Holly

February 8, 2021

Emily checks out Barbara’s red coat, hat, and scarf and says, “Aren’t you pretty! All done up like a Christmas package!”

Barbara thinks, How funny. It’s still okay for a woman to say things like that, but not a man. Professor Harris’s husband, for instance. He did give her a good looking over, but you can’t MeToo a man for that. You’d have to MeToo almost all of them. Besides, he’s old. Harmless.

“Thank you for seeing me, Professor. I’ll only take a minute of your time. I was hoping for a favor.”

“Well, let’s see if I can do you one. If it’s not about the writing program, that is. Come in the kitchen, Ms. Robinson. I was just making tea. Would you like a cup? It’s my special blend.”

Barbara is a coffee drinker, gallons of the stuff when she’s working on what her brother Jerome calls her Top Secret Project, but she wants to stay on this elderly (but sharp-eyed, very) woman’s good side, so she says yes.

They pass through a well-appointed living room into an equally well-appointed kitchen. The stove is a Wolf—Barbara wishes they had one at home, where she’ll be just a little longer, before going off to college. She has been accepted at Princeton. A teapot is huffing away on the front burner.

While Barbara unwinds her scarf and unbuttons her coat (really too warm for them today, but it does give her a good look—young woman perfectly put together), Emily spoons some tea from a ceramic cannister into a couple of tea balls. Barbara, who has never drunk anything but bag tea, watches with fascination.

Emily pours and says, “We’ll just let that steep a bit. Only for a minute or so. It’s strong.” She leans her narrow bottom against the counter and crosses her arms below a nearly bosomless bosom. “Now how may I help you?”

“Well… it’s about Olivia Kingsbury. I know she sometimes mentors young poets… at least she used to…”

“She still might,” Emily says, “but I rather doubt it. She’s very old now. You might think I’m old—don’t look uncomfortable, at my age I have no need to varnish the truth—but compared to Livvie, I’m a youngster. She’s in her late nineties now, I believe. So thin it wouldn’t take a strong wind to blow her away, just a puff of breeze.”

Em removes the tea balls and sets a mug in front of Barbara. “Try that. But take off your coat first, for heaven’s sake. And sit down.”

Barbara puts her folder on the table, slips off her coat, and drapes it over the back of the chair. She sips her tea. It’s foul-tasting, with a reddish tinge that makes her think of blood.

“How do you find it?” Em asks, bright-eyed. She takes the chair across from Barbara.

“It’s very good.”

“Yes. It is.” Emily doesn’t sip but gulps, although their mugs are still steaming. Barbara thinks the woman’s throat must be leather-lined. Maybe that’s what happens to you when you get old, she thinks. Your throat gets numb. And you must lose your sense of taste, too.

“You are, I take it, an acolyte of Calliope and Erato.”

“Well, not so much Erato,” Barbara says, and ventures another sip. “I don’t write love poetry, as a rule.”

Emily gives a delighted laugh. “A girl with a classical education! How unusual and delectably rare!”

“Not really,” Barbara says, hoping she won’t have to drink this whole mug, which looks bottomless. “I just like to read. The thing is, I love Olivia Kingsbury’s work. It’s what made me want to write poetry. Dead Certain… End for End… Cardiac Street… I’ve read them all to bits.” This isn’t just a metaphor; her copy of Cardiac Street did indeed fall to pieces, parted company with its cheap Bell College Press binding and went all over the floor. She had to buy a new copy.

“She’s very fine. Won a batch of prizes in her younger years and was shortlisted for the National Book Award not long ago. I believe in 2017.” Em knows it was 2017, and she was actually quite pleased when Frank Bidart won instead. She has never cared for Olivia’s poetry. “She lives just down the street from us, you know, and… aha! The picture clarifies.”

Her husband, the other Professor Harris, comes in. “I’m going to gas up our freshly washed chariot. Do you want anything, my love?”

“Just the Sheepherder’s Special,” she says. “A cup of ewe.”

He laughs, blows her a kiss, and leaves. Barbara may not like the tea she’s been given (hates it, actually), but it’s nice to see old people who still love each other enough for silly jokes. She turns back to Emily.

“I don’t have the courage to just walk up to her house and knock on her door. I barely had the guts to come here—I almost turned around.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. You dress up the place. Drink your tea, Ms. Robinson. Or may I call you Barbara?”

“Yes, of course.” Barbara takes another sip. She sees that Emily has already finished half her cup. “The thing is, Professor—”

“Emily. You Barbara, me Emily.”

Barbara doubts if she can manage calling this sharp-eyed old lady by her given name. Professor Harris’s mouth is smiling, and there’s a twinkle—so to speak—in her eye, but Barbara isn’t sure it’s an amused twinkle. More of an assessing one.

“I went to the English Department at Bell and spoke with Professor Burkhart—you know, the department head—”

“Yes, I know Roz pretty well,” Emily says drily. “For the last twenty years or so.”

