"That's what I want to talk to you about," my father reached for my hands. "We've been remiss with our holidays the last few years."
"I don't mind. I'm not a child anymore," I reminded him.
He squeezed my fingers. "Even more reason for us to take the time to celebrate. You need to let yourself be a kid again, even if it's just during the holidays. You're much too serious, Clarity."
I narrowed my eyes but knew I would never win this fight. We had it almost every day. My father thought I was too serious, too focused, and that I was going to miss out on my life. I thought he was sentimental and pinning his abandoned desire to paint on me. We'd go ten rounds about what we each thought the other should do, and then let it blow over until the next day.
"How about we make a deal?" I asked.
My father let go of my fingers and steepled his hands together. "Ah, a deal. Does it include you finding a creative outlet and letting a little more balance into your life?"
I swatted at him even as I thought about the scrap of paper in my back pocket. "Nice try, but we're skipping the lecture today and going straight to negotiations."
He laughed and sat back to cross his arms and give me a regal stare. It didn't quite work with the remainder of his red hair still fuzzy from sleep and his bathrobe tight over his belly. "Fine, I'm listening."
I grinned. "I will help you cook a full Thanksgiving meal, decorate the house from autumn leaf garlands down to a cornucopia centerpiece, if you help me complete my entire application for Wire Communications."
"Turkey, stuffing, gravy, the whole works?" he asked.
"Even acorn squash with nutmeg," I promised.
My father's eyes twinkled. "Throw in one original poem and it's a deal."
"No poem, no short story, just the entire Thanksgiving experience."
"Fine. Deal." My father stuck out his hand and we shook on it. "Now what's this about a short story."
"Dad!" I laughed but shifted so I could feel the folded paper in my back pocket again.
#
The armchair was half-hidden behind the archive stacks in the basement of the library. Above it was a porthole window, a trace of the old building before the new addition. That was why the tiny alcove was an anomaly in the architecture and the perfect place to curl up and work on my secret project.
The scrap of paper was now taped on the inside of a spiral bound notebook. Page after page was crossed with a slashing X as I had written and rewritten the beginning about eighteen times. I wanted it to be perfect.
Each word felt like a tiny puzzle piece that had to be turned and fitted precisely. I loved agonizing over them and watching beautiful sentences form.
The best feeling, though, came from the moments when the pen took off and I filled half a dozen pages with inspiration. My mind soared and I felt the smile on my lips even though I was all alone.
Every time my phone beeped to remind me of the time, I felt like I was coming down from a great height. Gravity was heavier as I trudged up the stairs and crossed the courtyard that joined the library with Thompson Hall. It was my new routine to work on my secret project until it was time for Ford's class. If it had been any other class, I would have skipped it and stayed in my little library alcove, scribbling away forever.
No one knew where I disappeared to, and that was part of the thrill. I hadn't told anyone, not even Jasmine or Lexi, and I certainly was not going to please my father with news of my creative endeavor. If he knew I was writing a short story, he would yell it from the rooftops.
"Did you find that link I sent you about traditional story structures?" Ford asked as I walked into the lecture hall.
"Yes, thank you! Kurt Vonnegut sums it up so well. I loved how he described the shape of stories. Especially Cinderella," I said.
Ford smiled, and for a moment I forgot about the multiple levels of students behind me. There was only his stubbled grin, and the crinkled lines of it around his smoky gray eyes. The man had black lashes that could ensnare me.
"Are you going to tell me what you're working on?" he asked.
I turned to walk up to my seat. "Who says I'm working on anything? Maybe if you didn't give us so much homework ..."
The students nearest me snickered and called out their agreement. I felt a tug in my chest. It always felt awful to separate us back into our roles. He was a professor and I was a student, except when he smiled and the outside world receded.
I missed most of his lecture that day, but I knew it wouldn't bother me to watch him again on the recording my laptop made. My notes were a jumble of attempted phrases and minute descriptions, a mess of writing that had nothing to do with journalism.
As long as no one noticed, I was recklessly following my own instincts. If anyone saw me acting so free-spirited and irresponsible, I knew the unsaid comparison to my mother would drive it all away. Writing a creative short story felt wild, impractical, and wonderful as long as I had it all to myself.