Page 58 of The Deepest Lake
No one speaks. Perhaps that means no one is ready to forgive. Perhaps it means that some of them, Rose included, don’t understand why they would be the ones to do the forgiving.
Lunch is brief and quiet. As they prepare to gather for the final workshops of the day, Rose passes Isobel, K-Tap and a red-haired woman named Hannah, whom Rose hasn’t yet spoken to, lingering to one side of the patio.
Isobel whispers, “Do you think she approves of anyone?”
“I’m not sticking around to find out,” K-Tap says. “This whole thing was a mistake.”
“I’m such a fan of your stand-up. I really wanted to hear your workshop,” Hannah says, gripping her phone tightly, like she’s trying her hardest to resist asking for a photo.
“I’ve got to work a room in order to test out new material,” K-Tap says. “I can already tell that Eva won’t let me speak. She’s a one-woman show.”
Rose can’t believe this is the same woman who was joking about wanting to donate a lobe of her liver to Eva.
“I hear you,” Isobel says, fanning herself. Isobel hasn’t had her workshop or her private session with Eva yet. But she did receive an email this morning that she read to her roommates. What you submitted for discussion isn’t memoir. It’s history. It’s too abstract. All that stuff about racism. No one wants to read that. You’re going to have to start all over.
Isobel, Rose observes, is taking the note. She’s been rushing off with her laptop at every opportunity, trying to write some new pages to save Eva the trouble of publicly trashing the old ones.
Lindsay, fresh cup of coffee in hand, steps closer, voice hushed. “Maybe Eva approves more easily if you’re young and pretty, like Noelani and Scarlett.”
Even confident Lindsay is becoming defensive, Rose thinks. But she’ll be okay.
Rose’s mind wanders, returning to the thought that’s been nagging at her since before the workshopping started. It’s about the kitchen staff. Most of them speak Indigenous Mayan languages, not Spanish. The private investigator interviewed Eva and Barbara at the police station but he never came to the house. Even if he had, he only spoke Spanish. The staff are the ones who know something. Someone needs to speak to them. Someone needs to earn their trust.
Rose’s phone vibrates with a text from Matt. It’s about Jules’s mail. They decided to finally go through all of it, even the junk mail. I found something and followed up. It’s not a big thing, nothing related to Guatemala, but it may upset you. Call me later.
It’s a perfect Matt text, enough to make her anxious and sad, but not enough to give her any information. Rose pockets the phone, staring into space, trying her best not to think catastrophic thoughts.
The other writers probably think she’s worrying about being workshopped. If only.
Isobel groans. “Guys. Look at me. I’m not even being workshopped today and I’m already sweating.”
Under her arms, the green of Isobel’s lime-colored blouse has turned a shade darker.
“You’ll be fine,” Rose says, trying her best to focus and be supportive. “And I liked your original pages. Aren’t you allowed to talk about family history and racism in a memoir?”
“I thought so, before. But I’ve also heard it’s practically impossible to get a memoir published.” Isobel claps her hands, like it’s her job to get the team excited again, ready to return to the classroom. “This wouldn’t be a popular workshop if most people left feeling like they’d wasted their money or given up on their dreams. Right, ladies?”
Lindsay smirks. “I take it neither of you has ever been to Las Vegas?”
Rose can’t find time alone to call Matt until after dinner, when she hurries back to the cabin ahead of her roommates who have stayed back, chatting.
“I knew you wouldn’t want me to throw away anything, even junk mail with her name on it, so I didn’t want to tell you at first,” he says.
“Go on.”
“All the same MFA program ads and packets keep arriving, and it made me realize: in all this mail, we never got Jules’s acceptances. Or—you know—her rejections.”
“True.” For the first time since he answered the phone, Rose feels a touch of gratitude. He is still sifting for clues. Part of him knows this isn’t over, either. Still, he’s on the wrong track. “But she used online portals. That’s how the programs would have responded to her applications.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize that.” He sounds humbled. “I’m glad I didn’t.”
Rose hears laughter outside the cabin. Her roommates have gathered on the small patio outside the front door, still chatting.
“I called five programs,” Matt says. “Three of them wouldn’t talk to me, because I wasn’t Jules, even when I described what happened and forwarded a screenshot of the Chicago Trib article.”
“And the other two?”
He names the programs, both low-residency, one in Los Angeles, one in Vermont. Jules liked the multicultural emphasis of one, the woodsy flavor of the other. If she got into both, she’d have a hard time deciding, she told Rose.