“Is it Bacardi 151 bad?” I asked. I could feel my face tighten, bracing for his answer. It didn’t matter how many times I was told I could write; I still felt like I was sitting there with just muscles and bones when someone had just read my newest work.
“I think you’ll be safe with a beer,” he said.
“One beer?” I asked, still gauging. At least it wasn’t Bacardi 151 bad. At least it wasn’t bad enough he suggested I get blotto. He wasn’t just saying it to make me feel better, either. Professor Dylan was the kind of guy who didn’t lie about talent.
“Depends how long we talk, doesn’t it?” he said, laying one hand over the other like he was getting comfortable. Like he was thinking we would be talking for a long, long time.
We ordered and I exhaled, calmed from our initial conversation and that he’d been there for almost five minutes without bringing up Candy. It made me wonder if I had misread his text, if paranoia was getting to me. Autocorrect did some messed-up things. There was a whole website devoted to it. Changing Candice to Candy was pretty tame in comparison to some examples I’d seen.
Lasagna to Vagina
Cockatoo to COCKATTACK
Matzo Ball to Nazi Ball
“So?” I asked, biting my lip. Now that he was sitting in front of me, I wanted him to tell me. To spill exactly what he thought about “Boxed In.” It was like when I got tested for STDs after breaking up with Keith. The same way I felt waiting for that news from the doctor. I will be told if my life is over or not in the next five minutes.
“Calm down, Candice,” Professor Dylan said, tapping his hands on the table. “It’s good.”
I did breathe out. “It’s good?” I repeated, relief flooding me.
“It is.” He nodded. “But that doesn’t mean it’s great.” He stared at me seriously.
I winced, clenched my hands under the table, and put them against my abdomen. Good was fine. It was enough so I wouldn’t feel like I needed to kill myself, but I also knew good wasn’t good enough. It needed to be great. I needed it to be more than great to confirm I’d made the right decision.
So I could prove to my parents I’d made the right decision.
“Oh,” I barely blurted out as our beers arrived. I wanted to drink both his and mine down in one gulp.
“That’s why you’re here, though, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered; it was, it had been. I wanted to learn, I wanted to get better. The problem was I wasn’t sure anymore if Professor Dylan was the one to teach me.
Maybe he was trying to put me in my place—to remind me I was still his student. Or maybe he wanted me to feel helpless. For a man like this, making a woman feel helpless was how he got his kicks. Some women got their kicks the same way.
I had been that way in college. Would I still be if James hadn’t entered my story?
“So what about it is ‘not great’?” I asked, putting my hands on the table and leaning toward him.
Professor Dylan took a long drink of his beer. He was either making me wait for his answer or thinking about his answer. I’m not sure which was worse. “I guess I just feel like you’re holding back.” His face was earnest.
I nodded without even meaning to because I knew what he meant. He was right. The freest and realest I ever felt was when I was writing as Candy. It was the only time I didn’t feel like I had to prove anything to anyone.
“If you want to be great,” he said, “you have to put more focus into this.”
“This?” I asked. I hadn’t understood what he’d meant at all.
“Your work here,” he said. “It’s clear you’re distracted. I can see it.”
Of course I was distracted, but could he really see it in my work? “It’s been hard for me to balance school and writing.”
“I think there’s more to it than that,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I said, even though I did. Of course I did.
Screw me.
“You have the ability to do something real in this business, Candice. You need to put your attention there.”
Real? Was this his way of telling me to ditch Candy? To choose one or the other? Why did I have to?
How did he have the metaphorical balls to even ask?
“I am,” I said.
“I hope that’s true,” he said, his eyes squinting like it was a threat. I understood, though, that if anything, he was the one who was threatened. Not by me necessarily, but by all “Candys.” I was just the one he was sitting across from. I was the only one he could harass.
I’d controlled myself the first time when he brought up what he thought of her; with a drink in my hand, I wasn’t sure I’d do so well a second time.
“Any other thoughts?” I asked, pushing him off his publishing soapbox and back on to my story. I had twenty-four hours to fix the damn thing. If all he was going to do was try to convince me that his career was the only career, I might as well just go home to my parents.
“Before we get into that, I want to warn you about workshop. Whether it’s true or not, your classmates are going to say some pretty brutal things.”
I thought of some of the one-star reviews I’d received for Couch Surfer, how they’d stabbed at me like a fire-stoked knife when I saw them at first, but the feeling I got from the good reviews, the great reviews, more than outweighed them.
“It won’t be all bad,” I said.
“It might be,” he admitted.
“So are you saying I shouldn’t listen?”
“I didn’t say it would all be false,” he said.
I took a long drink of my beer. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this.
“All I want for you is to thrive in your life and your craft. It’s all any of us can want.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” I said forcefully. He was right. It was what I wanted. To be recognized for something I had created—but I had that with Candy. It didn’t count to him, but it did to me. It more than did to me.
