Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [1]
I got a C in chemistry, the only letter other than A I’d ever received on a report card. I decided I hated science.
What talent I had in reading recipes could not surpass my pleasure in reading fiction. Lost in a Baby-Sitters Super-Special when I should have been watching the butter I was warming in the microwave, I melted my mother’s favorite Tupperware bowl instead. The microwave was replaced, my kitchen privileges were suspended, and I never earned that coveted Girl Scout cooking badge.
At fourteen I received my first checkbook. Consequently, banking lost its appeal.
By the age of fifteen I had eliminated every career possibility but one.
For better or for worse, the love of writing stuck.
1
That he showed up to our first date wearing a pink-collared shirt and that he looked prettier in pink than I did should have told me everything I needed to know about Adam Palmer had I been paying attention.
“I just think if you consider all the factors at play here, it seems time we consider where exactly we’re going with this relationship,” he said now, less than three months later.
Outside the window to our left, students spilled onto campus, flooding the sidewalks. It was the turn of the hour: Adam had a class to teach in ten minutes. I realized he’d timed our break-up to allow himself quick escape.
“It’s just that I need more time for my work right now, and I can’t give you the time you deserve. I can’t give you what you want.”
Adam always bought me lunch at the cafeteria, where we both had faculty discounts. I flattened my meatloaf with the butt of my spork. The sporks were new on campus, part of the ongoing save-theearth incentive: SPOONS + FORKS = HALF THE WASTE!!! The Committee for Earth Health used twelve thousand fliers to educate the student body on the importance of hybrid flatware.
“And I know you have your convictions: I respect that. You have to see that I respect that,” he was saying. “I’ve tried to see the world through your eyes.” Here, I assumed he referenced the Saturday afternoon he’d agreed to volunteer with me at the church soup kitchen, from which he walked away eager to transcribe a conversation he’d had with a homeless veteran. “You can’t make this stuff up!” he’d declared, eyes bright with fresh inspiration.
“I’ve tried to walk in your shoes,” he said. “But you haven’t done the same for me. I need to be with a woman who can look up to me for my convictions, my beliefs.”
I frowned. “You don’t have beliefs. You’re an atheist.”
“I believe in nothing. I need you to respect that.”
I set the spork spinning on the table. “I respect you for that.”
“You resent me for it.”
“So what is it I want exactly?”
He watched my little operation with annoyance. “What do you mean?”
“You just said you couldn’t give me what I wanted. I’m curious: What is it that you think I so desperately want?”
He thought a moment. “I’m not ready to settle, Amy.”
Had he meant settle or settle down? He could have left the down out on accident. But he was a writer. He chose his words carefully.
“I’m not ready to settle down either,” I protested.
He gave me a patronizing smile. “You were born settled.”
I stared at him, surprised: I hadn’t thought him capable of hurting me.
“It’s no specific desire,” he went on uncharacteristically flustered, trying to revise or at least mitigate the severity of his last statement. “It’s all desires. Cumulatively. The things you want and the things I want for our work, our future. They don’t add up.” He snatched the spork from my hand. “Will you stop that.”
The people at the table behind us turned to see what was going on. I blushed to my scalp. It wasn’t a good look for me.
“I’ve