Fresh
Listen to the author read “Fresh” at the launch party of The Blackstick Review in May 2017. Story begins at 1:48-
It was springtime in Connecticut, the flowers were blooming. The morning was crisp and quiet, and fresh dew covered the ground and hung in the air. The trees were still bare, but the rays of sun shining through their branches held the promise of new life.
Tom missed spring in Oregon. He missed the rain, the constant drizzle punctuated by the occasional thunderstorm, the overwhelming green of the landscape in contrast with the muddy puddles and blue-grey sky. Connecticut felt more serious, solemn- especially New Haven. Connecticut demanded a certain order of things, a preciseness that Oregon did not possess. Even the cows seemed more somber, grazing in their well-ordered pastures.
As Tom pulled into his parking spot at Yale for the last time, he reminded himself to notice. Leaving gave everything a new clarity. Each building loomed larger with a new sense of importance. The campus looked grand and Tom remembered the intimidation that had seized him on his first day in the program six years before. He let his fingers linger on doorknobs and trail across the brass banisters of Linsly-Chittenden Hall.
His bittersweet rapture was interrupted briefly as he slunk past Professor Sage’s office. The light appeared to be off, but Tom thought he heard the shuffling of papers inside, or perhaps the clearing of a throat. He could not risk being seen.
He rounded the corner into the English Department office, glancing at the row of nameless mailboxes that had belonged to his cohort. He placed his parking permit on the desk, and asked the assistant if anything had been in his mailbox when it had been cleared out. The young woman smiled at him. She was rather attractive, truly, but had never accepted Tom’s lack of interest. Or, perhaps, he only imagined that her smirks and chuckles were reserved for him, that her lips were especially cherry red on the days he happened to be lecturing. Maybe his ego needed that.
“Professor Hanson wanted me to make sure you got his latest notes on your draft, but other than that, no.”
Tom’s lips curled up as he attempted to hide his disappointment, but the corners of her eyes crinkled in a knowing way, and she said, “I’m sure Professor Sage would like to wish you good luck.”
Tom felt himself blush, mumbled an awkward goodbye, and vacated the building, stepping lightly the entire way.
*
It was January when Tom arrived, and snow covered every inch of the island. The small, round mountains blended into the grey sky, their tops speckled with windblown trees barely hanging on by their roots. If you were to climb to the top, you might discover small frozen pools and moss covered stones buried beneath the frozen white, but few people ventured to summit the peaks while the harsh winds were blowing. The park was closed at this time of year, anyway, and the town was quiet. Maine was asleep.
As Tom drove through Bar Harbor at 3am, his snow tires clutching desperately at the ice-packed pavement, he thought about Edward.
Edward was probably tucked away in his study, fireplace roaring, bundled in his red flannel robe under an expensive fleece throw. Tom had always teased him, saying his home felt more like a museum of artifacts from Nordstrom and Anthropologie, but he secretly relished the feeling of being surrounded by luxury, the heaviness of an immaculately soft blanket when he was feeling too light.
Edward was probably reading the New York Times or Tin House, or one of his leather bound first editions. He had an actual library with a special display case for these treasures, which he tracked down on eBay or found at estate sales in Connecticut or Rhode Island or Cambridge. Tom loved going to those melancholy events where the widows looked sad but the garage salers and the collectors couldn’t hide their giddiness.
Edward was probably not thinking of Tom.
Tom refocused himself on the task at hand: find Lopaus Point Road, bury himself in Maine, hibernate in the safe confines of a cabin in the white woods. But, he realized he had passed his turn long ago.
By the time he finally found the tiny log cabin, it was closer to 4am. He had to park at the end of the driveway because nothing had been plowed or shoveled all winter, and the snow was about three feet deep and encrusted with ice. Tom grabbed his bags, an old carpet bag full of clothes and a tan leather briefcase with his Macbook nestled amongst a mess of research notes. He left the box of books to survive the night in the truck. He struggled up the driveway, a slight incline about 300 meters long. By the time he made it to the front door, he felt numb with cold and barely managed to fish the key out from his back pocket with his gloveless hand.
