Amy Inspired (34 page)

Also, what you stand to lose in becoming famous

Climax:
The turning point or point of highest interest in the plot

Complication:
A problem or host of problems. Example: the apartment in which you are working burns down, your laptop and files smoldering with it. And/or your spouse threatens to file for divorce, on grounds of indecent exposure, i.e. that you are writing about his/her personal life, thereby exposing him/her to public censure and shame.

Crisis:
When complications become overwhelming

Denouement:
The unraveling or untying of the complexities of a plot. Derives from the Old French
denoer
, “to untie.” Sprinkle generously in party conversation to impress non-literary acquaintances.

Omniscient:
Literally, “all knowing.” The ability of an author or narrator (usually third person) to tell the reader directly about the events that have occurred, are occurring, or will occur in the story, and about the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Also, God.

Plot:
Looks like a witch’s hat:

Conclusion:
A Happy Ending. Boy gets Girl (or vice versa), protagonist saves the world, and, when novel becomes a success, the author’s Interesting Life begins.

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Friday 4.20.07 1:30 PM

Subject: Dummy’s Guide

Amy:

Read your piece. Whimsical form for a cathartic rant. And funny. Enjoyed the

“dictionary” definitions excerpt in particular.

My theory: you have been reading Vonnegut and receiving rejections. A

courageous first attempt at pomo metafiction, yes?

Will leave my formal response on your desk.

Ever so sincerely,

Everett

P.S. Lonnie sends his love

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Saturday 4.21.07 11:37 AM

Subject: Ugh

Everett:

Thanks for your response. It was, as always, brilliant. I’m recycling the manuscript as we speak.

You really think I am trying to be Vonnegut? Am I that sophomoric?

Sincerely Dejected,

Amy

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Sunday 4.22.07 2:00 AM

Subject: story

Beloved Aimeeeee:

everett is a chump. really, he didn’t like it? then don’t listen to him. i think the whole thing is hilarious straight through and that you should send it out with your next batch of submissions. you’re still submitting, right? tell me you’re submitting. you have to write for two now… . i haven’t read or written a page since coming out here to be w/mom and feel perfectly wretched about it. it’s like this weight on my chest—except, crap, that’s a terrible cliché. see, even my e-mails are clichéd now! and I’m using exclamation points (!!!!)

Zoë, the illustrious

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Monday 4.23.07 9:03 AM

Subject: IMPORTANT

The Intergalactic Gateway Convention is coming to Columbus May 12th through May 14th. Tickets on sale now at 1–800–345-SPACE. Informational flier attached below. Costumes sold separately.

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Monday 4.23.07 9:07 AM

Subject: Re: IMPORTANT

If you want me to respond, then turn around and mock me to my face. I’m sitting three feet away from you.

Amy

P. S. And please put that out, you know you can’t smoke in here.

———

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Wednesday 4.25.07 8:45 PM

Subject: home*sweet*home

Zoë,

Am at home tonight b/c Mom insisted I go with her to buy a dress for the wedding and this was her only night free. I should have gone out myself, but she wanted to buy the dress for me and I couldn’t very well afford anything new on my own. I think this is compensation for the fact that I’m not a bridesmaid, which offends her to no end. I hope Marie believes me when I say I’m glad to be free of the obligation. I’m at that age where being a bridesmaid is a dangerous gamble: “always a bridesmaid …”

I can’t seem to escape this house. I lie in bed and examine why I’m so tied to home (which is not really home anymore—I have worn out my welcome, as the boxed journals and bedclothes indicate), but I feel like it’s out of my hands. I can’t help that Brian is marrying—that you are gone. That I don’t have the money or inclination to be elsewhere. Or do you think those are poor excuses? Am I in danger of become a hopeless, tragic townie in manner of Ethan Frome, my hands tied by impersonal fate?

Amy

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Thursday 4.26.07 10:03 PM

Subject: Naturalism Sux

A:

what’s all this ethan frome business? i don’t ever want to hear you mention him again. no more of this fatalistic pessimism. gather the coins from the couch cushions and fly away little bird! flee to a place warm and free where men are your servants and it is Christian to lie on the beach merely contemplating the lovely idea of God.

i asked michael if he could come visit this weekend he said he was going to try then called back to say he couldn’t get away from work. this whole cancer thing totally freaks him out.

Zoë the illustrious but increasingly exhausted.

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Thursday 4.26.07 11:45 AM

Subject: (none)

Zoë the illustrious:

Have been praying for you and promise that I will continue to do so. I meant to say so earlier, but it felt kind of trite. Know that you’re in my thoughts every second and that I beg God to keep you sane.

