Tess Congo - Lower East Side - April 2018.

Tess Congo - Lower East Side - April 2018.

“It didn’t really feel like a decision. I knew that I was going to write for the rest of my life, no matter where I was. So after high school I didn’t really know what to do with myself.

I figured people go to college, that’s what they do, so I guess I’d go to college. But I just wanted to write, I didn’t care where. A degree didn’t really matter, but it mattered in the context of taking classes and becoming a better writer.”

Warm April light bows around the window curtains, slides across a kitchen table, glances off a stovetop where kettles have rattled and steamed through the now receding winter; then it bounces through bookshelves that line an exposed brick wall, and evaporates into a living room framed by couches. The light, now less broken with the turn of spring, seems to have finally found its place in the world, and that place seems to be exactly where we are: on the top floor of a Lower East Side apartment building, on the warmest day of the still burgeoning year.

Tess Congo sits at her kitchen table, facing the window’s light. Her red, flower-adorned headband matches the interior glaze of the teacup she’s cradling in her palms. An expression of honesty and earnestness glows in her smile as she relates the strange coincidence of the Velveteen Rabbit being spoken of twice the previous day. It was her favorite story as a child, and its mention has provided her cause for reflection. What does it mean to be, or become, real? Certainly, her newest short story, “Winter in Persephone,” is peppered with insights to this question, which it explores through the lens of disrupted domesticity, the challenges of living with mental illness, and the role social media plays in our contemporary reality. Tess writes from the perspective of the lives she hasn’t lived, things she thinks she might not know, and decisions that would not be her own. She seeks to enter a space, create a reality for the characters, and see what happens.

We spoke for the next hour, the light from the window like a movie projector, unravel- ing the wistful, adventurous, and engaging story of how Tess got to New York, and how she’s managed since arriving, illuminating what now seems less a coincidence and more a doorway through which to enter into her world. This is the story of Tess Congo, becoming real.

After awhile, we decided to go for a meander through the Lower East Side, into SoHo, toward Elizabeth Street Garden, one of Tess’ favorite places in the city. Leaving our sweaters and jackets behind us, and letting the late afternoon sun warm our bare arms, we waded through the Saturday sun gazers and street vendors, stopping occasionally to snap a few photos and comment on the passersby.

When we arrived at Elizabeth Street Garden, nestled between buildings on a narrow city block, it was in full bloom. Tulip-lined flower beds breathed colorful bursts beneath an eruption of misty pink tree blossoms. Picturesque groups of city dwellers, newly emboldened by the warm weather, loitered aimlessly, the sun settling around their peaceful words and gestures. Tess posed for a few photographs around the garden. We were mostly silent, taking in the atmosphere of the brilliant late afternoon.

As we were leaving we passed a folding table set up with a spread of literature and a glass jar for donations. Tess informed me that the garden was to be demolished to make way for a new affordable housing development and that the collected donations were meant to contribute to the ongoing fight to keep the garden from quite literally sinking beneath the weight of gentrification. I think both our hearts sank a little as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. The approaching evening seemed a little closer and the air a touch more cool on our arms.

Upon returning to the apartment Tess and I decided to climb her rickety, narrow fire escape to the roof of the adjacent building. I shot a few more photos and we spoke candidly about the day and the coming summer. The cool, pink light from the western horizon washed across the Lower East Side buildings, and we watched as windows shut and curtains closed on the waning day. We wondered if anyone had been watching us, if anyone else wondered who we were, what we were doing, where we were going, or what we would say next.

- Adrian Moens (photos as well).

 Winter in Persephone

Andrea wished herself a bear. Black, brown—any kind but polar. To steal a whole season for slumber and recuperation without consequence, to linger in sleep without shame. What would it be like to silence a season and resume life fresh with the first buds of spring? To feel awake as soon as—Andrea’s alarm beeped for the third time that morning. She hit snooze.

A text sounded at the top of her phone screen:

Cynthia: How’s the draft coming?

Andrea dropped her phone on the bedspread. Light seeped beneath the curtains outlining the features of the room: the shelf with the dying cacti, the tufted settee beneath, the bookshelf of self-help, sex, and poetry books, the mid-century lowboy dresser and its match- ing mirror, and James’ recent bedroom display of affection: the photos.

On Valentine’s Day, James had spun her around three times as if they were in the midst of pin-the-tail on the donkey, and when he told her to open her eyes, Andrea felt like the donkey.

She wanted to say What the fuck? Instead she had said “Wow.”

