Write This Down

by Claudia Mills

  “No!” Kylee moans. “That’s your favorite subject! And then we’d only have two classes together!”

  She obviously didn’t listen to my reminder about brainstorming.

  “Option number three,” I continue, but I can’t think of a third way to avoid having to see Cameron ever again for the rest of my life. “Run away?”

  “That isn’t funny.” Now Kylee’s distressed enough that she puts down her knitting. “Option number three is that you forget about it. I’d bet you anything that David won’t even tell Cameron. Girls talk about boys a lot more than boys talk about girls.”

  Kylee herself never talks about boys. She doesn’t have a crush on anyone, though there’s this very short, mega-awkward boy named Henry Dubin who has a crush on her; he’s in science with Kylee, and art. You can tell he likes her because he always seems to be bumping her with his backpack in the hall and snorting in this high-pitched horsey kind of way.

  Now I have to hope that Cameron’s brother doesn’t joke with him about me the way I joke with Kylee about Henry Dubin.

  I can so see the scene playing itself out in my mind. Cameron’s brother sits down to dinner with Cameron and their parents in the ultra-modern-looking house where they live, a few blocks from us, the house I walk by every chance I get, always pretending I’m on the way to somewhere else.

  “Hey, lil bro, is there a girl in your class named Summer or something?”

  “Autumn. There’s a girl in my journalism class named Autumn.”

  “That’s right. Autumn. Well, she has a big-time crush on you, man.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I was at her brother’s house today with the band. And her brother, Hunter, read us one of her poems. And guess what it was called? ‘Ode to Cameron.’”

  Gagging noises from Cameron.

  “She’s really nuts about you. Listen to this. Are you ready?”

  Sickening silence from Cameron, who is not at all ready.

  “‘If thou wouldst croak, the snow would puke up yet another grave for me.’ Or something like that.”

  Awkward laughter from Cameron. “Man. Oh, man. It’s bad enough that she’s always staring at me in journalism class. Oh, man, this sucks.”

  This scene is a lot more believable than my dumb Emily Dickinson fantasy. Its dialogue sounds completely real, while the other one sounded fake.

  But maybe, maybe David will tell Cameron the real opening lines from my poem and Cameron will think they’re good? Maybe he’s secretly liked me all along and will be glad to know I secretly like him?

  Kylee has gone back to her knitting, but I know she’s still thinking.

  “Okay,” she says when she gets to the end of another row. “Option number four—well, maybe this is just the same as my option number three—is that you act normal around him tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the day after that. I really don’t think Cameron’s brother is going to talk to Cameron about you, and if he does, he can’t say your poems are bad, because they aren’t bad—they’re wonderful.”

  Did I mention that I love Kylee more than anyone in the world? I do have other friends. Sometimes I go over to Isabelle Abshire’s house to watch old black-and-white movies, because Kylee won’t watch anything that isn’t in color. Sometimes Brianna Clark hangs out with Kylee and me; she once said we’re “soothing” to be around, but I know she really meant Kylee. But I love Kylee a thousand times more than I love either of them.

  So Kylee just said my poems are wonderful. Despite the horribleness of everything that happened, down deep—well, not even down all that deep—I still think they’re wonderful, too.

  “What if…” I begin, and then trail off. “Kylee, tell me honestly. I know best friends are supposed to believe in each other, but they’re supposed to be honest with each other, too. Do you really, truly, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die think my poems are good—and not just my poems generally, but my Cameron poems?”

  Without a moment of hesitation, Kylee nods.

  “What if—maybe this is ridiculous…” I say, even though I don’t think it’s ridiculous because it’s what I’ve been planning to do ever since I made my big announcement to Hunter and the band this afternoon, just sooner than I thought.

  “In brainstorming, nothing is ridiculous,” Kylee reminds me.

  “What if I published my poems somewhere? Somewhere really impressive? And then it won’t matter what Hunter said, or what Cameron might say, because a famous poetry magazine will be on record saying that they’re fabulous. And Hunter will be like, Wow, I guess Autumn really can write, and I shouldn’t have made fun of her. And Cameron will be like, Wow, I guess this majorly published poet is a girl I’d like to get to know.”

