Faking It (18 page)

"If I have to see the fucking
Nutcracker
one more time, I swear I'm gonna have a seizure." He didn't even say hello.

"Could be worse," I said groggily. "Could be the
Magnificent Christmas Spectacular
at RadioCity. Real life camels taking a dump on stage, fortunately
after
the Rockettes do their wooden solider routine. Or maybe unfortunately, if you're not a fan of the Rockettes."

He cracked up. "You always make me feel better."

"Good. Now let me get some sleep."

My datebook wasn't exactly blank, either. I attended party after party, went Christmas shopping, caught a show with Maggie and Jayce, and even went on a date with a guy I met at a Christmas cocktail party for writing program directors in Port Washington, hosted by Westford-Langley publishers. Carol had introduced me to him. Seemed okay at the time. Nice. Friendly. Salt and pepper hair. Brown eyes. Five o'clock shadow. Bit of a pudge. His name was Bob.

We went out for dinner the next night at The Cheesecake Factory in Garden City. His choice.

Bob directed the writing program at Long IslandCommunity College. Bob wore a tie with cartoon Santas on them, and confessed that his boxer shorts matched. Bob drank Bacardi with a twist, and asked me if I was a friend of Bill W. when I told him I didn't drink. Bob had two Bacardi's with a twist before dinner and a brandy after dinner. Bob had a PhD in literature and thus re-instilled literature in the writing curriculum at LICC. "They'll never pick up another book again otherwise," said Bob. "Why, what do you teach at Brooklyn U?"

"Oh, we've adapted more of a hybrid of public and personal writing with an emphasis on rhetoric, and portfolio assessment."

Bob shook his head as he finished his brandy. "Portfolios--too much work."

I nodded, my lips pressed together. Then I excused myself to go to the ladies' room and called Maggie.

"Get me the hell out of here."

When I got back to the table, Bob looked at the dessert menu. "By the way, are we going dutch on this?" he asked.

My cellphone rang; it was Maggie conjuring a fake emergency of being stranded in her car on the VerrazanoBridge--she even acted it out by calling me outside on

Flatbush Avenue

in case Bob could hear her and the traffic over the phone. Still, he looked at me, and the phone, suspiciously.

"Sorry," I said, picking up my coat. "I've gotta go. Thanks, though. Merry Christmas." Fortunately, I'd driven myself there.

"No dessert? I thought you said you loved cheesecake."

"Once you've had Junior's, everything else pretty much tastes ordinary."

I stuck Bob with the check and left, not before I cornered the server and told him to delay giving Bob the check as long as possible so he wouldn't drive drunk.

It was the first real date I'd been on since Andrew and I broke up. How sad.

Devin gave himself Christmas Eve off, and he and I exchanged gifts before going our separate ways to our respective families' homes on the Island. I gave him a journal from the MOMA gift store, with a leather spine, Matisse reproduction on the cover, and a matching Cross pen. "I thought of you when I saw it," I said of the journal, afraid he'd think it was one step above a kitten calendar. He was visibly and genuinely moved, however.

"I love it," he said. "Thank you." He kissed me on the cheek.

He gave me an elegant mahogany statue of a woman, her voluptuous body sensually posed. Its box had a gold seal on top, marking the name of one of the many galleries we'd visited. "It's a one-of-a-kind piece," he said. "Made me think of you."

I drew in a breath and could barely get the words 'thank you' out. My heart felt as heavy as a rock. I had resigned myself some time ago to the fact that we were never going to be anything more than friends, and had given up on the idea of telling him how I really felt about him. What was the point? If he'd felt otherwise, he would've told me and we'd be ending our get-togethers by going to bed rather than getting on the train. Besides, I figured he'd always known I was in love with him. It was the one thing I couldn't fake, no matter how hard I tried.

But it didn't ease the disappointment, especially as I held that delicate statue in my hands.

We parted company with an extended embrace.

***

I shivered as I walked for almost ten blocks before finally hailing a cab successfully.

