A Writing Affair

I am anxious as I enter my Saturday morning writing class, the last to arrive in the brightly decorated middle school classroom. I have written a story that barely disguises the crush I have on my teacher, John. I have changed his looks and made him older, but the narrator is me. Surely everyone will know.

Maybe they know already. Maybe I want John to. As I read aloud my story, my voice cracks now and then, billboarding my nervousness.

“Write what you know,” John told us the first day. “You cannot, until you have written for a while, write convincingly of what you haven’t directly experienced. So for the time being, stick to what’s familiar.”

In my story, a college student loses any illusion of being able to keep her head in matters of love. She checks her email constantly for messages from her English professor. Most are reminders to be on time, except for one, written only to her, which contains a note of encouragement (“Think positive.”). This has kept her hopeful. And tortured.

As we go around the table, each person critiques my story, pointing out errors of logic and grammar, which I have labored hard to avoid. I hear over and over that they can identify with the lovestruck student. That it is written with passion. That I use descriptive language well. While speaking, each metaphorically puts a friendly arm around my shoulder, while using the other arm to throw punches.

John’s military-short haircut is commanding. His biceps, which emerge proudly from the sleeves of his canary yellow Izod polo shirt, suggest a daily exercise regimen. The shirt’s Lacoste logo features an open-jawed alligator, which scouts for prey just above John's heart. 

John has a new novel prominently displayed in Barnes & Noble. A screenplay of his was recently optioned. But although his growing fame is sexy, it’s not his physique or face that endears him to me. It’s his habit of looking to the side when he speaks, his head at an angle, as if deep in thought. When he talks, his brown eyes brighten with each point he makes. He picks his words carefully. He’d look great on TV.

The impression on everybody is, well, impressive. At least one student, Karla, considers him arrogant, although she may be hiding her true feelings. I tell her that when he talks, he is not, as she suggests, showing off how much he knows (and us how little). He is simply sharing hard-won answers to questions beginners ask. After Kevin, who loves asking questions, asked, “Why do people write,?” John wrote on the board: Understanding each other is literature’s aim.

I make sure not to let my eyes settle on John’s face. He must not know his effect on me. He is married. Is he open to trysts? No, I don’t want to know. In my story, I have given him unruly gray hair and a professorial tweed jacket with elbow patches. He has gained twenty pounds.

As always, John is the last to speak. He wants to know what the story line is. A crush is not a story. A story has a beginning, middle, and end. If the author provides no resolution, the reader is left unsatisfied.

What satisfaction canst thou have tonight? I do not tell him there can be no resolution unless he leaves town, or I go off the deep end. His criticism hurts, but there will be time to recover. It may take a while.

The baton passes to the next reader, and suddenly I can breathe again. But when Alice throws a furtive glance at John, suggesting John’s evaluation will mean so much more to Alice than it ought to, I am thinking, we have morphed from a cadre of curious, respectful, and wary novice writers, to a quivering, besotted harem. I have a flash of John reclining on a sofa in a Roman toga, his head encircled by a wreath. We are feeding him grapes.

Is that a sneer on John's lip? Does he enjoy the misery he inflicts? Alice reads her story about a student in love with her music teacher. Although I am not having an affair with John, I dislike any competition. Like myself, Alice is middle-aged and uses writing as a rudder to guide her through rough waters. Tell-tale wrinkles show on her face, but her jaw line is strong, which although masculine, is somehow attractive. She should use less make-up.

Alice has not even bothered to change his looks or clothes. Although she has made him a music teacher, she describes him as fit and clean-cut, wearing a polo shirt. Her protagonist says he knows a lot, and every time he makes a point, her heart leaps a little, since he appears to have arrived at his conclusion along with the class, much as experienced lovers who have learned to climax together.

Alice’s use of sexual imagery to describe John’s pedagogic style is, well, embarrassing. A titter of laughter passes along the table. Knowing glances circulate among four of us, while Karla looks at no one.

John clears his throat, then tilts his head to the left. He says that at least this story has a resolution, which is that the music student, after trying to extinguish her sexual attraction, then trying to switch teachers, drops out, enrolling in an art class on the other side of town when a music class is not available. Depressing!

The baton then passes to Kevin, a young man with heavy-lidded eyes and a sensual mouth. His two previous stories reflect what his father told Kevin about his fighting experience in the Korean War. I am unprepared for this new type of story about a young man’s love for his painting teacher. The student is a battle-injured soldier just returned home, who sees a psychiatrist because he has trouble being intimate unless danger is involved. Painting has a calming effect on him. It is a sort of coming-of-age, coming-out-of-the-closet story. 

Embarrassment suffocates us. Still, Kevin’s tale is very good. Even John says so.

The last to read aloud is Karla, a woman barely out of college. She is pretty, more than me, and younger. Most men prefer younger woman. Does John? I study her jet-black hair, white skin, and red lipstick, and decide she looks like Snow White. I could easily believe she has seven men living with her.

As she reads, her face shows no emotion; I still think she is hiding something. Simply put, her story is about the Earth being taken over by Martians who are both like and not like human beings. They eat money, and the more they eat, the more powerful they become. Human beings don’t eat money, but on Earth, money talks. Since the Martians’ aim is domination over Earthlings, people are warned not to give them any. It’s a funny, intriguing piece, reminiscent of The Little Shop of Horrors.

Because Karla alone has managed to wear her heart someplace other than her sleeve, everyone glares at her. Why hasn’t our fantasy informed her fiction? What makes her different than the rest?

All heads turn simultaneously toward John. We expect to hear his oft-repeated lecture on the importance of writing what you know. Instead he says,

“Good job!," without showing his feelings. No head-angling or eye-brightening. “Effective use of plot to show theme. I look forward to hearing your next piece soon!”

We realize she is not writing our fantasy because she is living it. As John realizes that we realize it, his robust complexion pales. We are staring at his canary yellow shirt, with its not-so-cute alligator logo. 

In a voice creaking like a shifting glacier, adrift in a sea of cold stares, he excuses himself to go to the bathroom.

And doesn’t return.