An hour and a half late

25 Oct 2023: A short story

An hour and a half late, on the fifth floor, reached by the seemingly never-ending empty stairs, I finally found room 5007. It looked exactly the same as 3031 and 1009 had, but hopefully would contain the class I’d joined, who didn’t know they were expecting me.

I pushed the door open, and seven slightly startled faces turned toward me. They’d been in deep conversation huddled around one table in the corner of the room, monitors off, white boards empty, a sky the color of wet newspaper stretching low over leafy, damp suburban London. Now, silence broke across them, a deep blush crawling up the neck of the brown-haired and bearded man seated at the head of the table as he twisted around in his seat to greet me.  

“Sex and text?” he offered, and it sounded salacious: here, if this was where I indeed belonged, were the secrets I’d been seeking.

“Yes please,” I answered, and took a seat to his left: shufflings all around the table as space was made for me to wedge my awkward self into this established intimacy.

“Um, eh.” He said, and the group shifted. “Why don’t we just…” He turned his head toward me: thick, square glasses, neatly cropped light brown hair brushed forward, framing his surprisingly downcast eyes, his new-growth beard pointing like a Karamazov to his elegant, lean hands, seemingly held mid-gesture, even when at rest.

Half crouched, I sat in the partly-scooted-in chair, arrested in the act of arriving, preparing already to leave.

“…go round the table and introduce ourselves to…”

I felt heat rise, and, trying not to sound bothered, blurted: “Caite.” And then: “Sorry.”

“No bother, I have you down here.” He said, unwinding as I continued the act of arriving, though I was hardly moving. “Hard to find. Introduce ourselves to Caite, shall we? I mean…” and he giggled, a surprising sound, intimate but open. A shared secret passed between the group, only two weeks old and already knit like a talisman together, dipped in secrets and sealed in tar and buried with placenta in the eastern woods. I had seen the book they were reading. I wanted to hold that idea without horror or fear. I wanted to share the secret.

“Sherry? Why don’t you start.” He said, and a young student of twenty-two or twenty-three disappeared their strawberry and cream complexion up to their nose into an oversized hoodie, “New York” emblazoned across the front.

“wha?” they whispered, eyes wide, looking at him.

He laughed again, and the laugh settled everyone, Sherry too. Somehow it said, even though we read and write and talk about all things most people think are taboo, we do this together. I relaxed a little. Maybe I would be accepted here. “I don’t know, your name and something interesting about you.” He smiled, kindly, a broad, and open smile, and he lifted his eyes to them, open and clear. They were amber brown, magnified, and solid, unswimming.

Sherry smiled back and pulling chin out of hoodie: “I’m Sherry.” Looking again at the magnified eyes, he answered with a nod and a shrug. The two of them could already speak in shorthand. Only Sherry knew what was interesting about Sherry, the shrug seemed to imply.

“I’m Sherry Sheheair.” She exclaimed, and then shrugged back, and laughed a little, and a titter went once more around the group. She exhaled and let the tension leave her knotted and drawn in body. There was a keen intelligence in this room. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard the instruction, something interesting, not just a name, or just didn’t want to share. I wanted to say “Where are you from?” but I’m reflexively verbose, and it was time to listen, not to talk.

Next to her another co-ed, early 20s, curly shortish hair and a studious manner, the pinky of their right hand stained with ink from the notebook in front of them full to bursting as mine was empty. I looked at the ink. I was in the right place. “I’m Carol Sheheir.” She said.

The group giggled. I felt a little snag in my brain. Wait. “Are you guys related?” I asked, the response was a chorus of quiet laugher, easier, together, more of the group.

“No.” Sherry whispered, smiling into her hoodie.

“I’m Gina Sheheair.” Said the next one, and I looked genuinely confused.

“It’s a joke.” Said Carol, leaning in as the next student took their turn.

“Shehani Sheheair.” She said. I looked at Carol. I looked around the group, it seemed they weren’t laughing at me, more that I was part of some inside joke, or would be soon, I’d just yet to grasp it. It was a friendly laughter.

“It’s pronouns.” Gina said.

Dawn broke over my stumbling mind, PRONOUNS, oh, these were… “Oh my god! I was so confused!” I laughed out loud, looking at them. I pointed to Sherry.

“I thought your last name was Sheheair! I didn’t realize you were saying She/Her!!” the group continued to smile and laugh as the person to my left prepared to speak. I bumbled on. “I was thinking, how in the world can everyone have the same last name, I thought you guys were playing a joke on me!”

Our tutor of the long-limbed fingers, smiled and continued a gesture.

“I’m Emma.” Said the person next to me, as my coffee, quickly consumed though still scorching hot as I’d finally reached the door moments ago seemed suddenly to gell thick and cold and curdled in my hollow stomach. My turn was next. “Sheheair.” She finished, and I laughed along with them all, part of the group, welcomed.

“I’m Caite.” I said, exhaling slowly, “They/Them.” And felt the bottom drop away again.