Deena Goldstone - Surprise Me

Well, that tells you something, Daniel admonishes himself, about just where you fit on the sliding scale of important people in her life.

So instead of Isabelle’s eager face in front of him, he has Corinne Berlinger and her jingle-bell sweatshirt and eight other faces that could be mug shots for terminal boredom.

Of course, when he’s not facing these nine objectionable faces, he wonders if the fault might be in him. How do you teach writing when you don’t believe writing can be taught? That’s the dilemma. That’s probably at the root of the problem, more than the sort of students he has before him. The blame, Daniel confesses to himself in his solitary moments, in all likelihood is his. But the result is the same: his students don’t want to be here and he doesn’t want to be, either. Pitiful. He’s landed himself in a pitiful situation.

“There are two grades on your papers,” Daniel tells his class as he passes back the short stories, “one for the story and the one underneath is your class grade. If you want to discuss either, you know my office hours — Fridays from two to four, although I suspect that most of you will be on your way home for Christmas by tomorrow afternoon.” Daniel grins at his students. “It almost seems like I planned it that way.” But not a one smiles back at him. Nobody is interested in his small joke. Isabelle would have responded. She would have tilted her head to her left shoulder, a small grin playing at the corners of her lips; on to him, understanding immediately his desire not to discuss grades ever, at any time. He hates summing people up by a letter. She knows that.

But none of these students understand irony. Oh, kill me now, Daniel thinks as the members of English 452 push back their chairs, gather their backpacks and puffy down jackets, and leave the room without looking at him. Only Corinne has something to say.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Jablonski.”

“You, too, Corinne.”

“I’m going to look at my grade after Christmas. I do that with all my grades, because there’s the chance, you know, that they might ruin my holiday.”

Daniel nods. He thinks that’s a good idea. He should say something encouraging to her, he knows, even if it’s a lie. It’s the holiday season after all—“Good will to all” and the rest of those sentiments. But he can’t. She’s a nice girl but a terrible writer, and he can’t bring himself to lie. She leaves empty-handed, empty-hearted, and he knows it and she knows it.

It occurs to him as Stefan walks him home across the campus, past the many massive red brick buildings, that he has become an even lesser version of himself. More judgmental, grumpier, far less hopeful than he was that last semester at Chandler, when he had Isabelle’s visits to look forward to once a week and her ever-evolving and finally lovely prose.

The two men are bundled against the Colorado cold. It’s the week before Christmas and the gray sky promises snow that may or may not get there — the weather so unpredictable every season of the year here. The temperature is plunging as the day wanes, and both wear heavy jackets and wool scarves wound around their necks and hats in deference to the stiff wind. The trees are leafless and stark against the rapidly darkening sky, and Daniel wishes briefly and intensely for the bright, warm Southern California December days when the light is sharp-edged and challenging and the temperature might reach 80 degrees, even in the depths of winter. Better to count his steps than wish for what he cannot have, and so Daniel does. He puts his attention on his heavy boots as they crackle the brittle leaves underfoot and take him closer to the one place he can draw a real breath: his apartment.

At his side, Stefan chatters nonstop. He’s taken to having opinions about everything, and he gestures widely and often, flinging his arms out, a maestro conducting an imaginary orchestra. It’s as if the majesty of the Rocky Mountains edging the skyline to the west and the vast high plains to their east have translated into an expansiveness in Stefan’s attitude. Gone is the sullen kid who showed up on his doorstep in L.A., the one who could spend days not talking, then explode into bursts of anger and accusation. Now Daniel is living with Arsenio Hall — glib, hyper, relentless.

Although Stefan can’t quite put all the pieces together to explain why he feels so much better living in Colorado, he knows it has something to do with his dad. Daniel needed him to drive across the deserts of California and Nevada and up the six thousand feet onto the plain where “the Springs” is located. And his dad relies on him to do anything that happens outside their apartment — go to the market, the bank, walk to campus, pick up dinner most nights. Although Stefan wouldn’t use the word, it is accurate to say that he feels competent for the first time in his life. And he has convinced himself that he is crucial to his father’s well-being. “Let’s face it,” Stefan has even said to Daniel, “where would you be without me?”

And although Daniel felt the accurate answer to that question was, “With maybe some peace and quiet in my life,” he didn’t, of course, say it. Instead he replied with as much equanimity as he could muster. “I don’t know, Stefan. Up shit’s creek without a paddle, I guess.” And Stefan grinned, delighted.

Their only bone of contention is the fact that Stefan still hasn’t managed to get himself a job in Colorado, either. But I have a job, Stefan thinks but doesn’t say. I take care of you. Instead he tries to be practical.

“Yeah, but Dad, your schedule is so, like, erratic. I couldn’t really work a job around your comings and goings to campus. You’ve got three classes and they meet on different days, at different times, and then there are your office hours and—”

“Erratic?” Daniel is amused by Stefan’s choice of word.

“Yeah, you know, like not the same every day.”

“I know what erratic means, Stefan. I’m just surprised you do.”

And Stefan is stung, hurt, and Daniel sees it and tries to backtrack.

“It’s just not the sort of word you normally use.”

“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“No,” Daniel says slowly, although he’s not sure he’s answering honestly. “I think you have untapped potential.” It’s the kindest thing he can think of to say about his son.

“Yeah, I do.” Stefan is practically glowing. “I’ve got untapped potential.”

They reach their apartment just as the twilight disappears into night. It’s in a squat brick building four blocks from campus, constructed over a hundred years ago. Square, utilitarian, the architecture far less interesting than the elaborate brick buildings on campus, bleak now that the trees which surround the perimeter are lifeless and bare, but Daniel doesn’t care. For him it is a fortress where he can be safe from the dread that accompanies him anywhere outside its strong walls.

All Daniel wants now is to be inside his little piece of it, his small, badly furnished, barely clean apartment. Tonight, as Stefan pushes the button for the elevator, Daniel finds he can’t even wait for the old and lumbering machine to descend to the lobby.

“Taking too long,” he throws over his shoulder as he makes for the stairs, and Stefan immediately turns and follows, concerned because most days Daniel is able to wait.

“Is it bad today, Dad?”

Daniel doesn’t answer. He’s concentrating on scaling the last set of stairs and flinging open the door to the third-floor hallway.

“Dad?”

Daniel is fumbling with his keys, struggling to open the door to their apartment. There’s no way he’s answering Stefan. There! He’s in, his son behind him watching with worried eyes as Daniel attempts to slow his breathing to a normal level. Stefan has become an expert at reading body language and nonverbal cues that tell him what his father refuses to — how he’s doing, how consumed he is by his own panic.