Helen tells the story of how she and Todd broke up
“The teacher said she would write a recommendation for me for grad school,” Jessica said to Roxy.
When Helen reentered, they both looked up at her, but said nothing, as if she were so fragile a single unexpected sound might cause her to shatter into a million little pieces. Helen smiled wanly, to show them she was stronger than they thought.
Before she sat, Helen gathered the damp, snotty tissues lying on the reddish-pink couch, crumpled them up in a ball and carried them to the bathroom. Helen dropped the wad of tissue onto the top of the Zambiggini’s grocery bag they used as a garbage can. They hadn't had a real garbage can in there since Lana moved out the previous fall. It just rested on top of all the other junk inside. She rinsed off her hands and rejoined Jessica and Roxy. When she sat, Jessica reached over to her and gave her a quick hug.
“Okay,” Helen said. “Okay. This is so ridiculous,” she said, and shook her head. “You know, I never told you the story of how Todd and I finally broke up.”
“We were wondering,” Roxy said, “but… well, you know. I thought you’d tell us when you were ready.”
“Tell us now,” Jessica said gently, but insistently.
“Well,” Helen said, and took a deep breath. “We hadn't hung out for several days. I don't know why, I guess I was tired of him, and I had been thinking that we should end it for several weeks. Ever since I got back from San Diego, it hadn't been the same. It hadn't been the same since last December.”
Both Jessica and Roxy nodded soberly.
“The last time we had been together,” the weekend before, “had been an absolute disaster. We went to a party at his friend Willoughby's house.”
“That guy,” Roxy said, and rolled her eyes.
“Before we went, I told Todd I would drive so he could drink as much as he wanted. So, we were at the party, and I only drank two beers and he knew it-while he had at least three, and probably four, by the time I told him I wanted to go. He wanted to stay, but I had a headache and there was no one there for me to talk to-just surfers and their slutty girlfriends, who all looked like they were still in high school. And knowing Willoughby, they probably were.”
As soon as she said that, though, she wished she hadn't. She had meant merely to underscore to Roxy and Jessica that she knew how lame Todd and his friends were, but in doing so she had inadvertently reminded Jessica of their friend Tim, and the argument they had had when Jessica found out he had slept with a girl who was still in high school.
“Willoughby,” Roxy said, shaking her head. “He's going to end up in jail, one of these days.”
“Why are guys like that? Jessica asked. Don't they understand how much damage they cause?”
The wounds between Jessica and Tim over that had only recently healed. Jessica had told Helen that she had talked to Tim when she got back to school in January, and that the matter was resolved, but Helen wasn't so sure it would be that easy. Not that Helen on very good terms with Tim, either. His experience with April seemed to have propelled him into a downward spiral that he couldn’t pull out of.
“I know. And so I really wanted to leave. I dragged Todd out of there and when we got to my car, he demanded that I give him my keys. He didn't think I was sober enough to drive! I started screaming at him, telling him he was an asshole, and that I had only drank two beers, and he'd had five, and there was no way he was going to drive my car, no way in hell.”
“Good,” Roxy said. “That put him in his place.”
“Well, except that I ended up letting him drive. I guess I just couldn't stand fighting about it; I already had the most horrible headache, and I just didn't have enough energy to care. The whole way home, I was wishing we would get stopped by the cops, so he'd get totally busted. We came back here, had really lame sex for a while, during which I fell asleep. When he left in the morning, I pretended to be asleep and he didn't try to wake me. After that episode, I didn't feel like seeing him ever again for the rest of my life. On Monday, he called me and left a message. I was screening my calls and I didn't pick the phone up. I just didn't want to. Instead, I said really mean things to him while he talked to the answering service.”
Helen smiled at the memory, then continued. “I told him he sucked in bed and that he had terrible taste in music. That week, he called me every day and left these silly messages, trying to sound all nice and apologetic. Quite frankly, it turned my stomach. Then, Friday afternoon, I came home from school and found a note on the answering machine from Gretchen, telling me there was a message from Todd on the machine that I should listen to. I was like ‘oh, another message from Todd, what a bore’ but I pressed the button and listened to it anyway. It said: ‘Helen, I've been trying to call you all week. You haven't paid me the common courtesy of returning my calls, so I'm going to tell you what I have to tell you now, because I don't know any other way to communicate with you. I think we should break up. Don't call me, and I won't try to call you. Have a nice life, bye.’”
