Well, Dear Readers, even though I received NO feedback for the last chapter, I am still submitting another chapter for your reading pleasure. But really, if a story falls on the internet, is there anyone there to hear it land? Or maybe there are no readers out in the void…. I am, after all, writing this for myself, right? (That's not what our hero says!) But it's important to share….
Chapter 13: Conversations
And that was the second car ride with Grace.
The connection between us was not ambiguous, anymore. It was there. But I had a class full of other students to teach, and I had to teach. I liked to teach. How would Grace be tomorrow? Would I fluster away and say stupid things, as I had done in our past few encounters? Why was I feeling like the one with the adolescent crush here? So much was at stake for me; I don't think Grace really had a sense of it. She was at the "love conquers all doesn't it" stage in her life. Truth, truth and feelings were all that mattered. I, on the other hand, was at the "in reality love cannot conquer all" stage of my life. Truth was difficult to fathom, to discern, amidst the certainty of law, job, rent, experience, adulthood.
And tomorrow was Friday, I reflected as I drove home. Writing conference day. How would that be? Would it even happen? I pulled into my driveway, went into the kitchen. There was a message on my machine, and I felt my heart beat fast. Grace? Would she have called me? But what would she say? What was there to say without entering dangerous places? Already we had. I pressed the play button, both hoping and fearing to hear Grace's voice.
The message was from Chris. "Hey, Gus. Sorry about last night. I had no idea. She was totally different when we talked on the phone. August, I have to talk to you. Call me as soon as you get this message."
Did I want to talk to Chris right now? It would get my mind off what just happened. Yet part of me wanted to relive the moment, that moment when Grace said, "Why?" and my world turned upside down, the longest, most tortuous, most wonderful ten seconds of my life. I closed my eyes, a last indulgence, a vision where we were parked in a place with no one else, where no necessary interruption came, because interruption was not necessary, where lips and souls met, embraced, loved without impunity.
I opened my eyes, reached for the phone. Chris picked up on the first ring. "Bronson! Hello!" she said in a loud, falsely cheerful voice.
"What's up, Chris?"
"Oh fine, fine."
"You can't talk at the moment."
"Got that right. Hold on – Jazmynne? This is a client, private call. I'm going to take it in my office." I waited while I heard her walk into another room, shut a door. "August! Thanks goodness! I don't know what to do."
"What's wrong?"
"It's Jazmynne. She doesn't like me."
"Chris, you're not marrying Jazmynne. Everyone goes through relative troubles when they get married."
"We didn't. Your sisters loved me. Your parents loved me."
"We didn't get married, remember?"
"I know, I know. Okay. But, I mean, I think she wants to sabotage the wedding. In front of Barry she's fine – well, no worse than last night. But she does all these passive aggressive things…"
She continued, giving me examples of incidents that had happened in the two days since she had met Jazmynne. I zoned out, happy to hear her voice, but not really interested in hearing about her predicament, when I had mine to think about. Although we had managed to remain friends, I found paying attention was difficult, maybe because our breakup had involved the issue of marriage. Even though I knew now I did not want to be married to Chris, being the soundboard for her trials and tribulations regarding planning her wedding was not a role I wanted to play.
The role I wanted to play was the role I couldn't play. To be or not to be. With Grace. But I thought, I could accept where we are, be her teacher, mentor, Gay/Straight Alliance advisor, and enjoy her company to the extent of my ability in those roles. My mind kept returning to the moment, that eternal moment in the car, when time seemed suspended, when the world seemed far away, when nothing stood between our eyes, and I looked at her with full honesty, and she saw my look, she met my look, she returned my look. My lips felt warm again at the memory, and I pushed them together to feel a pressure, imagining it was her. Letting that go…
"… you know what I mean? August? You there still, August?"
I snapped back to the phone, to the moment, and realized I could not listen to any more of Chris's concerns about her wedding. "I'm here still, Chris," I began.
"So what do you think?"
"Chris, I think I am not your best girlfriend."
"What?"
"Chris, you know I love you dearly. But I used to be in love with you. Even though it was a long time ago. And I am happy to listen to your work woes and employee woes and political woes and even triumphs. But there's a line somewhere. And marriage planning difficulties – that's the line. No can do. Talk about it with Stacy. Or Margie even. Or your cousin. Just keep me out of the loop."
"Whoa," she said, after a moment's silence. "I guess this has been brewing."
"I guess so."
"Okay then. Well, I guess that's all I have to say now."
