Still in Love

by Michael Downing

  “Some radish sprouts,” Mark added.

  “What’s the goo?”

  “Applesauce with a minced-up scallion.”

  Sharon pressed her sandwich back together. “I would happily divorce John and marry this sandwich. And we have to eat fast because he’s coming by to take me to the airport soon.”

  It was news to Mark that Sharon was taking a two-week break from her gig in the ICU to work at the refugee camp in Lesbos, but it was not surprising. This was surely Paul’s idea of a recruiting trip, and it really was Sharon’s idea of a vacation.

  Sharon said, “I should’ve thought to ask if you wanted me to bring something from you in case I see Paul.”

  This made Mark think he should’ve wanted to send something to Paul. A club chair? His car? Instead of mentioning these or any of the other items on the inane, panicky list of possibilities he came up with, he said, “Then I’d have to believe he wasn’t here.”

  Sharon nodded.

  Mark was going to add something about spring break overlooking the Piazza Navona, but that possibility seemed more remote than Paul’s little trawler bobbing around in the middle of the Aegean Sea.

  5.

  It was snowing lightly when Mark left for Amherst on Saturday morning, and about fifteen minutes later, he was driving through a blizzard on the turnpike. The materteral navigation system in Paul’s little black Audi was alerting Mark to hazardous road conditions ahead, and then his phone buzzed, first with a call he didn’t catch, and then three texts. He couldn’t pull over, as the snow was banked up in the emergency lane, and he knew the piles would only get deeper if he kept going west toward his childhood home in the Berkshires, a past he had relegated to the deep permafrost of his imagination after the controversy that erupted during his tenure at McClintock College, which briefly brought his long-dead father back into Mark’s life.

  His phone buzzed a few more times, so he took the next exit, and pulled into a gas station parking lot. The weather predictions for Western Massachusetts were dire—more than a foot of snow was on the way, along with winds exceeding sixty miles per hour. Mark’s horizon was considerably brighter. The first of several texts he’d received announced the cancellation of the NEPCAJE meeting at Amherst. And though there was another storm brewing among participants attempting to settle on a plausible makeup date, after a couple of quick exchanges with the dean, Mark was allowed to opt out of that meeting by agreeing to deliver his literature review to the committee two weeks from today. He knew he ought to take advantage of his early dismissal and get right to work on his assignment, but instead he headed to Ipswich to check on the fate of the Saab.

  Two hours later, Ozzie handed him his car keys. “It was nothing—a new ignition cylinder is all.” Ozzie was keeping an eye on a young guy spreading snowmelt under the seven cars jammed into the service station’s four parking spots.

  “So it’s fine,” Mark said.

  “You’ve got about three months left on those struts,” Ozzie said. “And I sealed up the moon roof with caulk to stop that leak once and for all.”

  The leak was news to Mark—well, since the last repair. “So—don’t open it for a while?”

  “I disabled the switch,” Ozzie said.

  “But everything else?”

  Ozzie didn’t respond.

  Mark said, “I mean, like the brakes.”

  “What about them?”

  “I’m just asking,” Mark said.

  “If you have trouble stopping, let me know. Is that Paul’s car you’ve got?” He turned and yelled, “Hey, Bobby, wanna take the Saab for a spin?” He turned to Mark. “Can you drop him back here?”

  Mark said, “Of course.”

  Ozzie tossed the Saab keys to Bobby, who went to adjust the driver’s seat. “Listen, I had him shovel you out,” Ozzie said. “I’m trying to throw some work his way. I’d like him to learn he doesn’t have to end up like his old man. Anyway, it’s a pain in the ass to maneuver my plow in your driveway. Same deal as always, I’ll bill you. Kid can’t hold on to a dollar, but he’s a worker. He’s my ex-wife’s sister’s stepkid.”

  Bobby followed Mark home, and then walked around to the passenger side of the Saab while Mark parked Paul’s car. Unlike Ozzie, Bobby had shoveled off the front steps and porch, and a path to the oil pipe for the furnace on the other side of the house. When Mark complimented him on the work and handed him a tip, Bobby pulled his beanie down over his forehead and refused the cash.

  “I’m not allowed to handle my own money right yet,” he said.

  A few minutes later, Mark asked if he’d grown up in Ipswich. He was thinking of the guy who had towed his Saab, wondering if a kid like Bobby would ever get the chance to see the possibility of being someone else, doing something he’d never imagined.

  Bobby tugged his hat down a little further and mumbled that Ozzie was his uncle—sort of. Mark said Ozzie was sort of everybody’s uncle, and Bobby closed his eyes, pressing himself against the door. His body finally relaxed when the garage was in sight, but he didn’t jump out immediately as Mark stopped the car.

  “I know it’s really small and everything, Mr. Sternum,” Bobby said, pulling off his hat, “but I like your house. Have a great day.” He slammed the door and ran up to Ozzie in the office. Ozzie said something, and Bobby nodded, and then they gave each other a fist bump, a small but memorable graduation ceremony.

  6.

