“？‘Very not horrible,’ was it?” He repeats what I told Harriet with unhidden pride. “？‘Life-changing,’ even? Please, support that statement. Details, figures, comparisons are all welcome.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m laughing. Nathan grins, not pressing the point.
I leave him in the kitchen and head up the stairs. Entering my bedroom, I feel light and eager in familiar and unfamiliar ways. The title stares up from the chapter in my hands, and I realize—it’s a question I already know the answer to.
62
Nathan
? SIX YEARS EARLIER ?
I hate reading my work aloud. Wedged between perfect strangers on the lumpy sofa in the house where we’re staying, the smell of damp wood pervading the chill in the room, I’m dreading the next hour. It’s the first day of the New York Resident Writers’ Program, and I’m miserable.
Driving through the small town nearby on my way up, I was looking forward to this. I expected the workshop would consist of valuable mentorship, the opportunity to work in the quiet outside the city—two weeks of solitude. Instead, it’s only been hours of rushed introductions, hearing dozens of my fellow writers pitch me their novels, and finally, icebreakers. I’ve heard where everyone’s from, heard strings of higher education acronyms so numerous they sound like code. We’ve shared our desert-island poems. We’ve grouped up in fours and found out what we have in common—we’re all writers. It was torture until I heard we’d be reading our work out loud. Now I’d prefer coming up with goofy pneumonic devices to remember everyone’s name.
The one person I met this morning who seemed interesting, and who didn’t promptly pitch me the next Great American Novel, isn’t here. Harriet Soong is probably doing something useful instead of wasting her afternoon listening to moody excerpts poorly read.
Frankly, I’m not interested in making friends here. I have friends. Better, I have a fiancée—the luster of this thought hasn’t faded in the three months since I proposed to Melissa. The reason I’m here is that simply nothing I’m writing is coming out the way I want it. I’m missing something. I’ve chosen this workshop because Carter Gilroy, New York Times bestseller turned New York Times critic, is teaching. It’s Carter’s feedback I want, not critiques from twenty MFA students. I’ll suffer trading pages—I know I’ll have to—but I draw the line at reading for everyone.
No one would notice if I left now, would they? I could head up to my room, get some writing done while my stuffy roommate overdramatizes his prose for the group. Extricating myself from the couch, I walk swiftly for the door, trying to project the impression I have a good reason for doing so.
A woman standing in the entryway stops me. “Are you leaving, or just going to the bathroom?” she asks.
I vaguely recognize her, though she wasn’t in my icebreaker group this morning. She doesn’t have the academic airs of many of the people here, myself included, with my stiff oxford shirt and leather loafers. The woman’s plaid flannel is untucked from her jeans. She watches me with dark, intensely inquisitive eyes, curls of brown hair falling free from her loose bun. “Sorry,” I say, realizing I missed her question. “What?”
“Your seat. Are you giving it up?” She nods slightly into the room.
I glance behind me, noticing every couch in the small space is occupied. “Oh, right. No, you can have it,” I say. There are a couple other people standing in the back. The layout of the house this program runs out of is claustrophobic. It was once a private home, and alongside the antique furniture and old-money decoration, it has the cramped proportions of historic dwellings.
The woman doesn’t move for the seat. “So you’re bailing, then?”
“Um,” I say, surprised by the directness of her question. I immediately resent the nothingness of my reply. I’m better in writing, which this girl, the entire workshop, will soon learn. Just not now, at a public reading.
She cocks her head, something simultaneously vivid and delicate in her expression. “Look, I don’t want to take your seat if you’re just going to pee or whatever. I can stand. Don’t sacrifice your couch for some girl you don’t even know,” she says, the edges of her mouth curling up.
I laugh, which coaxes the girl’s smile wider. “I’m bailing,” I confirm.
She brightens. “Excellent. I really didn’t want to stand. These readings can go on forever.”