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Authors: Heidi Julavits
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not unusual for me these days, to fail to make proper inquiries of people, to stopper their blanks with my uninformed filler. In the past, I hadn’t needed to ask. “What kind of film conference?”
“A lost film conference,” she said.
“Ah,” I said again. “The films were lost?”
“ ‘Lost’ refers to the people in the films,” she said. “Though it’s slightly more complicated than that.”
I nodded as if I understood. She dug into the pocket of the HELLO LYDIA coat and withdrew an enameled cigarette case that she, or more likely Lydia, used to store breath mints.
“So,” she said, “what’s up with all the medication?”
“I’m living the dream,” I said. “Bewildered girl in her mid-twenties moves to the big city, works a crappy, unrewarding job, and dulls her existential disorientation with drugs.”
“These are recreational,” she said. “You’re not sick anymore.”
My eyelid spasmed.
“I heard you’d been sick for a long time,” she said.
Behind her, the lobby elevator disgorged a trio of ashen people. One of them was crying.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do we know each other?”
“Thirteen and a half months,” she said.
“Since we’ve met?”
“Since you became sick.”
I did some creaky arithmetic.
“That’s more or less correct,” I said.
“More or less since the twenty-fifth of October, two Octobers ago.”
“More or less exactly,” I said, getting nervous. Who the hell was this person?
Alwyn leaned closer.
“I say this as a friend,” she said. “There’s nothing you could tell me about yourself that we don’t already know.”
We, I thought. Then, Ah . Alwyn was a Workshop person; maybe, it occurred to me, and not without a little bit of envy and indignation, she was Madame Ackermann’s new stenographer. Or maybe she’d been sent here by Professor Yuen to check on me, less because Professor Yuen cared, more because she needed, from an administrative perspective, to discover whether or not I “merited” another semester’s medical leave. (“The student must prove,” she’d written in an e-mail, roboticized by her trademark form-letter-speak, “by submitting a T-76 form, filled out by a physician, an ongoing medical condition, or take a leave of absence and pay $1,000 per semester to hold his or her spot until that future point when he or she is medically sanctioned to return.”)
“But you’re not my friend,” I said.
Alwyn considered this.
“True,” she conceded, flopping back against the couch. “But I will be.”
I registered this as a threat.
OK , I thought, bored enough by my life to find her coyness intriguing. I’ll play your game .
“Could I have a mint?” I asked.
I recognized her now, or at least I thought I did. She was Stan’s cousin; she’d visited him a few falls ago as a Workshop prospective.
That Madame Ackermann or any of my old friends at the Workshop were gossiping about me struck me as the height of insensitivity, especially when not a single one of them (save Professor Yuen) had bothered to shoot me so much as an e-mail to see how I was doing. The only person who wrote to me was aconcernedfriend; thee-mails themselves had no content, but they always included the same video attachment of swirling fog, through which I could see a woman on a bed.
But my indignation ebbed, replaced by a far more pathetic response. People at the Workshop were talking about me, Madame Ackermann was talking about me, ergo—I still mattered.
Alwyn offered the cigarette case. I accepted a mint. I suctioned quick craters in the surface.
“So,” I said. “You must be a first-year Initiate.”
“I’m no longer at the Workshop,” she said. “According to Madame Ackermann, I wasn’t ‘initiate material.’ ”
“You were never her stenographer?” I said.
“I was a Mortgage Payment,” she said.
She appeared more bothered by this failure than she cared to let on.
She gestured to a porter.
“Could I get a
“A lost film conference,” she said.
“Ah,” I said again. “The films were lost?”
“ ‘Lost’ refers to the people in the films,” she said. “Though it’s slightly more complicated than that.”
I nodded as if I understood. She dug into the pocket of the HELLO LYDIA coat and withdrew an enameled cigarette case that she, or more likely Lydia, used to store breath mints.
“So,” she said, “what’s up with all the medication?”
“I’m living the dream,” I said. “Bewildered girl in her mid-twenties moves to the big city, works a crappy, unrewarding job, and dulls her existential disorientation with drugs.”
“These are recreational,” she said. “You’re not sick anymore.”
My eyelid spasmed.
“I heard you’d been sick for a long time,” she said.
Behind her, the lobby elevator disgorged a trio of ashen people. One of them was crying.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do we know each other?”
“Thirteen and a half months,” she said.
“Since we’ve met?”
“Since you became sick.”
I did some creaky arithmetic.
“That’s more or less correct,” I said.
“More or less since the twenty-fifth of October, two Octobers ago.”
“More or less exactly,” I said, getting nervous. Who the hell was this person?
Alwyn leaned closer.
“I say this as a friend,” she said. “There’s nothing you could tell me about yourself that we don’t already know.”
We, I thought. Then, Ah . Alwyn was a Workshop person; maybe, it occurred to me, and not without a little bit of envy and indignation, she was Madame Ackermann’s new stenographer. Or maybe she’d been sent here by Professor Yuen to check on me, less because Professor Yuen cared, more because she needed, from an administrative perspective, to discover whether or not I “merited” another semester’s medical leave. (“The student must prove,” she’d written in an e-mail, roboticized by her trademark form-letter-speak, “by submitting a T-76 form, filled out by a physician, an ongoing medical condition, or take a leave of absence and pay $1,000 per semester to hold his or her spot until that future point when he or she is medically sanctioned to return.”)
“But you’re not my friend,” I said.
Alwyn considered this.
“True,” she conceded, flopping back against the couch. “But I will be.”
I registered this as a threat.
OK , I thought, bored enough by my life to find her coyness intriguing. I’ll play your game .
“Could I have a mint?” I asked.
I recognized her now, or at least I thought I did. She was Stan’s cousin; she’d visited him a few falls ago as a Workshop prospective.
That Madame Ackermann or any of my old friends at the Workshop were gossiping about me struck me as the height of insensitivity, especially when not a single one of them (save Professor Yuen) had bothered to shoot me so much as an e-mail to see how I was doing. The only person who wrote to me was aconcernedfriend; thee-mails themselves had no content, but they always included the same video attachment of swirling fog, through which I could see a woman on a bed.
But my indignation ebbed, replaced by a far more pathetic response. People at the Workshop were talking about me, Madame Ackermann was talking about me, ergo—I still mattered.
Alwyn offered the cigarette case. I accepted a mint. I suctioned quick craters in the surface.
“So,” I said. “You must be a first-year Initiate.”
“I’m no longer at the Workshop,” she said. “According to Madame Ackermann, I wasn’t ‘initiate material.’ ”
“You were never her stenographer?” I said.
“I was a Mortgage Payment,” she said.
She appeared more bothered by this failure than she cared to let on.
She gestured to a porter.
“Could I get a
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