I’ve been wondering lately what would happen if I really prayed. All the promises in Scripture seem to imply we are entitled to the same miracles Christ performed.

Did I ever tell you that when I was a little girl I tried to walk on water? Dad had rented a paddleboat for our family vacation. I don’t know what came over me, but out there in the very middle of the lake, I just stepped off the back of that paddleboat and slipped right under the water. It was, and remains, the greatest spiritual failure of my life.

So my question: was I being foolish or was my faith smaller than even a mustard seed?

Amy

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Thursday 4.26.07 7:02 PM

Subject: Re: (none)

who’s to judge?

what i want to know is why miracles are things you always hear about but never see. it’s always a story someone heard from a neighbor who saw it happen to a cousin. as a believer, i am always catching the aftereffect of the miracles, the last ripple to roll out from the place God comes down and touches the earth. why can’t i see an angel? water to wine? your faith was big enough: why didn’t you walk on water?

the year mom was diagnosed with cancer i prayed every day that God would heal her—miraculously heal her. what kills me is that I really believed it could happen. the expectation only increased daily because a part of me feared that if I didn’t expect Him to help her, He will have no choice but to fail me … that’s so messed up it almost sounds like something you’d do.

it’s exhausting to keep the hope engine running. i’m like a kid pinching her eyelids open to stay awake for the end of the show: certain that if i let my hope fall even for a second, i’ve failed mom, God, myself.

don’t tell anyone this. esp. the Baptists. they will just tell me to read Psalms.

love

Zoë

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Thursday 4.26.07 2:07 AM

Subject: news

back in the hospital. wanted to call but is late. mom in bad way: high-grade small bowel obstruction. she’s up for early morning surgery. pray it goes all right.

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Monday 4.30.07 11:56 PM

Subject: Re: news

Zoë,

I’ve been trying to call. I know maybe you don’t want to talk. I just wanted to write, to say I’m sorry.

Waiting to hear from you.

Love

Amy

20

Brian once told me that when a person has cancer, they always have cancer. However aggressive the treatment, however meticulously a surgeon disentangles the tumors one by one, a single stray cell flicked from the scalpel is all the root a metastasis needs. Some patients are fortunate; for whatever reason the remaining cancer cells never grow and the body carries them along unwittingly. Others aren’t so lucky.

It was Brian’s first year of med school and he was always relaying facts he found fascinating. But what fascinated him typically horrified me. Cancer, for example.

Fay’s surgery went well, but the physician suspected a perforation in her bowel. A hole in her intestines would be inoperable. The cancer had grown throughout her lower digestive tract and further surgery would do more harm than good.

They fed her a mixture of charcoal and then they waited. When the black matter appeared in the bag affixed to the wound in her abdomen, the hospital cleric gave Jerry prayer and a handful of brochures for hospice.

I called Zoë morning and night, but she never picked up. I was grateful for my busyness, how it distracted me from imagining her grief. It was the end of the semester and tension filled the air. No amount of hard work leaves a teacher or a student prepared for May. My freshmen balked against writing their last essay. The creative writers scrambled to complete revisions for the final portfolio I’d assigned the very first day of workshop.

I rushed to finish overdue recommendation letters and counseled worried freshmen through grade anxiety.
Please be kind
, one student wrote on the bottom of his final paper.
I need an A in this class to get into law school. And I need my dad to not kill me.

Everett and I went to every end-of-the-year reading and graduate student presentation hosted by the English Department. We attended Middle-Class Morality, poems by Dr. Janine Madison’s creative writing class; Leslie Boyle’s dissertation presentation on
Women’s Rhetorical Transformations of the Discourse of Domesticity
; and Jennifer Donally’s
Mirabel LeAnne Johnson’s Circus Feline: Renegotiating Models of the Other.
We sat quietly through the presentations before slinking back to our office, stolen soda pops under either arm, one plastic plateful of hors d’oeuvres each.

Amidst end-of-year festivities, the English Department also hosted its annual undergraduate award ceremony. Ashley was the only student I had nominated. She won a $2,000 scholarship for her story about Natalie, which, for lack of inspiration, she ended up titling “Natalie.”

The assembly was held in the ballroom of the student commons building. They could call it a ballroom, but it more resembled a hotel lobby—wallpaper with cream and white stripes, a dizzying flowerprint carpet. Dr. Lindbergh, the presenter for the evening, wore a paisley silk blouse so like the curtain behind her, the competing patterns made my eyes cross. All those in attendance not receiving an award had nominated the winners, who were for the most part overdressed and self-conscious.