Deena Goldstone - Surprise Me

“Okay,” she says, and burrows deeper into his arms. That’s why she’s with him, she tells herself, because he cares about what happens to her. All the rest doesn’t matter.

Daniel gets up early on Tuesday morning and rereads Isabelle’s pages from the week before. They never got around to discussing them because Isabelle, emboldened by their discussion of writing and freedom, asked Daniel about his first two novels. How he came to write them. And how much he took from his personal life, since the first one was about a man coming to terms with his difficult father’s death and the second about a divorce.

“Everything,” Daniel told her. “I stripped my life bare.”

“Without regard to the people you might hurt?”

“My father was dead and my ex-wife thought I had been overly kind to her in the book. Not in real life, I might add.”

“Don’t you have a responsibility, though, to the people who care about you?”

“Don’t you have a responsibility to the work you are doing?”

“Which is?”

“To tell the truth, as you see it.”

“Despite—?”

He cut her off. “Despite.”

Today he has to talk to her about the pages that complete Chapter One. What he realizes as he rereads them in the tiny back sunroom that he’s turned into his home office is that she has to get out of her own way. When she does, her writing is interesting; when she doesn’t, he feels like tossing the pages in the trash bin.

—

STEFAN, QUIET THIS MORNING, walks his father to campus. Daniel is grateful for the lack of strained conversation. The silence allows him to focus on his rising tide of panic, the tingling he feels along both arms, his ragged breathing, the sweat accumulating under his arms and across his palms, the certainty that he’s building up to a heart attack, the terror that he’s going to pass out here, on campus, in full view. Breathe in, he tells himself with one step, breathe out with the next.

“It’s a waste of time, you know,” Stefan says finally as they’re passing in front of the science building, Dunham Hall, and Daniel looks at his son, really for the first time this morning. That’s the thing about a panic disorder: it tends to fill up a person’s consciousness. Now he sees that Stefan is dressed in a button-down shirt and jeans without holes in them, a miracle in and of itself. He must have yet another job interview.

“You go in with that attitude, you’re guaranteeing it’s a waste of time.”

“You’re telling me it’s mind over matter?”

“Something like that.” Daniel can’t have this conversation now, out in the open, while he’s walking. It takes too much concentration simply not to pass out.

“I just walk into the interview with a positive attitude and everything works out?”

Daniel grunts, puts his head down, walks faster. They cross the quad in front of the student union, only the stone steps — there are twenty-seven of them; Daniel counts them every time — to go before they’re in front of Lathrop Hall.

“Why don’t you try that yourself, Dad, and tell me how it works out?”

Daniel hears the anger in his son’s voice but he can’t deal with it now. Nothing matters except getting to his office. He opens the heavy door into Lathrop — finally, inside! — and takes the stairs with long strides.

The two men reach the second-floor landing together, anxiety fueling the father, anger fueling his son. Daniel doesn’t stop; his focus is lasered on his office door, midway down the hall on the right. If he can get inside, he’ll be fine, he’ll be able to breathe, this thumping of his heart will quiet. He doesn’t see Isabelle leaning against the opposite wall, waiting for him, two white Starbucks cups in her hands.

But Stefan sees her. “Hey — you waiting for my dad?”

Oh, his son, of course. Isabelle can immediately see the resemblance — the high cheekbones, the blond hair that furrows away from a broad face. And the ice-blue eyes.

Isabelle nods, but Daniel can only concentrate on getting his key into the door and the door open. He fumbles with it. Of course he does — his hands are shaking. Stefan doesn’t help; instead he directs his attention to Isabelle.

“Stefan Jablonski,” he tells her.

“Isabelle.”

“You a writer?”

She hesitates, then: “Your dad and I are trying to sort that out.”

“Oh, you’re in trouble, then.” Daniel disappears into his office, gone from sight, so Stefan can say, “Can’t you find someone else to help you with that?”

Isabelle looks at him, stunned. What a strange thing for a son to say. “I don’t want to find someone else.”

“He’s got writer’s block, you know. He can’t help himself, so good luck with his helping you.”

“Are you coming in?” Daniel bellows out the office door.

Stefan turns to go. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Isabelle watches him walk down the hall, his shoulders hunched against some private trouble she doesn’t want to even think about now. Wow, angry kid.

“Isabelle!” Another summons from inside the office, and she takes a deep breath, gathers her courage — it’s always hard for her to begin these meetings. What is he going to say? Did he like her pages? Does she have it within her to be a writer? Will he give her what she needs? All those questions are swirling in her brain as she forces herself to walk into the office, the two cappuccinos in hand. She finds him in his customary place, sitting behind his desk.

“You drink coffee?”

“I’m not supposed to,” he says as he reaches for the white cup.

She settles into her corner of the couch. They look at each other. Each samples the coffee. She waits. He pulls her pages from his briefcase and puts them in front of him on the desk. All eating up time. It feels like he doesn’t want to begin, and Isabelle tenses in anticipation.

“You need to get out of your own way.”

“Meaning?”

“Too much head and not enough heart.”

“Oh.”

And she’s wounded. He can see that. She flicks her bangs over her eyes, a cover-up, and he curses himself silently. How can he put it so she understands? He tries again. “You need to stop thinking so much when you write and let your instinct take over — that’s when your writing takes off.” And then, more gently: “That’s when you have a voice.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t…”

“Here,” he says, “this is good. ‘She chose each house by its degree of difficulty. The more impenetrable, the bigger the high. The house on the corner had bars on its windows and a sign outside that read “Armed Security Detail.” Bingo! The jackpot!’ ”

He looks at Isabelle, who seems to have been swallowed up by the corner of the couch. “I like that,” he tells her again, because she looks so miserable, “but not this.” And he pushes ahead because he wants her to see what he sees. “ ‘The moon cast a hoary glow across the backyard pool, turning it into quicksilver. The black branches of the apple tree waved in the wind like witches’ fingers pointing the way to the cellar door.’ ” He looks up again. Now she looks even more inconsolable.

“Do you see the difference?”

“I’m not sure.”

He’s exasperated. It’s so clear — the first is interesting, the second is derivative and overwritten. “Well, think about it,” he says, without a note of kindness in his voice.

“You give me all these tasks and I have no idea how to accomplish them.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Maybe everyone is right. Maybe he isn’t up to it. Maybe she shouldn’t be here.