by Cynthia Kuhn
“I’ll take you right now,” said Francisco, putting his napkin on the table.
Suddenly, everyone seemed to be on their feet, milling around saying goodbyes.
I made my way to the other end of the table and apologized to Judith for leaving. “It was a lovely dinner, and I’m sorry I need to go, but Francisco’s my ride.”
She hugged me. “No worries, my dear. I do hope Mr. Haines is recovering. You’ll keep me posted.”
I agreed and followed Damon and Mina out to Francisco’s car, not looking forward to what was sure to be a tense journey.
Chapter 10
Damon climbed into the passenger seat, and Mina followed me into the backseat of Francisco’s Jeep Cherokee. As we drove down University Boulevard toward Stonedale Hospital, Damon asked us to walk him through what had happened. From my diagonal position in the back, I could see he was twisting the elegant cane next to his left leg anxiously.
Francisco gave him a quick look before answering. “Lila introduced Jasper, he walked up to the lectern, and then it happened.”
“Had he started talking yet?” Damon asked.
“No,” said Francisco.
“Wait,” I interrupted. “He had begun speaking. I think he’d said a sentence or two, then the light knocked him on the ground.”
“He was hit on the head? Was he bleeding?”
Francisco described the scene for him.
“Did he regain consciousness?” Mina asked, from the backseat.
“Not as far as we know,” I said.
“What was his topic again?” Damon asked.
Francisco told him the title of the presentation and Damon nodded.
“Knew I should’ve gone,” said Damon.
That seemed like a strange thing to say. Did he think if he’d been there, the accident wouldn’t have happened?
“But Dad, you know it upsets you to hear people reading all kinds of things into your work,” protested Mina. “That’s why we didn’t go.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You couldn’t have prevented it,” she continued, reaching around the seat in front of her to rub his arm, her voice soothing.
“And neither could you,” he said to her.
“I’m the one who should have gone,” she said sadly. “But I was trying to fight off this migraine before the dinner party.”
She pressed her head with the top half of her hands and rocked back and forth.
No one spoke the rest of the way.
Francisco pulled up to the emergency room doors and Damon and Mina rushed inside. Francisco found a parking spot not too far away and turned off the engine.
He faced me. “Should we go inside?”
“We’re giving them a ride home, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I say we go in.”
After we’d gone through the sliding glass doors, we moved toward the large intake desk.
“If you’re not family,” I heard a stern-looking nurse say to Damon, “I can’t tell you any more than that.”
“I’m his fiancée,” Mina said, stepping up to the desk and flashing a diamond ring. The nurse led her through two more double doors into the ER area.
The three of us sat in brightly colored plastic chairs in the waiting room. Damon made himself one coffee after another and Francisco checked his phone the whole time. I stared at the string of unfunny sitcoms with annoyingly loud laugh tracks on the television mounted high in the corner of the room. It didn’t seem to set the right tone for an emergency room, but I didn’t know how to change the channel.
After another half hour, Mina reappeared with Jasper in tow. He was moving slowly.
We stood to meet them.
“He has a concussion, but otherwise they think he’s fine,” Mina said.
“Got off easy,” Damon said, looking Jasper up and down. “Good news.”
“Glad you’re okay,” I said.
Jasper gave us a weak smile.
Mina took a firmer grip on his arm. “Let’s get him back to the hotel.”
We all exchanged looks of relief and walked silently to the car through the parking lot. The darkness was punctured here and there by street lamps casting an eerie orange glow on the concrete.
Once we were settled in the car again, it was an effort to fasten my seatbelt. I suddenly felt drained of all energy.
The ride was quiet for the most part, aside from an occasional groan from Jasper. He was slumped in the backseat next to Mina, resting his head on her shoulder. She murmured to him—sounded like words of encouragement, though I couldn’t hear the specifics over the heat blasting out of the vents.
After we deposited the trio at the Mountain Inn, Francisco asked me where I lived.
“You can just drop me by campus,” I said. “Or I can walk from here.”
“No way,” he said. “It’s too late.”
I gave him my address and he put the car in gear.
The tires on the pavement were almost lulling me to sleep, so I cracked my window about an inch. The fresh air revived me slightly.
“How well do you know Jasper?”
“Didn’t you ask me the same question before the panel?” he snapped.
And here I thought we’d bonded tonight. Apparently not. A spark of anger shot through me.
“You don’t have to rip my head off.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Francisco shook his head. “You’re right.”
I was?
When he stopped at the next red light, he turned toward me. “It’s not you. I cannot stand the guy, all right? As soon as he found out we were both writing a book about Damon, he made it a contest. He kept emailing me to check in, he said, but it was really to brag about how much he’d written. He raced me to the finish line, and—” He let out a deep breath. “He won. His book is coming out soon, and I’m still in the submission process.”
“But yours will be great,” I said. Listening to him tonight had been fascinating. “And it doesn’t matter who’s first,” I added, in an attempt to comfort him.
