Ch. 8: Postproduction
by Emmet
I hadn’t watched it, before then. It all came back to me, Grace’s performance. “Wow, she’s incredible, that Rosalind,” June commented. I could just nod, agreeing, and resolved not to watch the tape again.
I got wrapped up in the Christmas preparations in a household with a 5-year-old girl and neighborhood parties and the challenges of roasting a goose and stuffing stockings. The time away from home, away from work, separated by thousands of miles, helped give me some perspective. I convinced myself that I had a momentary surge of feelings, an innocent crush on a promising student, leave it at that, crushes are passing things, it was part of turning 40, feeling my age, looking for youth, it was gone.
In over a decade of teaching, I never was attracted to a student. I need to say that, to emphasize that. I was not like Humbert, lusting after young girls, a serial worshipper of teenagers. It was only the one, and it was who she was and who I was at that time. At least I believed that, I prayed that. But I could never really be certain, could I? What if it was part of some midlife crisis, what if she wouldn’t be the only one? How could I trust myself for sure, having crossed this uncrossable line? The answer is, I couldn’t ever know for sure. I had to trust myself, but I also had to remove myself.
In January and February, with the limited daylit hours and wind-chilled temperatures dipping into the subzeros, I always feel like hibernating. Some renewed energy after being on vacation, but that was quickly replaced with cooped-up winter restlessness. Students have been attending school half the year now, bigger papers were due, more reading, but in class they alternated between being restless and inattentive and being half asleep and inattentive. Even in my advanced class, students were zoning out. Class discussions were like pulling teeth, and I found myself throwing out outrageous statements just to get some kind of reaction.
***
On Valentine’s Day, Chris actually opted to call at a time when I was home. From weekly suppers to weekly phone messages, I had gotten used to our new routine, and didn’t know quite what to say when I recognized her voice, live. For a moment I thought I could fake it and pretend to be the answering machine. Run and hide, denial.
“Gus? You there?”
“For a change, yes I am,” I said, shortly. “What’s up, Christine?”
“Gus! I miss you. Just because I’m engaged, doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.”
“Is that what we are?”
“Gus, we’ve known each other for 20 years. Yes.”
She had a point. I enjoyed hanging out with Jerry and some of the other teachers, but Chris was the only one outside my family who had known me at all the stages of my adult life. The author and the teacher. Just as I knew her as both the artist and the gallery owner. “So what’s with the lunchtime calls?” I said.
She paused now. “Okay. I guess I was trying to take credit for contact without really connecting. Except I want to. Look. Barry wants to meet you. I mean, like get a drink, hang out.”
“You’re sure about him now?” I asked. “You don’t need to double check anything?” I added pointedly.
She laughed wryly. “No, I’m not going to jump you, August. How’s Friday?”
***
Friday. Grace day. I looked forward to those lunch meetings more than I cared to admit. I needed to get out more. Short stories written, revised, rewritten, new ones. We didn’t cover the short story as a form that much in class, and I began to suggest other authors, gave her a reading list. It was eclectic.
“Stephen King?” she asked, incredulously. “Roald Dahl, like the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. “Both are short story masters. Yes, King’s genre is horror, but his short stories are tight and engaging. And Roald Dahl, long before he wrote children’s books, wrote decidedly not children’s stories, clever and with a twist.”
“So I should write horror stories?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that it’s a good idea to read a wide variety of short stories, if that’s the format you’re interested in writing. And yes, maybe even try writing horror, or about sports, or comedy – something entirely different from what you know.”
“But I thought you’re supposed to write what you know.”
“If that were the case, think of all the stories that never would have been told. It’s a place to start, but writing what you don’t know is a place to explore.”
In the coming weeks, she wrote stories on mutant squirrels, horse racing, a fantasy world called Shemesh, a parody on student proms. She also worked on revisions of “Voices and “What You Need to Know.”
*****