If I Forget You(19)

He muddles through his two workshops. Even Ricky, a young black poet from Queens who reminds Henry of a young Henry, all raw talent and earnestness, cannot fully get his attention. But when you have been teaching for as long as he has, you become skilled at fudging it, knowing when you need to tune in, what comments you can use to swiftly redirect a debate that has gotten stale or, more damaging to the psyche of the young writer, personal.

In the weeks since he saw Margot outside the Time Warner Center, it is as if he has been in a state of suspended animation. Henry goes through the motions of the day, and that afternoon, riding the crowded subway uptown, he sees a woman in profile in the reflection of the glass, and he turns, half expecting it to be her. And, of course, it is not. But seeing her opens the possibility for him that it will happen again, and at the very moment he least expects it. He moves through the world both heightened and aware and also resigned to the fact that it was pure chance, a moment in time certain not to repeat.

Back in his building, Henry waits for the elevator, and when it opens, his neighbor Russell Hurley is there in his workout clothes, riding up from the basement. Russell recently remarried, a woman named Betsy, though for a time the two of them were the token bachelors in the building and struck up a friendship. Russell works in the DA’s office, and once in a while they used to get together for a beer and watch a game. Now Henry barely sees him anymore.

Russell is an ex-jock as well, a college basketball star, and stands half a foot taller than Henry. In the elevator, Russell greets him enthusiastically, and Henry is immediately reminded of how long it is has been since he has worked out, since he has broken a sweat, and for a minute he feels the guilt of his inactivity.

“Hey, man,” Russell says. “How have you been?”

“Crazy busy,” Henry says, though this is not really true.

“I know it,” Russell says.

For a moment, they stand in silence as the elevator ticks upward slowly. Russell breaks the silence by saying, “Hey, what are you doing now? Come over for a beer. Betsy brought this stuff back from Vermont. Heady something. I guess it’s a big deal in the beer world.”

It is the last thing Henry wants to do after today. Mostly, he wants to be alone with his thoughts, perhaps stare out the window and maybe, for the first time in months, put pen to paper. He wants to start a poem. Not finish one, because that would be too much to ask. But to write again, that he can imagine, that feeling of the blood coursing through his veins.

But Henry has always had a hard time saying no, and today is no different, so he finds himself telling Russell that would be great, let him just drop his bag off and he’ll be right over.

“Perfect,” says Russell.

And in the hallway, they split up, and in his apartment Henry hangs his messenger bag on one of the kitchen chairs and then is back out into the hallway when he hears the buzzer. Henry stops. It goes off again. He considers turning around and going in to answer it but then decides it couldn’t be his place; he never gets any visitors and he is not expecting a package. No, he thinks, hearing it again, it must be coming from 14A, where Mrs. Goldstein lives. Henry continues down the narrow hallway to Russell’s and leaves the incessant ringing behind.





Margot, 1991

“He’s adorable,” Margot whispers to Cricket in the large auditorium. They are required to be there, an elective both of them are taking on American literature, one of those survey classes with a famously easy professor. If they went to the reading, he would eliminate one paper.

“Who?” Cricket whispers back.

“The poet boy, look at him.”

“I think you’re losing it.”

“He’s adorable,” Margot says. “The accent. Those eyes. And the words. Listen to the words.”

“You’re really losing it,” Cricket says.

Outside, the spring night is warm and the sun has set over the low hills, but traces of it, long, slender ribbons of purple and red, are visible above the trees. They wait for him. Students stream out of the theater and walk past the two of them, and when the building is almost empty, there is Henry by himself, walking out and staring around as if it is odd to be outside.

Margot stands back while Cricket approaches him. She witnesses their conversation, sees Henry look up in her direction, and she tries to read his expression. Is it fear? Shyness? Is it a lack of interest?

A moment later, he makes the short walk with Cricket over to where she stands.

“Hi,” Margot says.

“Hello,” he says, and it is almost as if he cannot look at her, his dark eyes glancing at her face before moving away. Margot finds it rather endearing.

“I loved your reading,” she says, and it’s true, she did; it moved her, his words, and it is because she had never heard anyone be so honest about anything before. She had never heard a man talk about women that way. She had never heard a man confess to a profound love and, at the same time, deep embarrassment in the presence of his own mother. It seems to Margot that, when reading, Henry was all exposed heart, and listening through the veil of his thick accent and the rise and tumble of his incantatory language, she felt like he was speaking directly to her.

“Thank you,” Henry says. Then, “I was nervous.”

“It didn’t show.”

“No? I was shitting bricks. Excuse me, I didn’t mean to say that.”