“Except that it does. Which you know, Lila.”
“But you’re not writing on exactly the same topic, are you?”
“He’s writing about The Medusa Variation too, but we both discuss In Medias Res.”
“Francisco, according to the introductions tonight, every one of the panelists has a book coming out on Von Tussel’s most recent collection.”
He sighed again. “I know. But Jasper is the only one who taunted me the whole way through. I finally had to block him from sending me emails because he was really getting inside my head.”
“He sounds like a stalker.”
“He kind of was.” Francisco gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Plus, he kept hinting he knew something I didn’t, that his book would somehow invalidate my book. Mine would already be out there, too late for me to recall, and it would be wrong. I can’t have that. I obviously need the book to be correct in order to be taken seriously for tenure.”
“Had you ever shown him a draft?”
“No, but we’d presented at a bunch of the same conferences on the same panels. That’s how we met.”
“You’ve heard his papers?”
“Yes.”
“And was there anything in them which was especially groundbreaking?”
“Not at all.”
“What do you think he meant?”
“I’ve spent the past months racking my brain over that very question. I can hardly sleep anymore.”
Curiouser and curiouser.
Spencer had somewhat embarrassedly asked all the faculty members to find a way to insert a Von Tussel text or two into our respective class activities. He thought it might engage the students and, of course, sell more tickets. I had a copy of T
he Medusa Variation from grad school, and my mother had sent along In Medias Res when it was published, though I had never read the latter. Time to remedy that. Since I didn’t own any wine glasses, I poured myself a generous tumbler of cabernet and added a handful of ice cubes—blasphemous behavior, according to oenophile friends of my mother—and sank on the sofa. After taking a sip, I flipped the book open to a random section.
The Writer
I pass the group clustered like so many baboons on the steps of the coffeehouse, noting their carefully arranged signs of intellectualism, the startlingly black glasses against the pale poet’s skin, the regimented black turtleneck framing carefully unkempt hair, cultivated bohemian markers. They are poseurs. They are fragile. With one wave of my hand I could disperse them, dandelion puffs scattered over the pavement. But I have no time for such easy revenge.
The hellhole is packed today. I cast a glance about the pretentious snots dotting the tables. A woman in a crushed red velvet dress laughs, exposing a neck made of alabaster. A potential gothic heroine right in the middle of my scenario. How fitting. Welcome to my castle.
A boy stalks up to the podium and fumbles into the microphone, which squeaks when he touches it. I am pleased with his ineptitude. He reddens but clears his throat authoritatively. “Hello,” he says, “and welcome to Café Idiosyncratique’s weekly poetry celebration.” The room silences slowly as audience members drag their heads toward the stage. The boy blathers on about tipping servers appropriately, then introduces the first reader. He snaps his fingers, which prompts a similar action from the audience, like sheep with muted castanets.
I stifle a laugh. The efforts are too painful to watch. I won’t make a move yet, though, as it is too early for what I have in mind.
Well, although I disliked the tone, I had to admit he had satirized something of the vibe that could permeate a performative sphere. I wasn’t sure it qualified as a fully developed short story or even flash fiction, though. Turning the page, I began reading the next piece.
The Professor
He is reading an article, just one in a giant tower of pages collected in another round of painstaking research. The title promises a psychoanalytic take on a book he is “working on”—such a bland phrase to summarize the years of dogged, careful effort, the excruciatingly quiet hours spent in a sort of anxious haze of synthesis, knowing he had things to say but not how they fit together, aware that with every passing day the likelihood of his being “scooped,” to use the vulgar cliché, increased exponentially. He had cocooned himself in his topic, it was his small “area of expertise,” as the saying goes. Long sessions before the glowing keyboard or in the dusty stacks holding the triumphant evidence of others’ ability to complete such projects had honed his sense of endeavor: he thought himself a warrior involved in meaningful pursuits, despite (or perhaps because of) receiving no monetary gain for the painful, noble inquiry. Pale skin, spongy flesh, and clawed hands signify their own kind of honor.
When he begins to process what he’s reading, he can hear his heartbeat echoing loudly in his ears. It can’t be…but it is. There before him in ravaging splendor is the bulk of his insight: the article discusses every point he’s labored to birth in practically the same order and with exactly the same evidence but, and here’s the worst part, in language more precise, more lively, more fluid, and more engaging than anything he could imagine mustering, even on his best day. He glimpses the implications all at once: the research guaranteed to solidify his tenure bid demolished; the probable end of his marriage, as his wife could hardly handle his terse, ghostly presence as it was; the smug satisfaction of his colleagues who had already begun making pointed comments at departmental gatherings, served up with the fancy cheeses and cheap wines. He knows the absolute necessity of finding a new angle as quickly as possible. How could one devote one’s life to something so completely and then, in the name of all that is sweetness and light, have this happen?
