What you need to know:
Jennifer is attending the final section of her MFA, set to gradate and hopefully secure a steady job at a university. At the same time, she’s agreed to allow Rick to watch Josephine for a couple hours one morning to prove that he is healing as a result of his new therapy. The problem is that he’s not answering Jennifer’s calls…
Chapter Eleven
Mountains Out of Molehills
It’s one of those early morning lectures in the main academic hall. The rising sun casts slanted shadows along the vaulted ceiling, the wood-paneled walls, and the nubby industrial carpet. Down the center of the room, twenty rectangular tables arranged in long rows. Near the back, the MFA faculty sit together with arms and legs crossed listening with varying expressions—disinterest, curiosity, boredom.
Students fill the rest of the tables—some hunch over notebooks and take furious notes, others (like me) knit, still others sit slightly back to covertly study the screens of their phones balanced on their laps.
It is August at my low residency MFA program. I graduate this term. Good news, I tell myself while both listening but also knitting along on the shawl that is now two feet long. Twelve balls of yarn to go. I’ll be able to snag a steady writing job at a university plus a 401K plan and health insurance. A good plan. Solid.
At the lectern, the speaker wears a cowboy hat, a tweedy blazer with patches at the elbows, a jeans shirt, a pair of Levi’s, and cowboy boots. The Cowboy Poet, I’ve heard others call him.
“Just forget about those weaknesses…in your writing…and your life,” the Cowboy Poet says. He swats a thick-fingered hand as if our weaknesses flutter near. “You starve ‘em out and watch…they’ll shrivel and vanish.”
The Cowboy Poet’s speech pattern reminds machine gun fire. A ratta-tat-tat pitched to one level.
“Hit the lights,” the Cowboy Poet calls toward the ceiling.
At this command, automatic shades lower with a mechanical sound. The bright rays of the early morning sun slip away. The room goes dark.
We are four months into Rick’s one-on-one therapy which he debriefs at our couples sessions. He reports being close to his mother and sisters but that his father felt he was weak. Off he went to military school, where Rick became the kid who stuffed bags of dog shit in lockers, balanced thumbtacks on chairs, tripped smaller kids in the halls. The bully. Yet, in all this, Rick discovered no one liked “the bully” so he re-fashioned himself into “a good guy.” It was about this time he found himself going numb inside, which was one of the reasons he liked acupuncture. When sliding a needle into someone’s flesh, he felt more connected to himself and others. There was “an intimacy to needling,” he told us. People let him in unbeknownst.
“This is huge,” Maxine would say after each of these revelations. “Rick is at the phase of healing we call ‘self-discovery’ and ‘revelatory-honesty’. A major step! We work a little more re-establishing the original empathy he lost as a boy and our guy will be okay.”
In the larger sense, Maxine was likely right. Rick was having major breakthroughs but with each admission, especially this business of needling people to be “let in,” I went colder and colder. Who was this man I had married? How had I let things go this far?
“You need to be patient, Jennifer,” Maxine told me. “Show some compassion and appreciation for what he’s sharing.”
Fran and Steve agreed.
“This is marriage,” Fran told me. “No one is perfect.”
“At least he’s trying,” Steve said, “that’s worth something.”
I felt utterly alone in this rising terror. Was it just me? How could anyone expect me to remain in a relationship with such a man?
A series of Power Point slides lift on the screen. The Cowboy Poet repeats all he’s already said, only now with accompanying graphics.
Forget your weaknesses.
Starve ‘em out.
Watch them wither.
I pause my needles, shift slightly back in my chair, peer at my own phone balanced on my lap.
The screen is blank.
I set the knitting aside, tap on the screen. Scroll. Tap again.
Nothing.
The Power Point presentation ends. The lights blink on. People clap.
Working my hand under the table, I type. “Is Jo with you?” Hit send.
A few tables over, a young woman raises her hand, then stands. Hands tucked into the front pocket of her oversized gray sweatshirt, she speaks in a loud voice. “So, you’re saying we should build on our strengths?” she asks.
