Mark flipped a few pages in his notebook. “I’m just looking for when I saw a revision of that story.”
“You didn’t give us a deadline for revisions, and I’ve done everything else on time.” His voice was getting louder, and he must’ve been sweating because he ripped off his parka and stuffed it down behind him in the chair. “And I did say some things in class.”
“During the first week or two,” Mark said, “and then I’d say you let other people do most of the heavy lifting. Or am I remembering our time in class incorrectly?”
Julio didn’t say anything.
Mark said, “That was a genuine question.”
Julio said, “I just didn’t think participation would really end up counting for so much.”
“And punctuation and syntax,” Mark said. “And revisions.”
“I get all that,” Julio said. “You could remind us about the participation, though.”
Mark nodded. “Remind me, Julio. What year do you graduate?”
“Soon, with your cooperation,” he said. Finally, he smiled. “I’m not blowing off this class. It’s my favorite, really, but I sometimes don’t have much to say about the stories. I mean, usually I just like them.”
“That’s not because you’re reading each of them twice and writing down lots of notes in the margins before the workshops,” Mark said.
“True,” Julio said. He was shaking his head, lips pursed. Eventually, he pulled on his parka. “I really thought talking to you was going to put me in a good mood.”
Mark said, “You’re better than what you’ve done so far.”
“Room for improvement,” Julio whispered. “Story of my life.” He had gone all soft suddenly, slumping in the chair, hands folded at his waist.
Was he feeling defeated, or was this a show of self-pity? Impossible to tell. Did he want empathy or sympathy or a B+? Not clear. But he was a senior who had yet to demonstrate a mastery of commas and conjunctions, so Mark said, “When should I expect the first revision?”
“Tomorrow,” Julio said, and then winced, as if he’d instantly realized he could have gotten away with a promise of next week.
“Great. I’ll be here, and eager to read.”
Julio nodded and didn’t say anything else on his way out.
Willa walked in and tossed her hat onto the little desk under the window. “What a waste of time meditating is,” she said. She took off her long coat and folded it in half so it would fit beside her hat. She was wearing cowboy boots and a flowery short-sleeved sheath dress last seen on an episode of Little House on the Prairie, and she was wishing she had dropped Abnormal Psychology, wishing the professor would stop using the term self-experiments, which was an oxymoron, and wondering if her revision of the tag sale story now started in medias res—“in the middle of things,” she added, in case Mark didn’t have as much Latin as she did. She handed Mark his annotated version of her revision.
“Yes and no,” Mark said, looking over his comments. “You’ve done great work to get the tag sale up and running, but if the story opened with her feverishly sorting through stuff as she does in the fourth line—would much be lost?”
“No.” Willa was still clomping around behind him. “Only the stuff about the weather, but why shouldn’t the rain just happen, right?”
Mark said, “There is a lot of meteorological buildup.”
Willa sat down. “Why don’t you teach a course in Shakespeare?”
Mark didn’t say anything.
Willa said, “I’m about to graduate and—in our class lately, I’ve been seeing what an idiot I am. I mean, I see how I’m trying to write some profound story, but I’ve never even read a whole play by Shakespeare. Not even in high school.”
Mark said, “Didn’t you have to read Romeo and Juliet?”
Willa scrubbed her short hair as if she were in a shower. It actually looked better in the aftermath. “CliffsNotes and fast-forwarding through the old movie version. How can I graduate college without ever reading a single play by the greatest writer in the history of the world?” She was a remarkably attentive student, a writer who took reader responses to heart, a little harsh as a critic, and a terrible judge of what to put on before she left the house. She was on her way to becoming a surgeon, and something—maybe a comment made by her high school English teacher years ago, maybe the creative-writing class, maybe the ersatz form of meditation she’d been practicing in the hall—had put Shakespeare in her way.
“Lucky you,” Mark said. “I envy you the chance to read the plays for the first time as an adult. You are in for a treat. Why don’t you start with Romeo and Juliet?”
“Now?”
It was obviously a genuine question. “During spring break? We could meet when you get back to talk about what you made of it.”
“And then another play maybe?”
Mark said, “He wrote a few.”
“For credit?” Willa looked hopeful. “Is it too late to make it an official Independent Study with a grade?” She was pre-med, and she had already learned that being a doctor meant getting the credit.
A knock at the door brought Willa to her feet. When she opened the door, she said, “Oh.” She left Charles in the hall and collected her hat and coat. “Thank you for everything, Mark,” she said, staring down Charles.
Mark stood up. Charles didn’t move, though he did raise his eyebrows when Willa put on her cowboy hat. Mark glanced back at Willa. She was texting something. Charles looked up at the ceiling to relieve his exasperation. Willa moved to the doorway, turned her back to Charles as she poked at her phone. Charles ahemmed twice.
It wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was a compelling little drama.
Willa said, “I’m off.” She blew past Charles without a word.
“Can I just ask you a question?” Charles seemed unsure about entering a room formerly occupied by Willa.