Once at the hotel, I attended my interviews in the morning and presented my paper in the afternoon following lunch with Jayce (we were both so nervous that we could barely swallow a few spoonfuls of soup). Both the interviews and my presentation went well, even when one of my pages slid off the podium and floated like a carefree leaf onto the floor. I improvised for a bit, leaving the fallen page where it landed, and picked up at the next page without missing a beat.

Cocktail parties hosted by textbooks companies abounded for the duration of the conference, and I was certain Devin would appear at any one of them as Allison's or someone else's escort. I should've been to as many of these events as possible to network and plug our forthcoming book, but I steered clear, even when Maggie called me from one and said that she ran into Devin and he seemed to be looking for me. I could no longer stomach seeing him with other women--especially women I knew--imagining him running his hands up and down their thighs or their backs or feeding them strawberries and champagne or bringing them to dizzying heights of ecstasy.
Kissing
them. And I noticed that he'd all but stopped talking to me about work, especially since my meltdown at Heartland Brewery months ago.

On the last day of the conference, as Maggie and I checked out the schedule, my mouth dropped open when I saw one of the eleven o'clock sessions: "Unplugged: Folk Tales and the Composition Classroom," to be presented by Andrew and Tanya Clark. Bride and groom. I nudged Maggie and pointed to the program.

"Folk Boy's at it again, and he's doing a duet now."

"You should go!" Maggie said.

I looked at her incredulously.

"No, really! You look so good, and he'll see that you've moved on."

A series of five-second fantasies sequenced through my mind: me showing up in a low-cut red dress and stiletto heels, sitting smack in the middle of the room and sucking on a watermelon-flavored Jolly Rancher, driving him to distraction; me standing in the back of the room and heckling him by holding up and waving a Bic lighter, yelling
Freebird!
; me sneaking into the room beforehand and fudging with the Power Point equipment; me asking him a question that's sure to stump him:
Aren't you pigeon-holing students to a limited genre of writing that doesn't lend itself to a more traditional curriculum?
A bullshit question, but sure to stump him.

I opted to go to a different session.

It was called "Homeward Bound: A Return to the Expressivists in the 21
^st
Century," and one of the panel speakers was Sam Vanzant, a professor at Edmund College in Amherst, not far from Northampton University, one of the three places for which I'd just interviewed. I'd read (and liked) several of his articles in
The Journal of College Writing
when I was still a PhD student, but never saw him in person. When he stepped up to the podium, I recognized him as one who attended my session two days ago.

I'd had difficulty focusing my attention during the first two speakers before him, still hyper-aware that Andrew--or Tanya--was speaking in an adjacent room. Dr. Vanzant, however, reeled me in and made me forget about Andrew altogether. He was extremely handsome: high, defined cheekbones, deep blue eyes, short, tapered haircut, and tall frame. Very Rob Lowe. I couldn't be sure, but I thought he smiled whenever he looked in my direction. And he seemed to be looking in my direction quite a bit.

During the Q&A, an attendee asked about pliability in the classroom using the modes of discourse (which sounded a lot like my fantasy bullshit question to Andrew). I was busy scribbling notes on my pad,
again with the fucking modes
being one of them.

"Actually, I think Doctor Cutrone can answer that question, since she delivered a paper this week about rhetoric and the personal essay," he said.

He gestured towards me, and all heads turned to meet my deer-in-the-headlights expression. I dropped my pen, which made an amplified clacking dance on the hardwood floor (the only one not carpeted, of course), only to be followed by the thumping and swishing sounds of my water bottle (closed, thank God) when I knocked it over in an attempt to retrieve the pen. Maggie was next to me, beaming, and chimed, "Yeah, Andi, tell 'em!"

"Well, for starters..." I stalled, then drew in a breath. "My paper was about social rhetorical response...but I suppose the answer to the question is that it's
not
pliable."

"What do you mean,
it's not pliable
?" the attendee sounded annoyed. Clearly that wasn't the answer she wanted.

