CHAPTER 6

Workshop

“I really don’t get the ending,” the girl across from her said. “Are we supposed to feel sorry for the main character? Because I really don’t. And it’s boring. Why do I care?”

“I don’t really have a problem with the ending, but I feel that the cherry thing is too heavy-handed. It’s clearly an allusion to virginity,” the boy two seats down said.

Leda dreaded her Thursday class all week. It was a fiction workshop given by the editor in chief of her university’s prestigious literary journal. She’d registered for the class seconds after registration had opened under the influence of friends who’d said things to the effect of: “You have to take a class with Patricia Rainer!” “Patricia is the best!” “It will change your life!” The very first day Patricia Rainer came to class in a coat with a fox hair collar and Leda thought, I’m not going to get along with this person.

The class itself was populated by hipsters who name-dropped Jack Kerouac and small-batch coffee roasters. They were edgy. They were clean. They held crippling insecurities managed by entitlement and a distaste for popular music. It was not uncommon for many of them to rip into a story with the kind of zeal that could only be attributed to a lingering despondency related to their parents’ divorce or some such problem. This was what Leda held on to as the skinny girl across from her with the bralette and pinched face tore her story apart. Leda would think, Maybe you should take up ice-skating and then you would have more confidence and wouldn’t feel the need to tell everyone they are terrible. You are only sad because you are terrible, but ice-skating may help you feel better about yourself.

“I also think it’s heavy-handed, but I think it only comes across that way because nothing happens. It’s a story about nothing,” Pinched Bralette said.

“I don’t have a problem with that, though. Just ’cause it’s about nothing doesn’t mean nothing happens,” the boy beside her said.

His name was Nick and Leda had been in two classes with him in the past, including a poetry workshop. She remembered this one poem he wrote about being in the woods with his father. He used the word evergreen and she thought that was nice. They never spoke much outside of class, but they did have one conversation standing in line for the elevator. He’d asked her what she was taking next semester and told her about a place nearby that gave out free sandwiches on Fridays. As he spoke she thought he seemed like someone who had never touched breasts before, a sense she derived from an almost indiscernible nervousness in the way he breathed, a sound that could be described as an almost whistle at each inhale. Upon noticing it she felt taller and more luminous. For the most part she lived her life thinking of herself as a person, Leda. But then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, out of the cold harsh common dregs of patriarchy, some man would jump up and remind her she was in fact not a person at all but a woman. Usually it was derogatory, but on rare occurrences, as it was with Nick, it would remind her of the blissful and unequivocal truth: they were afraid of her. All of them. It made her feel limitless and powerful. No longer human at all, something more, something greater, a superhero flying through the sky and sinking away the breaths of all mortal men.

She was happy that Nick had found it in himself to defend her work against Pinched Bralette. Pinched Bralette, who was otherwise known as Abby, doodled on a notepad as he spoke.

“I thought the perspective was really nice,” he said. Pinched Bralette looked up for a second, squinted her eyes, and went back to drawing. Go ahead and draw, asshole, Leda thought.

She waited patiently as the conversation turned from whether her piece was boring or not to whether Cleo was a good choice of a name for her main character. One girl said: “I like Cleo, but I think she seems more like a blond than a brunette, but maybe that’s just me.” Leda underlined “Cleo” in her notes, writing, “blond?” in the margin.

Leda was not permitted to speak until the end of the workshop, but if she could have spoken she would have said, “But what about the polish of it? Does it lack a certain polish that keeps it from being any good?” But she couldn’t, so she just sat there and nodded, silently unanswered.

As the critique came to an end, Patricia, who had formally said little more than the occasional “Ummhmm,” began to stir as if she were planning on speaking. Throughout the workshop, Leda kept looking at her for at least some kind of facial reaction, but the professor looked as dull and unassuming as the gray-blue turtleneck she wore. Finally, after Pinched Bralette said, “You know, you should really read Big Sur by Jack Kerouac,” Patricia spoke.

“That’s an excellent suggestion, Abby. Jack Kerouac is one of my absolute favorites.” She nodded thoughtfully at Abby, and then turned to face Leda and took a big breath in her very calm and particular manner.

“I think there are a lot of things working with this piece. I very much appreciate the use of the cherry stand. It gives the story a sort of rural quality that I quite like. I don’t think it’s a story about nothing, but I have to say, I think, Leda, you need to really consider what it is you’re saying here. In this case your heroine is a sort of superwoman. She has risen above any personal insecurities or vulnerabilities. She’s almost a poster child of this feminist ideal. And as much as I appreciate the idea that you are getting at with that, I think you may have more to offer us than this.”

The room was quiet and maliciously still. Patricia had such control over the way she spoke that it seemed to forbid the possibility of any interruption. Leda didn’t notice any of it though; she didn’t even really consider the way Patricia spoke or the soft way she turned the paper in her hand. She just heard what she said and sat there feeling smaller and smaller. Her story and its cherry stand melting away into an oblivion witnessed by twelve hipsters and herself in mortifying silence.

When she got home she heated up some soup, but she hadn’t done it right because it exploded all over the microwave. She ate a sandwich instead, but the cheese was old and dried out. She called her mom as she ate.

“I hate workshops. I always leave and think, ‘I’ll never look at that story again,’ ” she said.

“I understand that, but you can’t get so down on yourself. You know you’re a great writer,” her mom said.

“Do I know I’m a great writer? I feel like a failure.”

“Stop it! You’re not a failure.”

Leda always called her mom to complain about everything terrible in her life. Most conversations ended with her saying something to the effect of “And I’m getting fat” and her mom telling her she was not getting fat. Her mom understood precisely what made her tick. What pulsing affirmation was needed to get her through from day to day and week to week and month to month and year to year. Leda called, and her mom answered, and they loved each other like one, two, three. Easy, fresh, perfect.

“I thought you said you didn’t even like this professor,” her mom said.

“I don’t like her. Well, I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like her; it’s just that I feel like, she basically said the whole story is a joke. That I don’t know what I’m talking about. It just makes me think that maybe I just don’t know anything. Maybe I’m just believing all this stuff about myself, and none of it’s true.”

“I think you’re giving the whole thing too much thought right now. Go to bed. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

“Okay, but I’m also getting fat.”

“You’re not fat, Leda! I love you. And you are a great writer. Don’t forget that, ever.”

Leda let herself eat an entire bag of Hershey’s Kisses that night. She thought about Pinched Bralette and sexless Nick. She tried not to think about what Patricia said, but whenever she did she’d feel a burning in her chest and her ears would buzz a little. It was nervousness or sadness or the feeling of uncertainty that she’d become so accustomed to, a feeling that would be familiar all her life. The next morning she did feel better, but she never went back to the cherry stand story. Years later she’d find a copy of it and read the first paragraph. It did lack polish.