Jessica looked at Helen sadly for a moment, then her lips cracked and a giggle escaped. She laughed out loud.
“Jessica,” Roxy said, but then she started giggling, too.
“I'm sorry, Helen,” Jessica said, “that's terrible, but it's also funny. It's really funny, tragically funny.”
“I know, Helen said, half-laughing, half-crying. It is. But I felt so humiliated. I had been planning to call him that evening, too. What was his problem? I went four days without calling him, and for that, he dumped me. And he didn't break up with me because we always fought, or that I wouldn't suck his cock, or that we had completely different values. He broke up with me because I wouldn't return his fucking phone calls. There were so many reasons I could have broken up with him that were more legitimate, more real. I never thought he would be the one to break up with me. I thought I would be the one who would pull the plug.”
“I think there was more to it than that, Helen,” Roxy said.
Of course there was. Helen knew that they knew the battle of not returning phone calls had merely been an absurd denouement to a long, drawn-out ordeal. But she preferred not to think about those other reasons.
“I know, but it's still ridiculous. It just makes me laugh, now. I'm not even that angry anymore.”
Helen tried to laugh, because it was funny and she wanted Roxy and Jessica to know that she knew it, but she cut it off halfway through when it seemed likely to just turn into more tears. What came out was a sort of strangled half-cough that made her sound like a tuberculoid heroine-victim in a Dickens novel.
“You should forget about him,” Jessica said. “You and Todd had your time together, and now it's over. You have to move on. You have a lot more going on in your life than just him.”
“I'm trying,” Helen said. “I'm trying,” but her voice broke, which made her sound as if the attempt had failed even before it began. I know I got back together with him once before, but I just can’t see that happening this time.”
Helen hoped that was true. An hour ago, would she have taken Todd back if he had shown up on her doorstep, because it seemed like the only thing that could have ended her pain. That was one thing Helen admired about Jessica, was how she had dealt with Charles. He had been her first serious boyfriend, the one she had lost her virginity to, and he had summarily dumped her spring quarter of the previous year. Jessica been broken-hearted; devastated, but she had never tried to get back together with him. She just cut him out of her life. He had called her a month later. From his recalcitrant tone when he asked Helen if Jessica was there, Helen coudl tell he was having second thoughts, that he might be willing to give it another try. Jessica wouldn't even come to the phone. Helen had admired, but was also wary of, such strength of spirit.
“I have too many other things to worry about,” Helen said. “Like my section.”
“How's that going?” Roxy asked.
“Shitty. It's becoming a major thorn in my side.”
“I thought you liked being a section leader,” Jessica said.
“I think I liked the idea. It's just not turning out anything like I imagined it, and my students annoy me. I mean, most of them are okay but there are several hard-core lit geeks who know more than I do, the lesbians hate me because I’m blonde, and Peak is, well, Peak.”
Peak and all that he entailed was well known to both Roxy and Jessica, who had been in Spanish class with him.
“I have thirty papers to grade that my students are all going to want on Friday and I've run out of things to say. I just can't think of an original comment for each one. And most of them are really boring, I have nothing to say about them, so I make stuff up. Or give everyone a good grade, because it's all bullshit in the end.”
“Now you know how our professors feel,” Roxy said.
“I feel sorry for them, drowning in a mountain of crap. On top of which, I'm not even getting paid for it.”
“I thought your TAship was a paid one,” said Roxy.
“No... it's really lame. The funding only came through for half of the TAs. Of course, Gretchen and I are only juniors, so we lost out.”
“That's fucked,” said Roxy. “That’s majorly fucked.”
“That's terrible,” said Jessica. “Can you complain to someone?”
“No, not really,” Helen responded. “Joseph told us at the beginning of the quarter, and asked if we still wanted to do it. I thought I could scrape by without getting a job, but... I need money.” Helen paused and straightened the pile of catalogs on the coffee table. “And I haven't even mentioned my Latin American Writers class.”