He scans the article again, fighting to control the shriek welling up from within. Then slowly, deliberately, aims his shaking hands toward the keyboard.
Damon had certainly captured the potential angst of academic life. With this one, more than the previous selection, I felt simultaneously eager to know what happened next and annoyed that I never would. Maybe there was something to this experiment—though Damon would never label it an experiment. He would—in fact he had—describe “the medion” as “an intentional literary catapult,” which would force readers into imagining the endings themselves, so no reader would experience the same text exactly the same way. I’d rolled my eyes when I first read snippets of much longer pontifications in interviews, but I had to admit it was effective in exposing our readerly expectations about fiction.
These might actually work as comparisons in my Modernism class, where we were studying authors who overtly experimented. And helpfully wrote lots of manifestos explaining why.
The next morning was almost aggressively sunny and much warmer. I emailed my classes, reminding them of the workshop with Damon. It was a unique opportunity, open only to students and English faculty. I hoped they would take advantage of it, especially those with literary aspirations, though I know some students might prefer to hit the slopes instead. It was Friday, after all.
I didn’t have to go to campus until later, so I signed out of the Stonedale website and pulled up my Isabella Dare book proposal to do one last proofreading pass.
Francisco’s situation flashed through my head as I waited for the document to open. The success of his book would matter to Francisco’s tenure bid—not that it had to be a bestseller, but it certainly needed to be respectable. The more I thought about Jasper’s behavior, the worse I felt for Francisco. Writing a book was incredibly hard work—to have finally completed one only to be told your ideas were most likely incorrect would be unbearable. More to the point, why would Jasper do it? I knew many people in academia were highly competitive, but this bordered on downright bullying.
Several hours later, I’d finished proofing the proposal and sample chapters. I pulled up the website of my first-choice university press; thank goodness you could do these things online nowadays. I’d made a list of my top ten over break and was planning to work my way through it if necessary. Carefully, I filled out the required information and attached the necessary documents. I paused at end of the form, almost talking myself out of it, then steeled my resolve—I had to start sometime, right?—and clicked “Submit.”
A flash of joy, followed by a wave of terror.
So that’s what submitting a book felt like.
I glanced at the clock and realized that I needed to hurry if I wanted to make the workshop. After a quick shower and an even quicker lunch, I shoved a thick black wrap into my bag—you never knew in Colorado when you might need another layer—and walked over to campus for the workshop, which began at four. After a few blocks, I realized I had more energy than I’d felt in a long time. Submitting the proposal had rejuvenated me somehow. Maybe it was just that instead of worrying about what I had to do in the future, I’d finally taken some action. Regardless of what happened, I could at least know I’d tried.
I strode past Pennington Library and recognized Mina walking toward me, accompanied by Tally Bendel. I hadn’t realized Damon’s agent was here in Stonedale.
I waved, and we all quickened our steps to meet each other in the middle.
Tally was clad in a fringy leather coat and pants, with extremely high stilettos and a bulky bag slung over one shoulder. She was typing with her thumbs on her phone as she walked, and she barely looked up to acknowledge my presence. Mina wore another tunic and long skirt today—both were in a becoming shade of bronze that matched the streaks in her hair. Her wrists were covered in at least two dozen thin gold bangles which audibly jingled until she stopped just in front of me.
“Lila. So glad I ran into you. Could you please point us in the direction of C
randall Hall?”
I pointed across the green. “I’m heading there now for the workshop. Shall we go together?”
She smiled gratefully and we began walking. When I asked where Damon was, Mina informed me that he wasn’t coming.
Chapter 11
“I’m going to lead the workshop instead,” Mina said. “My father isn’t feeling well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Is it serious?”
“He’ll bounce back before his reading.” Tally dropped the arm holding her phone to her side, fringe flying. I had the feeling her phone was never much farther away from her than that. “You understand, doll.”
I didn’t, but I should have expected that Damon wouldn’t show up after hearing rumors about how he treated his teaching jobs. “Have you let Spencer know about the change of plans?”
Tally assumed a patient look beneath her thick layers of makeup. “Of course. And Mina here is fabulous, just terrific.” She squeezed Mina’s arm. “You’re lucky she’s available.”
“Lila, I know it isn’t ideal,” Mina said apologetically. “But I’ll try to give an insider portrait of my father, and hopefully the audience will enjoy it.”
“Great,” I said, my mind skittering off to imagine what the chancellor would have to say about this. He’d probably find a way to blame me for this too. “Well, follow me.”
I addressed Tally as we walked. “Nice to see you again. I didn’t know you were in town. Do you go to all of Damon’s events?”
“Heck no,” she said, with a short, loud bray. “I was in Aspen for a ski vacation. A long overdue one at that—my clients are marvelous, but they wear me out. You know what I mean.” She clutched Mina with her red talons. “Anyway, his publisher called and demanded I make sure the Colorado events went off without a hitch.”
