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The room didn’t erupt into applause when the last note finished. There was some clapping to be sure, led by myself and one of the TAs, but everyone seemed to be in some degree of shock that the concert had happened at all. And fair enough, I suppose. That wasn’t the sort of thing you were warned about during the university’s orientation. To make things worse, it was the sort of lesson that didn’t immediately sink it. Eventually the students would realize how valuable of a moment it was, but it wouldn’t be in the split second between the last note and the applause.
But to his credit, Professor Evory did not mind it all. He bowed his head, accepting the applause he did get gratuitously and walked his instrument back to the table with a smile on his face.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering what the next act is going to be,” he said.
Except no one was. Their first exams had been handed back and sat in front of them. Some were buried in notebooks or backpacks, but despite the concert, the general aura red pen marks brought with them filled the room. That was really all that mattered to the class. It was what sat at the forefront of their minds. But at the same time, there must have been some relief in thinking there wouldn’t be another lecture or more information to cram into their heads. For that, though, it didn’t particularly matter what happened next.
Professor Evory didn’t pack up his trombone at first. The case sat underneath the table, untouched. Instead, he delicately set the instrument down and turned to me. Before he said anything, he flashed me a smile, a cue of some sort. I straightened up where I stood. The movement released some of the tension in my body, but with that release came a rush of nerves and butterflies fluttering around in my core. Their flight patterns were aggressive but clumsy. As they hit my insides, bile rose up my throat. But I hadn’t eaten that day, so it was more of a ghost than an actual urge to vomit.
“Well, this is Mia, as I said,” Professor Evory explained.
After a quick gesture to me, he stepped over to his spot behind the lectern, now free from the literal weight of the briefcase and the figurative weight of being a music stand. As he moved, he transformed the space and the moment with an almost awe-inspiring efficiency. Confidently, he clasped his hands on either side of his post and resumed his usual position of power and authority. His shoulders were held back, and his chin was raised as he surveyed the room and the students who peered up from laptops or discreetly hid phones.
“You don’t realize it, but you actually know who Mia is,” he said.
And with those words a faint smirk started to appear across his face. He was trying to mask his reaction so as to not give away his scheme, but in his excitement, small bits still crept out.
“You actually know her as Judith Hynes.”
My breath caught when he said that name, my name by standards I did not fully understand. Even when Professor Evory said it, it did not feel like mine. Consequently, I felt the rush of panic that comes specifically from some misidentification or misdirection, from getting someone else’s medical bills or realizing that you are not the person the friend group meant to invite to the movie. It was the dread of taking up a space that was not reserved for you.
It didn’t matter that Judith didn’t actually exist. She wasn’t me. I wasn’t her. I couldn’t provide what she could, only a poor imitation of those gifts.
I mustered up a small smile as everyone turned to me. I tried to puff up my shoulders and act like I would expect Judith to. She was confident and strong. She could handle the sea of eyes looking at her as Professor Evory gestured for me to step forward.
But my nerves sat at the base of my throat as I took those small, cowardly steps forward into a role I was ill-equipped for. After years of using that name, I hadn’t learned how to be Judith. I had an understanding of who she was but never implemented it. I had never created her mannerisms or learned how to stand as she would. Acting required a full vision of who the subject was, and I didn’t have that. I didn’t have all that was required of me to make this game of pretend work.
That had been okay before. It hadn’t really mattered until right then.
It created a final hurdle that I didn’t know how to overcome. The distance felt too long for me to walk. Alternatively, I didn't have the key to enter that sanctuary, set apart by invisible walls that no one else noticed. Not even Professor Evory did. It wasn’t something he would have known to look for, having never struggled with. He had never known what it was to pretend to be someone else or to twist your personality to fit a hole carved out for another’s form and shape. There was a coherence to Professor Evory’s character that I had always envied. But he wasn’t the only one to have it. Everyone but me had it. And it was something I knew I needed.