“How's that going?” Jessica asked.
“Terrible. It's too early in the morning and I never go. I never read the books. I failed the first mid-term and if I fail the second, I'm up shit's creek with no paddle. I'll fail the class and my financial aid will be cut off.”
“Helen... that's really serious,” Jessica said. “Will you be able to stay in school?”
“No. I'll have to drop out and get a job. I might have to move back to Montana.”
“What?” Roxy said, aghast. Jessica said nothing, but she looked at Roxy and nodded slightly, as if their worst fears had been confirmed.
“That's terrible,” Jessica said. “You can't go back to Montana. Even if you drop out, you can still stay here.”
“You can crash here with Tina and I,” Roxy said. “We can't lose you, Helen. We need you here.”
“I know, but...”
Helen let her cheeks fall and looked at Jessica. She smiled and squeezed Helen's hand, while Roxy thin, strong fingers did the same to her shoulder. In spite of herself, Helen found their reactions reassuring-at least someone cared where she ended up.
“You can still pass the class,” Roxy said. “There's still time.”
“I really loved that class when I took it last year,” Jessica said. “Maybe we could study together.”
“That would be great,” Helen said. “I could really use the help.”
“How about Saturday night?”
“Okay, cool,” Helen said. She was amused at herself-as recently as last fall, she would have regarded studying on a Saturday night as a catastrophic failure of her social life, but now it seemed plausible-possibly even a good idea. It was certainly a relief not to have to come up with a plan, because there really wasn’t anything she wanted to do.
Jessica smiled, then yawned quickly and quietly.
“You guys, I need to go to bed. What about you, Roxy?”
“Yeah, I need to get home, too. Read some stuff, try and get to bed early for once. Hopefully Jake won't be making too much noise.”
Jessica and Roxy both stood. Helen walked with them to the front door.
“Hey, Helen, you want to meet for coffee tomorrow at Fremont?” Roxy asked.
“Totally,” Helen said. “I’ll be there between noon and one.”
Helen hugged both of them, said good-bye and watched as they walked down the staircase to the ground. She looked up and saw the low clouds overhead, their gray rumbled bottoms lit burnt orange by the city lights. There were no stars to look at, so Helen started to shut the door.
Just as it was almost closed, a small beige creature shot in and disappeared into the kitchen. Helen closed the door and sighed. In the kitchen, she heard a sequence of pathetic mews. Her almost full-grown kitten, Bristle, was hungry.
She went in the kitchen, where Bristle was pacing in front of her empty food and water dishes, her tail sticking straight up as she meowed desperately. She had been outside all day.
“Okay, you silly creature. Here's some food. I can't believe how much you eat.”
Helen went to the pantry and got out the catfood bag. She poured Bristle's bowl full of the little red-brown stars that smelled like over-ripe cardboard. As soon as she placed it back on the floor, Bristle began purring and ravenously inhaling her food. Helen filled her water bowl with tap water and set it down next to the food. She stroked the cream-colored patch on Bristle's back and felt her lithe body buzzing.
As she returned to the living room, she glanced at the red lights of Gretchen’s clock radio in the darkness of her room. She was amazed to see that it was past one in the morning. She had to go to sleep. She had to meet with Joseph Harkes at eleven the next morning, and teach section at two. She had promised Joseph that she would have her section's papers to return to them after CAF lecture. That was one of the things she was supposed to get done tonight which had been pre-empted by her emotional collapse. It was going to be very hard to explain that to Joseph, though, without making her seem more vulnerable in his eyes than she really wanted.
Helen went in the living room and sat back on the couch, staring at the front door. Her housemates showed no sign of returning. It was just as well. Even though she felt weird being alone in the house, she didn't really want to see her housemates either. She thought about trying to read, but her eyes felt too worn out and she gave up after several sentences. Now that the tears had dried and stopped lubricating her contact lenses, she could feel them resting uncomfortably on her eyeball. Add that to the list of things she had to deal with-new contacts. While she was at it, she could also add it to the list of things she couldn't possibly afford.