“Then maybe you don’t need my help,” he said. He examined my face, his eyes bouncing around like balls in his head, waiting for me to tell him I did.
“Like you said…” I sighed. “It’s why I’m here.” It had been. It still was regardless of whatever game he was trying to play with me. I wanted to be the best writer I could be as Candice or Candy, or both or neither.
“My overarching thought on the piece is nothing really happens,” he said, taking a sip of his beer. “It’s a little too quiet.”
I nodded, even though I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do with his comment. Okay, I’ll make it louder. More explosions, more car alarms, more thunderclaps.
“Focus on that and only that,” he said, “and you should be fine.”
I should have known it was his way of telling me, of warning me that it was the only way I would be.
I should have known Professor Anthony Dylan would never let a “little slut with a laptop” win.
Chapter Twenty-five
I spent most of Sunday editing my story for workshop. Not that I was really able to “focus” because I kept thinking about James. Edit a line, check my phone. Delete a line, check my phone. Add a passage, check out on the porch.
I considered adding a character based on him. Someone at the main character’s side, helping her trudge through all her parents’ crap and the crap they put her through, but I realized that even though James was here now, when it came to dealing with my parents, I had to figure them out on my own.
The feelings I had for James were genuine, but since arriving in Miami I had really been searching for a connection with anyone because of the connection I’d lost.
Once my story was saved, e-mailed to the class, and I’d lingered for several hours over three vodkas on the rocks with my cell phone at the kitchen table, I called the number I hadn’t called in three months.
I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I felt like I had to try.
The phone rang, once, twice. It wa
s almost eleven p.m. They were definitely home. And not only that, they were surgeons, which meant upon hearing the phone they would look to see who it was: the hospital, a patient, or me.
I pictured them standing in our kitchen over the portable phone in its cradle, listening to it ring through the white walls of the house. Perhaps they held their breath, closed their eyes, tried to pretend they didn’t know I was calling.
I knew the caller ID would read “Candice Salinas” and I knew because of that they were choosing not to answer.
I hung up before leaving a message. My chest filled with black. It was clear I had been erased. For months, I’d tried to convince myself I was the one who had moved on, but having reached out and been rejected, I couldn’t deny they had been the ones to force that choice.
I put my cell in my pocket, headed out into the muggy Miami night, and started walking, needing to get out of the room that was supposed to help me forget.
I ended up in front of James’s campus apartment—one big building made to appear like a bunch of pastel-colored town houses. It had a rock and palm garden and was lit by a motion-detector light that in my silly attempt trying not to be seen, I set off.
Already caught thanks to Benjamin Franklin’s discovery, I walked toward James’s door and stood on his porch. It was late. Too late for me to be doing this and not have it appear that I wanted a booty call. I didn’t necessarily. I wanted someone in the flesh to remind me that both Candice and Candy deserved attention. That accepted both sides of me.
That would never ignore me.
If it turned into a booty call, so be it.
I stood there staring at the door, trying to decide if I should knock or not. What if his roommate answered? But seriously, at this point, why did I even care about hiding anymore?
“Hey,” I heard James call from behind me. He had his backpack on, his work clothes hanging off it.
“Hey,” I said. Even in the dark, his eyes calmed me. The way he looked at me like I was the last girl on earth and he was happy about it.
“How was the drink?” he asked, walking toward me.
“Over with,” I said.
He came up next to me and unlocked the door. “If you keep showing up like this, I’m going to start thinking you want to label this relationship.”
“Showing up like what?” I asked, trying very hard to sound like I was offended. Had I been sleepwalking in search of a booty call and ended up on his porch before this?
“Last night at Buzzers,” he listed. “Tonight here. Next you’ll be waiting for me in my bed naked, or better yet,” he purred, “the shower.”
“Keep dreaming,” I said, even though I couldn’t help thinking about the scene Mandy had read aloud. “Besides, I don’t look great wet.”
“Having seen you in the pool, I’d disagree,” he said, touching the side of my face. “Wet and naked, you’d be spectacular.”
It was so much like what one of Candy’s characters would have said I almost had to make sure I wasn’t writing the scene myself. I couldn’t speak. His touch was making it hard for me to swallow. I wanted him to kiss me.
I needed him to.
“So does he know?” James asked, pulling his hand away. I was happy and sad he’d stopped. Relieved and annoyed, but I couldn’t really be upset, considering I was usually the one who did.
“It didn’t come up,” I said, because it hadn’t, not directly. No, he hadn’t said he knew about Candy, but it was clear he did. Clear he was giving me a choice. I just didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t do what Professor Dylan thought I should.
“Are you coming in?” James asked, getting close to my cheek. I could smell coffee on his breath and in his hair.
“For a minute,” I said, playing with the waistband of his jeans.
“I only need three,” he said.
“That is not something to brag about,” I said.
“I’m not bragging,” he replied. “Just saying, if you’re in a rush or something.”
