Nathan Hill - The Nix

What had changed? What had inspired this new boldness? It was a line from this very poem, actually, the Ginsberg sunflower poem, a line that seemed written exactly for her, a quick jolt that seemed to slap her awake. It summed up exactly how she felt about her life even before she knew she felt it:

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower?

When had she forgotten that she was capable of bold things? When had she forgotten that bold things bubbled constantly inside her? She flips to the back of the book and studies the author photo once again. There he is, this dashing young man, fresh-faced, his short hair lightly tousled, clean-shaven, wearing a baggy white shirt, tucked in, and round tortoiseshell glasses that look like Faye’s glasses. He’s standing on a rooftop somewhere in New York — behind him, the antennas of the city, and beyond those, the hazy shapes of skyscrapers.

When Faye discovered that Ginsberg would be a visiting professor at Circle this coming year, she applied to the school immediately.

She leans back against the brick wall. What would it be like to be in his presence, this man of such abundance? She worries about what she’d do in his class: freak out, probably. Have a panic attack right there on the spot. She would be like the desolate narrator of the sunflower poem: Unholy battered old thing.

But the orchestra is coming back now.

The musicians are assembling, and Faye can hear them warming up. She listens to the cacophony. She feels it through her spine where she leans against the wall. And as she turns to press her cheek against the warm brick, she sees movement at the far end of the building: Someone has just rounded the corner. A girl. Light blue cotton sweater, intricately styled blond hair. It is, Faye sees, Margaret Schwingle. She’s reaching into her purse, pulling out a cigarette, lighting it, blowing out that first drag with a delicate little phoo. She has not yet seen Faye, but she will, it’s only a matter of time, and Faye does not want to be caught doing what she’s doing. Slowly, so as not to disturb the bushes around her, Faye reaches into her bag and replaces the Ginsberg collection with the first book she feels: The Rise of the American Nation, their history textbook. On the cover is a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson surrounded by a monochrome of bright teal. She does this so that when Margaret finally notices her, which she quickly does, and walks over to her and says “What are you doing?” Faye can respond “Homework.”

“Oh,” says Margaret, and this makes sense to her, since everyone knows Faye to be a studious, hardworking, brainy, scholarship-getting girl. And thus Faye does not have to explain her deeper motives, that she’s here reading questionable poetry and pretending to be an oboist.

“What homework?” says Margaret.

“History.”

“Jeez, Faye. Boring. ”

“Yeah, it really is,” Faye says, though she does not find history boring at all.

“It’s all so boring,” Margaret says. “School is so boring.”

“It’s terrible,” Faye says, but she worries that she sounds insincere. Because of course she loves school. Or maybe more accurately she loves that she’s good at school.

“I cannot wait to be finished,” says Margaret. “I want to be done.”

“Yeah,” Faye says. “It won’t be long.” And this fact, the quickly coming end of the semester, has lately been filling her with dread. Because she loves the clarity that school brings: the single-minded purpose, the obvious expectations, how everyone knows you’re a good person if you study hard and score well on exams. The rest of your life, however, is not judged in this manner.

“Do you read here a lot?” Margaret asks. “Behind the building?”

“Sometimes.”

Margaret stares out at the black cornfield before them and seems to consider this. She puffs lightly on her cigarette. Faye follows her lead, stares blankly ahead and tries to act aloof.

“You know,” says Margaret, “I always knew I was a special kid. I always knew I had certain talents. That everyone liked me.”

Faye nods, to agree, maybe, or to show she’s listening, interested.

“And I knew I’d grow up to be a special woman. I always knew that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was a special child and I’d grow up to be a special person.”

“You are,” Faye says.

“Thanks. I’d be a special woman who would marry a special man and we’d have these great children. You know? I always thought that was going to be true. This was my destiny. Life was going to be comfortable. It was going to be great.”

“It will be,” Faye says. “All those things.”

“Yeah. I guess,” Margaret says. She smothers her cigarette in the soil. “But I don’t know what I want to do. With my life.”

“Me neither,” says Faye.

“Really? You?”

“Yeah. I have no idea.”

“I thought you were going to college.”

“Maybe. Probably not. My mom doesn’t want me to. Neither does Henry.”

“Oh,” says Margaret. “Oh, I see.”

“Maybe I’ll put it off a year or two. Wait for things to calm down.”

“That might be smart.”

“I might stay here a while longer.”

“I don’t know what I want,” says Margaret. “I guess I want Jules?”

“Of course.”

“Jules is great, I guess. I mean, he’s really really great.”

“He’s so great.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

“Yes!”

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, thanks.” And she stands, brushes off the dirt, and looks at Faye. “Hey, look, I’m sorry for being weird.”

“It’s fine,” Faye says.

“Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“I don’t think other people would understand.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

And Margaret nods and begins to leave when suddenly she stops, turns back to Faye. “Would you like to come over this weekend?”

“Come over where?”

“My house, dummy. Come have dinner with us.”

“Your house?”

“Saturday night. It’s my father’s birthday. We’re having a surprise party for him. I want you to come!”

“Me?”

“Yeah. If you’re going to stay in town after graduation, don’t you think we should be friends?”

“Oh, okay, sure,” says Faye. “Sure. That’d be swell.”

“Great!” says Margaret. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s a surprise.” She smiles and struts away, rounds the corner, and disappears.

Faye leans back against the wall again and realizes the orchestra is going full tilt. She hadn’t noticed. A big torso of sound, a big crescendo. She is overcome by Margaret’s invitation. What a victory. What a shock. She listens to the orchestra and feels vast. She finds that music muffled through a wall makes her more aware of the physicality of it, that when she can’t hear the music exactly she can still sense it, the vibrations, like waves. That buzz. The wall she presses her face to makes it a different kind of experience. No longer music but a crossing over of the senses. She is aware of the friction needed for music, the striking and stroking of string, wood, leather. Near the end of the piece, especially. When, louder, she can feel the bigger notes. Not abstract, but a quaking, like a touch. And the feeling moves down her throat, a great pulse of noise now, a banging inside. It hums her.

Beyond everything else, she loves this: how swiftly things can strike her — music, people, life — how quickly they can surprise her, all of a sudden, like a punch.

SOMETIMES SPRING SEEMS to happen all at once. Trees bloom, the first green shoots curl out of rain-muddy cornfields, things are renewing, beginning, and for certain members of the graduating class, this is a time of hope and optimism: Commencement approaches, and the girls — those with steady boyfriends, those who daydream about weddings and gardens and toddlers — begin talking about soul mates, how they can feel it, destiny, the ineluctable hand of fate, how they just know. Soft adoring eyes and a quiver in their pulse — Faye feels sorry for them, then sometimes sorry for herself. She seems to lack some essential romance in her life. To Faye it all seems so arbitrary, love. All happenstance. As easily one thing as another, as easily one man as another.