slowly, as though it costs her something, she lifts her head up and is once again grateful for the relative darkness of the audience because she is infinitely aware of the sheen of tears that glazes over her eyes. She feels wholly exposed, no less than if she had stripped off her clothes and peeled back her skin until they could see the flesh clinging to her bones. She has given too much of herself, because these writers gave too much of themselves, and she imagined that was the story of humanity. And courage as well, when she understood that vulnerability was necessary for resonance, for the spark to alight change.
The silence in the room is palpable, a living creature born of their awe and morphing into the shape of a hush. It's as though they've all been holding their breath while she's been speaking, for fear of interruption as she pours these words carefully out so as not to spill a single drop. They exhale simultaneously, she and the audience, and the sound vaguely resembles applause. It floods the entire space and she offers them a slight tilt of her head to acknowledge their praise. Clearing her throat to rediscover the sound of her own voice, she names the next reader and slowly winds her way back to her seat near the front.
Five beats pass and she has nearly managed to gather enough normalcy to feel as though she won't vibrate out of her own skin when she feels a slight touch on her arm. Her head turns and even in the relative dimness of the room, she can make out that his eyes are blue. They do not sparkle like jewels or glitter with tears, but the depth of their emotion makes her throat go unexpectedly dry. She doesn't blink, barely manages to breathe as he keeps his gaze firmly locked on hers, whether in gratitude or something more shifting and heavy, she can't be sure. But it springs alive inside of her, unfurling with a tremulous elegance that forces her to look away, break the contact before she loses herself in the inexplicable. The breath she releases shakes out of her lungs and she looks up again, his eyes still lingering on her face in the dark and she knows, somehow she knows, that whatever has found its way inside of her has taken hold in him as well. Madness.
Time passes in trickling drops, his presence receding into the landscape as she gives herself to the poetry being read, allowing herself to slide inside of the words. An hour passes and the lights blink harshly back to life, closing her eyes for a second to adjust to the sudden brightness. Her hand reaches for her purse before she lifts her gaze back up in his direction. Though it is more clear, the amorphous surprise inside of his eyes is no more simple now than in the dark. She refuses to be foolish, to make this into some grand beginning, but neither of them dares to look away and she can't bring herself to be the first.
"Liv, you were amazing!" a voice calls to her, easy warmth in the words that tugs Olivia out of the moment. She blinks to clear her mind and finds Julia's smiling face waiting for her, easing the upheaval of her stomach.
"You're the sweetest, J."
"Never, I'm normally mean. But you were just so in the moment, I loved it."
"She's right," he speaks. "You had the audience hanging on every word." She glances at him again, and sees a companionable smile on his lips. Julia's lovely eyes, brown with touches of hazel, light up with mischief as she touches her elbow Olivia's side with a familiarity.
"Going to introduce me to your friend?"
"We're not friends," she corrects before she chides herself. "He has notoriously bad taste in friends."
"He's not my friend. I have impeccable taste in friends, and my name's Fitz," he responds, holding out his hand politely for Julia. She smirks at the unnecessary propriety of the gesture but takes it anyway.
"I'm Julia. So, Olivia's not-friend, will we be seeing you at the after-party?" Julia asks, the teasing tone of her voice obvious even as Olivia gives her a sidelong look.
"An after-party?" His voice is a mix of curiosity and surprise and she turns her gaze to him, raising an eyebrow slowly in challenge.
"Did you think that only frat boys had parties? That a woman who enjoys poetry can't also execute a flawless body roll?" Olivia questions, though lightly, without any real bite to the taunt.
He at least has the sense to look slightly sheepish.
"Not anymore, I don't."
Julia's rummaging around in her own bag for a scrap of paper and a pen before quickly scribbling down words onto the piece.
"11. Maybe we'll see you there," she informs him before sliding her arm through Olivia's, guiding her toward the exit.
"Leave your friends at home," Olivia warns him over shoulder, the challenge drawing a grin out of him.
For the second time that day, he's left staring in her direction long after she's felt. A few stragglers remain as he slowly shrugs his coat back and he's about to leave when he stops. Letting himself sink back down into the thick plushness of the seat, his eyes move up to observe the podium in the center and instantly the memory blazes to life. He had never seen anything more inherently, boldly, unapologetically vital as her presence as she stood on that stage, as she gave herself over to something that she loved. The vehemence of her voice, the tone changing from earnest to heartbroken to wise, the ways her eyes barely flicked down at the page as though she'd already imbibed the honey dripping from the lines. She had blazed before them, wholly herself, magnificent in her adoration, in celebration. The unexpectedness of such intense sentimentality, far out of his realm of comfort, had struck a grave blow.
Now, in the after, he doesn't know how to recover. The only thing he is aware of is the demand for more.
..._...
A/N: Dear readers, I had a random flash of inspiration and I was going to just write a one-shot but I started writing and it turned into its own beast. Hopefully, you're intrigued and willing to come along with me on the ride. As always, feel free to leave me some love. Your comments mean the world to me :)