But sensing I was struggling for reasons completely unknown to him, Professor Evory sought to comfort me. He let his hand hover in the air just beside my shoulder as he slowly eased me forward. With that help, I stepped into the right physical place while mentally, I struggled to find myself or where I needed to be. I did my best to stay upright, to keep my shoulders back and chin lifted just as he had done, but it did not come easily. It felt unnatural. And maybe it was. I was trying to contort my body into some position that didn’t suit it. That created a twisting. Organs and delicate tissues were doubled up and crushed by the muscles of my body. It was painful, potentially fatal if something was not done about it. But I didn’t know what to do.
I did my best to mask my discomfort, but the hairs on the back of my neck still stood on edge. For whatever flaws my performance might have had, Professor Evory noticed none of them.
“You’ve got this,” he mouthed to me before he turned to the rest of the room.
To his students, he joked, “I bet none of you thought I knew a celebrity.”
It wasn’t a particularly good joke, but the students chuckled all the same. They humored his lack of humor, and I found myself going through those same motions.
“But Mia or Judith,” he said while I did my best to hide my flinching, “is actually a former student of mine. She actually listened to a very similar concert back in her day.”
He turned to me. “And I think I did better this time, right?”
I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t compare the two performances. So I just nodded and hoped for the best. I hoped that was what he wanted me to do.
“Mia has graciously agreed to answer some questions you might have. Maybe discuss her writing career. Not what’s coming up though, right?”
That was part of the skit. That was one of the questions we had rehearsed, but even still, when I let out my carefully practiced fake laugh, it sounded terrible, obviously artificial, and barely tolerable. No one seemed to notice.
“No, it’s all under contracts and NDAs while the deals are worked out,” I joked.
A hand went up on the right side of the room. Its wielder was a young blonde woman whose stare had a bit of awe laced into it. I nodded to her, not realizing that doing so was inviting her into the conversation long before I was ready to engage.
“Do you have an agent doing that?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, forcing myself to be as calm as possible. It wasn’t easy, though. It took all of my focus and strength. “I have an agent. Her name is Erika, and she’s great to work with. Agents are really an asset in traditional publishing spaces. There’s just a lot of rules and norms that you don’t know going in. They also have relationships within the industry that they can use to get you opportunities and a good publishing deal. But I also know a lot of writers who went indie and have made their own way.”
“Why did you go the traditional route?” the same young woman asked.
She didn’t raise her hand that time. She might not have even been conscious of the question that flew out of her mouth. There was just a momentum to her thoughts that weren’t easily contained.
“It worked for me,” I started to say, but then I realized what a non-answer that was. “Which is to say that yes, I’m turning over a lot of power and control to other people, but I also don’t have the same responsibilities. I don’t have to do my own marketing or find my own editors. I don’t pack the books up and ship them. And given how I operate and the fact that up until recently I had another job that I liked, traditional publishing was just what I needed.”
As I finished the thought, a small puff of silence took over the room, but I still thought I knew what the next question would be. I thought there was more that I needed to say on the matter, a statement that needed to be made, lest wrong opinions be attributed to me or I stifle the dream of someone who wanted to take a different path.
“But maybe if all of that wasn’t true, I would have gone the self-publishing route,” I confessed. “There’s different paths to the same destination, and you have to walk which one works best for you.”
The young woman nodded. Her attention on me only grew more intense with every word I said. I nearly cast a glance at Professor Evory with a question about her, a request for confirmation as it were because it seemed like my life was her dream. Maybe he knew if that student had those aspirations. He made it a point to get to know all of his students. She wouldn’t have been the exception.
But at the same time, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need the pressure.
Another hand was lifted. This time in the furthest back corner of the room. Professor Evory saw it first. His eyes were more practiced than mine. “Yes, Jeremy.”
“What does an agent do?” he asked.
I found myself falling into a familiar speech. This was something I had explained before, frequently, to anyone who asked who “Erika” was and why I had such a strained relationship with the mere idea of answering her calls.