James had taped twenty photos on the wall: “I LOVE YOU” carved into sand at Hampton Beach; champagne glasses cheers’ing over chicken pineapple kabobs from his family’s annual Independence Day barbecue; Andrea’s first Instagram post, a photo of James play- ing chess with the stuffed duck Andrea had won him on their first date; Andrea and James on that first date sharing a stick of pink cotton candy; James piggybacking Andrea across a puddle; James proposing to her in the snow (not shown: him saying Please say something. My knees are getting cold); their first wedding dance with James’ brother reaching mistletoe over their heads; Andrea preparing to throw soaked socks off a rainy Mount Major (Don’t, James said after he took the picture. The blisters will be worse.); pink shoes resting on Andrea’s hilled stomach; Becca in Andrea’s arms at the hospital; Andrea’s mom and Becca building an Angelina Ballerina puzzle; Andrea and James kissing over a candle marking their third wedding anniversary; James tickling Becca on a picnic blanket; Andrea and Becca bouncing hand in hand on a trampoline; Becca in a field of flowers in her bumblebee costume; Andrea and James snuggling next to a campfire; Becca biting into her uncut fifth birthday cake; a photo of Becca’s drawings of them as a marshmallow family with James and Andrea holding cell phones in their marshmallow hands; Becca dancing with her feet on James’s loafers next to a photo of Andrea as a little girl dancing on her father’s feet.

At “Wow,” James’s smile seemed to collapse into his chin. Andrea tried to perk him up with kisses, but he looked so wilted, the damage done. Why couldn’t she have just kissed him without the “Wow”? She cringed at the memory.

It wasn’t even the worst Valentine’s Day gift he had ever given her. Who could forget the wrestling tickets back in college? The photos were actually thoughtful. He had chosen some of her favorites, but in the moment after he spun her, when she opened her eyes, Andrea felt a tightness in her chest. What the fuck was followed by another thought: You’ll never be that happy again.

Surely, the display had to have a closing date, and yet two weeks had gone by, and here she was once again waking up to marshmallow versions of herself. Maybe James expect- ed her to take the photos down. No matter the years, he didn’t seem to understand the cost of movements, the feeling of depletion before she even lifted her head from the pillow.

Her alarm beeped again. She turned it off and tapped open Instagram. The heart at the bottom revealed her latest notifications:

_y3ti_ started following you.
Radicalsabbatical_ commented: “Such a gorgeous family <3!” Catherinelecomtephoto and 401 others liked your post.

She clicked the third notification down. It was for one of her highest hearted posts:

My daughter finds marigolds in the grass and holds them to her eyes,
and says ‘Mommy, what time
are my eyes?’

And, I want to hold her still to this moment as I tell her ‘Five o’clock

Where were the marigolds now? Long dead, under snow. Andrea tried to listen for the ones without roots, the ones she could discover in her daughter, but it was hard to hear anything outside her thoughts. It’s always going to feel like this. It will never be what it was. It could be that she’d been living marigold moments all winter without realizing that they were occurring, but she knew moments only lasted so long as your awareness of them. If you didn’t commit them to photos, or words, or memories they were lost like they’d never occurred.

Slipping her hand into her pillow case, Andrea found her gratitude list. Every morn- ing and evening, she tried to read it to herself with a smile on her face. Sometimes if she imagined or pretended to imagine feeling joy, then she felt her head lift a little higher, her spine rise a little straighter. It made her feel like a kid again, with her dad penciling her growth on the pantry door: Another inch!

Part of the gratitude list was intertwining truths with desires. She had to imagine her gratitude at receiving the things she hadn’t yet received. Sitting up, Andrea began: “I’m so grateful that I am loved by my wonderful, adoring, handsome, kind, generous, funny, intelligent husband, that we have such a fulfilling, exciting marriage, that we have a beautiful, healthy daughter who is spirited, and curious, and smart. I am so happy that I am healed com- pletely, that I’m healthy and strong and have more than two-hundred thousand followers on Instagram. I’m so grateful that I have a book agent, that I have energy to—” “Mom, where’s the cereal?”

Becca hung from the doorknob.

“Hold on, Becca.” Andrea dropped her eyes back to the list.

“Mom, I’m hungry.”

“Honey, five more minutes.”

Becca plopped her knees to the carpet, putting her remaining weight on the door- knob. In her other hand was a headless Barbie.

“Becca, I told you, you’ll break the knob if you do that.”

“Cheerios! Cheerios! Cheerios!” Becca began to chant moving the door back and forth.

“Five more

Outside, a car door slammed.

“Daddy! Is that Daddy?” Becca ran to the window and pulled back the silk curtain. Andrea flinched at the expanded light.

“Daddy’s home!” Becca thundered down the stairs, leaving the curtain still parted. Andrea continued down the list at the sound of the key in the front door; ...

“book agent, that I have energy to” the front door opened — “Daddy!” “to do everything” the thud of a carry-on on the carpet — “that I want and need— “And, how are you doing, Miss Becca Bell?” — “to do. I am so grateful” “I’m hungry.” “Where’s your mother?” “that I am happy, content, and at peace with my” “She’s sleeping.”