The inside of the cabin was dark and dusty, but beneath the dust he could tell it had been warm and welcoming in the recent past. All of the furniture was upholstered with dark green fabric, the same shade as the trees outside, the dust simulating the effect of the snow, making everything appear muted. Every other surface was the same polished dark wood, it seemed to be one fluid piece of material. A few watercolors still hung on the wall, depictions of streams and waterfalls and birds swirling in a blue sky above the sea, the initials of Tom’s grandmother staining the corners.
The cabin consisted of one open room, a tiny bathroom in one corner, and a loft above the living area, which hid a double bed behind a slightly ragged green curtain at the top of a hand-carved ladder. Luckily, Tom had thought to bring a sleeping bag, and he unrolled it and stuffed it into the surprisingly cozy sleeping space.
He didn’t have the energy to light a fire or read or dust or do anything but change into a sweatsuit and climb into bed, but his brain wouldn’t slow down enough to sleep.
His thoughts turned to his research, his unfinished dissertation, his excuse for coming here. Edward’s face began to creep its way back into his mind but he closed his eyes and turned onto his stomach and tried to think about what he would write the next day. He remembered that first he would have to clean the place up, unpack his clothes, maybe buy some groceries.
In this moment the six months he had planned to live in the cabin stretched before him, as impenetrable as the expanse of icy ocean only a few miles away.
*
Tom had been living in Maine and failing to finish his dissertation for two months when he received the letter from Edward. When the uniformed and disgruntled-looking man at the post office handed it to him he was sure some kind of mistake had been made. But it was real.
He couldn’t open it. He stared at it for two hours in his favorite coffeeshop by the bay, the envelope pushed squarely into the corner of the table. Nothing- not his journal, his books, his laptop- could distract him from the painfully familiar, meticulously neat handwriting that spelled out his name and address in a manner that felt threateningly personal.
Tom decided to get roaring drunk.
When he came to, many hours later, he was standing on a beach, ankle-deep in the biting salt water, his feet buried in the sand, and a mostly empty bottle of red wine in his hand. He was still fairly intoxicated, his head was fuzzy from being so far from consciousness just moments before.
He noticed a familiar footpath leading to a nearby road and decided he must be on the beach in town where he sometimes went to people watch and think about nothing in particular but the beautiful arcs of the seabirds and the kiss of the ocean air. He suddenly felt incredibly empty and alone.
He stumbled out of the water and located his socks and shoes a few yards up the beach. He jammed the wine bottle into the sand and patted himself down, locating his phone, keys, and wallet in various coat and pants pockets. He dug the phone out, and a ripple of relief spread through him when he confirmed that he hadn’t made any calls or sent any messages.
Then he dialed a number.
The phone rang three times before a connection was made.
“Hello? Tom? It’s late, is everything okay?”
“Yeah, Joy, hi, sorry, can you talk?”
“Sure, just a second-” He could hear the distant but familiar sounds of his mother’s house as his sister padded across the wood floor in her bare feet and shut herself into one of the bedrooms.
“Okay, what’s up?”
“I just… I feel so alone here, ya know? I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore, I’ve barely worked on my dissertation and-” He couldn’t finish his sentence, he was already choking on sobs.
“Oh, Tom, we told you it would be hard. I warned you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, I know. I just had to get away, I couldn’t stay there anymore, not with him, not with the phone numbers scrawled on napkins left in his coat pockets or mysterious cigarette butts in ashtrays I didn’t even know he had or-”
“Woah, Tom, who are you even talking about?”
He was suddenly very aware of the fact that he had very purposefully not told his family about Edward. “I… I meant…”
“No, Tom, no more lies. I knew this whole thing was bullshit from the beginning, it isn’t like you to just quit. I can’t figure it out, unless there’s some kind of financial crisis or scandal or… Oh my god… What did you… Who did you…”
“Don’t tell mom and dad, okay?” He waited as she mumbled an agreement. “I had an affair. With my professor.” He heard her take a breath and closed his eyes and waited for her to yell, but nothing happened. “Joy?”
“I… What do I even say to that? Wow. Who, exactly?”
“Edward Sage.” The name felt dangerous on his lips. It hung in the air.
“Oh my gosh, the famous guy? How did you even…”
“Oh, thanks, sis.”
“Sorry, sorry, that’s not what I meant, I just- isn’t he, like, married?”
“No!”
