Page 26

The Reading

Nine moments of the night her words were in a room with strangers.

A small Greenpoint bookstore. A Thursday night in late July, 7 PM. Twenty folding chairs. Three other readers on the bill (a poet, a memoir writer, a novelist working on something second). Jan reads three pages from the notebook — chosen with care, all set in the apartment. The audience laughs at the right places. The audience does not clap; they let the silences land. And, after, the bookstore-event person — August, 32, the one who set up the chairs — asks if she'd like to grab coffee Tuesday.

26The ReadingJAN
Jan in the apartment, mid-afternoon Thursday
#01

The Afternoon-Of

The reading was at seven.

Bookstore on Manhattan Ave, twelve blocks from the apartment. Had the three pages. Paper-clipped. Read them aloud, in the apartment, four times. The fourth time, Mim on the kitchen table watching me. Mim was the most generous audience I'd have all day. I was, in the afternoon, in the rust cardigan. Sage cardigan on the bed. Hadn't yet decided. Had been, all afternoon, mostly fine. Been, periodically, specifically not-fine. The not-fine had the texture of reading the pages aloud in a room. The fine had the texture of the pages, alone, in the notebook, in my chair. The cardigan was, at three-fourteen, undecided.

Jan on Manhattan Ave at 6:38 PM, walking toward the bookstore
#02

The Walk Over

Walked the twelve blocks.

Decided at five-forty on the sage cardigan — in front of the small mirror, the way I'd decided two months ago. The pages were in the tote. The light was late-July light, the reliable golden-hour kind. Didn't listen to music. Arrived at 6:51. The chalkboard out front had four names on it. The last name was Jan. The board was a chalkboard. My name was on it.

Inside the bookstore at 6:54 PM
#03

The Setting Up

The bookstore-event person was setting up chairs.

Tall in a way that doesn't announce itself as tall. A beige sweater. Soft round glasses. The kind of person who has done this for a while. Moved a chair. Moved another. Looked up once. Nodded. He said you must be Jan. I said yes. He said you're the last one. Went back to the chair. The audience was, by 6:57, beginning to come in. Hadn't, in any prior season, expected my entrance to a Brooklyn bookstore to be greeted with you must be Jan.

Jan in the front row, second seat from the aisle, watching the poet read at the lectern
#04

The Three Before Me

The poet read first.

A woman in her thirties with a long single braid. Six poems, five minutes, all about her mother. The audience clapped. The memoir writer read second — a piece about her grandmother, with a line that has stayed with me: "my grandmother dyed her hair every six weeks until she was eighty-four." Thought of my own grandmother in 2021, the gray that finally came in. The novelist read third. I was fourth. Three minutes to the lectern.

Jan at the lectern, mid-pause before her first sentence, the three paper-clipped pages on the wood
#05

The Lectern

Stood at the lectern.

Fifteen people in twenty folding chairs. The kind of pre-event wine that gets brought to a bookstore in summer. Took the pages out of the paper clip. Looked up once. I said hi. I said I'm Jan. I said these are three small pieces from a notebook I've been keeping. They're set in the apartment. The audience made a softly-affirming sound that had the same shape as a laugh. Read the first sentence. "The lamp is the same lamp. The light it makes is the light I make with it." The reading had begun the way readings begin.

Mid-reading
#06

The First Laugh

The audience laughed at a line in the second piece: "the cat comes by and looks at me with the level concern of a small CEO." Wrote it three years prior, one of the earliest sentences.

The laugh came from one woman in the third row and two people in the front row. Four people, total. Hadn't known where the laughs would fall. Hadn't known how small a laugh from four people could be while still being the clearest sound in the building. The cat got the laugh. The cat had never been there to know.

End of the third piece, Jan having just read her final sentence
#07

The Silence

Finished the third piece.

The chair piece. The last sentence: "I will, on the morning I find someone else has dragged in another chair, sit in that one too." Practiced it twelve times in the apartment. Couldn't, in twelve readings, predict what a room would do. What the room did: didn't clap. Let the sentence sit. The not-clapping went on for four whole seconds before the other readers shifted. Four seconds is, in audiences, a long time. The four seconds were the audience saying: we received it. I said thank you. The audience clapped then.

Post-reading, just outside the bookstore on the sidewalk, late dusk
#08

The After

Ninety seconds outside before going back in for the tote.

The sidewalk warm. Two audience members on their way out stopped to tell me the chair piece was the one. I said thank you. Said it more easily than expected. The relief — the physical relief of the reading is done — was the loudest thing in my body. Wanted all afternoon for this moment to arrive. Was in it. The pages had been read aloud in a room. The room was behind me. Went back in for the tote.

Back inside the bookstore, near the lectern
#09

The Invitation

Getting my tote from the back of a chair when August said hey. Turned.

He had a chair half-folded in one hand. He said you read really well. I said thank you. He said that's a brave first one. Then: would you want to grab a coffee Tuesday? I said yes without thinking about it. Before I checked my own face. The bookstore was, by 8:46 PM, a few specific people putting chairs away. He said good. Said what's your number. Gave it to him. He texted me at 8:47 PM exactly — august, with a small wave emoji. The 8:47 was, by coincidence, the same eight-forty-seven. Didn't say anything about it then. The Tuesday was four days away.