Ch. 1: The Awful Truth (page 3)
by Emmet
"Mr. Dimitri?” she began. “Can I just ask you something?"
I nodded, surprised to see her there that early. But pleased that my comments to her the day before appeared to have made her think.
She took a breath and burst out quickly, "Just because someone's life doesn't seem interesting to you personally --"
I checked the spelling of a word in my Webster’s. "You don't think you're interesting?" I asked, turning the conversation away from the one she’d obviously prepared.
"No!" She raised her voice, and I looked up from my papers. "I'm saying you obviously don't think I'm being honest enough --"
“Wait! Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.” I said, interrupting that line of thought. Apparently my nice speech affected her, though not in the right direction. "Honest enough? What's 'enough'?"
"I just can't believe --" she started, then stopped.
"What? What can't you believe?" I asked.
“I can’t believe that I’m the only person in class who isn’t being ‘honest.’” Ah, why am I picking on her. Because she said “nice”; of course I made similar comments to others, in writing. But she didn’t know that. Grace was the one who happened to be held up as an example to the class. Catalyzed by the yawn.
I put the papers I’d finished grading in my desk drawer. I picked up her journal and opened it. "Who calls you 'Gracie'?" I asked, though I knew the answer.
“My mother, sometimes… why?”
“Tell me something. Why are you letting her come to class? Why are you letting her write your journal?”
Now she was genuinely confused. “Who? My mother?”
“No,” I said. “Gracie. Augie Meyers plays keyboards on the latest Dylan album, and he is amazing, but I am August."
She didn’t get my point. I was being too esoteric. It’s a problem I have, left over from my days as a prodigy. Maybe I had overestimated her? She fell back on, “Well, I just don’t think it’s fair.” Fair is another one of those inane words. What is fair? Is it fair that I once could write beautiful poems and no longer can? Is it fair that my younger sister never could write poetry in the first place? But I wasn’t going to go on another semantic tirade.
I just said, "Fair? Who you love, who you hate, who changes your life, none of it's fair. Why don't you write about that?” I tried to clarify, to help her see, remembering a small personal comment she had written in her journal: What about that situation makes me so nervous? Why can’t I…? “What would happen if you said what you're most afraid of to the person you're most afraid to say it to? And then write about it. Don’t clean it up, don't make it presentable, don't be Gracie. Be in a state of grace. Because that's what Grace means. Grace is about what's sacred, and that's the truth.” I handed her her journal and she took it, reluctantly. She looked at me without saying anything else, though her eyes, brown, registered an understanding, and also… an apprehension.
I was at school early again the next day – we had our weekly staff meeting, and I grabbed a few minutes in the classroom to organize some books. I didn’t hear Grace come in, and was startled when I heard her voice behind me. “Mr. Dimitri. I tried it. What you said. You know, about saying what you’re most afraid to say to the person you’re most afraid to say it to.” I turned. Her eyes were lit up this time, and she spoke with excitement. She looked… inspiring. She spoke of being able to write about “the most embarrassing person.” Good. That’s how I wanted her to think, to stretch herself, to exercise unused literary muscles.
I saw the clock and realized I’d be late. “I must away, fair Grace,” I said, bowing with a flourish, in my best faux Will. But at the door I turned, and she looked at me expectantly, then realized I was waiting for her to leave the room – I locked my classroom what I wasn’t there. I thought of the reclusive poets, scared but brilliant, the ones that inspired me when I was 17. “You know who I think about a lot?” I said. “Proust. Proust and Emily Dickenson. I mean, they were so scared they never even left their rooms. You don’t have to become the bravest person who ever lived.” I turned off the lights and we stepped into the hallway. “Just the bravest writer.”
She left me, smiling this time, clutching the journal against her chest. I smiled too, and headed down the hall for the staff meeting. She would surprise me, this Grace.