Andrea tore her eyes from the list and called down, “I’m not sleeping!”

“Well, where are you? I want to see your beautiful face,” James called in return.

I’m so grateful ... at peace with ...

“Dree,” he called. She could hear him coming up the stairs now. “Dree.”

Andrea sighed and folded the list back under the pillow. Maybe after coffee. She made it to the door just as James entered with Becca on his hip.

“You’re too old to be carried,” she said to Becca.

“Daddy doesn’t say so,” said Becca, and she stuck out her tongue.

Andrea kissed James. “Did you have a cigarette?”

“Just one or two while waiting for the taxi,” he said.

“Cheerios! Cheerios!” chanted Becca.

“Enough,” said Andrea, taking Becca from James’s hip. She set her on the floor. “Go get dressed.”

“Only if we can go to the park later,” said Becca, like a threat.

“We’ll see.”

“Yay! Park! Park! Park! And, Cheerios!” said Becca, running toward her room.

“And matching socks!” Andrea called after her. “Thought we agreed you weren’t gonna smoke anymore. You know my dad.”

“Smoker all his life, died at 43. How’s your head?”

“Still migraine-y. I don’t mean to sound naggy,” said Andrea.

“You don’t. You sound tired,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here this week. I just thought a sale might be easier in person”

“We were fine. How’d the sale go?”

Footsteps scrambled back to them through the hall. “I’m ready!” Becca jumped in the air still wearing her nightgown, one foot covered in a spotted sock, the other in stripes.

“That’s not dressed, and didn’t I tell you to wear matching socks?” said Andrea. “Do you know what it’s like to do your laundry? I never know which ones are missing when you mix them up.”

“I’m tired of mean mommy,” said Becca.

James swiped Becca up into his arms. “Be nice.”

Becca laughed as he squeezed her ribs.

“I’m so glad to be back with my girls,” he said. “Who’s hungry?”

“Me! Me! Me!”

James stopped in the doorway and looked back at Andrea. “You coming?”

Andrea made eye contact with herself in the mirror before looking back at her husband. “I’ll shower first.”

“Don’t take too long,” he said, kissing Becca’s ear.

Becca squealed through the hall, down the stairs. “That tickles!”

 _____________

In the shower, Andrea held onto the walls. If she laid in bed too long the walls tipped into each other. She could hear her doctor’s voice in her head: Low blood pressure. It helped if she held out her hands to keep the walls from falling. Sometimes it felt like she was ice skating on the frozen pond behind her childhood home. She had to hold out her hands then too, for balance. She closed her eyes. I’m so grateful that I’m alive. I’m so grateful that I am healed completely. I’m so grateful ... How did the rest of it go?

Andrea brought her fingers to her shorn hair. She had recently cut it a la pixie to donate ten inches to Locks of Love. Her hairdresser had taken a video for Andrea to post on Instagram, and it was one of her top performing posts. It even made one of the top nine posts for the hashtag Locksoflove with over two hundred views. New followers were still messaging her about it: I love your page. Your family is so precious. Discovered you through #LocksofLove. I can’t wait to donate my hair some day.

Not bothering to lather her lack of hair, Andrea sat on the shower floor. Part of it was that it was something she had always wanted to do since a teenager—donate her hair (she thought of all the admirable heroines of literature who sacrificed their locks in the name of love; namely Fantine from Les Mis and Jo from Little Women). The other truth: she thought maybe shorter hair would make the morning routine slightly easier.

A tentative knock on the bathroom door preceded her husband’s voice. He tried the knob, but it was locked. “Dree . . . breakfast is ready.

“Okay,” she called through the shower curtain.

She could feel the energy of his hesitation before he spoke again. “Everything okay? You’ve been in there for awhile.”

She slammed her hand on the tub diverter and water gushed from the faucet. “Yes. I’ll be right out.”

She twisted the faucet off, and the water stopped.

_____________

Sometimes Andrea dreamed she was dead, and she was returning home for her own funeral. James and Becca and her mom and Joan and Philip and Casey and all her nieces and nephews were there and some aunts and uncles and cousins and her friends from her fitness circle (her Instagram followers were too busy hearting her posts and boohooing in the com- ments to actually show face). She walked up to the casket, which was a light blue like her father’s had been. She looked down expecting to see herself, but the casket was empty, and that was when she noticed everyone was looking at her, and she realized she was supposed to climb into the casket now. They were waiting to bury her, but they couldn’t do it until she admitted she was dead.

“You’re quiet,” said James across the table.

“Just tired,” she said.

He nodded. “I noticed that you haven’t been posting on Instagram as frequently lately. Been losing some followers.”

