CHAPTER 49

Writing Group

She missed writing. She felt it all at once one day as she was making a sandwich. I miss writing, she thought as she coolly spread mayonnaise across a piece of bread. For so long she had told herself that she didn’t really miss it. Didn’t have time, was already happy. But the outburst from the vestibule a few years earlier often came to her mind, and when she’d think of it her heart would race. Most of the time she could look past it and not wonder why she’d said she was a writer when clearly she was not. Tired, stressed, trapped, she could think, but then one day she felt something else, and it was so fully and undeniably the feeling of wanting that she couldn’t simply excuse it all away.

When Annabelle was very little Leda had told her that she had wanted to be a writer once.

“You know, Mommy used to write,” she said to her daughter, who was busy drawing a picture with a scented marker. It felt like a confession, even though clearly a two-year-old child was incapable of grasping the meaning of it all. As silly as it was, she felt nervous in the silence between them. Annabelle didn’t even look up as she answered. “Yes,” she said, as matter-of-factly as possible, as if she’d been well aware all along exactly who her mother was. From then on Leda would mention it from time to time, and Annabelle grew up accepting it as any other part of family history: a grandparent who fought in a war, the story of her father’s favorite childhood Christmas. It could not be uncoiled from where it was or where it began; it was just always there, thumping away a pattern or a footprint that could scarcely be contextualized in Annabelle’s life: Mom used to write.

Once Leda came to the realization of wanting to write again she wasn’t sure how to go about it. So much had changed in her life since the last time she’d written that she couldn’t imagine what sitting down and really putting pen to paper would feel like. It had been such a part of her, but now the parts of her that were there seemed scattered in very important directions: just the week before, she’d been at a PTA meeting, and later that night she made chicken marsala. Occasionally she would think of ideas for stories or books. Descriptive phrases or sentences would pop into her head, like “Inside the house were perfectly matched sets of furniture, not unlike dollhouse furniture.”

One day by happenstance she came across an ad for a writing group. It was tacked on the corkboard at the little market near her house. It read:

Creative Writing Workshops open to public. Come join Nancy Albright as she helps us discover our most creative selves! Sessions are held Wednesdays at the VFW Center 6–9. June 1st–July 15th. $300 per six-week session. A little more about Nancy: Nancy is a great lover of books! She’s spent the last thirty years as an educator/novelist/poet and painter! Her work can be read every week on her blog nancyalbrightwrites .com. Nothing makes Nancy happier than helping blossoming writers find their wings. Come fly with us!

Leda cringed reading the ad. It was desperate and pathetic. It was everything that validated giving up on her dream, and yet she ripped off a tab and called the very next day. She figured that, as horrible as it probably would be, at least there wasn’t any pressure on her part to impress. She would get back into writing without feeling stupid about how long it had been and how rusty she was and how for no real reason she had just stopped.

Nancy called her back almost immediately. Her voice was as whimsical as it sounded in the ad.

“Now, what is it you’d like to get out of joining the group?” she asked.

“I’m really just looking to get back into it. I studied writing as an undergrad and had the intention of going to grad school but just got…” Leda looked for the right words to explain what had happened and why she hadn’t gone to grad school, but there were no words that were quite right, no words that she knew of, anyway. “I got busy with other things and have been working and raising my daughter, so yeah, I’d really just like to get back into it.”

“That’s great!” Nancy said. “I love when people join the group who have some experience. Most of the time I only get people who have never written anything before in their lives, which I welcome, of course, but it’s also nice to have some people in the mix who have written before.”

“Oh, well, it’s been a real long time. I’m sure whatever I bring in will be a complete mess.”

“Don’t worry about that at all. Just write freely.”

It was nice to hear Nancy’s encouragement. Maybe she’s less crazy than the poster made her seem, Leda thought.

“Anyway, a little bit about me: I’ve been an educator, a poet, a writer, and a painter for the last thirty years. I like to help people really blossom into who they want to be as a writer. Blossoming is the essence of life I feel,” Nancy said.

Or maybe not.

“The sessions are three hundred, and I take cash or check. Would you like to join us next week?”

“Yes, I would,” she heard herself say, her voice sounding daft and frightened. “I would,” she reiterated, trying to sound more sure, for her own sake.

