Holly

May 19, 2021

Marie and Barbara have coffee. Olivia, with her episodes of heartbeat arrhythmia over the last few years, has caffeine-free Red Zinger iced tea. When they’re all seated in the living room, Olivia tells Barbara what lies ahead as regards the Penley Prize. She speaks more hesitantly than usual. Barbara finds this troubling, but there’s no slurring and what Olivia says is as sharp and on-point as ever.

“They drag it out as if it were one of those television competitions like Dancing with the Stars instead of a poetry award that hardly anyone cares about. Around the middle of June, the shortlist will be winnowed to ten. In mid-July they will announce the five finalists. The winner will be declared—with relief and an appropriate flourish of trumpets, one assumes—a month or so later.”

“Not until August?”

“As I said, they drag it out. At least you won’t be required to submit any more poems, which is good in your case. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe your cupboard may be almost bare. The last two you showed me seemed—forgive me for saying it—a little forced.”

“They might have been.” Barbara knows they were. She could feel herself pushing the lines instead of being pulled through them.

“You are allowed to send a few more—a vague term the people in charge should know better than to use—but I suggest you not do so. You’ve sent your best. You agree?”

“Yes.”

“You need to go to bed, Olivia,” Marie says. “You’re tired. I can see it in your face and hear it in your voice.”

To Barbara, Olivia always looks tired—except for those raging eyes—but she supposes Marie sees better and knows more. She should; she has a practical nursing license and has been with Olivia for almost eight years.

Olivia holds up a hand without looking at her caregiver. The palm is almost devoid of lines. Like a baby’s, Barbara thinks.

“If you are one of the final five, you’ll be required to write a statement of poetic purpose. An essay. You saw that on the website, did you not?”

Barbara did but only skimmed that part, never having expected to get as far as she has. But the mention of the Penley Prize website raises an idea that she should have thought of before.

“Are the fifteen finalists listed on their website?”

“I don’t know, but I should think so. Marie?”

Marie already has her phone out and must have the Penley Prize website in her favorites, because it only takes her a few seconds to find the answer to Barbara’s question. “Yes. They’re here.”

“Damn,” Barbara says.

“You still intend to keep this a secret?” Marie asks. “Because having made it this far is one hell of an accomplishment, Barb.”

“Well, I was going to. At least until Jerome signs his contract. I guess the cat’s out of the bag, huh?”

Olivia snorts a laugh. “Be serious. The Penley Prize is hardly New York Times material or breaking news on CNN. I imagine the only people who check that website are the finalists themselves. Plus friends and family. Perhaps a favorite teacher or two. The wider world takes no notice. If you think of literature as a town, then those who read and write poetry are the poor relations who live in shanties across the tracks. I think your secret is safe. May I return to the essay I mentioned?” She reaches to put her glass of iced tea on the endtable. She doesn’t get it all the way on and it almost falls, but Marie has been watching and catches it.

“Sure, go ahead,” Barbara says. “Then you better lie down.”

Marie gives her an emphatic nod.

“A statement of poetic purpose, not to exceed five hundred words. You may no longer be in competition when the finalists are announced, hence no need to write about why you do what you’re doing, but it won’t hurt to be thinking about it. Will you do that?”

“Yes.”

Although Barbara has no idea what she’ll say, if it comes to that. The two of them have talked about poetry so much and Barbara has soaked it up, so glad to be told that yes, what she’s doing is important, that yes, it is a serious matter. To be told yes. But what would be the most important things to put in a two- or three-page essay when it all seems important? Vital, even?

“You’ll help me with it, won’t you?”

“Not at all,” Olivia says, sounding surprised. “Anything you say about your work needs to come from your own heart and mind. Understood?”

“Well…”

“Well nothing. Heart. Mind. Subject closed. Now tell me—are you still reading prose? To the White Sea, perhaps?”

“Olivia, enough,” Marie says. “Please.”

Again the hand goes up.

“I read it. Now I’m on Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy.”

“Oh my, that’s a dark one. A spill of terror. But full of vision.”

“And I’m reading Catalepsy. That’s by Professor Castro, the one who taught here.”

Olivia chuckles. “He was no professor, but he was a good teacher. Gay, did I tell you that?”

“I think so.”

Olivia gropes for her glass of iced tea. Marie puts it in her hand with a longsuffering look. She’s apparently given up on getting Olivia to the chairlift and upstairs to bed. The lady is engaged, her speech quick and clear again.

“Gay as gay could be. Attitudes about that were a little less tolerant ten years ago, but most members of the faculty—including at least two who have now come out—accepted him for what he was, with his white shoes, flamboyant yellow shirts, and beret. We enjoyed his sharp Oscar Wilde wit, which was the armor he wore to protect his basic kindness. Jorge was a very kind man. But there was at least one member of the faculty who didn’t like him at all. May even have loathed him. I believe if she had been department chairman instead of Rosalyn Burkhart, she would have found some way to toss him out on his ear.”

“Emily Harris?”

Olivia gives Barbara a sour, inturned smile that’s very unlike her usual one. “None other. I don’t think she has much use for people who aren’t white, which is one reason I made sure to steal you away from her even though I’m older than God, and I definitely know she doesn’t like those who are, in Emily’s words, ‘a bit loose in the loafers.’ Help me up, Marie. I believe I’m going to fart again when you do. Thank God at my age farts are relatively odorless.”

Marie helps her up. Olivia has her canes, but after sitting so long, Barbara isn’t sure she could walk without Marie’s help. “Think about that essay, Barbara. I hope you’ll be one of the fortunate five asked to write one.”

“I’ll put my thinking cap on.” It’s something her friend Holly sometimes says.

Halfway to the stairs, Olivia stops and turns back. Her eyes are no longer fierce. She’s gone back in time, a thing that happens more often this spring. “I remember the department meeting when the future of the Poetry Workshop was discussed and Jorge spoke up—very eloquently—in favor of keeping it. I remember it like it was yesterday. How Emily smiled and nodded while he spoke, as if saying ‘good point, good point,’ but her eyes didn’t smile. She meant to have her way. She’s very determined. Marie, do you remember her Christmas party last year?”

Marie rolls her eyes. “Who could forget?”

“What about it?” Barbara asks.

“Olivia—” Marie begins.

“Oh hush, woman, this will only take a minute and it’s such a great story. The Harrises have a party a few days before Christmas every year, Barbara. It’s tra-di-tional, y’know. They’ve had it since God was a baby. Last year, with Covid running wild, the college shut down and it seemed that the grand tradition would be broken. But was Emily Harris going to let that happen?”

“I’m guessing not,” Barbara says.

“You’re guessing right. They had a Zoom party. Which Marie and I chose not to attend. But Zooming wasn’t good enough for our Emily. She hired a bunch of young people to dress up in fucking Santa outfits and deliver goody-baskets to the partygoers who were in town. We got a basket ourselves even though we chose not to Zoom in. Didn’t we, Marie? Beer and cookies, something like that?”

“Indeed we did, a pretty blond delivered. Now for God’s sake—”

“Yes, boss, yes.”

With Marie helping her, the old poet makes her slow way to the stairs, where she settles—with another fart—into the chairlift. “At that meeting about the Poetry Workshop, when it looked… only for a minute or two… like Jorge might sway the voting members, Em never lost that smile of hers, but her eyes…” Olivia laughs at the memory as the chair starts to rise. “Her eyes looked like she wanted to kill him.”