I fell back into the same recitation I had done countless times before. “Primarily, they sell your books to publishers and negotiate the specifics of the deal. So at a traditional publisher, editors–or more senior editors–are the ones who select the books that the imprint brings to market. They then work with writers to make the book as good as possible for the larger market. And those editors find your book because your agent pitched it to them. They have an established relationship, and your editor puts a lot of weight on your agent’s word. And your agent, to their credit, took time selecting where they pitched your book. So it’s seen as a more efficient way of book publishing, really. And then of course, your agent can also help with merchandising, those book subscription boxes, and even marketing, although those things are also done–in no small part–by the publishing house. Oh, and they often guide early edits. Like the edits you make before they go to sell the book.”
I was proud of that answer. It was thorough and it linked together some facts about the broader book industry that people don’t often think about. With that small achievement under my belt, I felt my shoulders lift. I felt better. I was somewhat in my element. That moment was the proof.
For a moment, I was Judith. Or at least, I knew what it felt like to be her.
Professor Evory fell back a bit. He stayed where he could easily direct the room, call on students with their hands raised, or track the queue of questions should the need arise. But he didn’t need to be right at my side to moderate the discussion. And with my growing more confident, he could adapt to focus on that task.
He looked around the room, and the same young woman from earlier raised her hand again, having remembered the proper etiquette for a moment like that. “Kaitlyn,” he said.
“How did you choose which agent was right for you?” she asked.
It was an innocent question, the sort of question I should have been able to answer without the near spiral that came with it. I shouldn’t have panicked, and the color shouldn’t have drained from my face. It should have been nothing. It should have just been a small tidbit, a footnote in the larger story of my career that might be useful to those who wish to follow me but wouldn’t otherwise be life altering. I’d seen other writers react that way. Even Judith would have reacted that way had she been real and present in that moment. But other writers had legitimate reasons for picking their agents. I simply wanted a backbone as I did.
“Well, there’s a lot of factors to consider,” I said, as if I really knew what I was talking about, as if I had looked at or properly considered those factors instead of rushing into things like I did. “Some of them you consider before you query–or send a segment of your manuscript along with a brief letter of the story’s theme and the like. When you’re starting to send out your queries or basically you asking to be considered for representation, you should research agents. There are guides online and every agent has their preferred genres and page limits. All of those things are listed on their agency’s website. Google is your friend. But you should be looking up those genre preferences and client lists before you query. See if that lines up with what you write and what you hope to achieve. Then you send off your query to all the agents you picked out. And after you do, if the agent decides they want to represent you, then you and they get on a call and discuss that agent’s technique. Or how they communicate. My agent likes phone calls. And she’s pretty tough. Both of which I liked.”
I could taste the deceit in that final sentence. It was bitter, almost toxic, in fact, but I didn’t make a face or show that I was in distress. I pretended not to think of my actual thoughts when Erika and I were on that first phone call together. I did my best to ignore the memory of the one thread I was holding onto as I pulled myself onto Erika’s boat. There was a reason why I had cast my line with hers, but the whole time I knew it wasn’t a very good one. I simply didn’t know how to say no to her once she decided I would be a good client. And that was a terrible reason to pick an agent.
But I swallowed that lingering memory, the lie with its terrible after taste, and mustered up the best smile that I could. Judith would be smiling right then. Judith wouldn’t have any doubts about this answer. She wouldn’t have anything to hide.
Professor Evory stepped forward with his hands raised. “I think you were also willing to answer questions about The Friend of Damnation as well. Not that this conversation isn’t exciting. I just want you all to know what your options are.”
Once he said that, he turned the floor back to me. He gestured to me that the spotlight was mine to wield as I saw fit. But I didn’t know what I was looking at, never mind how to make the most of it.
“I also know a lot about pizza,” I joked. “I’m dating the owner of Happy Flour. You all know Happy Flour, right?”
They all nodded, but the room was silent. I bit down on the inside of my lower lip, where no one could see and the skin was a bit more sensitive. A sharp pain radiated through my chin, but I didn’t react.
Another hand went up. This one was in the center of the room. The young man sat slouched over right in front of me where I could clearly see him, but all the same, I deferred to Professor Evory to call on him.
“Corey,” he said.
Corey kept his terrible posture as he asked his question. He might not have even realized he was so doubled up. It might have just been the way his body had learned to come to rest, even though there was a price to be paid later for it. But he was young. There was no need to think about what far away decades might bring. Or so he would likely say if I asked him about that.