I followed him inside. He closed the door behind him. “I’d offer you a drink, but I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you.”
“I’m pretty sure most people would say I was taking advantage of you,” I said. It felt good walking into his apartment and being able to remember it. It felt good walking in with him and being able to admit I wanted to.
“Why? Because you’re older?” He chuckled, his whole body smirking. “Like a whole huge year older.”
“Yes, and your TA,” I urged.
“Well, if that’s what’s happening,” he said, hanging his bag on the coat rack, “I’ll admit I like being taken advantage of.”
He kissed my neck and blew out a long breath, like he was centering himself. “So what did he say about your story?”
“He said it was good, not great.” I hooked myself around his neck. It made it easier for me to say those words.
“I think you’re great,” he said, nibbling on my ear.
“You’ve never read any of my work.” I was barely able to speak with his lips on me. I reminded myself to breathe. My whole body tingled, electric like static. My skin seemed to ignite with each kiss—his lips like fire, my body liquefied glass, that red-hot, that pliable.
“I don’t need to,” he said between kisses, his tongue tracing down to my clavicle. It made me shudder. “You could write grocery lists for the rest of your life and it wouldn’t matter to me.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, pushing him away. Did he see me differently now that he knew about Candy? He could say he was fine with it and he probably was, but it didn’t mean he took it seriously.
“It means I like you anyway,” he said, his eyes confused.
“Don’t dismiss what I write,” I said.
“I’m not talking about your work,” he said, holding my shoulders so we were face-to-face. “I’m talking about you.”
“Because you don’t care about my work,” I said. Suddenly the molten passion I’d felt in my skin turned to anger, red all I could see. The words I was saying, words I’d wanted to say to my parents, to Keith, even to Professor Dylan, and now I was finally saying them to James.
Would I have said them if my parents had picked up the phone? Would I have said them if Professor Dylan didn’t think I’d been wasting away my talent on Candy?
“Calm down, Candice,” he said.
“No, you don’t. You like having sex with me so you say nice things, but you don’t take what I do seriously,” I said. “Just like everyone else.”
“Who’s everyone else?” he asked, regarding me like I was crazy, which made sense because I was acting crazy.
I could have told him more about my parents, about how part of the reason I even still cared what anyone at UM thought was to be something to them, but I couldn’t. He knew too many of my secrets. That one had to stay mine for now.
“Professor Dylan thinks I’m throwing my career away for Candy,” I said. “I guess you do, too.”
“I thought you said he didn’t know anything.”
“He knows.” I watched his eyes. “Maybe you did tell him,” I added, reaching for any heated words I could find.
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked.
“You’re probably having a big laugh about it with all your New Yorker buddies.”
He scoffed. “This is never going to work if you’re jealous of me,” he said, but his mouth closed as soon as he did, slapped down like he wanted to take it back.
“That’s what you think? You think I’m jealous?”
“No,” he said, backpedaling. “You just care so much what people think of my writing, more than I do, even.”
“That’s because you don’t seem to care about it at all,” I said.
He stopped like he might say something, might reveal something, but I could see it lapse. “It’s complicated.”
“It must be really confusing being taken so legitimately,” I yelled, wondering how we had gotten here. How I had
gotten here. “I don’t know how you handle it.”
“Professor Dylan never should have told you about the New Yorker,” he said, shaking his head.
“I never should have told you anything,” I replied.
He crossed his arms forcefully. “If that’s what you think, you should probably leave.”
“Probably?” I asked, pulling away from his arms. The arms I’d walked across town to be held by. “Wait; probably is not a good enough word, right? Make that definitely.”
“So go,” he said his face impenetrable. “I didn’t tell you to come here.”
He was saying I’d pushed him away for the last time; that his words were a dare. A dare that after I’d slammed his door behind me and heard his bag fall to the floor from the force, I couldn’t believe I’d taken.
Chapter Twenty-six
I’d never quite experienced anything like being ripped apart in a crit. Sure, I’d gotten some bad reviews, but they were nothing compared with the seething hate I experienced around that dark wood discussion table.
Tedious, repetitive, mind-numbing, just some of the choice phrases used to describe my poor, sad, good-but-not-great story.
It was obvious my fellow graduate students hated me, my mother, my father, and all the generations before them for giving me the life and experiences to write a story you would have thought came from the Devil’s own ass.
“What has Candice done that is working here?” Professor Dylan asked the table, attempting to steer the conversation and keep me from total devastation. I had done something similar when the critique-pack-mentality had gone after one of the writers in my class.
My fellow students answered with epic silence.
Compared to what Professor Dylan told you about your story, it is opposite day, I heard Mandy’s voice say. It is opposite day and everyone at the table is on their period.
I saw two girls across from me whisper to each other and laugh. Apparently they thought playing mute wasn’t a cruel enough response. The weird thing was that even though I had been concerned about what people would think of my story, I really didn’t think it was so bad. Not nearly as bad as they all said it was.
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