In the Wild Light

by Jeff Zentner

  Dr. Adkins enters, wiping her hands. Her hair is up in a messy pile atop her head. She wears skinny black jeans with rips in the knees and a black Dearly T-shirt altered into a V-neck. She has a tattoo on the side of her foot showing the phases of the moon. It’s strange to see a teacher in such a relaxed environment.

  “Hello!” she says. “Can I take jackets?” She hangs our jackets on a coatrack in the corner.

  I scan their living room. It’s essentially a larger and nicer version of our dorm rooms, but they’ve completely transformed and owned the space with both immaculate taste and apparently unfailing thrifting luck.

  “Y’all have a beautiful home,” I say.

  “We do what we can,” Dr. Adkins says. “The price is right.”

  Alex raises the mason jar of kimchi. “You know how Cash is all up in the poetry now? I’m about to drop some poetry of the palate.”

  Desiree puts her hands on her hips and leans back. “Look at you! Bring that swagger into the kitchen. You must be the one who emailed Bree.”

  Alex struts toward the kitchen. Desiree follows him. She turns back to us as she walks, pointing at Alex’s back, and mouthing, I like him.

  “Y’all, sit,” Dr. Adkins says.

  They have two rocking chairs and a sofa. Vi and I sit together on the sofa, and Delaney and Dr. Adkins take rocking chairs. I notice the faded quilt draped over the arm of the sofa near me. I touch it. It’s soft from years of giving comfort and warmth.

  “My mamaw made that,” Dr. Adkins says softly.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  “She was a folk healer too. She’d forage in the woods for ginseng and yellowroot, Saint-John’s-wort, ramps, sassafras, that sorta stuff. She’d help birth babies. I didn’t inherit her gift of healing. But I did get the love of foraging. I root around for words.”

  I laugh and point at Delaney. “That’s her. Appalachian healer woman. Foraging for medicines.”

  A flash of recognition comes over Dr. Adkins’s face. She snaps her fingers. “You! You’re the one who discovered the—” She snaps her fingers again.

  “Penicillin strain. In a cave near Sawyer,” Delaney says.

  “Yes! That was a big deal. I heard you on NPR.”

  “I read you were a finalist for the National Book Award this year,” Delaney says. “I looked you up.”

  “I’m still waiting to find out it was a mistake.”

  “You should ask for a raise. You must be in big demand now.”

  “I’ve been meaning to request my own personal tray of Middleford bars.”

  I suddenly remember my academic counselor telling me that she thought Middleford wouldn’t be able to hold on to Dr. Adkins much longer, that someone might swoop in to steal her away. The thought sends me spiraling.

  “How did you become a poet?” Vi asks, snapping me out of my spiral.

  It’s never occurred to me that Dr. Adkins might ever have been anything but a poet.

  Dr. Adkins shifts to sit with one leg under the other, and her face takes on an introspective, nostalgic cast. “Well. Poets look for how the world is sewn together so they can unstitch it and piece it back together in a new way. I always did that. I remember feeling this vague, gnawing hunger for beauty my whole life. I was miserable and angry whenever I wasn’t being fed, which was almost all the time, before I found poetry.

  “When I was in tenth grade, a girl named Daisy Treadway, who I had the biggest crush on, gave me a bunch of photocopied pages of Joe Bolton’s poetry. He was from Kentucky, like me. He wrote beautiful poems about beautiful things.

  “That did it. Reading poetry satisfied the hunger. I blew through the poetry at my school and town library. We didn’t have money for books, which is why now…” She motions at the stacks of books and crammed bookshelves that fill her living room. “Then I started writing poetry. And that fed me even more. Went to college, studied poetry, started publishing poems, and here I am.”

  Sometimes you don’t even realize you are ravenous until you start eating. Dr. Adkins’s story has identified that feeling I get when I read and write poetry: satiety. I didn’t know to call it a hunger until now. I think about my mama. Maybe the Oxys and fentanyl were her attempted cure for a nagging craving she was never able to identify. All she knew was what killed it for a while.

