The Gulf

by Belle Boggs

  Janine was also distracted by the request she’d received that morning for a poem to post to the school website.

  Our school is under attack, Regina Somers wrote in an email. Perhaps you saw the article in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune? It was a hack job, Janine, journalistically irresponsible, that suggested that the work that you do in class is not serious or somehow is inferior to work by non-Christian writers. That’s why I’m reaching out to a select few students whose writing will showcase the best of the real work that happens at Genesis Inspirational Writing Ranch. I understand from your teachers that you are enormously talented, and I remember from our conversation that you write about the sanctity of life, so I was wondering if you would be willing to share your writing with us, so that we might share it with the world?

  Janine had seen the article, after it was posted to Facebook by several of her Ranch friends. She agreed with Regina, and with her fellow students who posted comments, that the whole business was unfair to their school. It had not included interviews with any of the students or teachers, had brought up allegations of political involvement that Janine wasn’t sure were true (and if true, she wasn’t sure how they were damaging), and included a rather unflattering photograph of the school grounds. In a spirit of solidarity, she’d chosen one of the poems from her Terri Schiavo series and sent it back to Regina with permission to publish, but now Janine wondered if the poem was ready, and she was looking through her collection to see if something else might be better.

  Beth sat across from her, staring intently at the television. Janine, who found it difficult to read with the weather people constantly flipping from one set of terrible footage to another—from forest fires in California to a drought in the Southwest to a heat wave in Chicago—worried that it had become an obsession. Janine’s take on weather was that it just was: there were always fires in California, the Southwest always seemed a little drought-stricken (wasn’t that where they had the Dust Bowl?), cities were always too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Worrying about the weather felt a little intemperate and godless to her. God made those mountain ranges; if He wanted to burn them up, that was His business. She was even a little afraid her daughter had aligned herself with those climate change alarmists but Beth said no, it wasn’t that. She was watching for a tropical storm. She was sure, based on a study of ocean temperatures and wind patterns, that one was about to get cooking. Once it did, all she had to do was guess where it might go.

  “If I can just get ahead of the storm,” Beth said, consulting one of her thick meteorology textbooks while Janine flipped through her poems. On the small kitchen TV, the seven-day forecast appeared against an ocean-blue background: seven fiery suns, temperatures around a hundred every day. “If I can plan ahead, I’ll be in place to get my breakthrough story.”

  Beth had graduated with her associate’s degree in June. They’d had a lovely party in the backyard, and Janine had not been made aware of any new tattoos celebrating the accomplishment, thank goodness. Beth was taking some courses in the fall at the university, but she insisted that it wasn’t necessary to have a bachelor’s degree. What it took to be successful in her field, apparently, was a certain look, a certain resourcefulness and go-getter quality. On days that she left the house for work, Beth wore jewel-colored suits and pumps, even hose. But there were many days that she did not leave the house at all, and wore what were essentially pajamas—thin drawstring pants that dragged the ground, lacy camisoles—as if the effort of dressing up on those other days had exhausted her. She had not once mentioned moving out—and that was fine, completely fine, with Janine, who dreaded the empty nest. She wished sometimes that she could make both of her daughters just two or three or even five years younger.

  “I hope by plan ahead you mean you’ll tell someone at work about it,” Janine said. Beth was a part-time receptionist at Channel 6, but she was convinced that if she got a good video, she could soon be on the weather desk, reporting for Storm Team 6. “I don’t want you running off after some storm by yourself.”

  Beth selected a neon pink highlighter from her pencil case and made a careful, straight mark inside her book. This was the Gray way of studying, which Janine herself had taught her daughters during a brief stint at homeschooling: highlight, underline, and summarize every text and textbook. The idea was to exhaust the text into being understood. Janine’s summer packet of poems, dense with Creeley, Levertov, and Rich, was by now thoroughly drenched in pink, yellow, and blue highlighter ink.

  “So you won’t go by yourself,” Janine repeated. “Tropical storms turn into hurricanes.”

