Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [90]
“I need to talk to you about something—to ask a favor, really.”
“Okay.”
“It’s serious.”
I sat on the porch to take off my shoes. I wrung out my socks one at a time.
Michael grew impatient. “Can we go inside?”
“Just give me a minute.”
He sat in one of the lawn chairs. He clasped his hands. He leaned forward, wiped his mouth, clasped his hands again.
“Michael, what is wrong with you?”
“It’s about Zoë and me,” he said. “I need you to talk to her for me.”
I picked bits of gravel from between my toes. “Why can’t you talk to her?”
“It’s complicated. You know, she’s already upset about her mom. If I try to tell her how I feel, she’ll freak out. But she’ll listen to you.”
“Tell her what, then?”
“Amy, look, don’t think I don’t care.” He turned to me with the most wounded expression. “We’re just not working. She’s way out there, I’m here. We never talk—and when we do—I don’t know, I never know what to say … I just can’t do it. Our lives are different now.”
I stopped rolling my pant legs up. “Her mom has cancer. She doesn’t need you to talk; she needs you just to be there.”
“But I can’t be there, that’s the thing.”
“Your boss would give you a few days off. You could visit.”
“I can’t just cancel everything and be always driving to Chicago.”
“That’s exactly what you can do.”
A series of faces passed before me: Adam, the narcissist; Eli, the delinquent; and now Michael, the ever moronic. The men I knew seemed different enough at first, but ultimately one proved as fickle as the other, and the plot never varied: men showing up, men exiting.
I asked if he was leaving her.
“I’m not cut out for this kind of stuff.”
“Michael, no one knows what to do in times like this. There’s no right or wrong thing to do or say—you just need to be there.”
He shook his head.
“You can’t do this to her,” I whispered. I didn’t trust myself to raise my voice. “Wait until her mom gets through these last treatments. Wait until she’s home at least, so you can talk to her in person.”
Michael studied the side of his shoe. Mud from his sprint to the porch had sullied his fresh white soles. He wiped them clean on the edge of the porch. “I think we need to end things now while we’re ahead. We had a good run, you know? We were good for each other for a while. Now we need to move on.”
He’d already made up his mind. And here he was, trying to use me to buffer the blow.
I stood so fast I hit my head on the wind chime dangling from the porch roof. He reached the door first, insisted on holding it open for me.
“Does that mean you won’t talk to her?”
“Tell her yourself,” I said, slamming the door in his face.
I considered calling Zoë, but decided against it. Michael was above all a fickle person. There was always the chance that he would change his mind. Secretly, though, I wished he would break up with her, so she could find a pleasant, intelligent man who deserved her.
To calm myself down, I made a cup of tea. I sat at the kitchen table, intent on organizing the week’s unopened mail. I saved the envelope postmarked from the Southwest Literary Review for last.
Dear Author:
THANK YOU for your submission to the Southwest Literary Review. We find, however, that your manuscript does not meet our current needs. We wish you the best of luck placing your work elsewhere.
Sincerely,
The Editors
I sat at the table, stewing in my irritation, staring until the tea went cold. The envelope included a brochure for an upcoming writers’ conference, Getting Published for the At Home Writer. It was a $700 overnight workshop.
I scribbled out the At Home Writer and then wrote Dummies in bold caps. I stared at the phrase.
I went to my bedroom, opened my laptop and typed:
GETTING PUBLISHED FOR DUMMIES
Writer’s Creed:
With my pen
(laptop, word processor, or otherwise)
I will pursue truth and beauty
for the improvement of my mind and the edification of
humanity.
If this results in personal fame and glory,
I am resigned.
Chapter One: The Inflatable Ego
So you want to navigate the slush pile (which in your mind resembles a very large pool of pink Icee)