Chapter 13: Conversations (page 2)
by Emmet
I poured myself a glass of the Merlot leftover from the night before, and ate some of the Gouda with an apple I found in the fridge. Single’s supper. But I had work to do. I had given my class a surprise quiz the other day – was it really only three days ago? Seemed a lifetime, so much had happened. I had vowed to get it graded and back by Friday. I took my glass upstairs to my study with the folder of quizzes. I had promised it would be the last popper, but the first several papers I looked at were atrocious. It was as if I had been lecturing to an empty classroom, for how little the answers reflected what we had covered in class. I was getting more depressed.
As I sipped the dregs of my wine, I heard the sound of something going through the mail slot downstairs. It was late – well past 10. I froze, then heard the sound of a car door shut and an engine start up. I peaked through the window in time to see taillights disappearing around the corner.
Slowly, quietly, I crept down the stairs. A manila envelope lay next to the front door, “Mr. Dimitri” scrawled across the top. In Grace’s handwriting. I touched her words. I took the envelope upstairs, and opened it. Inside was Grace’s story, “What You Need to Know,” the one she’d been working on most consistently. A yellow sticky stuck across the top of the first page said, simply, “I think I’ve finished. Maybe we can talk about the new ending tomorrow.”
Which meant she had every intention of coming to our regularly scheduled lunch meeting. A huge sense of relief flooded through me, the release of a tension I hadn’t known was there. I read the story right then, pleased with it, eager to talk writing with her tomorrow. This story was at least of a caliber to be considered for publication. I knew it was a long shot, but I thought it would be good practice for her, just to get a start, because her stuff was worthy of some of those magazines. Maybe not quite New Yorker yet, but it could be soon. And why not start now when she had the writing, because as I knew, the writing might not stay. I pulled together a list of information, addresses, contacts.
*****
Friday. The temperature had risen considerably, must have been 20 degrees warmer than yesterday. April in Chicago – snow one day, practically beach weather the next. I decided to ride my bike. I paused at a stop sign and saw that orange cat again, curled up on the hood of a parked car next to me. Sunning. He opened his eyes as I paused, golden, staring, twitched his tale, jumped down and rubbed against the leg I was leaning on. He looked at me expectantly, and I reached down, and he pushed his head against my hand. I let my hand run along the length of his back to the end of his tail, and then he turned, and jumped back on the roof , settling into the sun.
Three classes before LCC. As students began entering, I pulled out the sheath of graded tests. “Did you get my story?” Grace. I looked up, and felt so stupidly happy to see her, I just grinned.
“I did indeed. You were up late.”
“Yes, well, I finished it, and I thought, if I got it to you last night, we’d be able to go over it better today.” Her hair was drawn back into a kind of bun, and her face looked fresh and alive this morning. She smiled, but I noticed her hands were gripping the straps of her backpack. This wasn’t going to be easy for either of us, I knew. But it would be okay. I just felt absurdly glad that she wasn’t upset or angry at me any more. Why she wasn’t, what went beyond that, I didn’t care to delve too deeply.
“Smart planning,” I said. “It did give me some extra time, and it meant… it was good of you to bring it,” I finished lamely. The bell rang.
“I’ll see you at lunch, ” she said, and went to her seat. I noticed Alexa then, standing in the doorway, staring at me, then glancing at Grace, then back at me. “Alexa?” I said. “Were you going to actually enter the classroom today?”
She ducked her head and slid into an empty seat near Grace, mumbling, “Sorry.”
I stood and held up those quizzes. “Well, if you were wanting to give me doubts about how much you’ve been learning this year,” I began. “You certainly succeeded.” Shifting of seats, sighs. “Now, I know you know this material – you’ve even written half-decent papers on Donne and Ben Johnson. Pity it’s not reflected here.” I paraphrased Johnson. “Consider these small grades, here in this class… Tonight’s assignment, due tomorrow – go home and write out the correct answers to every question you missed.”
Now grumblings, protests, as I returned the test. “This has taken enough time already,” I said. “Just bring back both the test and the corrections tomorrow. Now. It’s time to finish the seventeenth century. I hope you’ve all read the rest of Johnson’s poems?”
*****
Lunch meetings. Lisa was first today, then Grace; Russell was out sick. Grace pulled up her chair by the desk and opened her notebook. She was wearing a deep red shirt that complimented the russet of her hair. I noticed she was wearing that shell necklace she had worn all those months ago, when I introduced her to Linda. I took out my copy of her story. “This is really wonderful, Grace,” I began.
“Really?”
“Yes. You capture the mother and the daughter so well, and the drifting apart of the friends at the same time. It’s just… honest. Real. There are a few points I marked – you might want to throw in some sentences that could better distinguish Charlotte’s relationships with both Sondra and Roxanne--”
“Should I develop them more?”
“Well, not too much. It is a secondary story here; they’re supporting characters and you don’t want them to get more weight than they deserve. But just a few things to make them different from one another, and show different ways friends can grow apart.”
Grace pondered this, tapping her pen against her teeth. She scribbled some notes in the margin of her copy.
“Now the next question,” I continued. “Is where do we go from here?”