It wasn’t clear what a person should wear to a writing group at the VFW center. Certainly you wouldn’t want to dress up, this was obvious, but what the appropriate attire was she could not decide. She looked in her closet. All her clothes lined up hanging or folded in messy, somewhat regulated piles. I wear too much plum, she thought. She tried to remember what she usually dressed like in college whenever she’d have a workshop. She dug through a pile at the far corner of her closet where she kept clothes that no longer fit, in the vague hope of one day becoming a supermodel and being able to wear the jeans she wore at eighteen. Squished at the bottom of the pile was an old cotton top she used to wear in her college days. It looked a bit worn and the color was somewhat faded, but it still maintained its shape. She wondered if she ought to try it on, but she couldn’t imagine seeing herself like that, no doubt lumped up in all the wrong places, a far cry from the linear, young woman of a bygone reflection, so she didn’t dare. Instead she tossed it back into the pile and threw on one of her most reliable shirts. It was loose-fitting and comfortable. It was the best thing that could be worn, given the circumstance.

In the end it turned out that all her fretting over attire was completely unnecessary. There were only a handful of people in the room in clothing that wasn’t stained or ripped or just generally deranged-looking. Her worries about lumps were also misguided, as she was most probably the thinnest woman in the room.

Nancy was the heaviest of all the women. Her hair was gray and she wore it in a long braid that went down to her waist. She had on a top that could only be described as a sweatshirt crossed with a sweater. On it was an appliquéd starfish.

“Please, everyone, take a seat. Please take a seat,” she called out to the room. Most people were already seated, so her imploration seemed needless and overbearing in the confines of the very small VFW center room. Nonetheless, people took notice and the few left standing were sure to sit.

“Welcome, everyone. I am so happy to be starting a new session with this group. I’m Nancy Albright. Please call me Nancy,” Nancy said. “First things first, I’d like to go around the room and learn everyone’s name and hear why you’ve joined this group. We’ll start to my left.”

To Nancy’s left was a man in a Hawaiian shirt with long blond hair. He looked considerably tan and his hands were too small for the rest of his body.

“My name is Roger. I’m here because I’ve had ideas for many books, and I just need to get them out of me.”

“We all have books in us, don’t we, Roger?” Nancy said. She smiled in a way that was both kind and unsettling.

“Definitely. I have so many characters that are always telling me their stories, and I feel like I owe it to them to try and tell their stories for them, so that’s why I’m here.”

Why am I here? Leda thought.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from all of them!” Nancy said.

“Yes, you most certainly will,” Roger said.

“Great to meet you,” Nancy said. She was clearly ready to move on from Roger. “And next we have…” She pointed to a very large woman with a neck tattoo to the left of him.

“I’m Cindy. I’m here because I’m interested in writing romance novels. I love reading them, so I figured I’d give a shot at writing them.”

“Romance novels are great fun,” Nancy said with the same kind, unsettling smile. “Great to meet you, Cindy.”

“Hi, my name is Greg, and I’m very much into sci-fi. I guess you could say I’m kind of a connoisseur. I’ve written a lot of graphic novels, and I’d really like to write an actual novel. I’m kind of a buff on the genre.”

“Who’s your favorite sci-fi writer?” Nancy asked.

Leda heard Greg answer, but she didn’t listen to the words he was saying. She looked around the room as he spoke. The other people seemed to be paying close attention. They seemed to feel connected in a way she could not. A few of them nodded along. It was as alienated as she’d ever felt.

“Hi, I’m Amber. I’m here because I’ve always felt that I could write a novel. I’ve tried reading a lot of different books, but I’ve always felt that I could do a better job.”

Don’t ever speak again, Amber. Just never, ever speak. She thought back to Pinched Bralette and sexless Nick. Somewhere they were doing something probably less sad and desperate than herself right now. I bet Pinched Bralette owns some kind of start-up or something, she thought.

By the time they made it around to her, Leda had planned on saying: “Hi, I’m Leda. I got my BFA in creative writing, but I’ve been busy raising my daughter and haven’t had time to write as much as I’d like, so I’m here trying to get back into it.” When it was her turn she said: “Hi, I’m Leda. I got my BFA in creative writing, but I’ve been busy raising my daughter and haven’t had time to write as much as I’d like, so I’m here trying to get back into it,” but it didn’t sound as good out loud. She didn’t sound that different to herself from Amber or Greg. She had been a student at college studying writing, and now she was here grasping at a dream along with people who were also grasping. The VFW center was the place, and she was no longer the young woman who had everything ahead of her. Now the things that were there weren’t really there at all.

At the end of the session Nancy divided the class up into groups to rotate who would be handing their stories out first, second, and last. She picked Leda for the first group and winked at her as she said her name. Leda figured it was due to her experience. She was sorry she couldn’t go last. She was sorry she hadn’t just said she liked sci-fi.

“Please e-mail your story to everyone on the list by Monday night, and everyone be ready with notes for Wednesday. Great first session! And remember, you can only blossom when you breathe. Be gentle with yourselves. See you next week.”

