Elise Blackwell - Grub

“You drink too much.” Andrew slammed the door and waved on the car.

Back in his study, he pulled the novels he’d written from the shelf, stacked them on the floor, and stood next to them. “Knee high,” he said. “My career is knee high.” With a sudden panic, he realized that he couldn’t remember the title of his second novel. High Sorghum ? He chewed the words. No, that was the title of his third novel. High Sorghum had been his weakest novel, but the second one — that was a great book. As he tried to recall the words of its title, he realized that he did not even remember where the book was set in place or time.

He stood for ten minutes before bending over, hands gripping his thighs for balance, to read from the spine, Wintergreen: A Novel of the Frontier .

Despite her height, or lack thereof, Margot was easy to spot among the sparse herd waiting for the ferry. She wore a slim, orange tank dress, sandals in place of her usual canvas sneakers, and an armful of wire-thin silver bangles. Next to her, the other women in the crowd looked coarse and vulgar; the men, grotesque.

“You look beautiful,” Jackson said. He kissed the side of her head and breathed in her smell: unscented soap and baby powder.

The midday crowd was light — tourists and couples and old people and one or two down-and-outers, instead of commuters bumping shoulders. Jackson and Margot found a place on a bench.

Margot looked at her lap, where her hands neatly gripped a brown paper bag, then away. “I figured I’d bring lunch,” she said to the air on her left as Jackson, seated to her right, strained to hear. She handed him a sandwich. “Is pimiento cheese okay? It’s kind of kitsch, if nothing else.”

“Pimiento cheese is perfect,” he said, and it was. He ate the sandwich and the crisp apple Margot offered next. “That’s the second pimiento sandwich you’ve given me. I’ll never forget either of them.” He unfurled his height, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I’ll get us something to drink, and we can go out on deck.”

Summer had lingered into fall and the day was warm. The movement of the boat generated a perfect breeze. Jackson and Margot gazed at the Manhattan skyline, glanced at each other, then looked back at the city’s squares and rectangles, the buildings with flat roofs and those with pointed hats. The sun glanced off the water, making the rising scene look two-dimensional — a façade or stage set rather than a place where people lived out real lives.

“A free ride and less than two dollars for a German beer. Best cheap date in New York City.”

“Date?” Margot asked, then swallowed a small, quick gulp of her beer, her hand oddly high on the neck of the green bottle, her bangles tinkling as they slid up and down her arm with its movements.

“Not that you don’t deserve the most expensive date in Paris.” Jackson, knowing that he was speaking into the wind, spoke loudly.

“Paris?”

“Look at that skyline. Isn’t it wonderful to see what the city looks like when you’re still in it but not quite?”

Neither of them mentioned what was missing from the skyline, and Jackson was relieved that enough years had passed to render that conversation optional. He wanted to keep things light with Margot. She was a serious girl — he admired that — but he wanted her to have a good time. A good time with him.

“So have you finally admitted that what you’re writing is a book?” he asked.

“I’m afraid so, afraid that it is a novel.”

Margot tipped her head from side to side in a manner that Jackson found at once goofy and thoroughly disarming. She was serious, but there was nothing pretentious about her, nothing practiced. This was a girl who had never smiled for the mirror, whose facial expressions were natural and unlearned. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms, throw himself between her and anyone or anything that meant her harm.

“That’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s terrific that you’re writing a book. I won’t ask you what it’s about — isn’t that the worst question always? — but I will ask you how it’s going.”

She smiled a girl’s smile. “I don’t know how I’ll ever finish. I’m only through my second draft.”

“You have an entire second draft?”

Her nod was barely perceptible, and now it was her shoulders moving in awkward jerks.

“Spell-check it and send it out.”

“Oh, no, it’s not ready.” She sipped from the beer as though just remembering that she held it. “This is good. Nice and cold. You tell me about your writing.”

“I’m aiming to write a big book, you know, splashy. I plan for my first novel to be my break-out book. It’s not the literature that I’m sure you write. I’m moving around attractive stockbrokers, cocaine, gigolos, a dash of deviant sex.” Noticing that Margot was again glancing away, Jackson paused. “But it’s really kind of a morality play,” he continued. “A pinch of Macbeth in the mix.”

“Sounds ambitious.” She touched the tip of her nose with her finger and quickly lowered it, sending the bangles sliding down her forearm in a musical collision.

“According to one definition of the word, yes, it is ambitious.”

Together they watched the Statue of Liberty approach as though it and not they were moving. Jackson felt the momentary coolness of its shadow.

“Not a lovely face on her at all.”

“You’re not the first to so say,” Margot replied.

Jackson winced at the accusation of unoriginality, but, when he replayed Margot’s comment, detected no rebuke in her tone. “I once knew a fellow,” he said, “named Chuck Wood. By the time he was ten, he’d heard the woodchuck tongue twister so many times that he’d just grin this huge grin and say ‘never heard that one before.’”

“I suppose it’s fitting that the symbol of independence wouldn’t be soft or pretty in an easy way. But I do think she’s rather handsome.”

“There’s only one face I can see right now.” He cupped her cheek, her face small in his large hand, then retreated. “So, anyway, what will you do now that The Shadow of the Valley of Books is closing? You taught once, right? Do you have an MFA?”

Margot twirled one of her short curls with her middle finger. “An ma in literature. I wrote a thesis on the destiny of coincidence in Thomas Hardy, mostly in Far from the Madding Crowd and Return of the Native but I touched on Jude also. A lot of people have written about destiny and coincidence in Hardy, but I’ve searched everywhere and I think I’m actually the first person — I know, it’s hard to believe — to address the destiny of coincidence in his work.”

“I knew you were a more original thinker than I am. Say, Margot, you could probably still get a teaching job. The Metropolis Workshop thing is always hiring. There’s lots of online stuff now too, the low-residency writing programs and all that. I don’t mean become a teacher — I think so much more highly of you than that — just something to do for awhile. Of course, if you liked teaching, you could pick up an MFA.”

“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head very slowly but with great emphasis, like a little kid resisting vegetables. “I could never show my writing like that. I hear it’s like baring your veins to wolves.”

“It’s not so awful, really,” Jackson said, even as he recalled some of his harsher workshop statements and the time he’d told a first-year student that workshop was a blood sport and to high-tail it back to Florida if she couldn’t take it. “Besides, you’ll be baring your work for reviewers.” The word ‘baring’ seemed almost lewd said in proximity to her exposed arms, whose perfect creamy tone made Jackson want to both run his hands down them and leave them unsullied by his coarse touch.