“Exactly,” the Cowboy Poet says, leaning into the mic, “what’s the use in working on anything else?”
The girl drops to sit, takes up her pen, writes something down.
I watch this interaction, watch everyone else writing in the same way. Like the situation with Rick, I feel as if I am in an upside down world where nothing makes sense. This is how a frog gets cooked, the slow rise of the heat. We go along to get along, not realizing we’ve lost our damn minds and then, before we know it, lose everything we cherish.
Another hand lifts. A bearded guy near the front. “Can you give me an example?” he asks.
“Say you’re great at baseball,” The Cowboy Poet says, now leaning an elbow on the podium. “You can wail every pitch to the outfield, right? Well, you’re not going to give that up and knit? Am I right?”
People chuckle, nod.
I type another text: “Rick. Come on. We had a deal.” Hit send.
“But what if I want to knit?” a different woman asks. A fellow knitter. “Isn’t it good to learn new skills?”
The Cowboy Poet gives her a hard look, makes a click-click sound at the side of his cheek like you might do when encouraging a horse along. “See, this is what I’m talking about,” he says. “You can only be excellent at one thing at a time.”
Phone in hand, I shove my chair back, work my way up the side aisle to the exit doors.
The teachers swing their heads to study me leaving the lecture. Some frown. Others simply stare.
“Emergency,” I whisper. “With my kids.”
This softens a few of the female staff, but the others remain irritated.
I don’t care what they think, push through the double doors.
In the vaulted entry hall, the muted sounds of The Cowboy Poet talk-talk-talking. I lean against the wall between a trash can and the women’s restroom, hit dial.
Rick’s number flips into voice messaging. “Greetings and Namaste. I’m unavailable at this moment in time…”
I hang up, dial the house landline. “Hey, you’ve reached Rick, Jennifer, Spencer and Jo, we’re not here…” the recorded message says.
I hang up again.
I dial Fran.
“Hi!” Fran says, picking up on the first ring. “What’s going on?”
“Sorry to call so early,” I say.
“If I didn’t want to talk, I wouldn’t have picked up,” she says. “So? How’s Tacoma? Learning lots?”
I can see her now. She’s in bed with her first cup of coffee brought by Frank before he left for work. Fran always has her first cup propped up by pillows, a book in her lap.
“Good. Good. Fine,” I say. “Remember how Rick was watching Jo this morning? Because Steve needed to catch a flight? And I was out of town?”
“Yeah. Right,” she says. “The trust-building exercise.”
“Yeah,” I say, cursing Maxine.
“Let Rick prove to you that he can be trusted,” Maxine had said in our last session. “Let him be helpful.” Then to him, “You can watch a little girl for two hours, right, Rick?”
Rick bobbed his head as eager as a Labrador to get out of the basement.
The guidelines were simple. Steve would drop Jo at the house at 7:45 a.m. At 9:45, a mother we knew would pick Jo up for a sleepover. Rick promised to text every step of the way.
“I’m getting nothing from him,” I say to Fran now.
“Hmm,” Fran says, the light tink sound of her china cup on a saucer. “Maybe your service is bad? This isn’t the greatest connection.” A beep on the line. “Hey, wait,” Fran says. “I’m getting a call from ah…well, you’re not going to believe this. It’s Rick…”
“What?”
“Hang on.”
The doors to the lecture hall thwack open. Like a stampede, students and faculty hurry past. They toss paper cups into the trash, the lids popping off, the spray of cold coffee. I ease away from the trash can, wipe off my sleeve.
“There’s a problem,” Fran says. “Jo is sick. A bad tummy.”
I sway where I stand, have to lean against the wall to keep from sliding down it.
“It’s probably nothing,” Fran continues. “But he’s all edgy because she threw up, wants to take her to the emergency room.”
“What?” I say, voice sharp.
