Page 64 of Until the Storm Breaks
“This is Elena Vale,” he says, gesturing to the woman beside him with unnecessary flourish. “She’s directing the literary festival this year. She’s passing through town and we’ve decided to get dinner. Elena, this is Calvin Midnight, our reluctant literary star.”
Elena extends her hand, and when I shake it, she holds on a moment longer than necessary, her thumb brushing my palm in a way that might be accidental but definitely isn’t. “Calvin. Finally we meet in person. We corresponded months ago about your panel, though I think you’ve been primarily working with James, my programming coordinator, on the details.”
“Right, James,” I say, remembering the emails asking about new work, whether I had anything forthcoming they could promote alongside the panel. The answer was always no, dressed up in various polite deflections. “He was very interested in whether I had a new book coming.”
“He’s paid to be optimistic,” she says with a laugh that sounds rehearsed. “But even your existing work is enough of a draw. Adrian was kind enough to show me around when I mentioned I was passing through from Seattle. I had no idea you lived here until he mentioned it. What a delightful surprise.”
She claims the barstool next to me while Adrian remains standing, leaning against the bar with the kind of casual possession that irritates me. Like he belongs here. Like this ishisterritory.
“What can I get you?” Lark appears, professional smile in place despite the way her eyes narrow slightly at Adrian.
“Two martinis,” Adrian says. “Dry, with olives.”
Lark nods and starts making the drinks without comment, though I notice she’s a bit heavier-handed with the vermouth than strictly necessary.
“So,” Elena says after taking a sip of her martini, settling into the kind of conversational rhythm that suggests we’re going to be here a while whether I want to be or not. “The panel. We need to discuss the presentation format. I know James has been corresponding with you about the basics, but I wanted to talk through the creative vision personally.”
“Creative vision,” I repeat, taking another pull of my beer. The phrase feels pretentious, like we’re discussing art installation instead of me standing in front of strangers reading essays about death.
“The conference board is extremely excited about your participation at the festival,” she continues.”When we announced you as our closing night speaker, we sold out in three hours. Three hours, Calvin. For a literary conference. That’s unprecedented.”
Adrian laughs, still leaning against the bar. “You should have seen the comments on the announcement post. Half of them were about the actual work, the other half were extremely thirsty. Someone wrote an entire paragraph about your forearms.”
“There was that Instagram account,” Elena adds, and there’s something almost gleeful in her voice, like she’s sharing gossip at a high school reunion. “What was it called? The one that posted photos from your readings?”
“Professor Sad Boy,” Adrian supplies immediately, like he’s been waiting for the opportunity. “Twenty thousand followers at its peak. They did these photo sets from your readings with quotes overlaid. Very moody. Very aesthetic. The comments section was basically a support group for people who wanted you to ruin their lives.”
This is exactly why I stopped doing readings. Not because Ididn’t appreciate the readers or the response, but because it became something else entirely. What started as sharing work that might help people feel less alone turned into some kind of grief-themed performance art where I was as much the product as the essays themselves. People weren’t coming to hear the work anymore; they were coming to watch me, to project whatever they needed onto the guy in the black t-shirt talking about dead parents.
“That’s not why I wrote those essays,” I say, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice but probably failing.
“Of course not,” Elena says in that soothing tone people use when they’re trying to manage you. “But you have to admit, the cultural impact was significant. You changed how people write about grief. Made it...sexier, for lack of a better word.”
“Grief isn’t sexy,” I say, setting down my beer harder than necessary. “It’s ugly and boring and repetitive. It’s the same thoughts cycling over and over. The same regrets. The same questions you’ll never get answers to. The fact that people found it entertaining says more about them than about the work.”
Adrian signals Lark for another round, though his first martini is only half gone. “You can’t blame people for responding to the work,” he says. “You put it out there for public consumption. The audience reaction is part of the equation.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t expect to become some kind of influencer with fan accounts dedicated to analyzing my body language.” I take another drink, longer this time.
Elena laughs, soft and knowing, her shoulder brushing mine. “But that’s how the literary world works now. It’s not enough to just publish work. You need to be a presence. People want to connect with the author, not just the text.”
“Then they don’t actually want literature,” I say, turning my glass in slow circles on the bar. “They want parasocial relationships with better vocabulary.”
“That’s clever,” Adrian says, and he actually sounds genuine for once, leaning forward with interest. “You should say that during the panel. People love self-aware commentary on the industry.”
The fact that he immediately turns my criticism into potential content proves my point, but I don’t bother saying so. That’s when I see movement from the corner of my eye. Maren emerges from the back with her clipboard and stops when she sees us. Me at the bar, Elena pressed against my side with her hand on my arm, Adrian hovering behind us. Shock flashes across her face before she cools her expression into professional neutrality. She moves behind the bar but keeps her distance, focusing on tasks that don’t require coming near our section.
This looks bad. This looks like I ran straight from kissing her to sitting with another woman.
“Five years ago, you had people crying at your readings,” Elena says, her voice dropping as if sharing a secret. “I was at the Seattle event at Elliott Bay. The essay about your father’s funeral, the shoes he never wore? The entire room was transfixed.”
I remember that night. The way my voice caught on certain words, not from practiced emotion but from genuine inability to control it. The line of people afterwards, each wanting to share their own losses, treating me like I had answers instead of just more questions.
“Those readings feel like another lifetime,” I say.
“But you’re doing this one,” Elena points out, her fingers light on my wrist. “So some part of you must miss it.”
“When I agreed to the conference months ago, things were different,” I say, trying to shift away without being obvious. “I thought I’d have new work by now.”
