Art by Annemeike Mein: “Whirlpool Frog”
Midmorning in mid-October, in the middle of the campus, Chandra stopped in the center of the crisscrossing sidewalks. She pulled the phone from her handbag and pretended to be texting someone; she smiled down at the screen as if someone had texted her back. She felt other students brushing past her on the walkway, but didn’t look up at their faces.Complete story available online at Colorado Review
I kept thinking of story classifications as I mulled this one over. Some stories are love stories, or war stories or sexual abuse stories or coming-of-age stories; this one seems obviously classifiable as an anorexia story, but I think that’s just the specific vehicle; the motivation is broader. The editor’s introduction to the Spring 2015 issue of Colorado Review nails it:
“Emerging from the grip of winter, when we’ve retreated from the cold, holing up in the warmth of our homes and for a time losing touch with the earth, with one another, sometimes even with ourselves, we long to reestablish ties once the green reveals itself again. The fiction and essays gathered here, in this spring issue, bring us stories of people seeking connection in its various forms.”
The voice, though somewhat off-putting to me, is perfect for the story: it reads like an emotionally unaware college student wrote it, little hints slipping out right and left almost deliberately in that passive-aggressive way of screaming “Why are you always looking at me please pay attention to me just leave me alone”. The anorexia angle, for instance: it’s so evident, from the professor’s remarks about “not another anorexia essay” to the obsession with Pop-Tarts and hip bones, yet that’s just the surface symptomology of the deeper intimacy issues that play out. Like pretending she’s texting someone, which is the new version of 1975’s “inventing lovers on the phone” – or the “I have plans that night” from the 50s. After all, if someone is texting you, that means you’re normal, right? But a cell phone is all the intimacy she can handle.
The story has strong bone structure underneath that deliberately ravaged skin. It’s fascinating to watch as Chandra reveals a tiny bit, gauges the response, and moves a bit closer to Eli (and, literally, farther from her phone and into hot water). She starts off making up lies just to agree with him: she sees the single red leaf he sees, about to fall (now there’s a genuinely good pickup line if ever I heard one), and things go downhill from there. She’s new at this, so it’s natural she doesn’t interpret the signals well: he’s dismissive of nearly everything she says. The final revelation is inadvertent. In the context of an actual nascent relationship rather than pretense, it would be possible to get back on track. But it’s just too much for Chandra.
Approach-avoidance: that tug of war between the guy in real life or the phone in the tree, the fear vs pull of relationship, the anorexic woman who enrolls in a gender studies class than won’t show up. All the usual coming-of-age crap here in Body Week XLI, dialed up to a pathological 11 and covered over with an Everything’s Fine, Fine veneer. The resolution almost doesn’t matter. Almost.
A Just Recompense 
I replied via my own post. I pretty much agree with your reading.