by Belle Boggs
Instead of an opening-night reading from one of their professors, they were going to hear a talk on “Politics and Inspiration” by Regina Somers, the woman Janine finally understood was responsible for selecting her poem for publication. Janine remembered meeting her on the very first night at the Ranch, and although she had not gotten much out of Regina’s webinar on “Growing Your Audience through Christian Tumblr and Pinterest Sites,” she felt that in general the woman projected an image of competence, enthusiasm, and encouragement to all the writers at the Ranch. She had a good handshake, she looked you in the eye, and her hair was always perfect. Her webinars frequently used acronyms and other types of mnemonics, a tactic Janine herself had used in classrooms over the years (though she finally had to toss her old HOME EC poster, which spelled out classroom rules, when someone defaced it to read HO EC), and she slowed down just enough to answer questions but not so much that Janine got bored. Janine thought that with her smooth presentation style and professional demeanor, Regina would be a good role model for her daughter, and decided she would insist that Beth join them for the presentation.
She hadn’t yet seen anyone from her class, not even Lorraine, with whom she had been corresponding with greater and greater frequency. BE BOLD, Lorraine had told her. DON’T MAKE EXCUSES FOR WHO YOU ARE. DON’T APOLOGIZE.
BE RADICAL.
She had spent the whole summer puzzling over this idea of how to be radical, and wondered if Regina’s seminar might offer some other clue. Wasn’t it radical to take Terri Schiavo as her subject, to try to imagine the poems that came from her locked-in mind?
WHAT ELSE? Lorraine had wanted to know, when Janine sent her some drafts in May.
Janine had interpreted this to mean that she was telling the story too narrowly, and tried writing from the point of view, then, of Terri’s mother and father. Writing those poems, she’d cried for days, imagining herself and Rick in that situation. She’d thought the poems were good, maybe better than the ones she’d sent with her application, but Lorraine had not liked them.
OF COURSE HER PARENTS ARE SAD, Lorraine wrote in an email. LIFE IS SAD. BUT THIS IS PITY. THIS IS SCHMALTZ. START OVER. ALLOW DOUBT TO COME IN. WHAT IF TERRI WANTED TO DIE?
I THINK SHE WANTED TO LIVE! Janine insisted.
WHAT IF SHE WANTED BOTH? Lorraine wrote. WHO HASN’T WANTED BOTH, EVEN WITHOUT THE PROBLEMS OF COMMUNICATION, COGNITION, AND SELF-CARE? YOU MUST ALLOW HER SOME COMPLEXITY, JANINE. IF YOU ARE GOING TO INVITE YOURSELF INTO SOMEONE’S MIND, YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT IT’S MESSY IN THERE.
It amazed Janine that she had been able to take advice from this woman, who had lived a different life than Janine could even imagine—a woman who still smoked like a chimney and did not seem familiar with or at least was not bound by social norms, a woman who talked openly about wanting to die. Yet Janine sensed that she was right about poetry, if nothing else, that she saw clear through to the problem, how what you were trying to say did not fit the way that you were saying it. After initial resistance Janine had started a new set of poems to go with Terri’s, this time from the point of view of the police officer who guarded her after they removed her feeding tubes, and she had worked on them all June and the beginning of July. She had not shown them to Lorraine yet, but had instead gotten stuck in the revisions of her original poems, and then on the terrible pressure of having one of those poems (virtually unchanged from her submission) out there, for anyone to read, on the Ranch’s website.
I HAVE WRITER’S BLOCK, she admitted yesterday. REVISER’S BLOCK?