"Chris, I still want to come to the wedding."
"I know. But I'll ask someone else to be my maid of honor." At least she laughed, so I did as well. We both said goodbye then, and hung up.
There was no one I could talk to about my situation. I certainly knew Grace would be Chris's line. And not Jerry, not my sisters.
I poured myself a glass of the Merlot leftover from the night before, and ate some of the Gouda with an apple I found in the fridge. Single's supper. But I had work to do. I had given my class a surprise quiz the other day – was it really only three days ago? Seemed a lifetime, so much had happened. I had vowed to get it graded and back by Friday. I took my glass upstairs to my study with the folder of quizzes. I had promised it would be the last popper, but the first several papers I looked at were atrocious. It was as if I had been lecturing to an empty classroom, for how little the answers reflected what we had covered in class. I was getting more depressed.
As I sipped the dregs of my wine, I heard the sound of something going through the mail slot downstairs. It was late – well past 10. I froze, then heard the sound of a car door shut and an engine start up. I peaked through the window in time to see taillights disappearing around the corner.
Slowly, quietly, I crept down the stairs. A manila envelope lay next to the front door, "Mr. Dimitri" scrawled across the top. In Grace's handwriting. I touched her words. I took the envelope upstairs, and opened it. Inside was Grace's story, "What You Need to Know," the one she'd been working on most consistently. A yellow sticky stuck across the top of the first page said, simply, "I think I've finished. Maybe we can talk about the new ending tomorrow."
Which meant she had every intention of coming to our regularly scheduled lunch meeting. A huge sense of relief flooded through me, the release of a tension I hadn't known was there. I read the story right then, pleased with it, eager to talk writing with her tomorrow. This story was at least of a caliber to be considered for publication. I knew it was a long shot, but I thought it would be good practice for her, just to get a start, because her stuff was worthy of some of those magazines. Maybe not quite New Yorker yet, but it could be soon. And why not start now when she had the writing, because as I knew, the writing might not stay. I pulled together a list of information, addresses, contacts.
*****
Friday. The temperature had risen considerably, must have been 20 degrees warmer than yesterday. April in Chicago – snow one day, practically beach weather the next. I decided to ride my bike. I paused at a stop sign and saw that orange cat again, curled up on the hood of a parked car next to me. Sunning. He opened his eyes as I paused, golden, staring, twitched his tale, jumped down and rubbed against the leg I was leaning on. He looked at me expectantly, and I reached down, and he pushed his head against my hand. I let my hand run along the length of his back to the end of his tail, and then he turned, and jumped back on the roof , settling into the sun.
Three classes before LCC. As students began entering, I pulled out the sheath of graded tests. "Did you get my story?" Grace. I looked up, and felt so stupidly happy to see her, I just grinned.
"I did indeed. You were up late."
"Yes, well, I finished it, and I thought, if I got it to you last night, we'd be able to go over it better today." Her hair was drawn back into a kind of bun, and her face looked fresh and alive this morning. She smiled, but I noticed her hands were gripping the straps of her backpack. This wasn't going to be easy for either of us, I knew. But it would be okay. I just felt absurdly glad that she wasn't upset or angry at me any more. Why she wasn't, what went beyond that, I didn't care to delve too deeply.
"Smart planning," I said. "It did give me some extra time, and it meant… it was good of you to bring it," I finished lamely. The bell rang.
"I'll see you at lunch, " she said, and went to her seat. I noticed Alexa then, standing in the doorway, staring at me, then glancing at Grace, then back at me. "Alexa?" I said. "Were you going to actually enter the classroom today?"
She ducked her head and slid into an empty seat near Grace, mumbling, "Sorry."
I stood and held up those quizzes. "Well, if you were wanting to give me doubts about how much you've been learning this year," I began. "You certainly succeeded." Shifting of seats, sighs. "Now, I know you know this material – you've even written half-decent papers on Donne and Ben Johnson. Pity it's not reflected here." I paraphrased Johnson. "Consider these small grades, here in this class… Tonight's assignment, due tomorrow – go home and write out the correct answers to every question you missed."
Now grumblings, protests, as I returned the test. "This has taken enough time already," I said. "Just bring back both the test and the corrections tomorrow. Now. It's time to finish the seventeenth century. I hope you've all read the rest of Johnson's poems?"
*****
Lunch meetings. Lisa was first today, then Grace; Russell was out sick. Grace pulled up her chair by the desk and opened her notebook. She was wearing a deep red shirt that complimented the russet of her hair. I noticed she was wearing that shell necklace she had worn all those months ago, when I introduced her to Linda. I took out my copy of her story. "This is really wonderful, Grace," I began.