He asked, “Where do you get inspiration for characters?”
Fuck. Maia was just a terrible self-insert, but I couldn’t say that, especially not in front of Professor Evory. After all, Maia was an incredibly traumatized and broken young woman. She had nothing going for her. She lacked direction, relationships, love, and hope. She was weak. She had been shattered so many times that now she was being held together with the weakest glue spread out upon the faintest dust.
And that might have been how I felt. But there was no reason to tell Professor Evory or anyone that. There was no reason to make it too obvious.
I took a sharp breath in. “Well, I always start with the theme. With the message of the story, the point I want to make. See, storytelling–no matter the medium–is a way of conveying thoughts.” I looked to Professor Evory. “Not that your lectures aren’t great.”
He chuckled. “No need to humor me.”
“I do miss them,” I hurriedly said before I turned back to the class. “But ultimately, the quest to learn, discover, and define is at the center of our lives and the act of living. Stories are a way to do that. They are lenses into some form of possibility. Even if it isn’t a one-to-one translation. Or I hope The Friend of Damnation isn’t that for any of you. I think I’m obligated per my fellowship contract to tell you guys to not make deals with devils. To tell you the truth, I didn’t read the morality clause in my contract too closely.”
A couple of chuckles slipped out.
I went on, “But either way, stories are a way to explore something. And once I decide what I’m exploring, I take that theme and build a character around it.”
As I spoke, I lifted my hands off the lectern, releasing the death grip I hadn’t noticed at first. The blood rushed through my fingers, as the small muscles desperately pulled them in. With my hands free, I pretended to cradle some sort of orb just in front of my chest before I slowly reached into the air for unseen pieces of fabric or other material to pack around said small, unseeable orb.
“Maia constantly needs validation, as an example, so I had her work in fundraising.”
I reached for a specific thread in the air in front of me and packed it down as if that was what I had done when I wrote the book, as if I hadn’t just looked up a job board and picked the first open position I saw.
“For a nonprofit, receiving funds is not just a matter of keeping the lights on, but it’s also a vote of confidence. The donor is saying that the organization has value, which is what Maia wants to hear for herself.”
The orb wasn’t real. It wasn’t a reference to anything that had been real, even. The Friend of Damnation didn’t start with an idea. It started with a feeling, with a weight that I felt sitting on my shoulders and couldn’t shake. That book, that ticket to whatever messy life I currently had, wasn’t the product of some carefully thought-out philosophical debate with myself. It wasn’t the product of need. It was a scream into the void, one that left me hoarse but had changed nothing about my plight.
From there, I felt another lie sitting in my throat. I felt the next segment of the story waiting to be told.
“The devil’s a different sort of character,” I tried to explain, but once again, I was pulling at nothing.
This time, though, I didn’t pantomime my actions. I didn’t pretend that I was doing something familiar. I only let my hands fall back against the lectern as my fingers locked into their place around the fake wood.
“The devil exists in the popular consciousness, and in some ways, he’s not a character that’s meant to have an arc. He thinks he is. He thinks there is more for him to learn, and in a way, he’s not wrong. But he’s encountering something beyond his kingdom or realm of control. Maia is able to generate certain results, but she lacks intention. And the devil requires some degree of intention in what he does. At least in my book.”
Why, no one asked, but I thought someone would, so I beat them to that punch.
“The devil is a force of intentional destruction, I think. Or that’s how I conceptualized him in my book. And that’s the Catholic influence showing, I guess. But when we think of someone being in hell or going to hell, it’s supposed to be some sort of punishment. Wrong is owed to them. The devil chooses to pay the debt. Which requires effort, and unknowingly that effort is limited by his abilities somehow. But of course, if he cares about his job or sees some sort of purpose to it, he’s going to want to expand his offerings, which means learning from others. In this case, Maia who has a more...”
I struggled to find the words, which wasn’t an uncommon plight for me. It happened regularly. There was something in me that felt wholly detached from the language I had been raised in and grew up speaking. And it was central to the dream job I had been thrown into. I shouldn’t have been struggling with it like I was. Judith wouldn’t have struggled with it. Most writers or really any person wouldn’t have struggled like I did right then.