THAT IS A MYTH, Lorraine wrote back, mystifyingly, and sent her a long and somewhat confusingly line-broken poem, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower.” Janine printed the poem and highlighted the lines about heaven and hell, dutifully made a note to herself to read the Iliad, to look up the references she didn’t understand. But one part made her heart beat faster: “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.” Janine had found these words profound—they made her see desert wars, and her husband’s shouting news programs, and the stark white walls of a hospital. She’d looked up the poet and learned that he had also been a doctor—not the kind to leave a patient to die a thirsty death, but the old-fashioned kind who carried a doctor’s bag and made house calls. She read everything Lorraine sent her, two and three and four times over, but the lines about the news had stuck with her, and she’d recited them in her head on the long drive while Beth alternately texted and slept. It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
“We are at a profound moment in our history,” Regina told them from the podium. Because of the excessive heat, they’d moved the outdoor event into the dining hall, and Regina had to raise her voice above the noise of the air-conditioning. Janine thought the crowd looked a little thin; she did not see Manfred yet, or any of the teachers. There were empty seats on either side of Beth and Janine. “It’s a time of political and cultural upheaval as well as a time of revolutionized communication,” Regina went on. “You can leave this lecture tonight, go back to your room, and share your writing with someone on the other side of the world. That has never been possible before. Think about it! You have a chance to directly influence people with your beliefs and your values.”
Janine looked sidelong at Beth and smiled encouragingly; though Beth was not a writer, she was a communicator, an influencer. Behind Regina, on a large portable whiteboard, someone had written POLITICS, vertically, in large block letters. Janine rustled through her bag and brought out her notebook, dutifully copying the word neatly down the left margin.
“People have a short attention span,” Regina said, writing out the word in a perfect cursive hand. “That is a proven fact. But what are they inundated with, from all sides? Politics. On television, on the radio, around the dinner table. At church! It has invaded our lives. Would you do this for me? Turn to your neighbors and tell them about your three most recent engagements with the world of politics. Make a list for me.”
“What did I miss?” said Manfred, taking the seat on the other side of Beth. He leaned forward to squeeze Janine’s shoulder.
“Manfred!” Janine exclaimed. “This is my daughter, Beth.”
Beth pointed at Janine’s empty page. “Dad and Fox News, put that down. We’re writing a list of the ways we’ve experienced politics recently.”
“Ah,” said Manfred, and Janine wondered if the reference to the cable channel shocked him. “I got pulled over on the way here.”
“How about your poem?” said Beth.
“My poem isn’t political,” Janine said. “Manfred, were you speeding?”
“It was on Talking to Tad,” Beth insisted, taking her mother’s pen and notebook and writing it down. “Getting pulled over isn’t political. Not if you’re white.”
Manfred gave her an appraising look.
“Okay,” Regina said. “I’m hearing some excellent and fascinating contributions. Some of it is about our own campus, the way we have been pulled into the political dialogue. How many of you were concerned to see that there were protesters on your campus?”
Janine raised her hand and looked around to see all of the other hands in the room up, too—even Regina’s.
“I was concerned,” said Regina. “I thought, this campus is a place where people come to get inspired by big ideas, not to debate the issues of the day. But then I realized something. Those issues that people are interested in”—she tapped the board—“those are big ideas, and the interest they have represents an Opportunity to get your message across.” She turned and wrote Opportunity on the board.
“If you can connect with what is happening in your state, in the country, and use it in your writing, you have many platforms, not just the traditional book-sales platforms. Leverage your message across these platforms, and that will generate Interest from stakeholders, which will then generate interest in readers. And then—”
“Totalitarianism? Tyranny? Tragedy?” Manfred guessed at the next word under his breath. Beth giggled, and Janine shushed him.
“Tell your story,” said Regina, neatly looping the words across the board, “in a way that connects both with what you want to say and with the political landscape, and you will not only be creating art, you will be winning hearts and minds, and most importantly, making an impact on the culture. Let me give you an example.”
Regina capped her marker and leaned on the podium. She drew a long breath, like she were about to share something difficult, or profound, or personal. “Let’s say you are the author of a romance series. How many of you read romances?”
