The More I Owe You by Michael Sledge

Author:Michael Sledge [Sledge, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Published: 2010-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

17

ONCE THE PARTY had died down and most of the guests had gone, Elizabeth found herself surrounded by the young poets from New York. She was seated with her feet on a cushion while they stood before her like three valiants out of a fable come to seek her favor. One was tall and cool and barely registered emotion, the second was scared of his own shadow, and the last, skinny and exuberant, had come bounding up the stairs early in the evening and knelt before her, taking her hand to press his lips upon it and proceeding to kiss his way up her arm until, with a stricken laugh, she attempted to free herself. As undernourished as he appeared, he had a strong grip and wouldn’t let go. His name was Frank.

She amused herself thinking what Cal would have to say about all this. He would have the right take on this sort of thing.

“Is it really true,” Frank asked for perhaps the third time, “that you didn’t know you’d won?”

Such a curious thing, these not quite men, not quite poets, hanging on her words, unbelievably fresh and slightly desperate. “Somehow time moves differently in Brazil than it does here,” she said. “I’d got it in my head that the prize had already been awarded. Then one morning the phone rang, and a reporter was screaming over the static that I’d won the Pulitzer. I thought it was one of Lota’s friends playing a joke.”

The cool one tensed his jaw and winced, as if he’d bitten upon aluminum foil. “Even there they care about a poetry prize.”

“Yes, they care about it, and that’s not a bad thing. In Brazil, poets actually have value. That night, we had reporters and film crews for the newsreels coming to the house in the pouring rain. They had us all pose on the couch like bumps on a log, Lota and me, our friend Mary, and the cook’s baby girl—my little goddaughter. Then Lota entertained the journalists by flipping the lights off and on, because we had just gotten electricity after years of living by oil lamps.”

“You lived without electricity?”

“Right in the middle of the jungle, with the monkeys and the snakes.”

If they required a myth, she’d give them a myth. She’d hold that boulder over her head and put on a show. She’d done it before. The shy one didn’t make a peep. She wanted to take him onto her lap and feed him a bottle of milk.

Elizabeth began to worry the poets would want to talk about poetry, so she made her excuses. At the other end of the swimming pool, the water’s unsettled surface cast undulating light and shadow across Lota, who sat with their hosts Bobby and Arthur. She was still wearing a bib that covered her front with the stars and stripes. Joining them, Elizabeth let her head rest on Lota’s shoulder. She felt depleted but happy. The day had been one long parade of interesting people, heaps

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