Mark saw Jane’s red hood rising up the staircase, and he knew she was capable of bargaining her way in before Charles and possibly scaring him off entirely, so he hurried Charles inside, closed the door, sat at his desk, and swiveled toward Charles. Had he always been Charles? He was an awkward guy, with a lot of him bubbling up against the seams of the pale blue button-down shirts and chinos he wore every day. And his beard was still looking like a parched and patchy lawn. It was easy to imagine Charles was in transition, but it was not so easy to know which way he was headed.
Charles didn’t sit. He grabbed the back of the alumni chair and leaned forward. “I’m trying to figure out how to write my story in Russian but make it English.”
Mark said, “Is it set in Russia?”
“Italy,” Charles said.
Mark said, “Do you speak Russian?”
“No,” Charles said, “but they do.”
“The Italians?”
This occasioned a thoughtful pause. “Some of them are going to have to, I guess.”
Mark said, “Who’s telling the story, Charles?”
“I see what you mean,” he said. His hands had gone beet red against the black chair.
Although Mark had no idea what either of them meant by anything they’d said so far, something about Charles’s serious demeanor made him think the conversation might yet pay off, so he tossed another ruble into the pot. “If you had to name the genre—I mean, thriller, caper, mystery—”
“Oh, it’s a love story,” Charles said. “Unrequited.”
That was a relief. “One way to handle foreign languages in English prose is to have the narration establish the speaker’s language and then give the speech in English. Or, you can use indirect free discourse as you did in the tag sale story, letting us hear the tone and quality of the character’s voice through the narration. And you can drop in a few italicized words in the speaker’s native tongue—simple words that readers can interpret by context without translation.”
Charles stood up straight. “Hello and goodbye.”
Mark said, “Thank you.”
Char
les said, “Grazie.”
Mark said, “Spasibo.”
Charles didn’t like the sound of that one. “So I should warn you—in the draft page for class, I didn’t really do such a good job with the languages.”
“That’s why you write a draft and give it to readers. It feels like a risk, but it always pays off.”
“No offense, but I’m supposed to meet with Professor Arsenault about my Senior Project for Sociology soon. We’re having a problem with the cross-country team and some other jocks signing out all the anxiety dogs and running around with them in Breakheart Reservation all day, so there are no dogs left for the kids who need them.”
Mark said, “We can talk again about the draft pages after your workshop.”
“Page,” Charles said. “But now you’ve got me thinking about how dogs understand what you say, no matter what language it’s in.”
Mark said, “I think Jane might be waiting to see me. Good luck with the dogs.”
Charles said, “They’re just innocent bystanders,” and told Jane to go in as he passed her.
Jane had evidently spent her time in the hall rearranging the contents of six bulging folders, which she stacked up on Mark’s desk, and then left to retrieve her satchel and cape. “I know you are extremely busy,” she said, shoving Mark’s bag to the far side of his desk to make room for her knapsack. “It’s that time of year. Everyone is,” she added, just to be sure she hadn’t let slip an inadvertent compliment. “I don’t want to put the blame on anyone in particular, but I am pretty worried about my story draft and how hard some people are going to come down on me.” She sat. “And if we have some extra time, I want to talk about those dates we had to pick for our story workshops because there are a lot more blank spaces than stories after spring break, and I don’t understand how you expect us to fill them all up.” She seemed annoyed that she hadn’t yet had to speak over Mark. “I was thinking about how you could maybe coach the other kids to see things from my point of view once in a while.”
Mark said, “Have you ever read Romeo and Juliet?” He was thinking about Willa, and Shakespeare, and Charles leaning on the back of the chair as if it were the railing of a balcony. It was not yet a coherent thought, and he could see that Jane was confused.
“Me?”
Mark nodded.
“A long time ago.”
“What is it Juliet says in the balcony scene?”
Jane looked amused, or maybe worried? “Is this about Wherefore art thou?”
“That’s it,” Mark said. “It’s one of dozens of questions in her speeches. And Romeo, his speech is full of questions, too. If you look at the text, you’ll be amazed by how many questions they pose to each other.”
Jane didn’t say anything.
Mark said, “You could say that questions are the language of love. They invite someone else into the conversation, into the story.”
Jane said, “I thought we weren’t allowed to ask questions during our workshops.”
This was not going well. Mark had hoped he could help Jane alter her declamatory style in class discussions by translating her comments into questions. She wasn’t having it. “Don’t worry about the open spaces after spring break on the schedule,” he said. “Everyone has to bring at least one revision to the class of every story that is going into the final portfolio.”
Jane was transcribing this into a notebook. She looked relieved. Finally, Mark had come up with something she could sink her teeth into.
“We can bring revisions to the class more than once?”
Mark said, “Absolutely.”
Jane nodded her approval. “So, choosing early workshop dates leaves me more time for revising with you and then the whole class.”
Mark said, “Was that a question?”
“Oh, no. I’m just thinking out loud.”
Mark said, “I was wondering how you feel about waiting till Thursday to have your workshop?” He knew it was hopeless, but he was still clinging to that balcony. “It might be useful to watch and see how a few other stories are treated today before you are on the receiving end. Does that make sense?”