“I know,” said Andrea. “I just don’t have anything to say.”

“It doesn’t have to be words or a new poem,” James continued. “It can just be a picture with a few hashtags. You could post the Valentine’s Day collage I put together for you. You haven’t shared that yet.”

“Yeah, but Valentine’s Day is over.”

“I think your followers expected something day of.”

Andrea shrugged, stirring her eggs. “I just didn’t feel like it.”

James had laid a cauliflower and broccoli on top of her eggs in the shape of a heart.

She ate them first.

“Well, you could’ve posted the breakfast I made today. Did you notice I shaped the broccoli and cauliflower

“Yes, very cute. Thank you,” said Andrea.

“Want the last piece of bacon?” James asked. Andrea shook her head. “It’s yours.”

Becca was beneath the table talking to her Barbies. “Do you want more bacon?” asked Ken.

“It’s yours,” said Barbie.

Andrea lifted the tablecloth and frowned at her.

“What?” asked Becca. “Still mean about my socks?”

“No,” said Andrea. “Carry on.”

Her eyes flitted to James as he lifted a coffee mug to his lips. The open window swept sunshine over his head, which had begun to bald. She didn’t know what he would do when his hair was completely gone. Maybe he’d wear hats or would become like one of her uncles, the one who wore a toupee that he would put on his knee to brush every night. Andrea and her sister used to giggle, peeking behind the sofa, watching him.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Maybe cute-happy poetry is losing its glimmer. In the age of MeToo, maybe people want something darker or deeper.”

“Maybe you should wait until spring and see how you feel,” said James

“You think my desire to write something different is seasonal?”

“I didn’t say that necessarily,” said James, standing up. “Just maybe you should stick with what you know your followers like. You have a book deal, Dree. Do you really want to gamble with our mortgage?”

She watched him collect the used dishes and silverware from the table. He took her plate away without asking, scraping the dregs of her eggs into the trash. In past winters, he’d taken note of her change in weight with comments like “Maybe less coconut bliss this week,” or “Hey, cookie monster, want to go for a run?” The comments brought her back to her teenager years when her mom would measure her waist.

As James started washing the dishes she said, “What about your job?”

“What about my job?” he said over the water.

“When is that going to actually start contributing to our household?”

“Dree, I explained the challenges going into this position.” He bent lower to scrub the skillet pan but continued talking. “It’s new software that’s a million dollars a pop that no one has ever bought, so other companies are wary to purchase it, but once I get just one sale, think of the commission, and I can go back to all of the other companies I’ve connected with and say ‘Hey guys, hey guys, this guy bought it,’ and like that, they’ll trust me, and it will all be worth it.”

“But it’s been like eight months. How long will you try to keep selling this thing where you can justify living without a salary?”

“I don’t know.” He flipped the pan into the plastic dish rack and laid his hands on the sink, his back still to her. “Maybe two years.”

“Two years?” She choked on her coffee.

He turned around to face her with crossed arms. “With your book sales, I think we can carry on until I make my first sale.”

“I haven’t even finished the book yet, James. You’re putting a lot of pressure on me that I don’t appreciate.”

“Dree,” he said, walking toward her. “It’s like that poem you posted: ‘Your achievements are as bright as the joy you give others.’” “Don’t quote me at me,” she said.

Under the table, she could feel Becca’s hand softly patting her leg. She hated when Becca sensed her shift in moods. The mother should be in a position of comforting the child, not the other way around.

James sighed. “Dree, I’m sorry. I just thought maybe you’d get some inspiration from the words you use to inspire others.”

“Liar, that was some passive aggressive bullshit” she thought of Becca under the table. “Frogs. You come in here like a small tornado with your eggs and broccoli and my poetry and throw it all at me.”

“Yes, I made you breakfast and support your art. I’m a terrible husband,” he said, pressing his hand on her shoulder before leaving the kitchen.

Becca raised her head, and the tablecloth draped over her like a hood. “Do chickens ever eat eggs?”

Andrea scooted her chair back to let her out and picked her up. “No.” “I thought you said I was too heavy.”

“You are,” said Andrea, carrying her into the living room.

_____________

Andrea settled Becca in front of Fuller House on the iPad with a glass of apple juice and slipped up the stairs. The coffee added a spring to her step. Who says darker poetry couldn’t be marketable? Maybe she could actually finish the first draft of her manuscript if she felt all her thoughts had value, not just the ones that made her followers smile. James was in the shower when she walked into the bedroom. She started taking the photos down as she thought about which hashtags she could test: #sadpoetry #emopoetry #sylviaplath #SADpo (that last one couldn’t exist).