A few tentative hands went up. “Be honest,” she chided, raising her own hand. A few more people joined her. “I’ll admit, I read them. But sometimes I think they’re not that wholesome, you know? Or realistic?” She pulled out a fat paperback and held it up for everyone to see. “This book? It’s about a woman whose husband leaves her, but then she finds love with her gardener. How many of you have gardeners?”
One silver-haired woman sitting near the center of the room raised her hand.
“Would you want to find love with your gardener?” Regina called to her, making a face.
“That is a personal question,” the woman said, crossing her arms.
“Is that Lilian?” Manfred asked, craning forward. “It is!”
“Wouldn’t it be better—more inspiring—if the woman and her husband worked it out? If they got back together?”
Lilian snorted.
“Okay, what’s your problem with that? The husband, he’s old news, right? He watches too much television, he snores?”
“Among other things,” she said.
“What if he starts, I don’t know, running, and he gets in shape, and he learns some kind of lesson about how he’s treated her?” Regina asked, tapping the marker against her stockinged knee as she worked out the most boring romance Janine had ever heard of. “What if he does all that, while realizing that the gardener has designs on his wife, and then he takes up gardening, and she loves roses, so he puts in rosebushes for her? Can you see where I’m going with this, politically?”
The students shook their heads.
“Interracial dating?” someone tried.
Regina turned back to the board. “I’m going to skip down to the S.” She wrote, Subtle, but not too subtle.
“That’s the key! This series would be about defense of marriage, the sanctity of marriage, but you don’t want to hit somebody over the head with that. You could start out kind of subtly, with this couple, then gradually show everyone else in the community, how important marriage is, the way it holds them all together. Your message: marriage is hot! Think about a sexy gay man, really buff, works out every day, but his heart is full of despair because he know his lifestyle hurts God?
“Imagine the woman he meets at church, where he’s trying to turn things around, trying to banish these thoughts. She is so beautiful and pure that he realizes that his former life is all folly and narcissism. Imagine telling their love story.”
She filled in the last two letters.
Imagine the stories that people have been afraid to tell.
Cancer is also a good story line.
“That was quite a performance,” Manfred said, when the presentation was over and they stood around the snack table, eating stale crackers, sweaty cheese, and M&M’s.
Janine was reluctant to criticize. Regina had come up to her, after the lecture, and told her how much the poem’s publication on the website meant to her, and suggested that she might want Janine to read at a special event she was planning. Janine did not care for public speaking of any kind, but she was still glowing with Regina’s praise. “You missed the first part,” she said. “That part was important.”
“I’m sure,” Manfred said. “But have you noticed how many webinars they have us taking?”
“The registration fees are killing me!” said another woman, grabbing a handful of candy. “Every time I turn around. Don’t you think?”
“Honey, nothing in life is free,” said Manfred, looking meaningfully at the candy.
“They make you pay for those extra classes?” Beth asked. “They could have used the money to get better snacks.”
“Oh,” said Janine, who didn’t like to talk about money.
The next morning, Beth was exultant over some changes in the wind. She was already awake and sitting at the room’s only desk, the computer screen reflecting a moonish glow on her face, when Janine’s alarm went off at seven.
“They just named it,” Beth said. “Helen. It’s a named storm.”
Janine blinked in the dark room—Beth had pointedly drawn the heavy curtains last night, though Janine preferred to let in a little sunlight to make waking up easier. She imagined a cool wind whipping through the mangroves and sea oats, dark clouds moving fast across the sky.
“That’s good,” she said sleepily. She sat up. “I guess.”
Janine showered and changed—quickly, half-hidden by the bathroom door, for she was shy in the presence of her daughter’s perfect body—into the sturdy, comfortable clothes she would have worn during the back-to-school rush: capri pants and a T-shirt, sandals with cushioned insoles. She combed her wet hair, decided against blow-drying, patted sunscreen onto her cheeks.
“If it keeps heading this way, they might be evacuating by Friday,” Beth said. “I may need you to help me with the camera I brought.”