Jane looked intrigued. “The Thursday stories—are you going to force everybody to read them at home before class tomorrow?”
She had mastered the form, if not the spirit of the question. “That’s the idea,” he said.
“Then I don’t mind,” Jane said. She leaned over and extracted a folder from her pile on Mark’s desk, filed away the notes she’d taken, packed the folders into her bag, and donned her cape. She checked the time on her phone. “I usually like getting here first, but there’s something nice about not having people knocking on the door while we’re trying to talk.”
Just thinking aloud. Mark said, “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”
“Twelve,” Jane said, and she closed the door on her way out.
3.
The first fifteen minutes of class were devoted to raffling off the workshop dates for the rest of the semester, which inevitably gave way to questions about submitting revisions, exactly what had to be in the final portfolio, and requests for a review of the percentage breakdown of the grade value of everything until the Professor lost patience with the administrative details and said, “We have work to do. Today, for the only time until the last class of the semester, we will ask the writer to read her or his work aloud as we annotate our printed copies. At this point, our aim is to give brief responses to illuminate for the writer what we understand, what we expect, and anything incomprehensible in the literal text of the story’s opening page or two. Briefly.”
The Professor had so little patience for the time it took each writer to read a page or two that he had tried every semester to persuade Mark to let him speed-read the drafts aloud, but Mark was committed to giving the students the stage. So, as soon as the last word of the first draft page was intoned, the Professor yelled, “What is at stake? Charles? Charles!” That woke everyone up. And after the stakes were identified by Charles, with assistance from Dorothy! Leo! and Willa!, a few students—Julio! Rashid! Jane!—speculated on the arcs for the main characters, and then the Professor asked Virginia! Anton! Max!—and keep it brief, Max—about opportunities they hoped to see exploited later in the story, and then elicited a series of literal confusions, starting with Rashid! Finally, he slapped the draft on the desk and held up another.
This was the Professor’s interpretation of the Socratic method. It fell to Mark to temper the performance with a Platonic question or two.
“I’ve got Penelope in my sights,” the Professor said.
When Mark looked around the room, twelve familiar faces stared from the windowsills at the twelve writers at the table. He said, “Would you like to read us what you wrote, Penelope?”
And but for the occasional Julio? Virginia? Jane? from Mark, requesting a clarification or an example, so it went for more than an hour.
When he had first agreed to design the course with the Professor, Mark had assumed that students would always read their stories aloud to the workshop, as was true in every creative-writing class he’d ever taken or observed or even heard about. The listeners in those classes were not given printed copies of the stories in advance—typically, they didn’t even have printed copies to consult while the stories were being read aloud in class—so they never wrote responses but simply spoke about what had just been read while the writer listened. Mark had explained all of this to the Professor.
So we wouldn’t have to teach them anything, the Professor had said.
Mark had said, Ask anyone. Not a persuasive counterargument, he knew, but he hadn’t anticipated any resistance.
The Professor had said maybe they should go away and think about it all for a week, but he did concede that what Mark was proposing sounded sort of appealing, really fun, too, and it would definitely make for a terrific little story-time program in a nursery school.
4.
No one stayed after class on Wednesday, though there w
ere several shouted threats about emailed revisions on their way. And on Thursday, Julio was waiting for Mark at his office door with one revision of his own, and three from others who hadn’t wanted to wait in line, which he delivered before speeding away, promising to return on Monday with more. Leo had evidently stopped by, as well. Taped to Mark’s office door was an 8x10 color portrait of Punter, the Welsh terrier, with a caption: Why can’t we be friends?
Dorothy, Max, and Virginia dropped by with questions about a word or phrase in one of the stories they’d each revised four or five times already. Isaac turned up with new iterations of all three of his Technical Exercises, though he really wanted to give Mark a play-by-play of the curling club’s first victory because they’d stunned the club team from Wesleyan, and Isaac had been wait-listed there.
On his way to class, Mark spotted something red huddling by the door of the Arts Building. As he approached, Jane waved.
“Hello, Professor.”
Mark almost made a joke about her addressing him by his title, but Jane looked a little pale. And he was her professor.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Jane said, rushing ahead to hold open the door, “but I thought it would help if I walked in with you today. I could use some backup.”
Mark said, “My prediction? You’re going to be surprised.”
Jane said, “You’re just like me—a born optimist.”
She didn’t look at all surprised when the workshop for her story elicited several suggestions for exploring intriguing opportunities present in her first two pages, and she was smiling smugly when Dorothy posed a genuinely provocative question about the last paragraph, which Jane acknowledged with an enthusiastic, “Great minds think alike!”
The Professor reminded Jane that she wasn’t here during her workshop.
But Mark knew she was.
The Professor poked and prodded them through the opening pages of the remaining stories, forcing everyone to say something about each one, and as the last confusion was articulated about the last page of the last of the drafts, he said, “Pens, please.”
Mark returned the confused gazes he was getting.
Still in Love Page 16