  Just this morning I wanted to be like Emily Dickinson and not publish my poems until after I die. A lot can change in a few hideous hours.

  “Now you’re talking!” Kylee said, though maybe she’s just so relieved that I’m not going to change schools or drop journalism or run away that she’s acting more enthusiastic than she really feels. But Kylee is a terrible liar, so I know she means whatever she says.

  I let myself play out a new script in my head.

  “Hey, lil bro, is there a girl in your class named Summer or something?”

  “Autumn. There’s a girl in my journalism class named Autumn.”

  “That’s right. Autumn. Well, she has a big-time crush on you, man.”

  Silence from Cameron, who is blushing with secret pleasure.

  “She wrote a poem about you.”

  “She did?”

  “Her brother made fun of it, but I thought it was really good. I bet she’ll be a famous published poet someday.”

  Cameron gives a slow smile. “I think so, too.”

  3

  When I get home, the band has finally left—hooray, hooray. I google “most prestigious places to publish poetry” on the computer in my room. A long list comes up, showing that I am hardly the first person in the history of the world to ask this question. In fact, one site lists fifty places. Fifty! Number one on the list, and the only one I’ve heard of, is this magazine called The New Yorker, which my parents get even though we live in Colorado and not in New York. It comes to our house every week, and my mother reads it. I don’t know if she reads the poems; the magazine publishes stories, articles, and cartoons, too, all kinds of stuff. When she’s done with it, Dad takes the old copies to his office waiting room so parents have something to read while their kids are getting their braces tightened.

  The Internet list of prestigious poetry places says that The New Yorker has a million readers. A million! So that’s what I’m going to start with, on the theory that you might as well aim high. I read this saying once, “If you aim at the stars, at least you won’t shoot your foot off.”

  I’m not exactly sure how that applies here, but I do know that it would be lovely to walk into journalism with The New Yorker tucked under my arm. I’d shyly show it to Ms. Archer, who would say, Class! Class! I have some wonderful news to share! Autumn—yes, our Autumn—has a poem published in The New Yorker! I’d still feel a teensy bit embarrassed when she’d start to read “Ode to Cameron”—maybe I should change his name before I send it in?—but a person who gets her poems published in the most prestigious place there is doesn’t have much reason to be embarrassed about anything ever again.

  I go back downstairs, completely ignoring Hunter, who is zoned out in front of a Simpsons rerun on TV, and retrieve the latest New Yorker from my mother’s always overflowing pile of books and magazines. Back in my room, I flip through the issue to see what the poems are like.

  I have to admit I don’t understand any of them.

  Even worse: not a single one rhymes.

  What do modern poets have against rhyme? Rhyme is wonderful! It gives a poem structure. It delights the ear. Robert Frost, who wrote that famous poem about stopping by woods on a snowy evening, said writing poems without rhyme is like playing te
nnis without a net.

  Maybe there’s a connection between the fact that poets nowadays write poems that don’t rhyme and that poets nowadays write poems nobody wants to read. People in my classes at school moan and groan whenever we begin a poetry unit. I think they’re afraid they won’t understand the poems and somebody—say, a teacher—will put them on the spot in front of everybody and ask them to explain what the poem means.

  But my Cameron poems aren’t like that. What they mean is perfectly clear. They mean I love Cameron.

  If I send my Cameron poems to The New Yorker, will they reject them because my poems rhyme and are easy to understand? Or will the editors say: Someone finally sent us poems that rhyme! And, look, we can even figure out what they mean!

  I won’t know unless I try.

  On the computer I search for “New Yorker” and “submissions.” It turns out that sending my poems off to The New Yorker will be as easy as pie. You can submit poems online, up to six poems at one time. Does this mean they’d publish all six, or just pick the one they like best? Well, either way, it just so happens I have six Cameron poems written already.