  While we talk, the room fills even more with the sumptuous smell of cooking. Alex’s kimchi fried rice adds to the aromatic symphony. We hear Desiree and Alex laughing and talking cheerily in the kitchen. Periodically, one will say something like Nice touch! or Never thought to do that!

  Dr. Adkins sees me gazing longingly toward the kitchen. “Desiree starts getting ready for Thanksgiving about forty-eight hours in advance. It’s her magnum opus. She had a restaurant called High/Low in Asheville. She specialized in Appalachian and Low Country cuisine. She was a James Beard Award finalist. There was a monthlong wait for reservations. That’s actually how we met.”

  “Tell us! Go!” Vi says, clapping and leaning forward.

  “So, when I was getting my MFA at Warren Wilson, I took myself out to dinner at High/Low to celebrate getting a poem published in the New Yorker. I made eight hundred dollars, which was supposed to go to rent and student loans. Instead, I spent about a fourth of it on—”

  “I hear you talking about me,” Desiree calls.

  “All kind things, Rayray,” Dr. Adkins calls back.

  “Better be, because I’m sending Alex out with some goodies.”

  Alex enters, a snooty look on his face, a dish towel over one forearm, balancing a large platter on his fingertips at shoulder height.

  “Don’t drop that, dude,” I say.

  “I used to wait tables at our restaurant, bro. You think my parents didn’t make me literally practice with a tray and full cups of water?” Alex lowers the tray to Dr. Adkins with a theatrical flourish. “Please enjoy a premeal appetizer,” he says in a staid British accent. “Deviled eggs with deviled crab and crab cakes. A crabstravaganza, if you will.”

  We all groan.

  “Your use of the portmanteau crabstravaganza has spared you from a lecture on premeal appetizer’s being redundant,” Dr. Adkins says, double-fisting a crab cake and a crab deviled egg.

  Desiree comes out of the kitchen to take in our dumbstruck expressions.

  “Now that Desiree is here, you have to finish the story of how you two met,” Vi says.

  “Oh right! Okay, I was saying…yes. I dropped literally two hundred dollars on the meal.” She spends the next several minutes listing the various dishes she ordered.

  “There’s more?” Delaney’s expression is pure incredulity as Dr. Adkins goes on.

  Desiree chuckles. “Oh, sweetie. I’m honestly shocked she survived.”

  “That’s a heroic feat of memory,” Delaney says.

  “I’m more impressed with the culinary creativity and artistry she’s remembering,” Alex says.

  “My man.” Desiree fist-bumps Alex.

  Dr. Adkins continues. “I finish and I’m so inspired, I write a poem on a napkin and send it back to the chef with a one-hundred-dollar tip.”

  “I think the waitstaff is clowning on me until I read the poem and realize no chance did they do this,” Desiree says. “I tell them to take me to this poet. We come to this inked-up, witchy little white lady, and I’m like, ‘Oh Lord, she fine.’ ” We laugh as Desiree embraces Dr. Adkins from behind and kisses her neck.

  Dr. Adkins nuzzles Desiree. “Anyway. I rave and rave about the food. Verging on indignity.”

  “I thought it was appropriate,” Desiree says breezily. “I tell her, there’s more where that came from if there’s more poetry where that poem came from.”

  “I asked, ‘What are you proposing?’ Desiree came back with ‘Write me five poems—for me and only me—and I’ll cook dinne
r for you.’ I said, ‘Six.’ Desiree’s like, ‘Deal.’ ”

  “The rest is history,” Desiree says as she and Dr. Adkins grin slyly and kiss.

  I look at Vi out of the corner of my eye. She’s shining and giddy. I like seeing her connect so deeply to a story of lovers brought together by circumstance.

  * * *

  Desiree has special permission to use a turkey fryer in the dormitory courtyard. We all accompany her and Alex outside to keep vigil over the turkey. The afternoon sky is incongruously sorrow gray, and it’s chilly enough that we’d notice if we stopped talking and laughing for long enough.

