Olivia holds up a hand like a traffic cop. “In the poem I read you wrote in how. This is how birds stitch the sky closed at sunset.”
Barbara is amazed. Olivia has quoted the line exactly, although the poem isn’t in front of her. “Yes. It was Professor Harris who suggested the change from this is the way to this is how. So I put it in.”
“Because you thought her version of the line was better?”
Barbara starts to say yes, then pauses. This feels like a trap question. No, that’s not right, this woman doesn’t ask questions to trap (although Barbara thinks Emily Harris might). But it could be a test question.
“I did then, but…”
“But now you’re not so sure. Do you know why?”
Barbara thinks it over and shakes her head. If it’s a test question, she guesses she just failed.
“Could it be because your original version contains words that continue the rhythm of the poem? Could it be this is the way swings and this is how clunks, like a dead key on a piano?”
“It’s just one word… well, two…”
“But in a poem every word counts, doesn’t it? And even in free verse, especially in free verse, the rhythm must always be there. The heartbeat. Your version is poetry. Emily’s is prosy. Did she offer to help you with your work, Barbara?”
“I guess, in a way. She said, I think this was it, that if I didn’t hear back from you, I might consider her as an interested party.”
“Yes. That’s Emily as I’ve come to know her. Emily all over. She’s managerial. She would begin by making suggestions, and eventually your poems would become her poems. At best collaborations. She’s all right at what she does now that she’s semi-retired, going through writing samples for the fiction workshop, but as a teacher, or a mentor, she’s like a driving instructor who always ends up taking the wheel from the student. She can’t help it.”
Barbara bites her lip, considering, and decides to risk taking it a little further. “You don’t like her?”
It’s the old poet’s turn to consider. Finally she says, “We’re collegial.”
That’s not an answer, Barbara thinks. Or maybe it is.
“When I was teaching poetry at Bell many years ago, we were next door neighbors in the English Department, and when she left her door open, I sometimes overheard her student conferences. She never raised her voice, but often there was a… a kind of browbeating going on. Most adults can stand up to that sort of thing, but students, especially those who are eager to please, are a different matter. Did you like her?”
“She seemed all right. Willing to talk to a kid who basically just barged in.” But Barbara is thinking of the tea, and how nasty it was.
“Ah. And did you meet her husband, the other half of their storied love match?”
“Briefly. He was washing his car. We didn’t really talk.”
“The man is crazy,” Olivia says. She doesn’t sound angry, and she doesn’t sound like she’s making a joke. It’s just a flat declaration, like the sky is cloudy today. “Don’t take my word for it; before he retired, he was known in Life Sciences as Rowdy Roddy the Mad Nutritionist. For a few years before he finally stepped down—although he may still have lab privileges, I don’t know about that—he had an eight-week seminar called Meat Is Life. Which always made me think of Renfield in Dracula. Have you read it? No? Renfield is the best character. He’s locked in a madhouse, eating flies and repeating ‘the blood is the life’ over and over.
“Fuck me, I’m rambling.”
Barbara’s mouth drops open.
“Don’t be shocked, Barbara. You can’t write well without a grasp of profanity and the ability to look at filth. To sometimes exalt filth. All I’m saying—not out of jealousy, not out of possessiveness—is you would do well to steer clear of the Professors Harris. Her, especially.” She eyes Barbara. “Now if you have me down for a jealous old woman slandering a former colleague, please say so.”
Barbara says, “All I know is her tea is horrible.”
Olivia smiles. “We’ll close the subject with that, shall we? Are those your poems in that folder?”
“Some of them. The shorter ones.”
“Read to me.”
“Are you sure?” Barbara is scared. Barbara is delighted.
“Of course I am.”
Barbara’s hands are shaking as she opens her folder, but Olivia doesn’t see; she has settled back in her chair and closed those fierce eyes. Barbara reads a poem called “Double Image.” She reads one called “The Eye of December.” She reads one called “Grass, Late Afternoon”:
“The storm is finished. The sun returns.
The wind says, When I blow
tell your million shadows
to say ‘Eternity, eternity.’
So that is what they do.”
After that one the old poet opens her eyes and yells for Marie. Her voice is surprisingly strong. Barbara thinks with dismay that she has been found wanting and is going to be escorted out by the woman in the fawn-colored slacks.
“You have another twenty minutes, Livvie,” Marie says.
Olivia ignores that. She’s looking at Barbara. “Are you attending classes in person, or are you Zooming?”
“Zooming for now,” Barbara says. She hopes she won’t cry until she gets out of here. She thought it was going so well, that’s the thing.
“When can you come? Mornings are best for me. I’m fresh then… or as fresh as is possible these days. Are they possible for you? Marie, get the book.”
Marie leaves, giving Barbara just enough time to find her voice. “I have no classes until eleven.”
“Assuming you’re an early riser, that’s perfect.”
As a rule Barbara is far from an early riser, but she thinks that’s about to change.
“Can you come from eight until nine? Or nine-thirty?”
Marie has returned with an appointment book. She says, “Nine. Nine-thirty is too long, Livvie.”
Olivia doesn’t stick out her tongue, but she makes an amusing face, like a child who’s told she must eat her broccoli.
“Eight to nine, then. Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Wednesdays are for the goddam doctors and Thursdays are for the motherfucking physical therapy chick. The harpy.”
“I can do that,” Barbara says. “Of course I can do that.”
“Leave the poems you brought. Bring more. If you have books of mine you want signed, bring them next time and we’ll get that nonsense out of the way. I’ll see you out.” She gropes for her canes and begins the slow process of getting up. It’s like watching an Erector Set building constructed in slow motion. Marie moves to help her. The old poet waves her away, almost falling back into her chair in the process.
“You don’t have to—” Barbara begins.
“Yes,” Olivia says. She sounds out of breath. “I do. Walk with me. Throw my coat over my shoulders.”
“Faux, faux,” Barbara says, without meaning to. The way she writes some lines—often the best lines—without meaning to.
Olivia doesn’t just laugh at that, she cackles. They move slowly down the short hall, the old poet almost invisible beneath the fur coat. Marie stands watching them. Probably ready to pick up the pieces if she falls and shatters like an old porcelain vase, Barbara thinks.
At the door, one of those frail hands grasps Barbara’s wrist. In a low voice carried on a waft of faintly bad breath, she says, “Did Emily ask you if your poems were about what she likes to call ‘the Black experience’?”