  I continue reading and find some more disturbing information: the website says that they review submissions “on a rolling basis” (which is good, since it means you can submit poems anytime) but that it can take “two to six months” to get a response.

  Two to six months! It’s October 1 now. Am I supposed to have to wait all the way until December or even March?

  Well, if I have to wait that long to show Hunter that at least one of my poems has been published in the fanciest magazine in America, then that’s what I have to do. If I have to wait that long to trot into journalism class with my glorious published poem to share with Cameron, I’d better type up my six poems and send them off to The New Yorker today.

  And I do.

  I don’t change Cameron’s name either. If I become a famous love poet, I might as well be famous for writing “the Cameron poems,” not “poems for some boy with a made-up name.”

  Plus, I love Cameron’s name, and not just because I love everything about him. He has a poetic name, unlike poor Henry Dubin. I can’t imagine publishing “the Henry Dubin poems.”

  But “the Cameron poems”—that’s an entirely different story.

  I close my eyes and see one of them printed right there in The New Yorker already.

  4

  It’s Monday, and I’m heading to my second-period class: journalism. I feel tingly nervousness every day when I walk into class knowing I’m going to see Cameron, but I feel it even more today at the thought that he might have heard my poem and made fun of it. Or heard my poem and thought it was wonderful. Or maybe he didn’t think anything about my poem at all.

  He’s already there, hunched over his journalism notebook. He’s doodling, and his doodles are super intricate and detailed. I think they should be hung in an art museum. He wears his hair longer than most of the other boys, not too long, but reaching past the collar of the Oxford-weave button-down shirts he wears every day (not grungy T-shirts), and his bangs cover his left eye.

  Ms. Archer had us sit in the same seats every day at the start of the school year to help her learn our names, and now we sit in the same seats every day from habit. There’s really no way I could switch seats now—it would be too bizarre—so I make myself sit down at the desk next to Cameron, who is right by the window. Kylee’s on my other side, but she’s not here yet because she has P.E. first period, which is really gross, because then you’re sweaty for the rest of the day. There are showers in the locker room but nobody—nobody—has ever—ever—used them. I’m lucky I have P.E. seventh period, so only the kids in my eighth-period science class have to smell me.

  So right now it’s me and Cameron.

  Right now it’s Cameron and me.

  I usually don’t speak to him first; I wait to see if he’s going to speak to me.

  Sometimes he does, but he just says hi, and sometimes he doesn’t even say it, just gives me a sort of salute with his left hand (he’s left-handed) or a brief nod.

  Today he doesn’t. Not a good sign.

  I make a big show of opening my journalism binder and pretending to look at my notes from last week on Q&A interview pieces. Yet I can’t help but take a peek at what he’s doodling. It’s a complicated pattern of autumn leaves. I know they’re autumn leaves because he doodles with colored pencils—he has a set of twenty-four pencils, all perfectly sharpened—and he’s using two shades of red and two shades of orange.

  Autumn leaves. Like me, Autumn?

  Maybe this is a good sign. Maybe it means David told him about my poem, and he knows I like him, and he’s starting to wonder if he also likes me.

  Kylee arrives, panting into her seat just as the bell rings. She looks at me, her eyes big with questions. But I don’t have any answers, so I shrug, and class begins.

  Ms. Archer gives us a warm, welcoming smile. She is my favorite teacher ever. She’s beautiful, with flawless, warm brown skin, short-cropped hair, huge dark eyes, and impossibly long earrings she wears to go with her flowing skirts. I’d love to dress exactly like her, but my mom won’t let me wear big earrings, and if I wore skirts like hers it would be pathetically obvious I was trying to copy her. But someday, when I won’t look so much like a copycat, I’m going to be a total copycat, and dress that way.

  But she’s my favorite teacher not because of how she looks. She knows everything there is to know about writing. She’s published poems in literary magazines, and she wrote a short story that was picked for a collection of best stories from the West. And she’s not just smart, she’s wise, even though she’s not super old—maybe in her late twenties.