"Really?"
"Yes. You capture the mother and the daughter so well, and the drifting apart of the friends at the same time. It's just… honest. Real. There are a few points I marked – you might want to throw in some sentences that could better distinguish Charlotte's relationships with both Sondra and Roxanne--"
"Should I develop them more?"
"Well, not too much. It is a secondary story here; they're supporting characters and you don't want them to get more weight than they deserve. But just a few things to make them different from one another, and show different ways friends can grow apart."
Grace pondered this, tapping her pen against her teeth. She scribbled some notes in the margin of her copy.
"Now the next question," I continued. "Is where do we go from here?"
"What?" she said, sounding surprised.
I realized, feeling foolish, how that must have sounded, and quickly elaborated. "I mean, once you make those changes, which shouldn't take long, what do you want to do with the story?"
"I, I don't know…" she fingered the corner of the top paper.
"I said several months ago, you're going to start needing to show these to other people. That's why we write, isn't it? To be read?"
"Yes… but… well, you've read them."
"Broaden your audience, Grace. You could leave it lying around your house. Leave it on your coffee table, for example, sort of accidentally –
"On purpose?" she added, looking at me directly.
I smiled, and she did too.
"And that's for family feedback. You could also," and I pulled out the contact list and handed to her, "send it to a magazine."
"What, like a student publication or something?"
"No," I said. "Like a real publication. Like The New Yorker or The Atlantic Monthly. Now, those are two highly competitive magazines for fiction, and this story probably isn't right for them – you need to read potential publications and know their style, and see what's compatible with yours. But there are dozens of literary magazines from which acceptance would be an honor."
"Wow. You really think I could get this published?"
"I can't guarantee anything. I know I like this story, I think it holds together very well, and I want to keep reading it. Then again," I added without thinking, " I might be biased."
Out eyes met again and she smiled.
"Look," I said. "Revise your story and send it out to TriQuarterly. It's Northwestern's literary mag. They publish first-rate stuff – I'll show you a copy. Even if you get rejected from them, if they send you anything other than a form letter, it means they've really read it and thought it was worthwhile. And if they say no, there are several others you can try."
"Wow," she said again. "I mean, I just never thought about publishing now. And, well, this story is, to be honest, kind of personal." She looked down, fingering the shell around her neck.
"I figured," I said. "That must have been difficult."
"It's just, all the changes. When I was, I don't know, 11, 12, I never expected my life to change, other than the normal way it just does because you get older. I thought the people, my parents, my family, would always be what it was, people I could believe in. And when… my father… it just kind of changes how you look at the whole world, you know?"
"Believe it or not, I do," I said. "High school can do that to anyone, but when you have your core fabric being torn and patched together into entirely different patterns, it's hard to know where you stand."
"Exactly!" she exclaimed. "I mean, it's been a few years now, I've gotten used to it, but I still feel like I'm going to have that rug pulled out again and cut up into an entirely new shape all over. Oh!" She stopped talking and made another note on her story. Then, "Are your parents still together?" she asked.
Oddly, I found myself wishing I could tell a parallel story, an "I went exactly through what you're going through" tale. Except I'm glad I didn't. "Very much so," I said. "My childhood was disgustingly straightforward and happily all-American. Well, with a few exceptions."
"Exceptions?"
"Well, home life was always good. I could count on that. School was… something of a challenge. It can be hard when you're smarter than everyone else, and know it, and indicate that you know it."
"You didn't."
"Grace, I was publishing poems in national magazines before I was 18."
"Wow. So do you still write?"
The five minute end-of-lunch warning bell rang., and we both jumped. I took a breath. "That, Grace, is a long story. Suffice it to say, believe in your writing now, and love it if you do. Now," I stood, and returned my untouched lunch to its paper bag, "Assignment for next week: final revisions, query letter to the TriQuarterly, and leave a copy of the revised story in your living room."
"Without you checking it?"
"That's right. You are always going to be your own final editor."
She gathered her papers together and stood, walked to the door, turned. "Oh – what about the Gay/Straight Alliance dance – should we have a planning meeting or something?"
"Yes – thanks for remembering. Definitely. Any days better for you?"
"Tuesday or Wednesday," she said.
"I'll schedule it in."
"Okay. See you Monday?"
"Yes… have a good weekend." And she was gone. I'll miss you, I added silently.