At Least I Know Where a Comma Goes. Well, Sometimes.
A look into the life of the Courtney Pulver, who definitely passed the third grade.
Outside, it’s motionless. Nothing stirs. Courtney Pulver blasts through the open archway of the Writing Center at Fulton-Montgomery Community College at 12:53 p.m. I read what seems to be the 70th half plagiarized and half unorganized — totally unreadable — essay. I look up to Courtney’s grand entrance.
In unison with her navy-blue Michael Kors purse, her hair swings to the perfect 45-degree angle above the apogee of her head, accompanied with loud clicks, originating from her heels. Once she reaches the center of the space, the clicking quickly speeds up and then immediately stops. She scans the busy space: the white-industrial painted walls, two whiteboards, and a myriad of tables. After letting out a breath of exasperation, she locks eyes with me and says, “What are you doing here.”
“Court, it’s Friday. I always work Fridays,” I say.
“Oh. Where’s Colleen?”
Without responding, she storms into the office behind me. Not quite entirely in Colleen’s office, I hear, “you’ll never guess the argument that Dave and I had last night.”
I am interested in the charming exchange about to happen, since all I’ve heard about this David figure is Courtney’s award-winning performance of his daily cologne application ritual. He spritzes Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue men’s cologne in the air when his inner runway diva takes hold. He struts through the scented cloud and ends with effeminate full-body turn that would make gay men uncomfortable. Fifteen minutes later, he is ready for the day.
As I enter Colleen’s office and see Courtney lounging one of the office chairs, she begins recounting the argument. “Dave and I were at out on date night at Olive Garden, eating Italian.” It may be important to note that Courtney says “Italian” as eye-talian, with heavy emphasis on the “eye.”
“Dave and I were out at Olive Garden when he told me that he is Italian. And I told him that I didn’t know he lived in Italy at all — ever.”
He replies, “I never did”
“Then, you’re not Italian are you, Dave?” she says, “you’re of Italian descent.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
This, rather circular, argument continues in the middle of Olive Garden for quite some time, and, soon after, Courtney soon gets a text that reads: “I am just rome around New York then.”
Inspiring.
That was about a year ago, in 2015, when she was working on her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Flash forward to 2016, where Courtney barely can breathe from being stretched too thin and doesn’t have time to sit in her boss’s office to vent about the various happenings of her beloved. And not just because Dave is down in New York City, studying Corporate Communications. (His major, by the way, has changed at least four times, from psychology — until he learned that Freud isn’t an authority — to Business — until he learned math is awful.) After meeting him at a Wal-Mart in Amsterdam, NY, Courtney has rescued him from his bourgeois existence as an HVAC technician, although he keeps taking the road less traveled.
It’s August 2015 and, in two weeks, Courtney will be off to The New School, down in NYC to pursue being “a writer,” a pursuit that she will credit as her biggest regret. She will say that they teach how to be a writer without acknowledging the heartbreaking realities of such a task.
“You can write everyday, but not everyone can be a writer,” she will say.
She will say these things, but first, she desperately needs shampoo.
‘From the look of it, you have not the slightest clue how to use a comma.’
It must have been destiny that these star-crossed lovers were in the same aisle that fateful midsummer’s night. The meeting is a dependent clause in the grand narrative of their courtship, a total butchering of a rom-com meeting. Courtney picks up a bottle of Tresemé shampoo, which she accidentally drops because she checks her phone. Dave, walking by the aisle, sees the descent and, trying to help, gallops down the aisle to the damsel. Meanwhile, she had already bent over to pick it up. Mid-pick up, she looks up to the silhouette of an average-sized Italian man, who obviously spends too much time doing his hair. She stands up and realizes that he is not average-sized, but instead rather short. And so, the two-year long-distance courtship begins its course.
The two years that follow isn’t anything compared to the smorgasbord of jobs she has now. She tells me, “Well, I spend most of my time in the car. I drive an hour and fifteen minutes to Hudson Valley Community College, where I get to work for four hours, being an assistant for new student orientation and retention. And then I drive an hour and thirty-five minutes back here, at FM, to teach my college composition class for an hour, and tutor after that for a little on Wednesdays. I drive another thirty minutes to Schenectady Community College to work in the testing center.”
Courtney’s first class with Susan Cheever is perhaps her most memorable moment in New York. Cheever is the daughter of canonical American short-story writer and novelist John Cheever who wrote short stories (“The Enormous Radio,” “The Five-Forty-Eight,” and “The Swimmer”), four novels, and the novella, Oh What a Paradise It Seems.
This first night, Courtney is star-struck by the presence of such a literary legend. There’s not much that would impress 22-year-old Courtney, but being in the same room as the scion of John Cheever is reason enough for her to fan-girl. Even though she had studied under Lynne Tillman and Lydia Davis, the meeting with Susan Cheever was different.
Courtney enters the room with six writers sitting at a table. Cautiously, with her trademark hyper-anxiety, she creeps to the table. She takes out her phone to text Colleen, her boss at FM, saying how much she is just totally freaking out that not even twenty feet away from her is Susan freaking Cheever.
For her first assignment, she wrote, according to her, a charming recollection of her mother’s notorious alcoholism. In “The Two Ds,” she recounts blowing on the Breathalyzer to start her car, which initiates the two personas of her mother: Dee, the drunk self, and Dale, the undrunk self. Courtney was excited about submitting her masterpiece. What she received was a paper back with the words “grammar rehab” written on the top.
Later that week, Courtney met Cheever at a café; she arrives about fifteen minutes before Cheever. Cheever sits down, without saying a word, and orders not a cup, but a pot of tea. She fills their cups, takes out Courtney’s essay and glares into her eyes.
“Courtney.”
“Yes,” Courtney replies, terrified.
“I take it that you did, in fact, pass third grade”
“Well, of course I d–”
Interrupting her Cheever says, “Or, maybe, did your application just slip through the cracks at graduate admission?”
Courtney stares at Cheever, silently puzzled.
“You may want to tell this story that, then. Because, from the look of it, you have not the slightest clue how to use a comma.”
And after months of grueling over her non-fiction portfolio, Courtney did learn where the comma goes.