She looked at the three photos she had taken down: the wedding dance beneath mis- tletoe, the piggyback over puddle, and Becca dancing on James’s shoes. They felt heavy in her hands, even heavier than they’d felt on the wall. Maybe James could get the rest of them down. She laid the photos on the top of the dresser she’d had since college. When she and James started dating, they flipped the mirror over one night and practiced logic proofs on the back while smoking pot and listening to Elliott Smith.

Figure eight is double four
Figure four is half of eight
If you skate you would be great
If you could make a figure of eight

Andrea could never make a figure eight, but sometimes, she swore she could feel her father’s hand in hers, how they used to ice skate together before he’d let her go, saying Now, you’re on your own. When he died, she’d wanted to grab his hand again. I don’t want to be on my own. He’d been the one she always counted on, to get her out of her “Garfield moods” as he called them. Once, after one of her high school breakups, her father bought her a chocolate bar called “Boyfriend Replacement.” The chocolate was terrible, but she laughed into tears opening it.

She traced her hand along the top edge of the mirror. She knew that lingering in the past was pointless. She knew it when she’d think back to the funeral and the way her mother pushed that woman on the porch, the shouting of it. Andrea closed her eyes to shut out the noise.

She wouldn’t go that way. The day had not been so bad. James was home, he’d made a nice breakfast, her daughter was spirited, and curious, and smart. It was Andrea who needed to adjust. She searched for her phone in the blankets. Had she brought it downstairs?

James had left his phone on the side table. His passcode was easy, one of those slide lines from circle to circle ones. She unlocked it in seconds and went to his Instagram and typed in #depressivepoetry in the search bar. Only 289 posts. #sylviaplath: 128,217 posts versus #rupikaur: 318,412. Was it the current political climate, or did people just naturally gravitate toward “Here Comes the Sun” over “Gloomy Sunday”? What about Daria? Clearly, there was a market for a dreary voice of wisdom.

Andrea returned to the Instagram home page and noticed she had new messages. She clicked the number six and when she came to all the messages she remembered: This isn’t my phone. This is James’s account. She had never looked through his messages during the years they’d been together (though now and then she’d been tempted), but she wanted to be a woman so secure in herself that she’d never doubt her partner. Now, she looked at all the globed icon photos of woman after woman and the previews of their messages:

Hahaha you seem full of ...
I bet your wife wouldn’t ... And, how does a handsome ... Hey follow me
Hey Gorgeous! Got a ...
Will you be in Florida ...

Message after message, her mouth got drier. She felt nauseous and hot like she had a candle burning in her stomach, and the flame was rising higher in her body. She held three fingers over her mouth, maybe to keep the vomit down or to keep herself from screaming.

_____________

The bathroom door opened. “I think you should post one thing today. It doesn’t have to be is that my phone?”

“Some of them sent you naked photos,” Andrea said, dropping the phone on the bed.

“You didn’t think to print and hang up one of those. They would’ve fit with the motif. In the ones that showed their faces, most of them are smiling.”

He stood with a towel wrapped around his waist. She could see warring thoughts cross his face. Was he going to play angry? Victim? Villain? What was he? What was she?

“I love you,” he said.

“Don’t say that.”

“I love you,” he said again, and he fell on his knees in front of her. If there was snow, if they were younger, my knee’s getting cold. “You once said to me that you knew you were a lot —”

“Stop,” said Andrea, but he didn’t.

“I said you weren’t, but — Dree. Sometimes, I don’t even know if you like me. They — they just made me feel so good.”

“And I didn’t?”

“Not all the time.”

She laughed. “No one makes anyone feel good all the time. That’s life. I wasn’t designed to be your round the clock cheerleader.”

“Andrea, please, we have so much.” He pulled her knees into his face.

“James.” She resisted the urge to run her fingers through the feathery spot on top of his head where he was balding. It was a gesture she had done some nights when he was tired from the road, when he didn’t want to be the one with energy, and they traded roles; she the caretaker to his lethargy. Now, there was no recovery for either of them in the gesture. “Let go of me.”

“Please,” he said into her knees.

She thought of it as a picture, him on his knees in a towel. No filter.

My husband dresses our walls with smiles, while my followers send hearts to his inbox. #FuckAllofYou

“I don’t want this,” she said. “I just don’t want it.”

“What does that mean?” he said, gripping her legs tighter. “Andrea, Dree, good men make mistakes. Look at your dad.”

“Shut up.”

“Why are you yelling?” asked a voice from the doorway.

Becca held the iPad out. “It died.”

Andrea stepped out of James’s arms and took the iPad from Becca. “How would you like to go to Grandma’s for a few days?” “Dree,” said James.

Andrea’s mother’s voice reeled through her head: Have you gained weight? You don’t look healthy. How’s the book coming? Your sister just ran another marathon. What’s your editor’s name again? Well, start writing, missy. I told my friends about your big book deal. They didn’t know what Instagram was . . .