Barbara flushes. “Sure, yes, of course. I went to her about maybe getting an introduction to Olivia Kingsbury, and she said I should talk to you, because you and Ms. Kingsbury were friends.”

Livvie may think we’re friends, Emily thinks, but that would be stretching the truth. Stretching it until it snapped, actually. But she nods.

“We had side-by-side offices for many years and were quite collegial. I have signed copies of all her books, and she has signed copies of mine.” Emily gulps tea, then laughs. “Both of mine, to say fair and true. She has been considerably more prolific, although I don’t believe she’s published anything lately. Looking for an introduction, are you? I suspect rather more. You want her to mentor you, which is understandable, you being a fan and all, but I fear you will be disappointed. Livvie’s mind is still sharp, at least so far as I can tell, but she’s very lame. Can hardly walk.”

Which doesn’t explain why Olivia did not attend last year’s Christmas party, which she could have done from her computer—she does have one. But Livvie (or the woman who works for her) did not refuse the elf-delivered beer and canapes; they were happy enough to take the food and drink. Emily has a resentment about that. As Roddy would say, I have marked her in my book. Black ink rather than blue.

“I don’t want mentoring,” Barbara says. She manages another sip of tea without grimacing, then touches her folder, as if to be sure it’s still there. “What I want, all I want, is for her to read a few of my poems. Maybe just two, even one. I want to know…” Barbara is horrified to realize her eyes have filled up with tears. “I need to know if I’m any good, or if I’m just wasting my time.”

Emily sits perfectly still, just looking at Barbara. Who, now that she’s said what she came to say, cannot meet the old woman’s eyes. She looks into the brackish brew in her cup instead. So much is left!

At last Emily says, “Give me one.”

“One…?” Barbara honestly doesn’t understand.

“One of your poems.” Emily sounds impatient now, as she did in her teaching days when faced with a dullard. Of which there were many, and she had no patience with them. She stretches out a blue-veined hand. “One you like, but one that’s short. A page or less.”

Barbara fumbles open her folder. She has brought an even dozen poems, and they are all short. Thinking that if Ms. Kingsbury did agree to look (a long shot, Barbara knows), she wouldn’t want to look at any like “Ragtime, Rag Time,” which runs to almost eighteen pages.

Barbara starts to say something conventional, like are you sure, but one look at Professor Harris’s face, especially her bright eyes, convinces her not to be so foolish. It wasn’t a request but a demand. Barbara opens her folder, fumbles through the few poems with a hand that’s not quite steady, and selects “Faces Change.” It has to do with a certain terrible experience the year before, one she still has nightmares about.

“You’ll have to excuse me for a bit,” the professor says. “I don’t read in company. It’s rude and it hampers concentration. Five minutes.” She starts to leave the room with Barbara’s poem in her hand, then points to the cannister beside the tea. “Cookies. Help yourself.”

Once Barbara hears a door close on the far side of the living room, she carries her mug to the sink and pours all but a single swallow down the drain. Then she lifts the lid of the cookie jar, sees macaroons, and helps herself to one. She’s far too nervous to be hungry, but it’s the polite thing to do. She hopes so, at least. This whole encounter has a strange off-kilter feel to her. It started even before she came in, with the way the male Professor Harris hurried to close the lefthand garage door, almost as if he didn’t want her looking at the van.

As for the female Professor Harris… Barbara never expected to get past the front door. She’d explain her business, ask Professor Harris if she would speak to Olivia Kingsbury, and be on her way. Now she is sitting alone in the Harris kitchen, eating a macaroon she doesn’t want and saving the last sip of awful tea, for which she’ll offer her thanks, just as her mother taught her.

It’s more like ten minutes before Emily comes back. She doesn’t leave Barbara hanging when she does; even before sitting down she says, “This is very good. Almost extraordinary.”

Barbara doesn’t know what to say.

“You’ve packed quite the load of fear and loathing into nineteen lines. Does it have to do with your experience as a black woman?”

“I… well…” The poem actually has nothing to do with her skin color. It has to do with a creature that called itself Chet Ondowsky. It looked human, but it wasn’t. It would have killed her if not for Holly and Jerome.

“I withdraw the question,” Emily says. “It’s the poem that should speak, not the poet, and yours speaks clearly. I was just surprised. I was expecting something quite a bit more jejune, given your age.”

“Oh my,” Barbara says, channeling her mother. “Thank you.”

Emily comes around to Barbara’s side of the table and lays the poem on top of Barbara’s folder. Close up she has a cinnamony smell that Barbara doesn’t quite like. If it’s perfume, she maybe should try another brand. Only Barbara doesn’t think it’s perfume, she thinks it’s her.

“Don’t thank me yet. This line doesn’t work.” She taps the fourth line of the poem. “It’s not only clumsy, it’s banal. Lazy. You can’t cut it, the poem is already as brief as it needs to be, so you must replace it with something better. These other lines tell me you are capable of that.”