The straggling students leaving the building turn, stare at me.
“I know. I know. You hate hospitals,” Fran says. “Look, don’t make mountains out of molehills. He’s a guy who wants to do good for you but knows he’s screwing it up. I told him to think rationally, that kids are like cats and dogs; they throw up all the time.”
“What did he say?”
“That’s the thing. He hung up,” Fran says, “I can’t get him back on the line.”
The lobby is now empty. Quiet all around. I study the space before me. Think. Think.
“I’m coming home,” I say.
“No,” Fran says. “Stay put. I’ll go over to your place.”
“Forget it. I’m packing up. I’m taking the train.”
“Think about this,” Fran says, the sound of movement on her end of the phone. I imagine her coffee set aside, covers thrown back, feet on the floor. “It will be at least five hours on Amtrak. If you can get a seat.”
“I’ll borrow someone’s car. Or I’ll rent,” I say, tapping at at my forehead. “I’m so stupid. What was I thinking?”
“You’re spiraling. Get to class. I’ll check in as soon as I can.”
Her words make sense, but I still look around like a trapped animal. I need to move. I need to go. She’s right, though. She’ll be at the house in minutes.
“Okay,” I finally say. “Go. And thank you.”
“Of course,” she says. “I’ll call soon.”
I flip my phone closed, shove off the wall. On heavy legs, I force myself through the hall doors, stumble to the table strewn with my pad, pen, and knitting.
By the podium, The Cowboy Poet talks to one of the program administrators. They stop, glance my way. The administrator lifts a hand in greeting. He’s one of those old hippies with longer white hair thinning at the top and a belly that tumbles haphazardly over his waistband. Stan? Sam?
I wave back like an ordinary, functioning, happy woman, but inside, I don’t think I’ve hated my life as much as I hate it right now; mostly, I hate how I’ve yanked my kids into this psychotic mess. It would be fine if it were just me, but they don’t deserve this madness.
You’re spiraling, I hear Fran say in my head, but it doesn’t matter. I’m lost in a storm of self-loathing, misery, self-recriminations. I shove my things into my purse, sling the straps of my pack over my shoulder.
“Yo. Hey. You!”
I stop, lift my head.
The Cowboy Poet strides toward me, taps the brim of his hat by way of greeting. Face to face, he’s ten inches shorter than me. Not that it matters, but I didn’t expect him to be so tiny.
“You live in Portland, yeah? Published, right?” The Cowboy Poet motions at the administrator, who now stands with hands in his pockets.
“Old Stan was just telling me about your successes,” The Cowboy Poet says.
Stan. Right.
The Cowboy Poet digs into his bulging blazer pocket, hauls out a thick wallet that he opens. From within, he lifts out a business card. “If you’re looking for a job,” he says, snapping the card toward me, “we supply teaching space and advertising. You supply the teachings and the students. Probably got a passel of followers.”
I take the card, study it a moment. Old school style, a kind of mini-brochure. “The Tin Pot Basement Collective?” I ask, skeptical.
“Twenty years and going strong,” he says, taps the edge of the card in my hand. “Got a swank new website, too. Keeping up with the times. Check us out. You pack ‘em in, we take fifty and you take fifty.”
“Fifty students?”
“Fifty percent,” he says, folds his wallet and shoves it back into his blazer pocket.
What about my weaknesses? I almost ask. Should I bring those with me? Or toss ‘em out? But I don’t. Thank goodness. Rather, I force on my usual polite smile.
“I have to get to class,” I say, “but thanks. I’ll think about it.”
“You betcha,” he says, taps at his hat once more.
Next:
Chapter 12: Safe and Sound?
Rick is watching Josephine for a couple hours one day, but it all goes wrong. Josephine gets sick, Rick panics, then vanishes. Jennifer, a few hours away from the city, is in a panic herself waiting for an update from Fran who is going over to the house to figure out what happened. Is Josephine okay? What has Rick done? Where has he gone?