incessant cough, she gave up. “I feel like I’ve got five years to live,” she told people, “so I’m moving back to Iowa so that it’ll feel like fifty.”
When she packed up to leave, she knew she was saying good-bye to something important, which was not that bad, in a way, because it meant that at least you had said hello to it to begin with, which most people in Cassell, Iowa, she felt, could not claim to have done.
A year and a half later, she married a boyish man twelve years her senior, a Cassell realtor named Joe, and together they bought a house on a little street called Birch Court. She taught a night class at the Arts Hall and did volunteer work on the Transportation Commission in town. It was life like a glass of water: half-empty, half-full. Half-full. Half-full. Oops: half-empty. Over the years, she and Joe tried to have a baby, but one night at dinner, looking at each other in a lonely way over the meat loaf, they realized with shock that they probably never would. Nonetheless, after six years, they still tried, vandalizing what romance was left in their marriage.
“Honey,” she would whisper at night when he was reading under the reading lamp and she had already put her book away and curled toward him, wanting to place the red scarf over the lamp shade but knowing it would annoy him and so not doing it. “Do you want to make love? It would be a good time of month.”
And Joe would groan. Or he would yawn. Or he would already be asleep. Once, after a long, hard day, he said, “I’m sorry, Agnes. I guess I’m just not in the mood.”
She grew exasperated. “You think I’
m
in the mood?” she said. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do,” and he looked at her in a disgusted way, and it was two weeks after that that they had the sad dawning over the meat loaf.
At the Arts Hall, formerly the Grange Hall, Agnes taught the Great Books class, but taught it loosely, with cookies. She let her students turn in poems and plays and stories that they themselves had written; she let them use the class as their ownlittle time to be creative. Someone once even brought in a sculpture: an electric one with blinking lights.
After class, she sometimes met with students individually. She recommended things for them to write about or read or consider in their next project. She smiled and asked if things were going well in their lives. She took an interest.
“You should be stricter,” said Willard Stauffbacher, the head of the Instruction Department; he was a short, balding musician who liked to tape on his door pictures of famous people he thought he looked like. Every third Monday, he conducted the monthly departmental meeting—aptly named, Agnes liked to joke, since she did indeed depart mental. “Just because it’s a night course doesn’t mean you shouldn’t impart standards,” Stauffbacher said in a scolding way. “If it’s piffle, use the word
piffle
. If it’s meaningless, write
meaningless
across the top of every page.” He had once taught at an elementary school and once at a prison. “I feel like I do all the real work around here,” he added. He had posted near his office a sign that read RULES FOR THE MUSIC ROOM:
I will stay in my seat unless [sic] permission to move.
I will sit up straight.
I will listen to directions.
I will not bother my neighbor.
I will not talk when Mr. Stauffbacher is talking.
I will be polite to others.
I will sing as well as I can.
Agnes stayed after one night with Christa, the only black student in her class. She liked Christa a lot—Christa was smart and funny, and Agnes sometimes liked to stay after with her to chat. Tonight, Agnes had decided to talk Christa out of writing about vampires all the time.
“Why don’t you write about that thing you told me about that time?” Agnes suggested.
Christa looked at her skeptically. “What thing?”
“The time in your childhood, during the Chicago riots, walking with your mother through
When she packed up to leave, she knew she was saying good-bye to something important, which was not that bad, in a way, because it meant that at least you had said hello to it to begin with, which most people in Cassell, Iowa, she felt, could not claim to have done.
A year and a half later, she married a boyish man twelve years her senior, a Cassell realtor named Joe, and together they bought a house on a little street called Birch Court. She taught a night class at the Arts Hall and did volunteer work on the Transportation Commission in town. It was life like a glass of water: half-empty, half-full. Half-full. Half-full. Oops: half-empty. Over the years, she and Joe tried to have a baby, but one night at dinner, looking at each other in a lonely way over the meat loaf, they realized with shock that they probably never would. Nonetheless, after six years, they still tried, vandalizing what romance was left in their marriage.
“Honey,” she would whisper at night when he was reading under the reading lamp and she had already put her book away and curled toward him, wanting to place the red scarf over the lamp shade but knowing it would annoy him and so not doing it. “Do you want to make love? It would be a good time of month.”
And Joe would groan. Or he would yawn. Or he would already be asleep. Once, after a long, hard day, he said, “I’m sorry, Agnes. I guess I’m just not in the mood.”
She grew exasperated. “You think I’
m
in the mood?” she said. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do,” and he looked at her in a disgusted way, and it was two weeks after that that they had the sad dawning over the meat loaf.
At the Arts Hall, formerly the Grange Hall, Agnes taught the Great Books class, but taught it loosely, with cookies. She let her students turn in poems and plays and stories that they themselves had written; she let them use the class as their ownlittle time to be creative. Someone once even brought in a sculpture: an electric one with blinking lights.
After class, she sometimes met with students individually. She recommended things for them to write about or read or consider in their next project. She smiled and asked if things were going well in their lives. She took an interest.
“You should be stricter,” said Willard Stauffbacher, the head of the Instruction Department; he was a short, balding musician who liked to tape on his door pictures of famous people he thought he looked like. Every third Monday, he conducted the monthly departmental meeting—aptly named, Agnes liked to joke, since she did indeed depart mental. “Just because it’s a night course doesn’t mean you shouldn’t impart standards,” Stauffbacher said in a scolding way. “If it’s piffle, use the word
piffle
. If it’s meaningless, write
meaningless
across the top of every page.” He had once taught at an elementary school and once at a prison. “I feel like I do all the real work around here,” he added. He had posted near his office a sign that read RULES FOR THE MUSIC ROOM:
I will stay in my seat unless [sic] permission to move.
I will sit up straight.
I will listen to directions.
I will not bother my neighbor.
I will not talk when Mr. Stauffbacher is talking.
I will be polite to others.
I will sing as well as I can.
Agnes stayed after one night with Christa, the only black student in her class. She liked Christa a lot—Christa was smart and funny, and Agnes sometimes liked to stay after with her to chat. Tonight, Agnes had decided to talk Christa out of writing about vampires all the time.
“Why don’t you write about that thing you told me about that time?” Agnes suggested.
Christa looked at her skeptically. “What thing?”
“The time in your childhood, during the Chicago riots, walking with your mother through
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