A few minutes later, Bristle joined Helen in the living room. Bristle walked up to her, tensed her haunches like she were going to jump on Helen's lap, but then snapped her head around and began biting her lower back. She did this several times, then scratched with her hind legs repeatedly.
“Oh, Bristle. You've been outside all day and you're covered with fleas.”
Helen got down on her knees and studied Bristle's coat. She saw the tiny blood-sucking creatures, jumping maniacally among her short hairs.
“Poor thing. I'll buy you a flea collar tomorrow, I promise.”
Helen got up and went to her bedroom, preparing to sleep alone.
When Helen reentered, they both looked up at her, but said nothing, as if she were so fragile a single unexpected sound might cause her to shatter into a million little pieces. Helen smiled wanly, to show them she was stronger than they thought.
Before she sat, Helen gathered the damp, snotty tissues lying on the reddish-pink couch, crumpled them up in a ball and carried them to the bathroom. Helen dropped the wad of tissue onto the top of the Zambiggini’s grocery bag they used as a garbage can. They hadn't had a real garbage can in there since Lana moved out the previous fall. It just rested on top of all the other junk inside. She rinsed off her hands and rejoined Jessica and Roxy. When she sat, Jessica reached over to her and gave her a quick hug.
“Okay,” Helen said. “Okay. This is so ridiculous,” she said, and shook her head. “You know, I never told you the story of how Todd and I finally broke up.”
“We were wondering,” Roxy said, “but… well, you know. I thought you’d tell us when you were ready.”
“Tell us now,” Jessica said gently, but insistently.
“Well,” Helen said, and took a deep breath. “We hadn't hung out for several days. I don't know why, I guess I was tired of him, and I had been thinking that we should end it for several weeks. Ever since I got back from San Diego, it hadn't been the same. It hadn't been the same since last December.”
Both Jessica and Roxy nodded soberly.
“The last time we had been together,” the weekend before, “had been an absolute disaster. We went to a party at his friend Willoughby's house.”
“That guy,” Roxy said, and rolled her eyes.
“Before we went, I told Todd I would drive so he could drink as much as he wanted. So, we were at the party, and I only drank two beers and he knew it-while he had at least three, and probably four, by the time I told him I wanted to go. He wanted to stay, but I had a headache and there was no one there for me to talk to-just surfers and their slutty girlfriends, who all looked like they were still in high school. And knowing Willoughby, they probably were.”
As soon as she said that, though, she wished she hadn't. She had meant merely to underscore to Roxy and Jessica that she knew how lame Todd and his friends were, but in doing so she had inadvertently reminded Jessica of their friend Tim, and the argument they had had when Jessica found out he had slept with a girl who was still in high school.
“Willoughby,” Roxy said, shaking her head. “He's going to end up in jail, one of these days.”
“Why are guys like that? Jessica asked. Don't they understand how much damage they cause?”
The wounds between Jessica and Tim over that had only recently healed. Jessica had told Helen that she had talked to Tim when she got back to school in January, and that the matter was resolved, but Helen wasn't so sure it would be that easy. Not that Helen on very good terms with Tim, either. His experience with April seemed to have propelled him into a downward spiral that he couldn’t pull out of.
“I know. And so I really wanted to leave. I dragged Todd out of there and when we got to my car, he demanded that I give him my keys. He didn't think I was sober enough to drive! I started screaming at him, telling him he was an asshole, and that I had only drank two beers, and he'd had five, and there was no way he was going to drive my car, no way in hell.”
“Good,” Roxy said. “That put him in his place.”
“Well, except that I ended up letting him drive. I guess I just couldn't stand fighting about it; I already had the most horrible headache, and I just didn't have enough energy to care. The whole way home, I was wishing we would get stopped by the cops, so he'd get totally busted. We came back here, had really lame sex for a while, during which I fell asleep. When he left in the morning, I pretended to be asleep and he didn't try to wake me. After that episode, I didn't feel like seeing him ever again for the rest of my life. On Monday, he called me and left a message. I was screening my calls and I didn't pick the phone up. I just didn't want to. Instead, I said really mean things to him while he talked to the answering service.”
