Driving through the small town nearby on my way up, I was looking forward to this. I expected the workshop would consist of valuable mentorship, the opportunity to work in the quiet outside the city—two weeks of solitude. Instead, it’s only been hours of rushed introductions, hearing dozens of my fellow writers pitch me their novels, and finally, icebreakers. I’ve heard where everyone’s from, heard strings of higher education acronyms so numerous they sound like code. We’ve shared our desert-island poems. We’ve grouped up in fours and found out what we have in common—we’re all writers. It was torture until I heard we’d be reading our work out loud. Now I’d prefer coming up with goofy pneumonic devices to remember everyone’s name.
The one person I met this morning who seemed interesting, and who didn’t promptly pitch me the next Great American Novel, isn’t here. Harriet Soong is probably doing something useful instead of wasting her afternoon listening to moody excerpts poorly read.
Frankly, I’m not interested in making friends here. I have friends. Better, I have a fiancée—the luster of this thought hasn’t faded in the three months since I proposed to Melissa. The reason I’m here is that simply nothing I’m writing is coming out the way I want it. I’m missing something. I’ve chosen this workshop because Carter Gilroy, New York Times bestseller turned New York Times critic, is teaching. It’s Carter’s feedback I want, not critiques from twenty MFA students. I’ll suffer trading pages—I know I’ll have to—but I draw the line at reading for everyone.
No one would notice if I left now, would they? I could head up to my room, get some writing done while my stuffy roommate overdramatizes his prose for the group. Extricating myself from the couch, I walk swiftly for the door, trying to project the impression I have a good reason for doing so.
A woman standing in the entryway stops me. “Are you leaving, or just going to the bathroom?” she asks.
I vaguely recognize her, though she wasn’t in my icebreaker group this morning. She doesn’t have the academic airs of many of the people here, myself included, with my stiff oxford shirt and leather loafers. The woman’s plaid flannel is untucked from her jeans. She watches me with dark, intensely inquisitive eyes, curls of brown hair falling free from her loose bun. “Sorry,” I say, realizing I missed her question. “What?”
“Your seat. Are you giving it up?” She nods slightly into the room.
I glance behind me, noticing every couch in the small space is occupied. “Oh, right. No, you can have it,” I say. There are a couple other people standing in the back. The layout of the house this program runs out of is claustrophobic. It was once a private home, and alongside the antique furniture and old-money decoration, it has the cramped proportions of historic dwellings.
The woman doesn’t move for the seat. “So you’re bailing, then?”
“Um,” I say, surprised by the directness of her question. I immediately resent the nothingness of my reply. I’m better in writing, which this girl, the entire workshop, will soon learn. Just not now, at a public reading.
She cocks her head, something simultaneously vivid and delicate in her expression. “Look, I don’t want to take your seat if you’re just going to pee or whatever. I can stand. Don’t sacrifice your couch for some girl you don’t even know,” she says, the edges of her mouth curling up.
I laugh, which coaxes the girl’s smile wider. “I’m bailing,” I confirm.
She brightens. “Excellent. I really didn’t want to stand. These readings can go on forever.”
“Hence my bailing.” I start to slip past her out of the room.
Her voice stops me. “You’re not curious?”
I pause, curious, just not in the way she means. “Now you’re trying to get me to stay? Pick a theme—” I leave off the sentence, realizing I don’t know her name.
She sticks out her hand. It’s delicate, her nails unpainted. “Katrina Freeling,” she introduces herself.
“Nathan Van Huysen,” I supply, taking her hand. Her fingers grasp mine with brisk firmness. Not every handshake is indicative of the person, but this one, I think, is. It’s just like the portrait of this girl I’ve sketched in the past thirty seconds. Everything with her is intentional, thought-out, direct.
“I’m not trying to convince you. The couch is legally mine now,” she informs me. I have not stopped smiling for several moments now, I note. She goes on. “I just wonder why you’d come to a writers’ workshop to hide in your room.”
“I’m not hiding. I’ll be writing,” I clarify. “Which, if I’m not mistaken, is what you’re supposed to do at a writers’ workshop.”
“Writing what?”
I blink, once more struck by her directness. There’s no prejudgment in Katrina Freeling’s expression, no competitiveness like I’ve seen in many of my peers today. She’s just interested. “You haven’t heard enough pitches today?” I press her lightly.
“I guess not,” she replies, her eyes sparkling. “What’s your book?” she asks. It’s familiar shorthand, the favorite question of publishing people. The business card of this world.
“Nothing yet,” I confess. “Just thoughts, feelings. I’m hoping to find a story here.”
“Ah.” Her voice is playfully pitying, yet I know she means no offense.
“Ah what?” I narrow my eyes, still smiling.
“You don’t have something good enough to read out loud.”
“Yes, I do!” I laugh. I feel it’s important she knows this.
She puts one finger to her chin, faux-contemplative. “If only there was a forum in which you could prove such a statement . . .” Mischief catches her grin. I recognize her joke for what it is. She’s daring me to stay. In response, I cross my arms over my chest, pause, then look past her into the room.
“Someone’s taking your seat,” I inform her. “You better go explain your— What was it? Legal entitlement to the sofa.”
She looks over her shoulder, where one of the guys from the back of the room is settling onto the couch. Her eyes returning to me, she shrugs. “Oh well. Guess I’ll stand.” One of her full eyebrows raises lightly. “You better get out quickly, though, before they start.”
I see one of the fellows step up to the front of the room. Katrina’s right. I don’t have long. “What are you going to read?” I find myself asking.
She smirks. “Nathan, if you’re curious, you’ll just have to stay.”
I scoff in the same unserious way she looked pitying of me earlier. “You overestimate my curiosity.”