“Don’t go,” he said to her feet.

“I want to stay with Daddy,” said Becca.

Andrea held a hand to her forehead. Was this how her mother felt — all those years, watching Andrea reach for her dad over her? She sat in the settee, staring at Becca smoothing her hand over James’s face.

“And you too, Mommy” said Becca, turning toward her, reaching for her knees. Andrea wanted to cry into Becca’s hair as she pulled her into her arms. James wiped his forehead sweat on the towel around his waist. “I’ll make it up to you, Dree. Whatever you want. I’ll never talk to any of them again. I’ll go to therapy. We can go together. I’ll quit the sales job, or . . . I’ll stay local. Please don’t go to your mom’s.”

Andrea looked over his head at the mirror where once they had written proofs, smoking and kissing, and leaning their legs into each other, and above that, all the photos still on the wall; all the different days Andrea had pulled herself out of bed — to go to the carnival, to go hiking, to get married, to have a baby (albeit in a bed), and all the smiles, the ways they become what so many people wanted, what she herself had wanted.

She could feel James’s eyes on her, waiting for her, and when she spoke her voice sounded loud to herself. “I don’t want you to talk to me. I want you to leave me alone. I don’t want to hear about your ideas for Instagram or anything else.”

“So, you’re... not going to your mom’s?” James said. He sighed, relieved. “Andrea, I promise

She held up her hand to his words. To Becca she said, “You want to go to the park?” “Park! Park! Park” Becca pumped her arms victoriously.

“Daddy’s gonna take you,” Andrea said, and handed her daughter to her husband.

_____________

When she heard the car out of the driveway, Andrea opened her laptop. She had the lines already in her head. She pulled open her manuscript in progress and wrote:

In a towel on the floor, my husband begs me to forget, weeks after he taped memories on our wall.

Now, he begs “Please,” and “I promise” and “Never again.”

I can’t forget
what my father said
when I was a girl, heartbroken—
“You’re better off without him.”

Andrea closed her laptop and pulled her overnight bag out from under the bed. Meditatively, she folded jeans and T-shirts and socks into the bag. Tomorrow, she’d pack some of Becca’s clothes. It wouldn’t be immediate. James would skip some trips, but eventually, there’d be one he’d beg to go on, the one with the sure sale.

She could already hear him. Please, Andrea. Until then, she’d finish the poems.

DSCF8741.jpg

Tess: I was in yoga yesterday, and it was just about the end of the class. We were in Shavasana (Corpse pose), and the in- structor says something like, “What does it mean to be ‘real’ to the rabbit?” And I knew the quote before she read the rest of it because I had it on my Tumblr page in college. The Velveteen Rabbit was one of my favorite stories as a kid.

Adrian: It’s a beautiful story.

Tess: Yeah, right? And then last night at my friend Helen Huettner’s play, Honey Dipped Apocalypse Girls, one of the characters mentioned “the rabbit,” and I thought, what’s with the rabbit today?

Adrian: How do you fit that into the narrative of the day?

Tess: In the context of the day? Well, the quote is about being real. And so that was kind of interesting to think about, authenticity and realness, and what it means to be real.

Adrian: What does it mean to be real?

Tess: Well, according to the Rabbit and the Skin Horse, being real is when you’re worn, or worn down, and your eyes are falling out, your fur is coming out. It’s well loved and well worn.

Adrian: “Well loved and well worn.” I like that, as a mark of reality.

Tess: Yeah.

Adrian: It’s as if we’re not real until we’ve matured, and found this place in the world that has accepted us until our end.

Tess: Yeah, a world that ruins us in certain ways, or scars us, but that’s the process of being real, that at the end you’re not perfect.

Adrian: I bet you want to know about these questions?

Tess: Yeah, give me some questions.

Adrian: Well, we’ll probably start with the basics.

Tess: “What is a story?”

Adrian: When was your first experience with New York City?

Tess: New York. My first experience was going to a Broadway show in high school. My U.S. History teacher, Mr. Mitchell, would orchestrate these trips every year, and people could opt in and go see shows as a group. And my first show in New York . . . it was either The Little Mermaid or How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Adrian: So then you came a couple times then, while you were in high school?

Tess: Yeah, I went three times. One of the trips was in Connecticut, we saw Jersey Boys. I didn’t really think much about New York until I was in high school or college. I think because my mom moved us to Amsterdam when I was a kid, I had European cities more in my head, rather than U.S. cities. But yeah, I think I liked New York. It was exciting, there was art stuff.

Adrian: Let’s actually back up for a second, because your past is kind of interesting also, because you lived in Europe. So, you were born in the United States?

Tess: Yes. In New Hampshire.

Adrian: And then when you moved to Eu- rope, where did you move to?