  Mark rarely heard from the Professor on weekends, but while he was sifting through the sections of the Sunday papers in Ipswich, before he’d had a chance to write his One Percent email to Paul, he found himself regaling the Professor with the futility of the drive to Amherst and complaining about the literature review he still hadn’t even started to write. Mark also recounted his time watching that doctor in the ICU, who seemed to get by regurgitating the nurses’ reviews of the patients, and though there was nothing extraordinary or even especially interesting about this from the Professor’s perspective, Mark realized that he envied and maybe even admired the efficient way that doctor plagiarized authority while leaving the burden of accuracy—and liability—on the shoulders of the nurses who were charged with reading and interpreting the patients’ symptoms. And though all of this was met with profound radio silence, so that Mark was basically talking to himself, he didn’t relent until he had opened his laptop and found the file with the list of NEPCAJE books, hoping he could persuade the Professor to look it over and offer some perspective and advice about how Mark might make quick work of the task—if only, Mark added, so he could afford to devote as much time to those op-eds the Professor was writing as they surely deserved.

  7.

  After circling his desk for several hours on Sunday, occasionally sitting down to reread the list of book titles he was responsible for, Mark Googled his way into a wormhole of higher-education hysteria, where he remained until midnight, zigzagging around reviews and rebuttals and heated letters to editors that were as contradictory and contrary as the NEPCAJE books themselves. He still hadn’t written a word when the last of the students’ twelve Technical Exercises popped into his mailbox, so he bundled them up, printed copies for himself, and set aside a packet for the Professor. He didn’t go to bed, and by six thirty on Monday morning, when it was obvious that sleep was not on the menu, he wandered down to Paul’s office and rode the stationary bike for half an hour, not for the exercise but to spare himself the bother of inventing a better metaphor for his existence.

  Mark experienced no adverse effects from the lack of sleep, though it occasioned some inconvenience for others. He was late getting to campus, and halfway to Hum Hall he had to go back to his car for his bag, which he later learned had left Anton, Isaac, and Jane marooned outside his office until a departmental secretary wandered by and told them Mark was attending the Curriculum Committee meeting, which by two fifteen was true because Althea Morgan had spotted him strolling past the windows of the first-floor conference room and collared him as he headed toward
the stairs.

  “The meeting started almost an hour ago, and I’ve been doing everything but card tricks to keep everyone in place so we can vote. We need a quorum. And you owe me this one, Mark.”

  Mark was trying to recall what question was on the ballot, but Althea seemed to think he was checking her math to measure his debt.

  Taking hold of his sleeve, she said, “Remind me—how many classes are you teaching this semester?”

  Althea had a damnably good memory and a thick file on everyone in the department to back her up when necessary. She had reluctantly agreed to be chair when she was first asked to take the five-year appointment. That was ten years ago. As no one else on the English faculty was willing to spend five days a week on campus dealing with the likes of the English faculty, she had effectively turned the department into Cuba—a haven for aging, would-be radicals whose loyalty could be bought on the cheap, a dreamy island effectively cut off from the rest of the world with a rapidly shrinking population and, when Mark cast his affirmative vote, the only undergraduate English major in the country that still required students to take two semesters of Shakespeare and two semesters of pre-Elizabethan literature.

  The classroom was full and silent when Mark arrived a minute before three. All twelve heads were bowed over phones. Mark pulled out the packets of new stories so he wouldn’t forget to hand them around.

  Leo looked up and said, “You heard? There’s been another attack in Paris.”

  Mark nodded, though he had not heard the news.

  Someone said, “The guy is still on the loose.”

  Mark said, “So be careful out there. And be grateful we are here. Any questions about what was said in the short workshops about your hit-and-run stories?”

  The phones disappeared, the packets appeared. And then nothing.

  Mark let a few minutes pass. “Let’s go through them in reverse order for a change.”

  Neither Willa nor Virginia had any questions.

  Rashid said, “I had a lot of questions during my workshop, but now they just seem like—well not questions anymore, just issues I have to work out. The comments were really helpful.”

  Penelope passed, too.

  It was Max’s turn. “I hate to say it, but point proved.”

  Mark smiled.

  Anton said, “What’s the point?”

  Max said, “All we wanted to do the first time we had to suffer silently during workshops was answer back to every comment, try to get somebody to tell you what you ought to do to make something work better, or just to get a better reaction. Now, when he takes off our gags, nobody has anything to say.”

  Anton looked up at Mark. “Was that your point?”

  Mark said, “You aren’t confused about anything you heard about your story, Anton?”

  “I’m confused about how to fix it, but that’s my problem.”

  “Bingo!” Max turned to Leo. “I dare you to come up with something about your story.”

  Leo turned to Julio. “I double-dare you.”

  Julio slapped his hands against the chest of his puffy parka. “I have two questions. Are we supposed to put our names on our annotated drafts of everybody else’s stories?”

  Mark said, “Yes.”

  Julio said, “Did everybody hear that?”

  He got a few grudging nods in response.

  Willa said, “And? Your second question?”

  Julio said, “That was two.”

  Jane and Isaac passed.

