A story

The characters:
La Profesora – an ageless professor going on 29, again, and again, and again.
The Protege – a drop-dead gorgeous, brilliant young woman. She’s so wonderful you’d love to hate her, but you just can’t.
The Narrator – a woman searching for the plot to her own story. Her character development is a bit spotty, but it’s coming along.

The scene:
A cafe in Winston-Salem that has long past its peak in service and quality. The memory of years past draws the three women together despite the inevitable disappoint they will find when their waitress spills the water, the food turns up lackluster, and the desserts, which are really the cafe’s saving grace, become unthinkable since they entered into battle with their waistlines.

The story:
That is precisely the question.

La Profesora has written and rewritten her story so many times that she has lost count. She has also loved and reloved so many times that she has lost count. Though her given name means beautiful, one dare not use it – ever. In fact, een her lovers call her Professor. She is a brilliant scholar, a gifted professor, and a tenacious researcher. But above all, she is a writer in the most essential of ways. Her love of literature comes from the inner spark to write. Her writing compels her. That all-too-often hidden side of La Profesora is what has sparked this zygote of a story.

One must live one’s life as a story, the Profesora teaches. We must not hide behind the stories of others or shy away from adventure. Our story is the most exciting story, and we must live in a way that it becomes the material of others.

The Profesora has seen the underbelly of the beast in more ways than one, and she continues to return – or move on to another part of it, as she might say. The people in her life are full of blemishes, and even she has a few of her own – though the narrator has yet to see them brought to the light of day. But oh, how rich. The errors, misjudgements and misteries add an infinite number of layers waiting to be peeled back one by one.

The Protege has accomplished more by her mid-twenties than most of us think of doing in a lifetime. Even la Profesora would have a hard time keeping up with this Protege. She has published, she has appeared on television to defend her research, she has traveled broadly, and she is almost through an MA in Buenos Aires, Argentina – never you mind that her native language is English. It’s all the same to her. Institutions seem to throw money at her so that she will lend them her brilliant mind for a brief instant. And men throw themselves at her so that she will lend them her beautiful heart, albeit for an instant.

The Protege has just begun writing her story and she finds herself at a crossroads. She thinks she will never know which page to fill next. She thinks she doesn’t know which side of her character to explore. She has seen the shadows of her person and has rightly shyed away from them. She flips through the empty pages of life’s book and chews on the end of her pen. If she takes the easy way out, the way her story has naturally developed, she can see the end from where she stands. It’s a tedious read when one knows the end of the story. And so she decides to pursue a different plot – it will take her through a bumpy ride. For a while the incongruencies may seem to ruin what has been thus far a pleasant read. But the masters have done such successfully, and she can, too. After all, she is the Protege.

In looking at these two characters, the Narrator sees that the struggles, temptations, and so-called failures make for the very best stories. She smiles as she thinks of their audacity to challenge life’s script, take back the pen, and begin writing for themselves. These women have left the comfort of themselves and crashed into others. Life is messy, and so are the classics.

La Profesora doesn’t gather material. She creates it. Her story is one of communist intrigue, bohemian artists, and underground lovers. Hers is one messy and delectable story. The narrator feels certain that through it all, the Profesora has touched the lives of many, but to what extent, she cannot tell. She only knows that once again, La Profesora has shaken up her carefully crafted world and reminded her of the need to write one hell of a story for herself.