Chapter Two

The Interview

Daphne Lawrence Gray McGill speaking…

I was in shock for months after the wedding…if you could call it a wedding. Sweet, really. Just the two of us as Emerson wanted. I wore a long, flowered granny dress, flowers in my hair, of course, such was the style in 1968. And there was Emerson wearing some expensive, conservative suit he’d worn for his graduation a few years before. He did know how to dress well.

You know, it was he who started the Writer’s Club. Until then, we were just a clique of friends meeting in coffee houses and on the University lawn. Emerson wanted to make made our efforts more formalized, and required that each of us present a new piece at our meetings, somethingfresh,inspired, he’d say. He insisted we read it aloud. I hated that. At the time, I wanted to hate everything I wrote. Maybe that was why I liked Emerson so much—he loved, appreciated, even revered my writing. Can you imagine, for all his sharp critique of society, of hippies, hawks, protestors, warmongers, everything that life was at the time, he never criticized my work in a negative way—or anyone else’s I think… He only criticized a lack of effort.

She pauses.

Emerson and I came to the next meeting in the basement of the English Department building announcing our big news, wearing two shiny gold rings. Nothing fancy, just simple bands. I still wear it.She fidgets with her right ring finger.Can’t take away those years. I wanted them; I needed them to be the writer I’ve become.She thinks of the past and then returns to the present, her face brightening.You should have seen their faces. Never had a shock wave ripped that crowd with such force!

The Interviewer—Sadie Curtain

You mentioned others in the Writer’s Club?

Daphne

Yes. There was Penelope—tall, ballsy, brunette, a real bombshell. She was small-chested, but she had a kind of svelte sexuality that reeked with confidence. And opinions. She had opinions on everything, and she was a slut in the true sense of the word. You know, the old saying—she’d fuck anything that moved—that was Penny.Oh, she hated to be called that. It was Penelope. The 60’s were made for her—perhaps better put, she helped make them what they became.A long sigh.And then Kathy Ann. She really didn’t belong with us. Yes, she was, still is, a terrific writer, but she wore her feelings on her sleeve and was too easily hurt. She would never have the stomach for what we became. But she was in love with Zack, I think even more than I