  Dorothy said, “Could we maybe admit defeat and talk about ideas for revising? I mean, I rewrote the monosyllable story—”

  “Already?” This was Charles. “We can do that?”

  “They’re your stories,” Mark said.

  “Anyway,” Dorothy said, “when Mark read it, he agreed—I think you did—that it was better.”

  “Much,” Mark said. “The literal text felt more authoritative, more confident.”

  “But then you had four entirely new questions that didn’t come up in my first draft, either in the typed comments or in workshop,” Dorothy said.

  “It’s a new story to me every time,” Mark said.

  “Okay,” Dorothy said, “so, how will I know when it is done?”

  All heads turned to Mark.

  “When the portfolio is due,” Max said.

  Mark didn’t say anything.

  Willa said, “Maybe you’re never really done with a story.”

  Leo said, “I agree. You just stop at some point, and it’s like, that’s the painting because that’s when you put down the brush.”

  “Or maybe when—” Rashid smiled.

  Mark said, “When?”

  “This doesn’t really answer Dorothy’s question, but I like what we talked about last time, how every story is a transaction. When I was writing the yard sale story—is it okay to talk about the new stories?”

  “Please talk about something new,” Max said.

  “I spent hours thinking about currencies—you know, not just the money changing hands, but what else had to be, or could be exchanged.”

  Virginia said, “The emotional currencies.”

  “And the price of things,” Penelope added. “I mean, the different value the buyer and the seller might put on an item.”

  “So you’re saying if the transaction is complete, the story is complete?” Dorothy didn’t sound convinced.

  The discussion went on for almost an hour, until the Professor slipped in, and Dorothy said, “Well, thanks, everyone. I’m more confused than ever.” She fixed her gaze on the fading afternoon beyond the unoccupied windowsills. “And before you say so, I know that makes you happy.”

  The Professor didn’t say a word. He picked up a thick stack of paper and called out each of the twelve names, waiting each time for someone to look up or raise a hand, and then he slid another packet of three or four stapled pages down the table. “Read.”

  Mark looked at the one packet left in front of him.

  ESSENTIAL TEXT

  This is a pared-down version of the text of your original story. My intention was not to revise your story but to give you an editorial response based strictly on your prose choices—that is, based on what is here, rather than what is not here.

  I am not proposing this as an alternative or as a more authoritative version of your text. I am hoping to open up your sense of the opportunities for revising your original draft.

  My aim as I read and reread your yard sale story was to pare away words, phrases, or sentences that were not essential to my understanding of the literal text (the characters and action) and material that did not serve my understanding of your suggestive text. (You might well discover that there is more editing to do.) My hope is that this pared-down text will help you identify choices that are not working as you intended, as well as opportunities for heightening the effect of your most suggestive choices.

  In a few instances, I moved phrases or sentences, rearranged the sequence, or transposed conversations. If I added a word or phrase, or altered a form of your chosen word, I put the new text in brackets. A quick glance at the few brackets will let you see how few words I altered or added.

  What is here is your voice, and your choices: your essential text.

  I don’t expect you to adopt this version of your story when you revise. I simply wanted you to see which elements of your literal and suggestive texts were essential to my understanding of your intent. You might well want to eliminate additional text, you might want to restore some material I undervalued, and you will certainly want to invent some new action and dialogue to deepen and complicate the central character and to more potently and poignantly deliver the suggestive truth of the transaction for both your characters and your reader.

  The next page is simply your essential text, and on the following pages you can see exactly what was edited away from your original. My hope is that you will see that the most reliable way to revise—I mean, the one thing you can do when you are confused about rea
ders’ responses and not yet confident about your own sense of the story—is to cut, cut, cut. I suggest you choose an arbitrary percentage and eliminate words and phrases until you reach that percentage. Then, read what remains—your essential text.

  In all of these drafts, I aimed to cut at least 40 percent.

  * * *

  (Mark Sternum / 498 words originally; 245 essential words)

  The Professor had tomato plants on the passenger seat, [but] one table [at] the yard [sale] was piled high with books. As he pulled over, two young guys loaded a mountain bike missing its front wheel into a black Cadillac.

  The books were of no interest—college texts, an encyclopedia of music—nor were the harmonica, keyboard, or the banjo in a black case lined with satin.

  Two stout women wrestl[ed] with a tent, glancing at the bearish man inside the garage.

  A blonde yelled, “Richard!” [from] a picnic table, her hand on a cash box.

  Richard stepped into the light. He was wearing an Oberlin sweatshirt, holding a bent bicycle wheel.

  As she approached, the blonde—Richard’s wife?—grabbed the bent wheel. “Let it go.”

  Richard sidled up to the Professor. “Buy the harmonica.” His breath smelled boozy.

  The Professor said, “I don’t play.”

  Richard slid two twenties under the harmonica and whispered, “Follow me.”

  Richard’s wife said the [women] could have [the tent] for forty.

  One of the[m] found a sleeping bag inside the tent. “It’s warm,” she said. “Creepy.”

  The Professor followed Richard to the picnic table, handed him the cash and the harmonica. “I don’t want this.”