My Dark Vanessa(98)

Obviously I’m getting ahead of myself, but I also know what I am, what I could become.





At my poetry press internship, we prepare for the arrival of a prominent poet who is coming to town for his book release. Jim, the other intern, and I spend two weeks designing press materials, showing the press materials to our boss and the assistant director of the press, then redesigning, and redesigning again. When asked if I want to drive to Portland to pick up the poet from the airport, I grab the chance. I plan out what I’ll wear, make a list of conversation topics for the hour drive back to campus. I even print off copies of my best poems in the dream case scenario that he takes an interest in me, though it feels embarrassingly presumptuous.

On the day before the poet arrives, Eileen, the director of the press, finds me in the kitchen, filling the electric kettle with water.

“Vanessa, hi,” she says, stretching out her vowels so long it sounds as though she’s offering consolation for some tragedy. I didn’t even realize she remembered my name. She hasn’t spoken to me since my interview last spring.

“So Robert will be here tomorrow,” she says, “and I know you said you’d pick him up from the airport, but Robert can be a bit, you know . . .” She looks at me expectantly. When I only stare back at her, she continues in a whisper. “He can be kind of forward. You know—handsy.”

I blink in surprise, still holding the electric kettle. “Oh, ok.”

“There was an incident at the last event we held for him, though ‘incident’ is too strong a word. It was nothing, really. But it might be best for you to steer clear. Just to be safe. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

My face burning, I nod so hard the water sloshes around inside the kettle. Eileen blushes, too. She seems mortified to be telling me this.

“So should I not pick him up from the airport?” I ask, assuming she’ll say no, don’t be silly, of course I should, but instead Eileen grimaces, like she doesn’t want to say yes but has to anyway.

“I think that’s for the best. I thought I’d ask James if he’d be willing.”

I almost ask, James? but realize she means Jim.

“Thank you for being so understanding, Vanessa,” Eileen says. “It really means a lot.”

For the rest of the afternoon, I sort through submissions, reading but retaining nothing, my heart racing and teeth chattering. The way Eileen said “it might be best for you to steer clear” makes my skin crawl. I can’t stop hearing it. The way she said “you,” like I’m a liability.



For the rest of the semester, I let my pot run out, stop drinking so much. It happens by accident, a realization that I’ve been sober for a week and a half without even trying. I do the dishes, clean the bathroom. I even do laundry on a regular basis and don’t let it get to the point where I have to wear bikini bottoms as underwear.

I see Henry Plough on campus all the time. Three times a week, we pass each other in the student center. While I’m reshelving books at my library job, he appears around a corner and nearly collides with the cart. He’s three people ahead of me in line at the coffee shop beneath my apartment, and my stomach flips at him being so close to where I sleep. Sometimes, when we pass each other, I pounce on him, ask stupid questions I already know the answers to about the seminar. One day as I walk by him, I reach over and playfully punch his arm, and he grins in surprise. Other days, when it feels like I’ve been acting too desperate, I ignore him, pretend I don’t know him. If he says hi, I narrow my eyes.

His term paper is my last one, finished Friday afternoon of finals week. With the paper still warm from the printer, I hurry across campus, past the empty parking lots and darkened buildings, to catch him in his office. Inside, the English department hallway is a line of closed doors—including Henry’s, but I know he’s in there. I checked before I came in and saw his lit-up window.

Rather than knock, I slip my essay under the door, hoping he’ll see it, notice my name on the first page, and lunge for the door. I hold my breath and the knob turns, then opens.

“Vanessa.” He says my name in that awestruck way. Plucking my essay off the floor, he asks, “How did this turn out? I’ve been looking forward to reading it.”

I lift my shoulders. “Your expectations shouldn’t be too high.”

He flips through the first couple of pages. “Of course my expectations are high. Everything you turn in is wonderful.”

I linger in the doorway, unsure what to do. Now that my paper is done and the semester finished, I don’t have any excuses to talk to him. He sits turned toward me, leaning slightly forward, the body language of someone who wants you to stay. I need to hear him say it. Our eyes lock.

“You can sit,” he says. It’s an invitation, but still leaves it up to me.

I choose to sit, to stay, and we’re silent for a moment, until I smile and gesture—generously, I think—to the now-overloaded bookshelves above his desk. “Your office is such a mess.”

He relaxes. “It is a mess.”

“I shouldn’t criticize,” I say. “I’m messy, too.”

He looks around at the stack of manila folders that threatens to spill over, the uninstalled printer on the edge of his desk and its mess of cords. “I tell myself I prefer it this way, but that’s probably just self-delusion.”