Page 40 of Endless Summer: Stories
“I’ll take a pass,” she says. “I’m going to call my fiancé.”
And pack my bags,she thinks.
JP picks up on the first ring. “How’d it go?” he asks. “Did she love it? Are you going to be in the literary magazine?”
Vivi bursts into tears. The pain she’s feeling is so… foreign. She’s used to doing well in school, being celebrated for her intelligence. She won the creative writing award at Duke! She feels like she’s been kicked in the gut, the teeth. The classhatedit, and because it was a storyso close to her heart—about herfather!—it feels like they hateher.
Vivi is crying so hard she can’t breathe. She can hear JP on the other end of the line trying to soothe her, but surely he can sense she’s beyond being consoled by him telling her he loves her, that she’s his shining star. She needs more than that right now. Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she should just give up and go home.
“Talk to me about something else for a minute,” she says. “Tell me what’s happening there.”
“Here?” JP says. He’s been working all summer for a real estate agency as a glorified gofer, but he likes it, and, as everyone knows, real estate is where the money is. “Well, Mattie met me for a swim after work yesterday and then we went down to the Rope Walk for dinner, sat on the deck, had steamers and beers, and then Mattie went to the Muse to see the Radiators, but I didn’t have a ticket, so I went home.”
“What are you doing over the weekend?” Vivi asks, snuffling.
“I’ll probably sail on Saturday, maybe drive out to Madequecham for a beach party on Sunday. My mother is having some people for cocktails tonight, so I’ll swing by. And I have to get fitted for my tuxedo at Murray’s.” He pauses. “I’m getting married to this really hot chick in October.”
Vivi can’t even smile. “I wish I were there.”
“Me too, Vivi,” JP says. “I know that all sounds like fun, but the truth is, I miss you like crazy.”
Vivi hangs up the phone. Through the door to the dining hall, she sees the waitstaff setting up for lunch and Vivi tries not to hate them.Theyare the ones who will be published in the literary magazine, and, ten years from now, theirs will be the novels on the front pages of theNew York Times Book Review.She trudges back to her room, where she finds Darla Kay and two of her workshop cronies—Vivi thinks their names are Matt and Max; they look like slightly older versions of the boys back at Parma High who were obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons—popping open a bottle of sparkling wine. (Where didthatcome from?)
“Hey,” Vivi says. She would like to liquefy and seep through the floorboards. “I take it your workshop went well?”
All Darla Kay can do is squeal.
“It was complete domination,” Matt/Max says. “GradylovedDK’s story.”
“He’s hooking me up with hispublisher!” Darla Kay says.
Don’t sound bitter or surprised or jealous,Vivi thinks, though she is experiencing all three emotions in abundance. “Yahoo!” Vivi says. “Amazing! And so well deserved, Darla Kay!” Behind Darla Kay, one of Pinto’s baby pictures is crooked, clinging to the wall by only one corner. Vivi can’t believe Darla Kay hasn’t noticed this.
Darla Kay says, “I wish we’d brought an extra cup so you could have some bubbly.”
Vivi waves away the suggestion. “You enjoy. This is your celebration.”
Darla Kay gasps. “I’m so thoughtless. How didyourworkshop go?”
“Mine?” Vivi says. She pauses long enough that Darla Kay and Matt/Max turn back to the task at hand—toasting DK’s success!—and Vivi doesn’t have to answer.
My fiancé’s mother is sickis the excuse Vivi comes up with. If the timing works out, she might be able to slip away without anyone noticing. She will call a private taxi to take her back to the airport. Who will even notice she’s gone? Well, Darla Kay and John, Jay, and Ray. Darla Kay will, most likely, alert the office—but there are deserters all the time, people who can’t handle the pressure or the criticism.
Vivi will be one more person who quit.
How will she ever become a writer if she quits now? She won’t, she surmises. If she leaves Bread Loaf, she can just forget the idea of ever finishing a book, because that requires discipline, grit. Doesn’t Vivi have both of these things? Yes! So she had a bad workshop—who cares? She will stay and fight. She won’t go home to Nantucket.
She will bring Nantucket here.
For the next four days, Vivi writes like a fiend. Every morning after her run, she grabs a banana from the dining hall and claims her Adirondack chair. She leaves only to go to workshop. In workshop, she starts sharing her honest opinion. Sometimes Caroline Corrigan agrees with Vivi, sometimes she doesn’t, but at least she learns Vivi’s name.
Vivi is so focused on her work that it takes her a little while to realize that her industriousness is garnering attention. One of the women in the fringed shawls from New York City who were in the share van with Vivi introduces herself. Her name is Annabelle and she and her roommate, Loredana (peasant blouse, wide-brimmed felt hat), were wondering if Vivi wanted to come over that evening after the readings for some wine.
Vivi smiles gratefully at Annabelle. “No, thank you,” she says.
Vivi’s second story for workshop is entitled “The Powder Room.” It’s about a young woman who thinks she’s spending the summer at her best friend’s home on Nantucket until she realizes her friend’s parents have other ideas.
Vivi is savvy enough this time to go into workshop expecting the worst. The class is going to trash her story, tear it to messy shreds, and, being prepared for this, Vivi feels lighter, nearly nonchalant. It’s just her heart and soul on the page, no big deal. By criticizing her writing, the class is, essentially, disapproving of her very being, but that’s the risk that every writer in the history of the world has taken. Vivi isn’t special.