Tess: When I was eleven and then turned twelve, we lived in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.

Adrian: Why?

Tess: It was kind of just a whim of my Mom’s. It was after my Grandmother died. So I think it may have been in response to that. I think she did the thing that you’re not really supposed to do, she made a big change after a loss. She just wanted something new.

Adrian: Tell me a little bit about your time in Amsterdam, and what you remember. Was there something that really sticks out while you were living there?

Tess: I think Amsterdam was really pivotal for my writing and my reading. I was loosely home schooled, so I was extremely bored and lonely. I met some kids over there, but they don’t start learning English until a couple of years older than I was at that time, so most
of them I couldn’t really communicate with.
I spent a lot of time reading in my room, and writing when I ran out of English books.

Adrian: Were you writing your own stories at that point?

Tess: Yeah, I kind of just started doing every- thing at that point. I started journaling right before we left.

Adrian: So this was when you were twelve and thirteen years old?

Tess: Eleven, and twelve in Amsterdam. So I started journaling and when we got there I started writing poetry. And then the first morning that we were there, in a suburb of Amsterdam, I woke up in the middle of the night with a story idea. So I made some notes and then I continued writing the story the whole time I was there.

Adrian: Do you remember what the story was about?

Tess: Yes. It’s still one that I want to go back to. It’s a story about this princess, of course, because I was eleven. It was this story about this princess with a really large family, and two of her sisters are kidnapped, and it turns out that one of the sisters orchestrated the kidnapping.

Adrian: Oh, wow. That’s a dark plot for an eleven-year-old.

Tess: I think because my mom split custody with my little sisters’ father, I always had this fear of losing them. I think that was something that came up when I was sleeping, and then I woke up with an idea!

Adrian: Was that the first story that you wrote?

Tess: Well the first story that I probably wrote was when I was in third grade. I think it took place in Ireland because I liked this movie about leprechauns. I think the movie was called Leaping Leprechauns. I didn’t even finish the story. It was twen- ty-three pages, which was really long for this assignment. I went way beyond what the teacher wanted.

Adrian: Wait, how old were you? Tess: I was in third grade.

Adrian: So your teacher was like, “Write a paragraph or two.”

Tess: But I didn’t finish it! Because I got so involved and was taking it way too far, and I didn’t even remember much of the plot, but I remember that I illustrated the last page, and it was this banshee floating in the air and screaming.

Adrian: How dramatic.

Tess: She was wearing a silver dress.

Adrian: Amazing. Did you start writing poetry around the same time, in third grade?

Tess: Whether or not we moved to Amsterdam, I think writing would have come out. I can remember being five and writing silly rhymes. I had one, “Tony the Tiger, sat on a wire, and along came a spider.” Just silly stuff. My mom writes poetry, and my great-grandmother wrote poetry.

Adrian: You come from a lineage of poets. Amazing.

Tess: Yeah, and there’s a lot of really clever and witty people in my family. My sister, Jenny, comes up with the best puns on the spot. My brother, Christopher, comes up with the most hilarious things, and my mom will always come up with ditties, so a lot of creativity in language.

Adrian: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Tess: I have two older sisters, one older brother, two younger sisters through my mom, and then through my father I have a younger brother and a younger sister.

Adrian: Are all of them, or any of them, also writers?

Tess: I think my little sisters write. I know Lara draws a lot, but Lexie sometimes writes poems, and I think Lara might sometimes as well. I always thought that my sister Kate ––– in her school essays, had a very endearing writer voice, but she doesn’t enjoy writing.

Adrian: Just to go back, how long was it that you were living in Amsterdam before you moved back to the United States?

Tess: Half a year.

Adrian: Not even a year.

Tess: Yeah, but I feel like even though it was such a short time, I feel like I really grew there. Because that was where I was writing so much. I had written a bit in elementary school, but in Amsterdam I was writing all day long.

Adrian: I can identify with that. It’s not necessarily the amount of time that you spend in a place, but the move and the change itself can be a catalyst for changes and growth. I can definitely identify with that.

Adrian: So after graduating from high school in New Hampshire, you decided to go to college for writing?

Tess: It didn’t really feel like a decision. I knew that I was going to write for the rest of my life, no matter where I was. So after high school I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I figured people go to college, that’s what they do, so I guess I’d go to college. But I just wanted to write, I didn’t care where. A degree didn’t really matter, but it mattered in the context of taking classes and becoming a better writer.

Adrian: So where did you go?

Tess: I went to the University of New Hampshire, started in 2010 and graduated in 2014.

Adrian: What did you study?

Tess: English.

Adrian: So literature?

Tess: No, actually, so UNH didn’t have a creative writing degree, so basically I majored in English so that I could take as many writing classes as possible. All the poetry classes. All the fiction. All of the nonfiction.