“All right,” Barbara says. “I’ll think of something.”

“You should. You will. As for this last line, what would you think about changing This is the way birds stitch the sky closed at sunset with This is how? Save a word.” She picks up a spoon by the bowl and begins to jab it up and down. “Long poems can provoke deep feelings, but a short one must stab and stab and be done! Pound, Williams, Walcott! You agree?”

“Yes,” Barbara says. She would probably have agreed to anything at this moment—it’s just so weird—but this she actually does agree with. She doesn’t know Walcott but will look for him or her later.

“All right.” Emily puts the spoon down and resumes her seat. “I will speak to Livvie and tell her you have talent. She may say yes, because talent—especially young talent—always engages her. If she says no, it will be because she is now too infirm to take on a mentee. Will you give me your telephone number and email address? I’ll pass them on to her, and I’ll send her a copy of this poem, if you don’t mind. Make that little change—just scratch it in, please, and don’t bother with the bad line for now. I’ll take a picture of it with my phone. Does that sound like a plan?”

“Sure, yes.” Barbara scratches out the way and adds how.

“If you don’t hear back from her in a week or two, I may be in touch. If, that is, you might consider me as… an interested party.”

She doesn’t use the word mentor, but Barbara is sure from the pause that’s what she means, and on the basis of a single poem!

“That’s wonderful! Thank you so much!”

“Would you like a cookie for the ride home?”

“Oh, I walked,” Barbara says. “I walk a lot. It’s good exercise, especially on nice days like this, and it gives me time to think. Sometimes I drive to school, I got my driver’s license last year, but not so much. If I’m late, I ride my bike.”

“If you’re walking, I insist you take two.”

Emily gets Barbara the cookies. Barbara lifts her mug and takes the final sip as Emily turns around. “Thank you, Professor… Emily. The tea was very good.”

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Emily says, with that same thin smile. Barbara thinks there’s something knowing about it. “Thank you for sharing your work.”

Barbara leaves with her red coat unbuttoned, her red scarf hanging loose instead of wrapped, her knitted red beret cocked rakishly on her head, facemask forgotten in her pocket.

Pretty, Emily thinks. Pretty little pickaninny.

Although that word (and others) comes naturally to mind, if spoken aloud it would surely sully her reputation for the rest of her life in these Puritanical times. Yet she understands and forgives herself, as she forgave herself for certain unkind thoughts about the late Ellen Craslow. Emily Dingman Harris’s formative years occurred in an era when the only black people you saw in the movies or on TV were the servants, where certain candies and jump-rope rhymes contained the n-word, where her own mother was the proud owner of an Agatha Christie first edition with a title so racist that the book was later retitled Ten Little Indians and still later as And Then There Were None.

It’s my upbringing, that’s all. I am not to blame.

And that little girl is talented. Indecently talented for one so young. Not to mention a blackie.

When Roddy comes back from his errand, Emily says, “Do you want to see something amusing?”

“I live for amusement, dear one,” he says.

“It’s science and nutrition you live for, but I think this will amuse you. Come with me.”

They go into Emily’s study nook. It was here that she read Barbara’s poem, but that wasn’t all she did. Em goes to CAMS, keyboards the password, and selects the one hidden behind a panel above the refrigerator. It gives a view of the whole kitchen at a slight downward angle. Emily fast-forwards to the point where Emily leaves the room with Barbara’s poem in her hand. Then she pushes play.

“She waits until she hears me close the study door. Watch.”

Barbara gets up, takes a quick look around to make sure she’s alone, then pours her tea down the drain. Before going back to the table and resuming her seat, she takes a macaroon from the cookie jar.

Roddy laughs. “That is amusing.”

“But not surprising. I filled my tea ball from the top of the cannister, where it’s fresh. The English Breakfast at the bottom has been there for I don’t know how long. Seven years? Ten? That’s the stuff I used for her, and it must have been stronger than hell. You should have seen her face when she took the first sip! Ha-ha-ha, wonderful! Now wait. You’ll like this, too.”

She fast-forwards again. She and the girl discuss the poem at double speed, then Em goes to the cookie jar. The girl raises her cup… holds it in front of her mouth…

“There!” Em says. “You see what she did?”

“Waited for you to turn so you could see her finishing what you’d think was the whole cup. Clever girl.”

“Sneaky girl,” Em says admiringly.

“But why give her the old tea?”

She gives him her I don’t suffer dullards look, but this one is softened by love. “Curiosity, my dear, simple curiosity. You are curious about your various experiments in biology as applies to nutrition and aging; I’m curious about human nature. This is a resourceful girl, bright and pretty. And…” She taps his deeply lined brow. “She has a good brain. A talented brain.”

“You’re not suggesting putting her on the list, are you?”

“I’d have to find out a good deal of background before considering such a thing. Which is what this was made for.” She pats the computer. “But probably not. Still… in a pinch…”

She lets it dangle.