Helen smiled at the memory, then continued. “I told him he sucked in bed and that he had terrible taste in music. That week, he called me every day and left these silly messages, trying to sound all nice and apologetic. Quite frankly, it turned my stomach. Then, Friday afternoon, I came home from school and found a note on the answering machine from Gretchen, telling me there was a message from Todd on the machine that I should listen to. I was like ‘oh, another message from Todd, what a bore’ but I pressed the button and listened to it anyway. It said: ‘Helen, I've been trying to call you all week. You haven't paid me the common courtesy of returning my calls, so I'm going to tell you what I have to tell you now, because I don't know any other way to communicate with you. I think we should break up. Don't call me, and I won't try to call you. Have a nice life, bye.’”
Jessica looked at Helen sadly for a moment, then her lips cracked and a giggle escaped. She laughed out loud.
“Jessica,” Roxy said, but then she started giggling, too.
“I'm sorry, Helen,” Jessica said, “that's terrible, but it's also funny. It's really funny, tragically funny.”
“I know, Helen said, half-laughing, half-crying. It is. But I felt so humiliated. I had been planning to call him that evening, too. What was his problem? I went four days without calling him, and for that, he dumped me. And he didn't break up with me because we always fought, or that I wouldn't suck his cock, or that we had completely different values. He broke up with me because I wouldn't return his fucking phone calls. There were so many reasons I could have broken up with him that were more legitimate, more real. I never thought he would be the one to break up with me. I thought I would be the one who would pull the plug.”
“I think there was more to it than that, Helen,” Roxy said.
Of course there was. Helen knew that they knew the battle of not returning phone calls had merely been an absurd denouement to a long, drawn-out ordeal. But she preferred not to think about those other reasons.
“I know, but it's still ridiculous. It just makes me laugh, now. I'm not even that angry anymore.”
Helen tried to laugh, because it was funny and she wanted Roxy and Jessica to know that she knew it, but she cut it off halfway through when it seemed likely to just turn into more tears. What came out was a sort of strangled half-cough that made her sound like a tuberculoid heroine-victim in a Dickens novel.
“You should forget about him,” Jessica said. “You and Todd had your time together, and now it's over. You have to move on. You have a lot more going on in your life than just him.”
“I'm trying,” Helen said. “I'm trying,” but her voice broke, which made her sound as if the attempt had failed even before it began. I know I got back together with him once before, but I just can’t see that happening this time.”
Helen hoped that was true. An hour ago, would she have taken Todd back if he had shown up on her doorstep, because it seemed like the only thing that could have ended her pain. That was one thing Helen admired about Jessica, was how she had dealt with Charles. He had been her first serious boyfriend, the one she had lost her virginity to, and he had summarily dumped her spring quarter of the previous year. Jessica been broken-hearted; devastated, but she had never tried to get back together with him. She just cut him out of her life. He had called her a month later. From his recalcitrant tone when he asked Helen if Jessica was there, Helen coudl tell he was having second thoughts, that he might be willing to give it another try. Jessica wouldn't even come to the phone. Helen had admired, but was also wary of, such strength of spirit.
“I have too many other things to worry about,” Helen said. “Like my section.”
“How's that going?” Roxy asked.
“Shitty. It's becoming a major thorn in my side.”
“I thought you liked being a section leader,” Jessica said.
“I think I liked the idea. It's just not turning out anything like I imagined it, and my students annoy me. I mean, most of them are okay but there are several hard-core lit geeks who know more than I do, the lesbians hate me because I’m blonde, and Peak is, well, Peak.”
Peak and all that he entailed was well known to both Roxy and Jessica, who had been in Spanish class with him.
“I have thirty papers to grade that my students are all going to want on Friday and I've run out of things to say. I just can't think of an original comment for each one. And most of them are really boring, I have nothing to say about them, so I make stuff up. Or give everyone a good grade, because it's all bullshit in the end.”
“Now you know how our professors feel,” Roxy said.
“I feel sorry for them, drowning in a mountain of crap. On top of which, I'm not even getting paid for it.”
“I thought your TAship was a paid one,” said Roxy.
