Lexicon

considered sufficient to offset your deficiencies in defense. I would see this. Because presently, my dear, I have trouble imagining how this could be true. I will allow you one opportunity to speak to me. Use it to convince me why I should keep you.
Vartix velkor mannik wissick.
You may speak.”
    Her throat loosened. She coughed, to prove it. She said, “Ug.” It felt good to make that sound. Yeats waited patiently. It would take one hell of an argument to convince him of anything, she thought. She had been in situations like this, where people said,
Convince me
, and in none of those had they actually wanted to be convinced. She could lay down a perfect argument and they just invented new bullshit on the spot to justify why the answer was still no. When people said,
Convince me
, she knew it didn’t mean they had an open mind. It meant they had power and wanted to enjoy it a minute. She didn’t know if that was true of Yeats. But she did not feel that she could talk her way out of this. Why should Yeats keep her? She was fucked if she knew. She was nothing but trouble.
    “
Fennelt!
” she said. “
Rassden!
” These were attention words, which she’d collected from other students. It was incredibly unlikely they would do anything to Yeats; she didn’t even know his segment. If she fluked one, he was no doubt capable of shrugging off anything a student could manage. “
Thrilence! Mallinto!
” He didn’t react. Didn’t so much as flinch. “Die!” she said. Which was kind of stupid, but she was out of words. And she wanted it very much. “Die, you flat fuck!”
    “Enough.”
    Her mouth closed. Words clogged her throat, bobbing up and down. They tasted hot, like bile.
    Yeats looked at her awhile. She couldn’t read him. She didn’t know whether she had lived or died.
    “I have a name for you,” he said, “when the time is right.” He walked away. She heard him reach the door but couldn’t turn her head. “You may move, in a while.”
    Some time passed. A bird landed near the golf clubs and began to hop hopefully around the little green mat. She breathed. Her chest loosened one muscle at a time. That was how she got herself back. Filament by filament. She had survived, somehow. She was still here.
    • • •
    She was collected by a woman she had seen once before, stepping out of a black town car alongside Yeats that time he had visited the school. She didn’t introduce herself but Emily already knew her name was Plath. She had asked. Plath was all cheekbones and elbows and gave Emily the feeling that she would push her in front of a train for a nickel. She had cruel shoes and a phone and looked at Emily in a way that reminded her of being stepped over on a San Francisco sidewalk on a bad day. “Can you move?” Plath said.
    “Yes.”
    Plath beckoned. Emily followed. There were stairs and then she was in the parking garage. A car Emily knew well was there and her heart leaped. It was the first moment she had truly believed she was getting out of here. She looked at Plath and Plath said nothing so Emily walked to the car. Its engine turned over. She opened the passenger door and inside was Eliot. “Hi,” she said. She wanted to kiss him.
    Eliot didn’t speak. But he looked at her and she knew she was safe. He was still angry with her, of course. But he was not dangerous. She could relax in a car with Eliot. When the car exited the garage into bright sunshine, she closed her eyes. Somewhere in the snarl of streets, she fell asleep.
    • • •
    She opened her eyes and was somewhere else. “Where are we?” She saw a road sign. “Are we going to the airport?” Eliot flicked on the turn signal. The car drifted toward a lane marked DEPARTURES . “Hey,” she said. “Eliot. Yeats said I could still be a poet. He tested me and I passed. I don’t have to go away.” It was like talking to a wall. “Eliot, I can go back to the school.”
    He pulled alongside the curb and took something from the seat pocket. “This is your passport. This is your confirmation number.” A blue booklet with a white business card tucked inside. The card had a string of letters and numbers in blue ink above TOM ELIOT, RESEARCH ANALYST . “Use the machines inside to check in.”
    “Talk to Yeats. Eliot. Call Yeats. He’ll tell you.”
    “These are his instructions.”
    She stared. “But I passed.”
    “It’s temporary,” Eliot said. “You can come home in a few years.”
    “Years?” she said.