  While we wait, I videochat with Mamaw and Papaw. Papaw is having a good day, so I introduce him to the group. He calls Dr. Adkins “Doc” and tells her how much I’ve gushed about her class. He tells Desiree he wishes he could have taken Mamaw to her restaurant for their anniversary. He renews his barbecue challenge to Alex, calling him Tex. He tells Delaney how much he misses their Longmire parties. She promises she’s still working on his cure.

  And he meets Vi for the first time. I pray for him not to embarrass me, even inadvertently, and he doesn’t. He tells her he’s heard wonderful things about her from me. He tells her she should come visit Tennessee sometime and let me take her out on the river. She says she’d love that. He dubs her Sunshine.

  My heart blooms the whole time they speak, my worlds converging in the best possible way.

  I take my phone back from Vi and leave earshot of the group.

  Papaw coughs and coughs; he went into deep debt during his conversations with everyone. When he recovers, he says, “Well, Mickey Mouse, I see why you’re head over heels for that gal. Couldn’t ask for a prettier smile and the personality to boot.”

  “I think I’m gonna tell her how I feel soon,” I say.

  “I don’t imagine it’ll come as any big surprise. I seen how you looked at her.”

  “I’m scared, though.”

  “Sometimes you gotta just let them chips fall.” Papaw coughs and wheezes.

  “Guess so,” I say.

  “Tess know about how you feel about Miss Sunshine?”

  “Told her.”

  “She’s good?”

  “Yep. Like I told you she’d be. I miss y’all. Who’s there today?”

  Papaw tries to yell to summon everyone, but coughing cuts him off. Aunt Betsy and Mitzi are there. I chat for a few minutes with all of them and Mamaw before Papaw gets the tablet back.

  “You let me know how it goes with Sunshine.”

  “I will.” I see Desiree pulling the turkey from the fryer and examining it with Alex. It’s a glistening bronze. Even with two deviled-crab eggs and three crab cakes in my belly, I’m ready for more. “Looks like we’re about to eat. Love you, Papaw.”

  “Love you, Mickey Mouse. Hug Tess for me.”

  It suddenly occurs to me that I’m about to sign off with Papaw for what could well be his last Thanksgiving. I walk still a few more yards away from the group, in case I can’t make it through what I’m about to say without breaking into tears.

  “I love you, Papaw. I’m thankful for you and everything you’ve done for me. Tell everyone I love them.”

  After we end the call, I keep my distance from the group for a little while longer, pretending to continue my conversation by talking into my dead phone, while I pull myself together.

  * * *

  We sit at Desiree and Dr. Adkins’s table. It’s larger than two people need and takes up much of their dining area.

  One by one, Alex and Desiree bring platters from the kitchen, sliding them onto the table and announcing them like guests at a ball.

  Roasted sweet potatoes with sorghum and benne…

  Green beans with clams and Benton’s bacon…

  Cornbread dressing with oysters and andouille sausage…

  Heirloom kale salad with candied pumpkin seeds, charred apples, and reduced cider vinaigrette…

  Bourbon pecan cranberry sauce…

  Corn pudding with jalapeños and cheddar…

  Baked mac and cheese—sorry, but the ingredients of this one stay my secret…

  Rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes with sage-thyme gravy…

  Kimchi fried rice…

  Cajun-seasoned fried turkey…

  My jaw aches at the edges with my mouth’s watering. I love Mamaw’s and Aunt Betsy’s cooking, but this is promising to be a once-in-a-lifetime feast.

  Alex offers to say grace, and he does. We dig in. Every bite is perfect. We wash it down with mulled cider and ice-cold bottles of Mexican Coke. I have seconds of everything and thirds of a few things. We clear the table and all start working on a huge jigsaw puzzle with a folk-art scene of a corn maze and pumpkin patch. After we’ve had an hour or two to digest, Desiree and Alex begin to retrieve desserts from the kitchen, introducing them like the dinner dishes:

  Banana pudding with homemade white chocolate Nutella, Nilla Wafers, and heirloom Carolina African runner peanuts…

  Sweet potato chess pie topped with homemade roasted maple-syrup-infused marshmallows…

  Apple pecan stack cake with apple butter between the layers and cardamom-spiced reduced apple cider sauce drizzled on top…

  The last one triggers a vague memory. I have the most meager collection of good memories from when I was little. This is one. A wedding. I was very young. I was there with Papaw and Mamaw and my mama. Mamaw had brought a layer for the couple’s stack cake on a large platter, wrapped in plastic. I felt warm and safe and loved. The way I’m feeling now. The most so I’ve ever felt since coming to Middleford.