  “That’s the idea,” Beth said lightly. She was sitting atop a tall stool at what the real estate agent had called “the bar,” so many years ago, papers and textbooks spread before her, her laptop charging on the stool next to her, its cord stretched all the way to the back wall. Janine thought Beth was a little careless with the laptop—a graduation gift—but she had learned in many years of kitchen bar conversations to keep any instruction or lecturing or corrections limited to a single topic at a time.

  It had been one of the selling points of the house, this kitchen. There was plenty of space for Janine to prep the family meals, with the bar—really just an extended Formica countertop, its off-white color an easily stained mistake—providing a place for her two girls to gather, do homework, tell Janine about their day, receive instruction. She did not realize, at the time, that it would be the place where she would helplessly watch them become both like her and unlike her. Back when they were little, she’d thought herself capable of imparting to her children the traits of her own that she wanted them to have, and teaching them to discard the ones she didn’t, in the same way she might show them how to prep vegetables or chicken for a recipe. But Beth had picked up the stubbornness that had never served Janine well, and Christine, who was volunteering at church camp for the fifth week in a row, had adopted Janine’s habit of relentless, dull self-sacrifice.

  It was a truth Janine was just now arriving at: you had very little control over who your children would become. They would be you, but the worst, most useless parts of you. Last night she’d said as much to Rick, as he was getting into bed, and he had looked at her as if a snake had slithered out of her mouth. It went against everything he believed and worked for, and he had looked both hurt and disgusted before saying, “You know that’s not true, honey.”

  Within minutes he was asleep and snoring, leaving Janine to wonder, when was the last time she had heard her husband call her by her actual name? With Rick it was always honey, sweetie, babe, or—worst of all—nothing, just the implied you. Janine found that she had been overcome more and more often, since returning from Sarasota, with thoughts and musings like these, and she could barely restrain herself from repeating them. No wonder she couldn’t write: who knew what she might say?

  “There is nothing a person can do about a storm, Beth,” Janine said. She’d put her notebook aside and was now slicing peppers and onions for a ratatouille.

  “Mom, someone has to warn people,” Beth said. “Meteorology saves lives. Besides, this is my career. I have to take risks in order to advance.”

  “Risks!” Janine said, waving her knife, one eye suddenly watering. “Isn’t life risky enough as it is? Isn’t it bad enough to wake up in the morning?”

  Beth capped her pink highlighter and uncapped a green one, tested its tip against her finger. “Mom, I don’t mean this in a bad way, but you are starting to remind me of Granny, when she was in the home and had Alzheimer’s. Remember? How she would say just awful things, how she never liked living in Florida, or about how Haley was on drugs?”

  “But those things were true,” Janine insisted, wiping her face on a dish towel. “Granny missed Baton Rouge her whole marriage, and your cousin Haley was on drugs. Granny never had Alzheimer’s, though. She had dementia.”

  “That’s not the point,” Beth said. “The point is you don’t say those things, those negative things,
all the time. Out loud. A normal person doesn’t, anyway.”

  Janine thought of protesting—she did not say negative things all the time—but the dish towel she had used was contaminated with onion juice, and both her eyes were now thoroughly crying. Beth was right, it had been hard for her to be normal, to feel normal, after returning from her residency session. Perhaps she would have returned to normal, the mother who gently corrected but mostly just rooted for her children in their every desire, the cheerleader mother she had been, had it not been for the thick packet of poems, or the brief email exchanges—two or more a day—with Lorraine Kominski. BE RADICAL, read the last message she’d received. But how was one to be radical?

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Beth said. “Don’t cry, Mom.”

  “I’m not crying,” Janine said, rinsing her hands at the sink and patting at her cheeks. “It’s okay. I just want you to be safe.”

  “I will,” said Beth. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

  Then Janine just laughed—that was another new development, inappropriate laughter bursting forth uncontrollably—and Beth took her textbook and her laptop into the den. Janine scraped the onions into a saucepan coated in oil, turned the heat down, and left the onions browning while she went to the sunroom to check her email. She had a message from Lorraine, addressed to her whole class:

  HELLO ALL. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO TAKE A WEBINAR TONIGHT AT 6–EASTERN TIME I SUPPOSE. IT IS CALLED “MARKETING YOURSELF IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, AN E-BOOK STRATEGY FOR WRITERS.” IT WILL BE OF LITTLE VALUE TO YOU, AS YOU ARE POETS. I HOPE YOU ARE STILL POETS, AT LEAST. SEE YOU SOON. L.