“Bethy, I have class all week,” Janine said. “I’m sure we won’t be evacuating.”
“We won’t be,” Beth said ominously, but when Janine peeked outside—it was already muggy and hot—she saw another sunny, cloudless day, no reason to worry. A little part of her was disappointed on Beth’s behalf, but it was true that she had been looking forward to the residency since April. “Come to breakfast,” she said. “You didn’t meet all my friends last night. They’re serving pancakes.”
“I have an energy bar,” Beth said, clacking away at her keyboard. “Thanks.”
Workshop was buzzing with talk not about the storm, but about Tad Tucker—rumor was that he planned to arrive on Wednesday for the fiction workshop. Janine took a seat between Maggie and Manfred, both looking bleary-eyed and sleepy. Janine wondered if Maggie had patched things up with her husband, if Manfred was on or off the wagon. Three students had not shown up; Janine could think of a hundred reasons why, but people were speculating that it was concern over the Ranch’s recent controversies.
“He doesn’t look like much of a writer,” Lilian sniffed, twisting a diamond tennis bracelet around her thin, tanned wrist.
“How much do any of us look like writers?” Maggie asked.
Lilian patted her smooth bob; clearly she thought she looked writerly, or at least cultured.
Maggie shrugged. “I look like a soccer mom. I drive a minivan. I am a soccer mom.”
“Lorraine looks like a writer,” Janine said. She had decided that Lilian was harmless, even pitiable, just a rich and lonely woman, some doctor’s former trophy wife. “Or at least she looks the way I pictured writers looking.”
“And she keeps time like one,” said Lilian. “Tad Tucker is a crook. My husband’s colleague treated the boy who was injured at one of his batting cages. He has permanent brain damage, that’s what I heard.”
“At least he got treatment,” said Janine quietly. She couldn’t help herself. “My husband used to listen to Tad Tucker on the radio. I don’t think he’s so bad.”
“He’s a right-wing nut,” said Lilian. “Didn’t you see Patty’s Facebook posts?”
Janine looked at Maggie, who shrugged. “I’m not a Tad Tucker fan myself,” Maggie said.
“We all had to apply,” Manfred sniffed.
“Did you see that the protesters are back this morning?” asked Julia, the woman with the knitting. A long red scarf trailed from her lap to the floor; she kept her eyes on what the needles were doing, so
it was hard to read how she felt about Tad Tucker or the protesters. Janine wondered if obscuring your feelings about a topic was one of the benefits of knitting.
Had anyone heard about Tucker’s connection to GWGW? someone asked. That was sure an interesting story, someone else replied. What about the online sonography school? Had anyone talked to the protesters, who were back, and sitting just steps away from the office? No, no one had approached the protesters, though it was odd the way they had set up their lawn chairs facing the Ranch, as if they were waiting for a show. Better to ignore them than to try to get involved, to find out what they want. They all agreed that it was a blessing that Tad Tucker was a fiction writer and not a poet, that their own workshop would not be affected by any scandal. Was he staying on campus? Probably not, they decided. Too low-rent for somebody like that.
Lorraine arrived at 10:15—she was punctual in her lateness, Janine had noticed—and handed around a survey. “I don’t understand why they need to know these things,” she said, pacing the front of the room as the class answered questions about their television habits, their favorite movies, their household incomes and education levels, which internet provider they used, and how they felt about the webinars they had taken.
Lilian was still finishing her survey when Lorraine snatched it away. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, shuffling it into her pile. “Did you all take the web classes?”
They murmured unenthusiastic assent.
Maggie raised her hand. “Why didn’t you teach any of the webinars, Ms. Kominski?”
“I would have no idea how to do that,” Lorraine said. “The topics were all beyond my area of expertise.”
“They didn’t seem to be about writing,” Janine offered. “They were more about business topics. How to earn a living.”
“This is all nonsense. Come on, we’re going for a walk. Bring a chair if you don’t like sitting on the ground.”