“Are you sure you’re in the right place, dear?”
A woman with greying hair, a turtleneck and a no-nonsense set of freshly sharpened pencils glanced at my peach tote bag crammed with my laptop, a handful of borrowed books and a copy of season 3 of Sex and the City poking loudly out the top. I, too, glanced, at the other members of the conference room gathered around the table: fresh notebooks, fountain pens and other weapons of trade rested in their composition queues, engines humming and rearing to go. Their owners, a collaboration of distinguished-looking types and those so disheveled you know they’re either pure geniuses or purely insane, sat behind these crossbows and waited for my answer.
“Creative writing?” I half-asked, half-answered, unfolding the paper calendar the clerk at the help desk had given me to keep. And sure enough, there it was: a creative writing group that meets Thursday nights in one of library’s media centers.
She refused to answer or make eye contact, instead focusing her bifocals back on the news clippings stacked neatly to her right. She nodded slightly in my direction, my cue to pull a plastic folding chair to the table and officially introduce myself to the group. As names and titles were swapped, it became apparent that my intuition had been proven right once again: I was now seated amongst a room full of published authors, newspaper journalists and former librarians. Rap stars of the very linguistic world to which I don’t yet own a map, and I was just a groupie.
“And do you know what we do here, Carrie, in our creative writing group?” Her eyes remained fixed on her own belongings, while I apologetically explained that my name was Karyn, not Carrie. She paused, and glanced once again towards my bag. My cue, once again, to speak.
“Well,” I replied, “I guess, I’d think that you write here.” It seemed like a good enough answer - simple, to the point, and with minor hesitation. Score one for Team Carrie.
And with this, her eyes - dark eyes that had likely seen a hundred thousand bright young things come and pass faster than a shooting star - met mine. A glittered power stare, one that made her slight, delicate build seem ten feet tall.
“And do you write, Carrie?”
It was at this point that I knew I had met my match. Another stranger coupled with another set of doubts that a pretty girl has more on her mind than lipstick and emerald cut engagement rings. One more cynic who lacked respect for my case, because I hadn’t earned it. She didn’t know me from a hole in the wall. And for all that she cared, I was just a hole in the wall.
An amateur by trade, I began to slowly name the small, barely existent list of accolades I’ve pegged on my totem pole, and just as a question had formed in one of my classmate’s mouths - who? what? why? I’ll never know - we were interrupted by our gracious host to begin the class.
I was in the right place.