"You're using Bill Gates' thinking: he has been trying to accommodate 'legacy software'..." I gestured quote marks with my fingers, "...because almost everyone has been using the same Windows applications for years, so he thinks he's got to do it to please them. Why not say: 'screw everybody--we're starting over'? The only reason why we're still talking about the modes and still trying to accommodate them to--or with--new technology, or theory, in this case, is because that's what we think we're
supposed
to do. I mean, who's behind it? The department chair who doesn't like change? The adjunct who's been teaching for twenty years and hasn't opened a journal, or the TA who's been thrown into the classroom with a syllabus and little else? The textbook company who wants to push its classical rhetoric in its eightieth edition because it's their number-one moneymaker? It's ridiculous, and it's futile."

A crossfire of debate that lasted a good fifteen minutes erupted between the panelists who proclaimed to have a more pliable answer to the issue of pliability, and the staunch modes supporters who attacked my attack of its credibility. I also heard hushed bickering between Macintosh loyalists and Windows traditionalists. While all this happened around me, I sunk in my seat, looked down, and said nothing more. Meanwhile, Sam Vanzant sat quietly and watched the rhetorical tennis match with childlike amusement. To my relief, the facilitator announced that the session had run overtime.

As the attendees filed out, some glared at me, while others shook my hand and said they wished they'd seen my session. Maggie took advantage of the opportunity to plug our textbook. I clumsily collected my stuff: notepad, handouts, program, water bottle, shoulder bag--while participants stayed behind to bend the panelists' ears further, much to their dismay. I saw Dr. Vanzant look past them at me; in response, I raised my eyebrows at him and finally got my coat on. Just as I was about to turn to leave, he excused himself and called out to me.

"Doctor Cutrone?"

"Andrea," I replied. He extended his hand and informally introduced himself as Sam.

"I hope you're not angry with me for putting you on the spot."

"Next time, set it to
kill
, not stun."

He laughed. "Actually, I just wanted to get your attention. Besides, the Q and A was getting kind of typical, don't you think? I mean, please: the
modes
?"

His eyes were alive and round and deep blue with long lashes. Didn't he know he already had my attention?

"I remember seeing you at my session," I said.

"I was sitting in the back, behind the woman in the navy blue suit."

"They all wear navy blue suits."

"This one was kind of tall and had a mole on her neck shaped like Abe Lincoln."

I gestured with an "ah" in response, along with a laugh, and then stood for a moment of mutual grinning. I liked this guy.

"Would you like to get a drink?" he asked.

I turned to Maggie, who was standing at the doorway, wide-eyed with a toothy grin, nodding her head, then turned back to Sam.

"Okay."

***

The hotel lounge was packed with conference attendees. Conversations about post-modern critical literary theory, community service learning, multicultural-feminist texts, electronic portfolios, wikis, blogging, and a heated argument about whether to save literature in the first-year curriculum wafted through the air, the pretension so thick it practically formed a smog. Sam, Maggie, Ron (a doctoral student from Harvard that Maggie picked up at one of the sessions), and I crammed around a table in the far corner of the lounge. I kept an eye out for Devin, but soon lost myself in Sam's company. He was quite complimentary--of my presentation, my style, my appearance--and I enjoyed talking to someone other than Maggie who shared my teaching philosophy and values and humor. Like me, he was a Beatles fan, and even showed
Let it Be
to his creative nonfiction classes.

While Sam went to the bar to refill my ginger ale, I went to the ladies room. Pushing my way and leaning in towards the mirror, I powdered my nose and re-applied my lipstick. I'd dressed casually for the day's sessions: dark, boot-cut jeans; black, leather ankle boots; and a wine-colored, v-neck angora sweater that fell to the waist and flared at the sleeves. My hair had grown down to my shoulders in wispy layers. Sam said it was refreshing to see someone dressed so casually for a change.

Now what are you smiling at?

Making my way through the crowd back to the table, I bumped into several people, one of whom stopped me before I could focus.

"Cutch!"

I looked at him, startled.

Andrew.

"God, you look great," he said, eyeing me up and down.

My mouth drained of all moisture in a matter of seconds.

"Thanks."

He grew a beard.

"You lost weight."

I nodded.

"Diet?" he asked.

"Breast enlargement."

He switched his gaze to my chest for a few seconds, then back to my face, confused.

"So, how did your presentation go?" I asked.