I had a vague idea of what I meant. There was something on the tip of my tongue, some phrase that was just about to slip out and into the end of that sentence where it belonged, but something in me was holding it back.
“Who has a more... Mundane sort of destruction,” I finally said.
Only when the words left my mouth did I realize what exactly had been holding them in place. It was only when I said them that I properly recognized them for what they were. It helped, of course, that I felt Professor Evory shift on his feet behind me. I could feel the air move as he did, as he knocked it about, but I didn’t turn to look at him. I didn’t need the confirmation of what I feared. Especially not right then.
I kept my body facing forward. I kept my focus away from Professor Evory and towards the classroom. The lesser evil, as it were.
Fortunately for me, another hand was raised. This time it was a young woman in the front row, in the same seat I had always used when I was a student of that class. Up until that moment, I hadn’t thought to look at that spot. Part of me had just assumed that no one was sitting in it. Why would they be? It was my spot.
I chastised myself silently for my stupidity while I called on the girl in front of me with the same gesture I had seen Professor Evory use. It was another level to this game of pretend that I was struggling with. The gesture was right, I knew, but it was hollow. It lacked the meaning and intention of the real thing. And it was obvious. I didn’t know the student’s name.
“One thing that struck me when we were reading your book for our seminar was the water motif. The constant use of drowning or being washed away. Pulled out to sea.”
It was clearly a recitation, I thought to myself. She was repeating something she heard or something she had crafted for an essay or exam or other sort of academic performance. But she did a good job with it. It was hard to pick up the robotic nature of her words, the strained cadence, and the way she landed at certain points with an added force. One had to be looking for it or looking for any sign of condemnation or discontent to see it.
“Could you maybe explain that?” she asked.
Her tone when she asked the question was more innocent and youthful. It was lighter. It was the voice not of a machine set to repeat a certain expression when prompted but the voice of a child. That tone, that pitch, and that way the vowels lifted were all beneath her. They were things she should have outgrown. But they were also useful. I was drawn in, pulled into her query despite the way my stomach twisted at the thought.
Fuck, I thought to myself.
I knew where that motif had come from. Or rather, I knew where that pattern had come from. It wasn’t supposed to be a motif. It wasn’t something I had consciously put together. But when I screamed, when I filled the pages of a notebook with every insecurity I had, something else had slipped out as well. Namely, the nightmare of the river, by some names, the thing that was still haunting me at night, that Chris could not chase away. It was the monster that I had faced down and lost to. It was the worst part of my life. It was my failure. It was everything I fought so hard to avoid.
When I jammed myself into that book, that specter had come with me. It had followed me where I thought I would be safe. And I hadn’t noticed it until the editing process. My editor Riya had pointed it out to me with glee that I had been so clever. We were on the phone when that conversation happened, which meant I was soon trapped by the tone of her voice, by the glee with which she cheered on the decision to include that specific motif. At the words, I froze. My heart stopped, and my lungs retreated into some void deep within themselves. In that void, they couldn’t expand. They couldn’t intake air which was nothing new. It wasn’t a struggle I was unfamiliar with.
But at the same time, it was worse somehow. There was no way for me to pull my organs free. There was no way to take the breath I so badly needed or to fix the plight. I was helpless. I didn’t do well when I felt helpless.
That helplessness wasn’t just in my head, either. There was no removing that motif, not after hearing Riya’s excitement. She loved that motif. I couldn’t take it from her. I couldn’t disappoint her, not when she was giving me what so many writers dream of: praise.
“It’s a good contrast with fire, the typical imagery of Hell,” I said, repeating what Riya had told me through excited cheers. “Fire, at times, can be a weapon of intention. In the case of arson, one not only lights the flame, but often, you have to bring an accelerant to really make your mark. But no human commands water. It strikes when we aren’t expecting. And it can completely destroy, but you don’t have a say in what it destroys.”
Or who, I thought to myself. But I didn’t dare to say.
“In the end, we lose control of both, though. We hardly ever have control of what’s around us.”