CREATIVE WRITING
CREATIVE NONFICTION
AN EXCERPT FROM “PRETTY GIRL, ANGRY WOMAN” (2022)
“Last week, the boy you like asked you to come over. You get excited, you love when he says that he wants to see you. You spend more time than you should getting ready, because you also like when he says that you smell nice and that you look pretty. So you put your favorite perfume that smells like gardenias on your wrists and you try to pick out an outfit that looks good without making it seem like you’re trying too hard. You settle on a cropped graphic tee of a band you’ve never heard before and your softest sweater over it. You begin the walk over to the building where he lives. It’s all the way across campus, and it’s cold out, but you don’t mind. You get to his dorm so you send him a text that you’re there. It’s pretty late and it’s Friday, so you’re expecting to see people around, but you’re the only one in the hallway. He texts you back, Come in. So you softly knock on his door, and when you hear his voice, you open it.
He lives in a triple, and one of his roommates is in there, along with him and two other friends. He’s standing near the door and he comes over to hug you. You let him, but your eyes are glued to the television that sits atop two of their desks. The other boys are searching on the TV and one of them is saying, “Find the video where the girls are naked!” You know that you aren’t very good at hiding your emotions, so you are aware of how incredulous you must look, but you don’t say anything. The boy you like looks at you uncomfortably, “I tried to get them to leave,” he says. Then he grabs your hand and pulls you over to the couch. The other boys have turned on a music video and all the girls are naked. They’re gawking and laughing and you sit there in silence, trying not to look. His friends don’t seem to notice your discomfort, so they search up more videos. Videos of girls humping beds and chairs and you feel like you might be sick because you’re sitting here silently watching soft porn with boys you hardly know and they’re laughing and talking about how much they love certain parts of these women’s bodies and you become acutely more aware of those parts on your own. Your roommate, who you’ve been updating via text, calls you, so you rush out of the room and into the women’s bathroom across the hall. When you walk back into his room, the other boys are gone and it’s just the boy that you like, who says over and over again while you lie next to him that he feels terrible, and you pretend it’s fine, but you just can’t get their words out of your head.
I wonder what he says about me when I’m not around.
You’re twenty, and you’re on the metro in Paris. You’re heading home after a day in the third arrondissement, checking out clothing sales, and you hop on the train that takes you back to your hostel. You’re there for a month, January, taking a French course for college credit. You have your afternoons free, so you and a male classmate of yours decide to take advantage of it and go to your new favorite neighborhood, which also happens to be where all the good shops are. You feel good, you found a pair of pants that you love, they’re navy blue with thin white stripes, and you finally got your friends at home gifts that you know they’ll like. You’re standing because when you got on the train all the seats were taken, so you’re just holding onto the silver pole in the middle of the car, thinking about the sweater you have back at the hostel that matches those navy blue pants.
The doors open, people get on, people get off. You notice there are some empty seats, but you realize you’re okay with standing, so you stay put. A man comes and stands next to you, putting his hand above your head on the pole. You don’t think anything of it at first, some people like standing. But suddenly, you feel his pelvis pressing against your back. At first, you think he is trying to rob you, you’ve heard these things about the metro, so you clutch your purse and your shopping bag close to your chest. The pressing doesn’t stop. You look around, trying to see if the train is more full than you thought, and you realize it isn’t. You’re scared. You try to wiggle away from his body, but he’s pressed you between the pole and himself. You keep moving, slightly, because you’re not sure what he’ll do, and you desperately try to make eye contact with your classmate. He’s on his phone. Then you look at the other women on the train, trying to communicate with your eyes, please get this man away from me. But no one seems to see you or if they do, they don’t care. You’re panicking, and suddenly it’s your stop. You run off the train, but you can still feel him pressed against you.
I wonder what he would have done if I was alone.”
AN EXCERPT FROM “TABLE FOR TWO” (2024)
“If my grandfather could’ve kicked and screamed the entire five and a half hour drive from Auburn, New York to Northfield, Massachusetts I think he would have.
Auburn, New York, the place that the Red Cross had sent him after he was taken from his home in Ukraine at eighteen during the Second World War.
Auburn, New York, where he had lived in the same house for over forty years – nurturing a garden of fruit trees and flowers that added spots of color to the view from every window.
Auburn, New York, where he had found a community of Ukrainian immigrants to befriend.
Auburn, New York, where he had raised my mom and her sister. And where my mom’s sister had died when she was twenty-one.
He was leaving forever. How do you even begin to grapple with that?
✹
When my grandfather drove through the arm gate at the hospital, sending the parking attempt jumping out of the little hut next to it like a blockbuster action hero, my parents decided that it was time to move him into our home. He had resisted the move for years, saying that he could live on his own, he’d done it for all this time. But I think after destroying a ten foot long metal arm and almost running someone over, he finally relented.
