The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry(42)

Love,

Dad

She stuffs the list in her pocket and walks downstairs, where the store is closed for the night. She spins the bookmark carousel—Why, hello there, carousel!—and makes a sharp right turn into Adult Fiction.

MAYA IS NERVOUS and a little excited when she hands the story to Mr. Balboni.

“ ‘A Trip to the Beach,’ ” he says, reading the title.

“It’s from the point of view of sand,” Maya says. “It’s winter on Alice, and the sand misses the tourists.”

Mr. Balboni shifts, and his tight, black leather pants squeak. He encourages them to emphasize the positive while at the same time reading with a critical and ideally informed eye. “Well, that sounds like it has evocative description already.”

“I’m kidding, Mr. Balboni. I’m trying to move away from anthropomorphizing.”

“I’ll look forward to reading it,” Mr. Balboni says.

The next week, Mr. Balboni announces that he’s going to read a story aloud, and everyone sits up a little straighter. It is exciting to be chosen even if it means being criticized. It is exciting to be criticized.

“What do we think?” he asks the class when he’s finished.

“Well,” Sarah Pipp says, “no offense, but the dialogue is kind of bad. Like, I get what the person is going for, but why doesn’t the writer use contractions more?” Sarah Pipp reviews books for her blog, The Paisley Unicorn Book Review. She is always bragging about the free books she gets from publishers. “And why third person? Why present tense? It makes the writing seem childish to me.”

Billy Lieberman, who writes about wronged boy heroes who overcome supernatural and parental obstacles, says, “I don’t even get what’s supposed to have happened at the end? It’s confusing.”

“I think it’s ambiguous,” Mr. Balboni says. “Remember last week when we talked about ambiguity?”

Maggie Markakis, who is only in this elective because of a scheduling conflict involving math and debate, says she likes it, though she notes discrepancies in the financial elements of the stories.

Abner Shochet objects on multiple fronts: he doesn’t like stories in which characters lie (“I am so done with unreliable narrators”—the concept had been introduced to them two weeks ago), and worse, he thinks nothing happens. This doesn’t hurt Maya’s feelings because all of Abner’s stories end with the same twist: that everything had been a dream.

“Is there anything we liked about it?” Mr. Balboni asks.

“The grammar,” Sarah Pipp says.

John Furness says, “I liked how sad it was.” John has long brown eyelashes and a pop idol pompadour. He wrote a story about his grandmother’s hands that moved even hard-hearted Sarah Pipp to tears.

“Me too,” Mr. Balboni says. “As a reader, I responded to many of the things that you all objected to. I liked the somewhat formal style and the ambiguity. I disagree with the comment about the ‘unreliable narrators’—we may have to go over this concept again. I don’t believe the financial elements were handled badly either. All things considered, I think this, along with John’s story, ‘My Grandmother’s Hands,’ are the two best stories from class this semester, and they will be the Alicetown High School entries to the county story contest.”

Abner groans. “You didn’t say who wrote the other one.”

“Right, of course. It’s Maya. Round of applause for John and Maya.”

Maya tries not to look too pleased with herself.

“THAT’S AMAZING, RIGHT? Mr. Balboni picking us,” John says after class. He is following her to her locker, though Maya cannot say why.

“Yeah,” says Maya. “I liked your story.” She had liked his story, but she really wants to win. First prize is a $150 gift certificate to Amazon and a trophy.

“What would you buy if you won?” John asks.

“Not books. I have those from my dad.”

“You’re lucky,” John says. “I wish I lived in the bookstore.”

“I live above it, not in it, and it’s not that great.”

“I bet it is.”

He sweeps his brown hair out of his eyes. “My mom wants to know if you want to carpool to the ceremony.”

“But we just found out today,” Maya says.

“I know my mom. She always likes to carpool. Ask your dad.”

“The thing is, my dad will want to go, and he doesn’t drive. So probably, Dad’ll get my godmother or my godfather to drive us. And your mom will want to go, too. So I’m not sure if carpooling makes sense.” She feels like she’s been talking for about a half hour.

He smiles at her, which makes his pompadour bounce a little. “No problem. Maybe we could drive you somewhere else sometime?”

THE AWARD CEREMONY is held at a high school in Hyannis. Though it’s just a gymnasium (the scent of balls of both varieties is still palpable) and the ceremony hasn’t started yet, everyone speaks in hushed tones, like it’s church. Something important and literary is about to happen here.

Of the forty entries from the twenty high schools, only the top three stories will be read aloud. Maya has practiced reading her story for John Furness. He recommended that she breathe more and slow down. She has been practicing breathing and reading, which are not as easy to do as one might think. She had listened to him read, too. Her advice to him was to use his normal voice. He had been doing this fake-y, newscaster thing. “You know you love it,” he had said. Now he talks to her in the fake voice all the time. It’s so annoying.