  Beside me, Vi digs into a thick slice of the apple stack cake and her eyes roll back. She murmurs something in Portuguese. It sounds like rubbing satin between your fingers feels.

  “What’s everyone doing for the rest of Thanksgiving break?” Dr. Adkins asks as she gets a second piece of chess pie with a little dollop of banana pudding on the side.

  We all shrug and say hanging out, catching up on sleep.

  “How about you?” I ask.

  “Tomorrow we’re going to New York City. The Strand—this huge bookstore—is having events all day, and TaKisha Biggs, one of my former students, is doing a poetry reading.” She pauses. “Hey! Y’all should come! Rayray, our Hyundai seats seven, right?”

  “Remember you wanted a Prius? And I told you I can’t fit everything I need to cater an event in no damn Prius?”

  “Can we bring them? Pretty please?”

  “Baby, you know I’m good with whatever.”

  “Serious?” I ask.

  “I mean,” Dr. Adkins says, “you’ve all signed travel releases. There’s an educational component to this trip. We’ll go down in the morning and come back the same day, so no overnight.”

  We all look at each other.

  “I love New York!” Vi says. “I spent a month there when I was twelve.”

  “I’m in!” Alex says. “I’ve never been to New York.”

  “Can I go to the Museum of Natural History?” Delaney asks.

  “Sure,” Dr. Adkins says. “Cash? Wanna go to the most exciting city in the world and hear some poetry that will change your life?”

  I’m already euphoric with a vision of Vi and me at the top of the Empire State Building at night, the phosphorescent metropolis lying open before us like pages of a book. As the muted sounds of the city’s bustle and chaos below waft up to us, I turn to her, and I tell her that for the past weeks, nothing has brought me more pure joy than thinking about and spending time with her.

  And she says she feels the same about me.

  “Yeah,” I say to Dr. Adkins. “That sounds pretty cool.”

  * * *

  It’s near curfew by the time we leave. Still, our heavy bellies force us to walk slowly.

  A dense
gray shroud covers the night sky, and mist rings the orange sodium lights that illuminate our path. The air smells like damp brick and ivy and a coming frost.

  “Cash, I’m thankful for your poetry skills,” Alex says.

  “You won us the best meal I’ve ever had in my life and a cool trip tomorrow,” Delaney says.

  “I still want to read your poetry,” Vi says. “When are you going to let me?”

  “Someday maybe.” I’ll never let her. I’ll never be as good as she hopes. Better to let her keep imagining.

  “I don’t even care about reading your poetry; keep the side benefits coming,” Delaney says.

  “Was I offering to let you read it? Huh?” I say. Delaney and I lag behind Vi and Alex.

  “It was good talking to Pep. I miss him,” Delaney says.

  “Same. Today was fun, but. Not the same as being home.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “I mean, you saw him.”

  “I was hoping he was having one of his bad days.”

  “That’s what his good days look like now.”

  “Shit. I’m still working on his cure.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Best I can.”

  I look at her, but she’s gazing off at something else. “Thanks,” I say sincerely.

  “Here you were up my ass about being with all my science friends so much.”

  We arrive at the point where Alex’s and my path diverges from Vi and Delaney’s. I give Vi a long hug good night. Our cheekbones touch. She smells like caramel, vanilla, roasted marshmallows, and something floral. I can’t imagine what will happen if I ever get to kiss her. My heart will probably just dissolve and run down the walls of my chest. But everyone has to die somehow.

  Alex and I get in the elevator. He hits the button.

  “I’m gonna go for it, dude,” I blurt out. “Tomorrow. I’m telling Vi how I feel.”

  Alex turns to me, an ecstatic gleam on his face. “For real?”

  I nod uncertainly. “Taking the plunge.”