  Lorraine always wrote in all caps, and always signed her emails with “L,” so Janine did the same whenever she wrote back to Lorraine. She had taken a class about email etiquette and had learned that you were supposed to take your cues from your superiors, and always be the last one to write back. So she wrote:

  THANK YOU! I LOOK FORWARD TO THE WORKSHOP. I AM STILL A POET EVEN THOUGH IT TROUBLES MY FAMILY MORE AND MORE. IF YOU ARE THE PERSON WHO RECOMMENDED ME TO REGINA SOMERS FOR PUBLISHING WORK ON THE SCHOOL’S WEBSITE, THEN THANK YOU VERY MUCH. J.

  She hit Send, and was surprised when a new email popped up almost immediately.

  IF YOU ARE TROUBLING YOUR FAMILY IT MEANS YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT. L. P.S. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT REGARDING THE SCHOOL WEBSITE?? WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?

  Janine replied,

  THERE WAS A BIG TO-DO OVER AN ARTICLE THAT WAS CRITICAL OF THE RANCH, WHICH WAS IN THE SARASOTA PAPER. THEY WANTED SOME SAMPLE WORK AND ASKED ME. I SENT THEM “FROM INSIDE” BUT NOW I THINK THE POEM SEEMS VERY UNFINISHED. I AM ALSO CONCERNED THAT I AM NOT WRITING VERY MUCH AT ALL, JUST THINKING AND EXPRESSING THOUGHTS THAT ARE MAYBE A LITTLE DISTURBING TO MY FAMILY. J.

  There was no response right away this time, and Janine went in and stirred the onions—they had browned a little too much—then added the peppers, diced squash, eggplant, and tomatoes, and put a lid on the saucepan. She returned to her computer, hit Refresh, and found another email:

  THOUGHTS ARE EVEN BETTER THAN POEMS. DON’T LET ANYONE EVER TALK YOU OUT OF THEM. BUT I AM CONCERNED THAT YOU WOULD BE PUSHED TO SHARE WORK YOU DON’T FEEL IS FINISHED, FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE SCHOOL’S REPUTATION AND PUBLICITY. L.

  Janine had also learned that you needed to allow the conversation to wind down, that you should be mindful of your hierarchically superior correspondent’s time, but she thought that Lorraine had misunderstood her hesitation as a complaint, so she quickly wrote back:

  THANK YOU! IT WAS AN HONOR TO BE ASKED, BUT MAYBE NOTHING WILL COME OF IT? I WILL LET YOU KNOW. J.

  The webinar was hosted by God’s World God’s Word and began with a prerecorded PowerPoint about some of GWGW’s other campuses. Janine had taken several webinars with GWGW this summer and was already familiar with the slightly tacky self-promotion, but there were a few campuses she did not recognize. The GWGW School of Social Work, the GWGW High-Tech Career Institute, and the GWGW School of Charter and Home Schooling Administration were all new, housed in modern-looking glass-and-steel buildings, if you could believe the drawings. The accompanying stock photos showed attractive women in business attire, wearing scientific-looking goggles and leaning over attractive, obedient-looking children, respectively.

  A pixilated video of the webinar host appeared in the upper left corner at exactly six o’clock. Janine had never had this woman in any of her other webinars and wondered if she knew what she was in for. In fact, Janine realized that none of her webinar teachers taught repeat classes, even though the classes were mostly organized around a similar theme: some way of making money.

  “Welcome, writers,” said the woman. “My name is Catherine Powell, and I will be your host and your instructor tonight. Would you please all give me the thumbs-up if you can hear me?”

  Janine clicked the thumbs-up button, then waited for all of the other students to do the same. She could see their screen names in a little box next to an icon that read “OK,” “thumbs up,” “?” or “Slow down.” Janine had registered herself as JanineG, but many of her classmates had pen names for their internet activity, so it was hard to tell. She thought she recognized Manfred, who appeared to be logged in as WilhelminaD52.

