“Blass Ball,” enunciated a visibly annoyed man in the front row.
“Sorry, Blass Ball,” said Amy. Blassball? What the hell kind of name was Blassball?
“Blass Ball,” said the man, even more put out.
“Blass…” Oh for god’s sake. “I’m sorry. Could you spell it?”
“B-L-A-S-B-A-L-G.” He was a slight, fine-boned, annoyed man in a maroon running suit, which would come in handy when he ran back to the registration office, Tony Arena in tow, to demand both their refunds.
“Thank you. Sorry about this. And pronounced Blass Ball?”
“Blass Ball!”
“Suggestion!” Froggie waved his hairy arm in exaggerated, locked-elbow fashion, like a small child who has to go to the bathroom. “How about we turn off this fan? It’s making a terrific racket back here.”
“Please,” said Amy, and in a click a terrible quiet descended over a room she had previously thought merely tomblike. “And I’ll tell them to put a second l in your name, Mr. Blasbalg.”
“Harry,” said the annoyed man.
Amy cleared her throat. “Ricky Brizza?”
“Buzza.”
“Three for three!” cheered Froggie, to scattered applause.
“That was my line,” said Amy, who felt already as if she and Froggie had been mortal enemies in another life. “Buzza,” she said sadly.
“B-U-Z-Z-A. You got it.” The young man smiled at her in a kindly way. “But you can call me Brizza if you want.” He looked like a Norman Rockwell paperboy all grown up, eager and full of energy. He was going to stay. And he had short-clipped blond hair, not exactly a buzz cut, but it would do.
“No,” said grateful Amy, “I will call you Buzza.” She scribbled on her list, fixing Buzza, fixing Tony, decorating Blasbalg with obscenities. “Next,” she said, “we have, arguably, Dorothy Hieronymus.”
“Here.” A plump, pleasant-faced woman about Amy’s age raised her hand. “I use dot,” she said.
Amy nodded as though this made sense, because by now she basically didn’t give a shit. Uses dot. “Tiffany McGee.” The pretty blond girl with the winery balloonists. Of course her name was just fine. “Sylvester Reyes.” Tall, tan, fifties, hiking shorts, sitting in the front row with his legs spread wide. Why did men do that? Simple comfort? No way. “Call me Syl,” he said.
Amy shook her head at the next name. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but as God is my witness, the next name is Marvy Stokes.”
“Right here.”
General hilarity. She was working the room at last. Sure, they were laughing at her, but the laughter seemed pretty companionable. This could turn out to be a good group, what with the shared experience of watching its instructor make an ass of herself. What price dignity? Nine hundred and thirty-five dollars a quarter, no benefits. “You’re my first Marvy, Mr. Stokes,” said Amy.
“And you’re my first writing teacher,” said Marvy, a Hawaiian-print shirt, chest-hair kind of guy in his forties. “Actually, it’s Marvin,” he said.
“Hence Marvy,” said Amy.
“Right.”
“Got it. Frank Wasted?”
“Wah-sted,” said another running-suit man in his thirties, this one bright orange. He’d beat out Blasbalg in a sprint: he looked like a lifetime member of Gold’s Gym. Maybe a founder.
“Wah-sted,” said Amy. Why the hell not? “W-A-S-T-E-D?”
“There’s another A,” Wah-sted offered, reasonably.
“Where?”
“Right before the first one.”
“I can’t stand it.” Amy put her head in her hands. The laughter was delighted, unforced. They were bonding.
“W-A-A-S-T-E-D.” Muscle Man ticked off each letter on a stubby upraised finger and smiled agreeably. “See?”
“As in aardvark.”
“Exactamento.”
“Edna Wentworth?” Gray hair, thick and permed; polite smile.
“Tiffany Zuniga?”
“Absent.”
Amy shot a look toward the speaker, who turned out to be Ricky Buzza. “I beg your pardon?”
“She’s coming. She’s late. She’s colleague of mine.” She’s more than that, thought Amy, watching Ricky Buzza turn pink.
“So much for the list,” she said, and turned it over so she could write on its back. “Now for the shoppers. Starting here”—she said, pointing stage right—“would those of you whose names haven’t been called out and mangled please identify yourselves?”