  For a moment I wish I could tell her about Hunter and Cameron and everything, to see what she’d say. But I don’t want her to think I’m weird and my family even weirder.

  “Good morning, class,” Ms. Archer says, once she has our attention. “Today we’re going to start our two-week unit on personal essays, short pieces that tell the reader a true personal experience of the writer. I’m going to start us off by saying something that may strike you as surprising. Are you ready for this? Even though you’ll be sharing personal experiences, a personal essay is not about you.”

  I write that down in my binder. I’m a good note taker anyway, but especially in Ms. Archer’s class I try to write down every word she says. Cameron doesn’t take notes; he spends most of class gazing out the window or doodling, even though I know from how good a writer he is that he must listen to Ms. Archer, unless he knows everything she says already. Kylee doesn’t take notes either. She asked Ms. Archer if it was okay if she knits in class, and Ms. Archer said yes. Kylee listens best when she’s knitting.

  “Do people want to read a personal essay to learn about you?” Ms. Archer asks. Right away she answers her own question. “No. Unless you’re already famous, they have no idea who you are. They don’t have any reason yet to care about you or anything you’ve experienced.”

  Tyler Shields, who sits in front of me, calls out, “Then why do they read it?” Tyler is the best in the class at direct, blunt questions the rest of us would be too embarrassed to ask.

  Ms. Archer turns to the class. “Anybody? Personal essays are loved by many readers. I know I turn first to a personal essay whenever I pick up a magazine or a newspaper. Why?”

  The room is silent, except for the soft, steady, rhythmic click of Kylee’s needles.

  No one volunteers to answer until Olivia Fernandez lifts her hand into the air. Olivia is a terrific writer, but there’s something about her that sets my teeth on edge. Maybe it’s just that she is a terrific writer and I’m jealous? Okay, I’m jealous. But she’s also just so sure of herself all the time; she’s always the one waving a hand in the air—except she doesn’t wave it; she raises it in this slow, almost leisurely way. Oh, and in addition to being a fabulous writer, she’s also gorgeous. Like, model-level gorgeous, with waist-length raven-black
hair, a glowing olive complexion, and impossibly blue eyes. I don’t think she likes Cameron the way I do, but if she did, my chances with him would be pretty much nil.

  “Personal essays have a theme,” Olivia says. “They take the writer’s personal experience and find some universal truth in it.”

  “Good, Olivia. Very good,” Ms. Archer says.

  I think I might have something to add, but I’ve become shy in this class because I don’t want to say something dumb in front of Ms. Archer or Cameron. But Ms. Archer is good at reading faces, and mine must be giving me away, because she says, “Autumn?”

  I swallow hard before I make myself answer. “People like to read personal essays because they don’t feel so alone then? Someone else has made it through the same thing they’re going through. Or maybe it’s a different thing, but it’s still hard. Or maybe…” I’m not sure if what I’m saying makes any sense. I wonder if Cameron is looking over at me as I’m speaking; my hands feel sweaty, as if I just came from P.E. like Kylee. “It’s just so real—someone else felt something so real. Maybe it’s not a bad thing, or a hard thing, but it’s a real thing, and the reader is feeling real things, too, and so he or she doesn’t feel alone.”

  Now I can’t help but glance over at Cameron to see if he’s nodding, but he’s still hunched over his doodles. Maybe he wasn’t even listening to anything I said. Kylee is nodding, of course. Olivia whispers something I can’t hear to Kaitlyn Ellis, who sits next to her—something snarky? She can be snarky sometimes.

  A moment goes by as Ms. Archer lets my comments settle.

  Then she smiles again.

  “Exactly. People read personal essays to learn something about themselves.”

  She goes on to tell us that personal essays are about two things: the thing that happened, and what it means. If you just write about something that happens, without having it mean anything, what you have is an “incident,” and that’s not enough for a personal essay. But you can’t explain the meaning in any super-obvious way, like stories for little kids that spell out the moral at the end. You have to be subtle. You have to say it without saying it.