  Manfred is that you? she messaged WilheminaD52.

  Sure is, sweetheart, he messaged back.

  Janine experienced a little passed-note thrill, and typed: This part takes so LONG.

  You’d think our comrades would know how to give the thumbs-up by now.

  Haha, Janine typed. It reminds me of my life skills classes.

  They are seriously in need of some life skills. Have you been on Facebook lately?

  Not in a few hours. Why?

  You might want to check, when this is done.

  “Okay!” said Catherine Powell. “It looks like almost half of you have found the thumbs-up button, so I’m going to move on. Okay! Those of you having private messages, let’s turn our attention to the webinar.”

  Busted, wrote Manfred, but Janine was too obedient to type the question she wanted to ask Manfred—why did she need to check Facebook? Had something else happened? Maybe, she thought, people had seen her poem. But that was vain and unlikely—it was probably more outrage over the newspaper article.

  “Let’s begin with a survey. How many of you regularly read e-books, that is, books on Kindles, Nooks, iPads, or other e-reading devices? Notice that on the next screen, there’s a button to click if you regularly use these devices.”

  Catherine waved an arrow insistently over the survey question. Janine clicked “no, I do not regularly read e-books yet.” Ten question mark icons appeared next to people’s names, and three people requested that Catherine Powell slow down.

  “Okay, just type your questions on the little screen below, and I will try to answer them,” said Catherine Powell.

  Does reading on your phone count?

  What do you mean by regularly? Every day? Every week?

  What Is An E-reader?

  CaN it be a regular book or just a book that was published electroniclly?

  What are the royalties like for ebooks?

  Can you publish an ebook yourself?

  Is it true that the government can watch what you are reading if you read online?

  ARE POETRY BOOKS PUBLISHED ELECTRONICALLY?

  Can you slow down, please?

  I saw the Ranch on the news tonight. Can you tell us what happened?

  Is it true that the Ranch supports personhood?

  Not all of us support the personhood amendment. You can be pro-life without supporting personhood.

  You can be Christian and pro-choice.

  Life is a GIFT from God!

  Are there going to be protesters on campus when we go back?

  Several more people registered “?” status. One or two went offline.

  “Okay, I am reading your questions,” said Catherine Powell, who proceeded to read each question out loud and
then give brief answers to each. Yes, reading on your phone counts. By regularly she meant more than twice a year? An e-reader is a device that allows you to read a book electronically. E-books are often published simultaneously with print books, but some books, especially those that are self-published or specialty, are only published in an e-book format. She did not answer the question about the news or personhood or politics or protesters—protesters? Janine supposed that was what Manfred was talking about in his message, and she wondered what Catherine Powell would say to that. “Let’s table some of these other questions for later, okay? It looks like, based on the survey, 22 percent of you read e-books regularly. So we have a lot of ground to cover!”

  The webinar was only scheduled to last an hour—they never went over the allotted time, Janine noticed—and it was already 6:22. Years ago, Janine had been surprised to have a student teacher assigned to her, a sweet and quiet girl from St. Augustine. Her first lesson, delivered to Life Skills I—a class of hoodlums, non–English speakers, and the mathematically disabled—was on making a soufflé. “What the fuck is a soufflé?” one student wanted to know. The student teacher began a long and overly in-depth answer that included some information about the history of France, and the students asked so many more questions (a favorite way of avoiding work) that by the end of class all anyone had accomplished was the messy cracking of a dozen eggs into his or her mixing bowl. “Look at all them eggs,” said one student, whose favorite joke was putting food down his classmates’ pants. “Wasteful.” The student teacher’s next lesson, on pigs in a blanket, had gone much better.

  “Let me get to the slides,” said Catherine, near the end. She quickly read through a PowerPoint list of guidelines for marketing e-books to readers.

  Every book has an audience—you just have to find yours.

  Be sure to keep it snappy; people prefer shorter to longer.

  Or if it is going to be longer, tantalize them with romance and unforgettable characters!