Adrian: How important was school for your writing?

Tess: It was really important.

Adrian: How so?

Tess: For a few different reasons. I didn’t like New Hampshire, but I had awesome professors who made my time there worthwhile. I studied with David Rivard, Mekeel McBride and Meredith Hall. They were just incredible and invested in their students. They cared. So in terms of writing, I think the classes really helped with my growth.

I was reading works that made my work stronger, and responding to it with my own writing. I also took a couple Harvard classes during the summer, one with Paul Harding, which changed my writing forever, and another with Nina de Gramont Education is important because it opens you up to things that you might not discover on your own, so I’m very grateful for mine.

Adrian: So you studied writing, you graduated college, and at that point you decided that you were destined to come to New York? What brought you to the city after that?

Tess: Well, what made my college time a little more complicated was that I tried to transfer to NYU. I got in, and once I got to the city I found out that my loans fell through.

Adrian: Devastating.

Tess: So I was sixteen thousand dollars short. And I asked the financial aid office, “What can I do? I don’t have sixteen thousand dol- lars.” I was nineteen. And the woman at the office said, “There’s nothing we can do for you.” I had been in New York for a week and a half, and I left the city, crying in my step- father’s car, looking back at all the buildings.

When we got back to New Hampshire, it was too late to go to UNH for that semester, so I spent a few weeks being really upset and sad. And my stepfather said a few different things that were really important, and that stuck with me, and one of them was, “New Hampshire doesn’t have to be forever. It can just be a stop on the road.” And that’s what I needed to hear, because that’s what I was afraid of. We lived in a lot of places when I was a kid.

I think that lack of consistency made it so that I don’t really like consistency. I don’t like staying in one place, and I don’t really know how to stay in one place for long and still be satisfied. I feel like I inherited restlessness. After NYU, going back to New Hampshire felt like a life sentence. And it felt horrible.

I didn’t want to be there for a second longer. So for my stepfather to emphasize that I had the ability to someday leave felt really important. So I picked myself up, I got a job working a front desk at the Sleep Inn for a couple months before I quit and visited a friend in Savannah, and the next fall I went back to UNH.

I think I had three big disappointments in my life that have really shaped how I respond to things. And one of them was the absence of my little sisters, the other was a relationship that I really wanted to work out that didn’t, and then there was New York, and I felt like of the three of those, I could do something about one of them. So for me, moving back to New York really felt like the reclamation of a dream that I didn’t get to live, and the reclamation maybe of, if I can live this dream, maybe the others will come too.

Adrian: That’s beautiful. That’s a good story, how you got here. So how many places have you lived in New York City, since you moved here for the first time, which was in . . .

Tess: I moved here in July of 2015. And I made the decision, lickety-split. I had a friend here who said that I could stay with him. I had been in New Hampshire for a couple of months after New Orleans.

Adrian: So New Orleans was in between New Hampshire and New York?

Tess: Yes.

Adrian: We’re probably going to have to talk about New Orleans in just a second. When did you move to New Orleans?

Tess: I lived in New Orleans twice. I did an exchange semester. After NYU didn’t work out I was at UNH for a year, and then the next year I thought, hey, I could stay at UNH and get my degree here, or I could leave and experience a different city. I had gone to New Orleans as a kid, but I didn’t really remember it. I saw New Orleans featured on a poster in the hallway and I thought, alright, I’ll try New Orleans. Of the places for the exchange, I think, two of the places that I wanted to go were in New York, but they weren’t available. The only one that I listed that was available was New Orleans.

So I did a semester at the University of New Orleans, and then after I graduated from UNH I lived in Boston for a sum- mer, working down there, and then come the fall, I was back in New Hampshire, and I thought, “Oh no, how do I get out?” So I started working at a pastry shop that I would walk to from my sister’s apartment. It was about a forty-five minute walk one way. So I’d do the walk before and after work most days.

While I was working there I chatted with a woman who was picking up lunch, and during our conversation it came up that she and her husband owned a digital marketing company. I told her that during my last semester of college I applied to a digital marketing agency, but it didn’t work out. I didn’t get an interview. Later on she came back and she gave me her card, and she said, “Send me your writing.”

And so I sent her an e-mail and within two or three weeks, I had a job, and it was a job that I could do anywhere. And so I bought a ticket to Costa Rica, where I had a friend. And my return ticket, I made to New Orleans, where I still had friends from the last time that I had been living there. And so I lived in New Orleans for seven months, working with a jewelry de- signer and making jewelry and also writing for this digital marketing agency, and it was great until it was getting toward summer, and I didn’t want to be in the hot weather. And so I went back to New Hampshire for two months.

____________________

Keep reading - Issue No. 3 - Winter 2017-18