© 2005 - 2008 Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas.
“As in
‘fellow partyleaver,’ one of the first things I said to you when we
met at the elevator after leaving Pati’s party. Also said just to
impress you?” She said “I think I didn’t understand what you meant
with that leaver but didn’t want to question you on it, so I let it
go. Now I see what you were getting at —partygoer, partyleaver’; I
can be slow—and I’d say it’s so-so to maybe a-little-more-than-that
clever. Anyway, original. I’m not aware of anyone else who’s used
it. So you are, to the best of the little I know, a coiner.” For a
while after that, when he called her, he’d say “Hi, it’s your coiner
calling.” Or just “It’s the coiner” or “your coiner” and once or
twice “your coiner calling from a corner,” till she stopped laughing
at any line with “coiner” in it, so he stopped using it. Anyway,
sixth floor, after he mentioned Yaddo and got no verbal response and
he doesn’t think any visual reaction to it either, “So, I assume
that, like Pati, you went or still go to Columbia for your
doctorate?” and she said yes. “Went? Go?” and she said “Went,
although I’m still very much there.” “So you’re not completely done
with it? Or you are—orals, dissertation, defense of it, if the
orals and defense aren’t the same thing,” and she said “They’re not,
and I am done with them.” “Literature, also, like Pati?” and she
said “Same language but literature of a different century.” “What
are you doing with it? Or maybe I should say, why are you still at
Columbia, if that’s not too personal a question?” “I’m doing a
post-doc and also teaching a Humanities course as part of their
Great Books program.” “That should be interesting,” he said. “And
a feather in your cap and gown, I guess, and no doubt a terrific
addition to your vita for a possible job there or somewhere else,
though I’m not sure what a post-doc is.” “It’s short for
post-doctorate,” and he said “No, that my little pea brain figured
out. But it’s not another degree, is it?” and she said no. “So
what was your dissertation on? And it is a dissertation for your
PhD. Not a thesis, right?” and she said yes and gave the title of it
and he said something like “You’re not going to believe this, though
I don’t see why not, but he’s just about my favorite nineteenth
century fiction writer. Maybe favorite of any kind of writer and of
all centuries and millenniums, not counting whichever one Homer was
in. Though he only wrote, if we can call it that, two books while
your guy filled up volumes and everything I’ve read of his shines,”
and she said “You of course know he extended into the twentieth
century, though not by much, but is considered primarily a late
nineteenth century writer.” “Right,” he said, “the late great
stuff,” and gave a couple of titles. She smiled, not, it seemed, at
what he’d said but as if that was to be the end of their
conversation, and turned to face the elevator. “Tell me,” he said,
“and if I’m talking too much or you don’t want to talk, tell me that
too, but have you been waiting long? I mean, more than the three
minutes or so we’ve been standing here?” “Not that long.” “So what
should we think, the elevator’s broken or stuck? It was working
fine when I got to the party. I’d say it’s not working and that if
it doesn’t come in the next minute we should think about walking
downstairs. It’s only five flights.” “You walk,” she said, “I
don’t mind waiting. And I’m sure it’s being held up because
someone’s loading or unloading a lot of things off it and that it’ll
eventually come. Besides, I don’t like those stairs.” He said
“Why, what’s wrong with them?” and she said “They’re unusually long
and insufficiently lit and also a bit creepy. And the one time I
walked down—not because the elevator didn’t come—I couldn’t get out
on either the ground or second floor.” “ In that case you’re right,
and I’m glad you warned me. But it’d seem locking those doors would
be against some fire regulation.” “I don’t know if they were locked
or, as someone explained to me, it had something to do with humidity
and air pressure. But I thought the same thing about a fire
regulation being violated and told Pati and she said it’s happened
to her too, more than once.” “Someone ought to complain, then, in
case there is a fire or something like that,” and she said “Pati
did, several times, she said, and the situation hadn’t been
corrected when I walked down the stairs, so you can see why I don’t
want to take the chance.” “I’ll be with you,” and she said “No
thanks.” “I was just kidding, of course,” and she said “About
what?” “Nothing. I thought I might have sounded pushy,” and she
said “I didn’t think so. You were trying to be helpful. Thank
you.” The conversation went something like that. More he talked to
her, more he knew he didn’t want to leave her without getting her
phone number and some assurance she’d meet him sometime for coffee
or a drink. He still didn’t know if she was married or engaged or
had a steady boyfriend. She had gloves on now but at the party he
got close enough to her to see she wore no ring on either hand. He
remembers thinking at the elevator What a beautiful voice she has,
clear and soft, and a lovely face and good figure. And she speaks
so well, he thought, and is obviously very smart and seems gracious
and he likes what she does: teaching and getting a Ph.D. in
literature and at Columbia. They’d have lots to talk about if they
started seeing each other. He was never a scholar but he did like
to talk about books and writers and he often read literary criticism
of novels and stories he’d recently finished but felt there was more
to them than he got and wanted somebody else’s take on them. He
could reread her writer or read some of the work he hadn’t read or
she recommended and what she thought were the best translations of
it, and later talk about it with her. He liked the way she smiled
and laughed at the party—not loud, and the smile warm and genuine,
and the intelligent look she had when she seemed to be in a serious
conversation. She usually had a guy or two talking to her and one
time three to four men surrounding her, each, it seemed, vying for
her attention. That made him think that maybe there wasn’t one
particular guy in her life, but of course, he thought, it could be
that her husband or boyfriend hadn’t come to the party. She was the
beauty there, that’s for sure. He remembers when she came in—alone,
took her coat and hat off in the foyer, probably her gloves too, and
went in back with them and, he assumes put them with most of the
other coats and where his was too, on Pati’s bed.
How They Met by Stephen Dixon