So, he made the move to Northfield, Massachusetts to live with his daughter (my mom) and her family (me, my brother, and my dad). We converted part of the upstairs of our home into an apartment for him, even installing one of those weirdly fun stair lifts that I got yelled at if I tried to sit on it. I was twelve when he moved in, and at first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Here was this man I’d only ever seen on holidays, who snored really loudly and complained even more loudly, and now he was living with us. His voice was deep and carried through the rooms of our colonial home. He was constantly shouting for my mom - criticizing the meals she made or wanting her to change the channel on his TV because he forgot how to do it himself. My mom always wanted me to check in on him since I was always the first person home in the afternoon. I would get off the bus and walk up the stairs to my grandfather’s makeshift apartment, say hello (if he was awake), and ask him how his day was. Often, he would grunt or give me a few short sentences in reply. He was fine, he had a sandwich for lunch, and could I water his plants for him. Sometimes, I would just peak my head into his room quickly just to make he was okay, but too scared to engage in conversation with him. I could feel sadness seeping into me, turning me blue.
✹
Meals on Wheels America is a national organization powered by a volunteer workforce that supports “more than 5,000 community-based programs across the country that are dedicated to addressing senior hunger and isolation.” The volunteer network aims to provide solutions to these issues through the meal delivery service, as well as by offering companionship to those who might not engage in many face-to-face interactions in their daily lives. The network’s solution to senior hunger and isolation begins with the sharing of meals, which provens to empower independence and general well-being in program users. Through the services that encourage senior citizens to foster independence and prioritize well-being, Meals on Wheels is able to facilitate the creation of communities between the elderly residents of the areas they work in.
✹
My grandfather’s health was deteriorating quickly, we soon realized, and he needed more support than we could give him, as my brother and I were in school all day, and my parents both worked full-time jobs. He couldn’t be trusted to eat in a way that would help his diabetes be less severe. He was always sneaking salty treats - like sausages and pickles. It was the food of his home in Ukraine, and now he was being told he couldn’t eat it anymore. I sympathized with him. Food was his connection to his life before he had come to the United States, and now that connection was being severed. But, I also understood my mom’s perspective. She wanted her father to be healthy. To live longer than he was setting himself up for.
My parents were desperate, so they decided to start using Meals on Wheels, hoping the organization would bring my grandfather lunches that would be good for him. They put all these restrictions on his diet plan so Meals on Wheels would have guidance on what to feed him. But somehow, Meals on Wheels made a mistake, and the first day they delivered food to my grandfather they gave him kielbasa, a Ukrainian type of sausage. My grandfather was delighted. My parents…not so much. After that first delivery, though he continued to complain about most things, he never complained about Meals on Wheels.”
FICTION
AN EXCERPT FROM MURDER AT MOUNT HERMON: A SHORT FICTION PIECED BASED ON THE STORY OF THE MURDER OF HEADMASTER ELLIOT SPEER AT NORTHFIELD MOUNT HERMON SCHOOL IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
“When Elliot Speer was murdered, shot dead through the window of his home study, Thomas Elder knew he would be blamed. When the newspaper reported on the death, he noticed the looks people gave him in Church and as he walked to his office in the mornings – they were frightened. And when the police knocked on his door and told him they needed to ask a few questions, he wasn’t the least bit surprised.
That night had been normal for Thomas Elder. He had a strict routine, which he stuck to like it was law, and that night was no exception. As the Dean of Students at Mount Hermon School for Boys, rules were everything, and he carried that philosophy with him into his personal life. He left the office every day at quarter to six and walked to his home across the campus of the boy’s school. That night in particular – in mid September – the school year had just begun and he greeted some of his students during his walk. Tall and lean, he walked quickly, and was home exactly at six o’clock every night. He kissed his wife, Mary, on the cheek as she took off his suit jacket and led him to the dining room, where dinner was already prepared. He sat at the head of the table, Mary to his left, his eldest son next to her, and the younger children to his right. Once they were all seated, they held hands, bowed their heads, and said Grace – thanking the Lord for good food and family. Then, they ate.
Thomas Elder liked knowing that when he got home, food would already be on the table, and the wonderful smells of meat and potatoes and vegetables would waft into the entryway as soon as he stepped inside. He liked that his family always sat down together for meals and that he knew they always would; consistency was the best way to ensure one lived by the words of the Lord. And nothing was more important to Thomas Elder than the Lord.
But it was 1934 and the world was changing, despite Thomas Elder’s prayers for it to remain the way it was. Elliot Speer was proof of that, this change. He was young, handsome, and idealistic – only thirty-five years old and already trying to change the world. He had sandy blonde hair and a cheeky smile that, in Thomas Elder’s opinion, he used to get his way. Elliot Speer was a modernist, he wanted to take the rules that had always been in place, since the Church had been established, and mold them into having new meaning. He challenged the role of religion in academia in such a way that Thomas Elder found it sinful. When he was appointed headmaster of Mount Hermon in 1932, Thomas Elder was furious. Not only had he been there longer, he had committed himself to the rules of the institution as they had been written when it opened fifty years earlier. He had dedicated his life to Mount Hermon, trying his best to turn the young boys that entered the rural campus into fine, Christian men. And he had been successful, until Elliot Speer came in with his radical ideas and turned the place upside down.”