That night she sat down and tried to write. She opened the window by the desk, because she’d often found that she wrote best when she was just a little bit cold. She typed out a few words. Then a couple of sentences, but nothing was coming to her. After an hour she went to bed. I’ll try again on the weekend when I’m less tired, she told herself as she lay in bed, worried and overwhelmed by it all.

She was no more successful over the weekend. She’d start writing a story but quickly would delete it. Everything she wanted to say or thought of was muddled. How was I ever capable of doing this? She tried drinking tea as she wrote or eating Hershey’s Kisses, but neither thing helped.

“Why don’t you write about working with that crazy lady you used to work with?” Annabelle offered.

“I thought of that,” Leda said as she typed the word watermelon and then deleted it.

On Sunday John spent the day with Annabelle so that Leda would have more time to write, but alone in the house she found herself wandering around and finding little spots that needed cleaning and organizing. The hall closet was a wreck; the kitchen counters needed a really good scrubbing. She couldn’t keep herself still enough to sit down. By the time Annabelle and John got home the house was spotless, but she hadn’t written a word. Before bed she told herself she’d wake up early and bang something out. I work well under pressure, she thought, although even in thinking it she couldn’t really convince herself it was true.

Monday morning she woke up at 4:30 a.m. It was pitch-black out still, and she felt the senseless lull of early morning, but despite it she managed to sit herself at her desk and try to write.

“The woman woke up before dawn,” she wrote. “There wasn’t any coffee in the house so she sent her husband out,” she wrote. “Her husband, who used to beat her,” she wrote.

She deleted it all, went through her saved files, came across the orca story she’d written in California, sent it out to everyone, and went back to bed. At least I sent something, she thought.

She was even more wary walking into the VFW center that Wednesday. It had been so long since she’d last shared anything she’d ever written and she couldn’t exactly say she was all that proud of the story. In her last workshop, a girl named Kalani told her her work was “more style than substance.” At the time it hadn’t really bothered her all that much, as it was her last semester of college, and by then she had gotten used to that kind of oppressiveness of workshopping. Now, though, as she waited on the group, weirdo Greg and idiot Amber, the memory of Kalani was nauseating. Don’t worry about what they say. They don’t know what they’re talking about, she told herself, all the while her heart beating high in her throat.

“All right, everyone, please, let’s all take our seats,” Nancy said in the same overbearing tone. She glanced over at Leda and smiled her kind, unsettling smile.

“First of all, thank all you writers this week, I was deeply impressed with all of you. Let us begin our workshop with Leda. Please pull out her story and your notes.”

“Yikes,” Leda said. She’d meant not to say anything, but she couldn’t help herself. “This makes me nervous.”

Nancy, who generally told everyone that everything was wonderful and great and that they shouldn’t worry about anything and that they should just blossom, didn’t say anything in response. She only widened her smile, the effect of which was even more unsettling.

“Who would like to start?” she asked the group.

“I would,” Greg said.

Oh god, Leda thought.

Greg moved forward in his chair. He wore a tight-fitting sweatshirt and had grown a faint, unsightly mustache since the last session. He held up the story in his right hand, positioning it awkwardly. Leda felt him thinking of how he should say whatever it was he was going to say. She felt his thoughts like ripples and awkward hands and mustaches and starfish appliqués. If she could have screamed then, if somehow she could have just screamed, she would have.

“This was,” Greg began, “by far and away the best story I’ve personally read in years.”

“Yes, I totally agree with that,” Cindy interjected.

“I do too. I was floored reading it,” Amber said. “I was floored.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Roger added. “Me too. I wondered all along as I read it where the author came up with something so beautiful and painful and beautiful.”

“Wow,” Leda said. She knew she wasn’t supposed to talk, but she couldn’t help herself. “Really, you feel that way?”

“Leda,” Nancy said. “This is such incredible work. Do you know that?”

Leda tried very hard to nod politely and to say something that wouldn’t sound conceited, but she couldn’t think of anything to say and she couldn’t bring herself to nod. Instead she just started to cry. She cried and cried as the people in the room one by one told her that they loved her story. They went over sentences and words that had been her own, and they said why they loved each of them and what was so vivid and precious about it all. The tears streamed down her face and she knew how silly she must have looked, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care at all.

At the end of the session, as everyone got up and got their things together, Nancy came over and gave her a big hug. “Great work,” she said. “I truly think you’re blossoming. Oh, and remember, be gentle with yourself.” She winked.

Leda never went back to the writing group. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she was embarrassed. Maybe it was because she wanted so badly to hang on to that moment and how it felt, and any other experience in that room with those people would ruin that, or maybe it was just because she really didn’t need to. Whatever the case, she sent her orca story out to The New Yorker. She knew it wouldn’t get accepted, but she did it anyway.