Pug Hill - Alison Pace [80]
“Dude, if it gets me out of the moment, if it’s the way I interpreted the assignment, what’s your damage?”
“How could you?” Lawrence hisses. He turns and storms back to his seat.
“Yes, Lawrence, class, I think Alec is right. I think if this is how he interpreted the assignment, then it’s okay. What’s important is that Alec is delivering a wonderful speech. Let’s let him finish.” She smiles at Alec and returns to her seat.
Lawrence lays his head down on his desk and covers his ears with his hands. The rest of us listen to Alec’s speech, all the way to the end where he runs into Katie, years later in front of the Plaza Hotel, and she says to him, “Your girl is lovely, Alec.”
“Great job, Alec,” Beth Anne tells him. “What was your anxiety level?”
“About a four,” he tells her. “I’d say, really not so bad.” “Marvelous, just marvelous! Now, Rachel, would you like to try again?”
“No! I cannot!” she blurts out, stealing a glimpse over her shoulder as she does.
“Okay, Amy,” Beth Anne says instead. Amy stands up, smirks, and replies, “Hey, Hubble, want to be my partner?” and cracks herself up, all the way out the door.
Amy stands up very straight in front of the room. She takes a deep breath in and lets it out. It is the first time I have ever heard an exhale from her that is not solely for the purpose of hostile emphasis. She crosses her arms in front of her, which probably isn’t the best thing in terms of proper public speaking posture.
She uncrosses her arms and begins speaking, “There was some guy. Some guy named Matt. We went on one date. We had some things in common.” She pauses and looks down at the floor. I wonder if she is going to the bad place. She regroups, looks back up. I study her for further signs of failure. I’m awful like that, I know. She takes another breath.
“Among them: we both grew up in a suburb of Chicago, we both used Macs, we both liked the Book Review and the Travel section of the Sunday New York Times best. We met for a drink.” She uncrosses her arms, she continues. “We sat at the bar, me with a bourbon, he with a Tom Collins. He quoted a line for me from the very book I was reading at the time. He thought it was the best book he’d read recently, too. I forgave him the Tom Collins. He thought I was pretty. He thought I was smart.
Or at least he made the effort to say he did. He was polite; he was well-read. He said during dinner how much he wanted to see me again. We made plans for that Friday, even before the first date was done. When I offered to split the check with him he told me he made egregious amounts of money.” Amy pauses for a moment, looks over at Beth Anne, who smiles at her encouragingly, and continues.
“Egregious. He said it a second time just to make sure I had heard him. And he might as well have walked me out into the street right then and hailed a taxi. He might as well have just put me right in the back by myself and walked on over to the driver’s side window. He might as well have leaned in, given the driver some of that egregious fortune and said to him, ” ‘Take her, will you, to that place she has gone so many, many, many times before.’ ” But really he didn’t have to bother, he had already taken me there himself. There I was with my big, big suitcase in hand at the Place Where I’m Sure There Won’t Be Any More Dates.”
Amy, I think, is very good at this. She is speaking so well, so smoothly, so confidently. She’s very theatrical, very animated. So much more animated than I have ever seen her before, and though she seems a bit hostile to her subject matter she seems so much less hostile to all of us in the room. And more than that, as she stands up there straighter and straighter, intermittently, she takes deep breaths, and pauses to make eye contact around the room. I’m able to stop looking at her as just someone who’s practicing a speech, I’m able to stop looking for where she’s falling short. I’m able to stop looking for nervous ticks to reveal themselves, stop waiting for telltale signs of