I could trust Maeve to tell the truth.
“Maybe a little,” I said. “I’m changing things.”
“I thought we had moved beyond that.”
Was she regretting her offer already? What I was writing... Well. It wasn’t literary fiction. But it was authentically mine.
“Focus on what I feel, you said. What I need to work out.”
Her dark gaze fixed on me. Assessing. Judging. “Write it, then.”
—
Classes started. Rows of student desks crammed Oscar Wilde’s former parlor between a black-and-white poster of the writer in the back of the room and the lecturer—the other Oscar, Oscar Diggs—in front. With his flyaway hair and the light reflecting from his shiny scalp, he looked a bit like Yoda. He sounded like him, too.
“You are nottryingto write a book,” he said. “You aregoingto write a book. Will it be any good? Maybe. It could be great. It could be terrible. But you willfinish. And once you have finished your book, you can... What?” He rocked on the balls of his feet, surveying the class for a response.
We looked up, fingers poised, our laptops and notebooks open to capture his words of wisdom.
“Sell it?” Ryan suggested.
“Probably not,” Oscar Diggs said quite cheerfully. “Rejectionis the name of the game. But you will know that you candoit. You will have proven to yourself that you can write a story. And once you know that, all you need is...” Another expectant pause.
“An agent,” Claire said.
“Practice,” Oscar said. “Eventually, you’ll want an agent, too. But practice first.”
Several students looked uncomfortable. Uncertain, as if he’d farted or something. But I was inspired. Finishing a book was all I wanted.
Almost all I wanted.
The library called to offer me a job. For ten hours a week, I sorted through books and returned them to the shelves, trundling my metal cart through the open, endless stacks in Ussher, breathing in the smell of print and paper. I ran my fingers along the multicolored book spines with an almost sexual pleasure, imagining my name on one of the covers. I attended lectures and did my reading and waved to Tim when I ran into him taking out the garbage or picking up the mail.
I did not go back to Clery’s.
“Fee misses you,” Toni said when she came in one evening after her stint at the bakery. I was making pasta for dinner, filling and cheap. She slid me a sly look. “Sam misses you, too.”
I was aware of Reeti pulling out her earbuds to listen. “Did he say so?”
“No, but he’s been really grumpy.” Toni grinned. “Course, it could just be that I annoy him.”
“You annoy everybody, darling,” Reeti said. “By the way, your shit’s all over the bathroom counter again.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said automatically.
“Not your responsibility,” Reeti said. She looked at Toni.
“The bathroom or Sam’s feelings?” Toni asked.
Reeti narrowed her eyes.
Toni heaved a dramatic sigh. “Fine. I’ll clean up after dinner.”
I stirred the pasta sauce, to have something to do with my hands. Reeti was right. The mess in the bathroom was not my responsibility.
And Sam’s feelings... Well. Maybe I wasn’t responsible for those, either.
Twenty-one
