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Authors: Kristopher Jansma
Tags: General Fiction
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around the rings around his eyes. He grunted at me, as if to acknowledge that it was over, and staggered off to sleep for as long as humanly possible. He never even asked me where Evelyn had gone, which was probably for the best, because Shelly was, at that very moment, turning in her own story, which she’d titled “Just Like Starting Over.”
“I printed one for you, too,” she said, offering me the copy and giving my hand a squeeze—surprising both in its affection and strength. “I knew you could do it. I can’t wait to read yours.”
My palms began to sweat, and for the first time the hours of sleeplessness felt caked onto my face. I hadn’t showered. My fingers flew to my lips, sure that some lipstick must still be smudged there. The scent of Evelyn was deep underneath my nails.
“I’ll just have to go back to my room and print out another,” I lied, hiding the spare copy of “The Trouble with Ibsen” that I’d printed to give to Julian.
“I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” she said, making a move to follow me there.
I’d never cheated on anyone before. I felt like slime, but weirdly grown-up slime. Shelly stood there, chewing on the ends of her black hair, dark eyes expectant. Whatever damages had been done to her already—and there must have been some—I knew I did not want to add to them. Nervously, I stared down at my watch.
“Let’s meet for coffee in an hour? I really need to shower,” I said as means of an apology. And I kissed the straight-cut bangs that hung in her big eyes and rushed off.
As guilty as I felt, I couldn’t help hoping that Evelyn would still be in my room. But she was already gone, vanished, off reading Ibsen around a table somewhere. Was she thinking about me? Why had I told her I didn’t have any money? But was there something else? The bed was empty except for her lingering smell, powdery and rich like the confections we’d kept behind the counter at Ludwig’s. It was all I could bear not to dive down into it and drift off to sleep. If I never resurfaced, I don’t know that I’d have minded. But I showered, printed out a copy of “Just Another Bastard Out of Carolina” instead of my actual submission, and skimmed Shelly’s story. It was about a single mother, trolling around a bookstore and planning to leave her screaming baby in the True Crime section before driving her car over an embankment. But right at the end, she hears a young poet giving a reading in the café. And his poem sends her wailing baby into a deep, undisturbable sleep, and the mother feels hopeful for the first time in months.
Silently I reminded myself that Evelyn was not my girlfriend. And that after her audition she’d go back to New York. And Shelly would never have to know.
• • •
A few frigid weeks passed and I wondered, each day, when we’d hear about the contest. Julian and I did not speak—I did not know if he was upset about Evelyn, or anxious about the contest, or simply out of his mind. In class he sat, entranced by the snow falling on the windows, and said nothing at all to me or anyone else.
“Pinkerton? McGann?” Professor Morrissey called to us hopefully, when no one at all reacted to his story about how Hemingway’s wife lost the only copy of his first novel on a Parisian train. We each faked a smile.
Then suddenly, overnight, Abernathy Hall was covered in flyers with Julian’s picture on them. Shelly and I stumbled across one on our way to class.
Come see writing contest winner Julian McGann read from his story “Just Before the Gold Rush.” Jan Sokol will also read from his forthcoming novel, Luminous Things . Tonight! Osgood Auditorium!
Neither of us was surprised to find that Julian had won, though we were a little annoyed that nobody had even bothered to let us losers know that we had lost. Down at the bottom of the flyer were the opening lines of the story, meant to entice us into attending the reading.
In 1851, on the continent
“I printed one for you, too,” she said, offering me the copy and giving my hand a squeeze—surprising both in its affection and strength. “I knew you could do it. I can’t wait to read yours.”
My palms began to sweat, and for the first time the hours of sleeplessness felt caked onto my face. I hadn’t showered. My fingers flew to my lips, sure that some lipstick must still be smudged there. The scent of Evelyn was deep underneath my nails.
“I’ll just have to go back to my room and print out another,” I lied, hiding the spare copy of “The Trouble with Ibsen” that I’d printed to give to Julian.
“I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” she said, making a move to follow me there.
I’d never cheated on anyone before. I felt like slime, but weirdly grown-up slime. Shelly stood there, chewing on the ends of her black hair, dark eyes expectant. Whatever damages had been done to her already—and there must have been some—I knew I did not want to add to them. Nervously, I stared down at my watch.
“Let’s meet for coffee in an hour? I really need to shower,” I said as means of an apology. And I kissed the straight-cut bangs that hung in her big eyes and rushed off.
As guilty as I felt, I couldn’t help hoping that Evelyn would still be in my room. But she was already gone, vanished, off reading Ibsen around a table somewhere. Was she thinking about me? Why had I told her I didn’t have any money? But was there something else? The bed was empty except for her lingering smell, powdery and rich like the confections we’d kept behind the counter at Ludwig’s. It was all I could bear not to dive down into it and drift off to sleep. If I never resurfaced, I don’t know that I’d have minded. But I showered, printed out a copy of “Just Another Bastard Out of Carolina” instead of my actual submission, and skimmed Shelly’s story. It was about a single mother, trolling around a bookstore and planning to leave her screaming baby in the True Crime section before driving her car over an embankment. But right at the end, she hears a young poet giving a reading in the café. And his poem sends her wailing baby into a deep, undisturbable sleep, and the mother feels hopeful for the first time in months.
Silently I reminded myself that Evelyn was not my girlfriend. And that after her audition she’d go back to New York. And Shelly would never have to know.
• • •
A few frigid weeks passed and I wondered, each day, when we’d hear about the contest. Julian and I did not speak—I did not know if he was upset about Evelyn, or anxious about the contest, or simply out of his mind. In class he sat, entranced by the snow falling on the windows, and said nothing at all to me or anyone else.
“Pinkerton? McGann?” Professor Morrissey called to us hopefully, when no one at all reacted to his story about how Hemingway’s wife lost the only copy of his first novel on a Parisian train. We each faked a smile.
Then suddenly, overnight, Abernathy Hall was covered in flyers with Julian’s picture on them. Shelly and I stumbled across one on our way to class.
Come see writing contest winner Julian McGann read from his story “Just Before the Gold Rush.” Jan Sokol will also read from his forthcoming novel, Luminous Things . Tonight! Osgood Auditorium!
Neither of us was surprised to find that Julian had won, though we were a little annoyed that nobody had even bothered to let us losers know that we had lost. Down at the bottom of the flyer were the opening lines of the story, meant to entice us into attending the reading.
In 1851, on the continent
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