A handsome, patrician man in a gorgeous cream-colored cashmere sweater raised, not his hand, but a single index finger, as though summoning a witer. “I am Dr. Richard Surtees,” he said.
Well, whoopee. Amy flashed on an old joke, one of the sort where, given a famous line, you were supposed to fabricate a question that changed its meaning. Line: Dr. Livingstone, I presume? Question: And what is your full name, Dr. Presume?
An equally handsome woman to his left, mid-forties, skinned-back chestnut hair, smiled at Amy. “Ginger Nicklow,” she said. Their looks were similarly classical, but the similarity stopped there, and clearly she was unconnected, other than spatially, to Dr. Richard Surtees. She had a thrift-shop elegance about her that beat hell out of wallet-elegance.
“Pete Purvis,” said somebody somewhere. Amy looked up but couldn’t find him. “I’m here,” said Pete Purvis, and sure enough he was, a pale young man in a green sweatshirt, squarely behind poor Tiny. Tony. Amy could just see his upraised hand.
Two hands went up in unison, side by side. A couple in matching T-shirts and jeans. “We’re the Boudreaus, Sam and Marilyn,” said the man. “We’re not staying,” said the woman.”
“Do you want to leave now?”
The Boudreaus shrugged and shook their smiling heads in unison. The first class was free, and clearly the Boudreaus never turned down a freebie.
A tall, slender young woman stood in the doorway, panting.
“Tiffany Zuniga?” asked Amy unnecessarily, as Ricky Buzza was making a clumsy job of clearing his stuff off the chair next to him. When she didn’t notice him he patted the seat, thumping it hopefully, like the tail of a happy hound. Taking pity, Amy pointed him out to Tiffany II, who sat down without acknowledging him, whipped a steno pad out of her backpack, and held her pencil poised above it, ready to record Amy’s every luminous word.
Amy cleared her throat. “Either one of you is lying doggo,” she said, “or I can’t add. I’ve got fifteen names now on my list and there are sixteen of you.”
“It’s me,” said Froggie. “I was on the fence.”
“That’s perfectly all right, but I’d still like your name.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Froggie, grinning.
“Rumplestiltskin?” asked Amy.
“Charlton Heston,” said Froggie.
Amy just stared.
“Really,” said Froggie. “My mother was a religious nut.”
“Charlton Heston,” said Amy. She massaged her eyeballs as the class bonded joyously all around her. It was early for break, but what the hell. “Take five, everybody. Take twenty. When you come back, we’ll get down to business. Be prepared to tell us what books you like to read, and what you hope to accomplish here in the remaining weeks.” Amy always got them to name their favorite writers: it was a good icebreaker, and it helped her sort them out in her head. A depressing proportion of writing students didn’t actually read much fiction, but few would admit it. Instead, they’d usually profess a deep love of one or all of three writers: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Updike. Amy had no idea why these were the safe names for nonreaders. Perhaps this would make a good list for her blog.
Charlton Heston walked up to her as the rest filed out. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Is your name really Charlton Heston?”
“Yep.”
Amy sighed and found herself smiling up at him. “You can get me a beer.”
“How do you take it?”
“Black,” said Amy.
The Writing Class
Winner of the National Book Award
Edward Kornhauser
Jincy Willett is a writer and editor. She is the author of The Writing Class and Winner of the National Book Award. She lives in San Diego, California.
JENNY AND THE JAWS OF LIFE. Copyright © 1987 by Jincy Willett. Foreword copyright © 2002 by David Sedaris. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.picadorusa.com
Picador® is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by St. Martin’s Press under license from Pan Books Limited.
For information on Picador Reading Group Guides, please contact Picador.
E-mail: [email protected]
The following stories originally appeared in other publications and are reprinted by permission:
“My Father, at the Wheel,” The Massachusetts Review, Spring 1987; “Anticipatory Grief,” The Yale Review, Winter 1983; “Under the Bed,” The Massachusetts Review, Spring 1984; “Justine Laughs at Death,” Playgirl, November 1986; “Mr. Lazenbee,” The Yale Review, Winter 1987.
“Melinda Falling” received a Transatlantic Review Award in 1981 from the Henfield Foundation.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-0753-2
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press
(* If I could get the name of the river I’d be all set here)
Jenny and the Jaws of Life Page 22
