Chapter 24: Coeur-a-Coeur
by Emmet
Slowly, images floated back into Charlotte’s mind. A fight with her parents, no, between her parents, the raised voices behind closed doors as she slipped out of the house the day before. Always about money, and about her mother working. Then fragments of what must have been a dream, where the fight had led to a fissure – her father moving out, her mother demanding a divorce. Summer turned to fall, high school began, and her two best friends became cheerleaders, jumping high and shaking pompoms.
And then she felt a cold trickle of doubt. Had the divorce, the pompoms, had they been a dream? She felt a sudden, urgent need to see her parents, now, regardless of the time. She groped around in the dark for the flashlight she always brought to Sondra’s, found her bag, and slipped out of the room.
Fortunately, it was morning. Early, not yet 7, but morning. She walked the three blocks home quickly, her head and heart pounding. She entered through the back door and heard the sounds of cooking. And there, to her relief, was her father, preparing Sunday breakfast. And her mother – which brought her up short. Her mother was never up this early.
“Are you guys getting divorced?” Charlotte said abruptly, causing both parents to turn, surprised. Her father strode across the room to the table where her mother was sitting and clasped her hand. They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled, then looked at Charlotte.
“Divorced?” her mother said. “Why would we do that?”
“You don’t divorce someone you’re madly in love with,” her father added. “Especially not when she’s also your business partner.”
“What?” Charlotte sat at the table with her parents. As they explained their new plans, where Mom would join Dad in the restaurant she knew so well, their words quietly washed away the painful images of Charlotte’s dream, replacing them with calm, still challenging, but loving images of reality. No divorce, no cheerleading, just her family, as she had known them, with all their petals and thorns, but all there, whole in the daylight, a welcome contrast to the pain her fears had manifested as she slept.
Her father went back to the stove. “Now how about some pancakes?” he asked.
“I’ve been dreaming about these,” Charlotte said, and held out her plate.
*****
I finished reading Grace’s latest revision. Revisionism, rather. Annoyed that she would want me to read this, this wishful thinking of an ending that destroyed the subtlety of the story she had already written. She sat opposite me, a glass in her hands, a smile ready at her lips, looking at me expectantly. I straightened the pages together and said with no effort to keep disgust from my voice, “This isn’t an ending.”
“What?” she said, taken aback by the unexpected harshness in my voice. “Yes it is.”
“What, it was all a dream? That’s your ending?”
“Yeah, because, well, it makes you question, you know, reality,” she attempted to explain.
“Well, at least be specific.” I let my anger erupt, at her new ending, at her, at myself, at this whole situation; I poured it out against this little story. “Suddenly realizing that the most memorable moment of your life was, was only an illusion, that you made it all up, what does that feel like, specifically?” I stood. “But this is just, it’s like you’re backing away, disowning it; it’s as though you just wrote anything to be rid of it; like, like none of it mattered. Just finishing something is not an ending.”
I walked away from her. It was insulting, I thought, as if everything I had taught her that year about reading and writing had evaporated, and she was wasting my time with wishful thinking stories. But a thought niggled at the back of my mind. Was I really talking about Grace?
“Okay.” Grace pushed her story into her backpack.
I continued, “Read your Chekhov, read those short stories I gave you.” The ones you’ve never acknowledged receiving, I thought silently. I gave them to her for a reason, a classic volume, beautiful words, inspiring literature. “You’ll see what I’m talking about.” And then my anger dissipated, I deflated. I turned to face her again and asked, “Are you hungry? You want something to eat?"
But now she responded to my words. “Oh, you know, if you’re angry at me just say it. Don’t take it out on my story!” She walked to the fridge, always her refuge. Opened the door, peered inside, hiding, as she said, “At least I’m trying. I don’t see you sending your poetry out to any magazines.”
Bull’s-eye. “I don’t write poetry anymore,” I muttered.
“My point exactly,” Grace said, and looked at me appraisingly, then back inside the fridge.
It was a point I preferred to ignore. Because it was true. Writing had come so easily to me once, that when it became work, when it didn’t flow organically and naturally, I gave it up. Like none of it mattered. I did not practice what I preached. I taught, but I didn’t accept the challenge writing had become. I recognize that now, but would not admit it then. I changed the subject; food was easy, neutral. I said, “There’s some of that cheese you like, if you want it.”
Melodramatically, she pushed the door shut and jumped back, exclaiming, “I probably shouldn’t even be opening your refrigerator since it’s obviously this punishable crime!”
“Just take the cheese,” I said, annoyance becoming a half laugh at the absurdity of our situation. My job was on the line, Grace had ventured into romantic territory with me, risking her emotional self, and here we were, on the eve of a day where nothing could be the same, arguing about French cheese with a silly name. I was rewarded with a small smile from Grace.