“Well, that’s not an affair, but how did it happen?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know how to explain it. We met at an event the department put on and he said he’d read my thesis proposal and he liked it, he said he would give me some notes, if I wanted, and how could I say no to that? I knew who he was, and he knew I knew who he was, and he was so handsome, is so handsome. I could barely look him in the eye, he’s that attractive. He asked if I wanted to go for a drink, so of course I said yes, and one thing led to another and-”
“Wow.”
“I know. It went on for almost six months. Five months and seventeen days, to be exact.”
“Wow…”
“I know! And then he just… stopped. Didn’t call. Didn’t text. Didn’t email. Nothing. And I… I was in love with him, Joy, I was. I’ve never been with anyone like that, you know? I was in love with him, and I think he knew it. And I could see traces of other people all over his house and all over him, but I knew I couldn’t not talk to him, couldn’t not see him. So, I left. I left, and now I’m just another failed academic asshole. And I’m alone. I’m just a coward disguised as an intellectual.”
His sister tried to comfort him, but he couldn’t hear her. All he could hear was the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, the wind blowing against the bare branches of the trees, blending with the hum of I failed and he’ll never love me, that ran through his head. I failed, I failed, I failed…
*
On April 17th, Tom awoke to the peaceful song of a spring morning. He listened to the birds chirping, felt the invigorating combination of warm sunshine and cool spring air on his face. He propped himself up on his side and stared out the window at the wildflowers in the backyard, their petals just beginning to unfold. He suddenly knew what he had to do.
An hour later he was standing on one of the more secluded beaches around the harbor, with Edward’s letter in his hands. He stared at his name for a few moments, then he closed his eyes, listened to the gentle waves of low tide brushing the sand at his feet. He took a deep breath and reached into the pocket of his windbreaker. He tilted his head back, exhaled, opened his eyes to take in the sunlight, and flicked his lighter. It only took a few moments for the envelope and its contents to turn into dust.
As Edward drove back to his cabin he felt a new lightness, but not like the emptiness he had felt for so long. He felt calm and somehow new.
When he sat down at his desk, it wasn’t his dissertation he opened, but a fresh document, a blank page. He spent the rest of that day writing.
A week later, Tom had written almost 200 pages of a novel.
*
As the dark clouds of a thunderstorm spread across the sky above Bar Harbor, Tom browsed hopelessly in one of the less touristy used book stores, hidden down a sidestreet in the basement below a lesser-known dive bar.
He was checking out the collection of $1 overflow “classics” when something outside caught his eye. It took him a moment to realize that it was the familiar dark blue of a flawlessly tailored suit he had recognized. Edward was peering through the window at him and smiling. Tom froze.
The instant their eyes met, rain began to pour from the sky. Edward laughed and came strolling through the door, casual as ever, over to Tom’s side and put an arm around his shoulders.
“Tom.”
“Edward… How did you…Why…?”
“I got your address from the secretary. I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find you, it’s a small town, and you’re predictable.” He smiled, gestured to the books behind them. Tom didn’t know what to say. Edward sighed and said, his voice lowered, “You never answered my letter. I just had to know, I had to see you.”
Tom knew he was speaking, but he couldn’t hear any of his own words. They fell freely from his lips, but his mind was blank. He couldn’t take his eyes off Edward’s hand on his shoulder, Edward’s hand sliding slowly down to grasp his own, Edward’s hand guiding him out the door. He found himself in the passenger’s seat of Edward’s car with a sensation in his stomach like dropping stones into still water.
As Tom packed his belongings, his fingers lingering over his laptop before slipping it into his briefcase, he stopped to look at the wildflowers one last time. As he listened to the rain pelting the tin roof of the cabin and watched it shake the delicate petals of the flowers, he knew that he would never finish his novel. Tom knew in that moment that Edward would take him back to Connecticut, they would make love as twilight crept in over the treetops, and Tom would spend another sleepless night listening to Edward’s breathing.
As he shut the door behind him, the rain began to let up, and the spring sun crept slowly out from behind the clouds. Tom could tell the reprieve wouldn’t last long.
Hallie Twiss is a writer of short fiction with an interest in critical theory. She is from Washington State and transferred to Mount Holyoke College in 2015. She will be graduating in May 2017 with a BA in English. Her favorite authors include Daniel Handler, Ernest Hemingway, and Kathy Acker.