Pug Hill - Alison Pace [91]
Unfortunately, she also seems to lose her prior mastery over the fast forward and rewind buttons and keeps going forward too far, and then back too far, and then eventually just rewinds it to the beginning of my poem, and we start watching from there. I focus all of my attention on the surface of my chair-desk; I don’t look up at all, but I still hear that croak that came out instead of “corner.” I don’t look up until the part after Beth Anne and I left, until the part that I remember as not being so bad. And really, it’s actually not so bad, except that those light blue corduroys I love so much and wear all the time, actually make my thighs look gargantuan. It is only in hindsight that I am able to see that pairing those light blue corduroys with a light purple sweater, something that at the time I remember thinking was an excellent idea, was clearly a mistake.
“Class,” Beth Anne says, right at the end, “it has been my pleasure working with each of you. I hope this class has helped each of you.”
One by one, everyone thanks her warmly and though I want to jump up from my chair-desk and envelop her tiny caftan-covered body in a bear hug, I satisfy myself with just saying, “Thank you,” again, so that I’ve thanked her twice. I hope she knows that’s just another way of saying, “I really can’t thank you enough.”
“One last drink?” Alec says as we all stand at the elevator, and I’m struck that it’s sad, that this is the last time we’ll all be together. Everyone agrees, even Rachel, who looks over her shoulder and then looks up at Alec and says, “I would like that. Thank you.” The six of us pile into the elevator, head over to Cedar Tavern and then up to our big table in the back.
We sit with our drinks and everyone even stays for a second round. We reflect back on the class, and it’s surprisingly unanimous, even Amy has some positive things to say. Everyone agrees that they have learned something.
I look around the circular table: Amy scowls across the table at Alec, and Alec winks at the waitress; Lawrence primps a little bit, his eyes dart everywhere; Rachel stares freakishly into space and doesn’t say very much; Lindsay sits up straighter than she used to, I think how we all do.
I remember that when the class first started I was wondering if in it I’d find out the secret of how to be normal, if some secret answer would at last be revealed to me. I think how long it’s been that I’ve been wondering where my normal is.
“Oh, before we go I want to tell you a really funny story,” Lawrence says. And I think that, in a way, that’s all that public speaking is: it’s just standing up and telling people your stories. And maybe the trick in life is just finding the people you want to tell your stories to? And finding people who want to listen to your stories, and tell you theirs, too?
“Ha!” I hear around the table, and “Ha,” again. As Lawrence finishes his story, Amy spits bourbon out across the table because she’s laughing so hard. “Sorry about that,” she says, and everyone’s laughing, even Rachel. No one can stop laughing, and then neither can I. I think, through all the laughter, that in addition to finding people who will listen to your stories, and who will tell you theirs, the gravy in all of that, the cherry on the ice cream, is that some of those people will make you laugh, too.
I take a sip of my white wine spritzer, look around one last time at our peculiar little group. A frustrated novelist, a rather poetic real estate broker, an accountant who lost mastery of her e-mail program at a most crucial time, a well-dressed attorney, a paintings restorer, and Rachel (to tell you the truth I’ve forgotten what her job is). I wonder if maybe this is my normal, and if it is, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing at all.
Out on the corner of University Place and Tenth Street, we all say good-bye to each other, and taxis pull up and take people away, one by one. The good-byes are quick, as if we’ll all meet again next week. Mentions of getting together soon are thrown around, but I don’t think we