“No... it's really lame. The funding only came through for half of the TAs. Of course, Gretchen and I are only juniors, so we lost out.”
“That's fucked,” said Roxy. “That’s majorly fucked.”
“That's terrible,” said Jessica. “Can you complain to someone?”
“No, not really,” Helen responded. “Joseph told us at the beginning of the quarter, and asked if we still wanted to do it. I thought I could scrape by without getting a job, but... I need money.” Helen paused and straightened the pile of catalogs on the coffee table. “And I haven't even mentioned my Latin American Writers class.”
“How's that going?” Jessica asked.
“Terrible. It's too early in the morning and I never go. I never read the books. I failed the first mid-term and if I fail the second, I'm up shit's creek with no paddle. I'll fail the class and my financial aid will be cut off.”
“Helen... that's really serious,” Jessica said. “Will you be able to stay in school?”
“No. I'll have to drop out and get a job. I might have to move back to Montana.”
“What?” Roxy said, aghast. Jessica said nothing, but she looked at Roxy and nodded slightly, as if their worst fears had been confirmed.
“That's terrible,” Jessica said. “You can't go back to Montana. Even if you drop out, you can still stay here.”
“You can crash here with Tina and I,” Roxy said. “We can't lose you, Helen. We need you here.”
“I know, but...”
Helen let her cheeks fall and looked at Jessica. She smiled and squeezed Helen's hand, while Roxy thin, strong fingers did the same to her shoulder. In spite of herself, Helen found their reactions reassuring-at least someone cared where she ended up.
“You can still pass the class,” Roxy said. “There's still time.”
“I really loved that class when I took it last year,” Jessica said. “Maybe we could study together.”
“That would be great,” Helen said. “I could really use the help.”
“How about Saturday night?”
“Okay, cool,” Helen said. She was amused at herself-as recently as last fall, she would have regarded studying on a Saturday night as a catastrophic failure of her social life, but now it seemed plausible-possibly even a good idea. It was certainly a relief not to have to come up with a plan, because there really wasn’t anything she wanted to do.
Jessica smiled, then yawned quickly and quietly.
“You guys, I need to go to bed. What about you, Roxy?”
“Yeah, I need to get home, too. Read some stuff, try and get to bed early for once. Hopefully Jake won't be making too much noise.”
Jessica and Roxy both stood. Helen walked with them to the front door.
“Hey, Helen, you want to meet for coffee tomorrow at Fremont?” Roxy asked.
“Totally,” Helen said. “I’ll be there between noon and one.”
Helen hugged both of them, said good-bye and watched as they walked down the staircase to the ground. She looked up and saw the low clouds overhead, their gray rumbled bottoms lit burnt orange by the city lights. There were no stars to look at, so Helen started to shut the door.
Just as it was almost closed, a small beige creature shot in and disappeared into the kitchen. Helen closed the door and sighed. In the kitchen, she heard a sequence of pathetic mews. Her almost full-grown kitten, Bristle, was hungry.
She went in the kitchen, where Bristle was pacing in front of her empty food and water dishes, her tail sticking straight up as she meowed desperately. She had been outside all day.
“Okay, you silly creature. Here's some food. I can't believe how much you eat.”
Helen went to the pantry and got out the catfood bag. She poured Bristle's bowl full of the little red-brown stars that smelled like over-ripe cardboard. As soon as she placed it back on the floor, Bristle began purring and ravenously inhaling her food. Helen filled her water bowl with tap water and set it down next to the food. She stroked the cream-colored patch on Bristle's back and felt her lithe body buzzing.
As she returned to the living room, she glanced at the red lights of Gretchen’s clock radio in the darkness of her room. She was amazed to see that it was past one in the morning. She had to go to sleep. She had to meet with Joseph Harkes at eleven the next morning, and teach section at two. She had promised Joseph that she would have her section's papers to return to them after CAF lecture. That was one of the things she was supposed to get done tonight which had been pre-empted by her emotional collapse. It was going to be very hard to explain that to Joseph, though, without making her seem more vulnerable in his eyes than she really wanted.
Helen went in the living room and sat back on the couch, staring at the front door. Her housemates showed no sign of returning. It was just as well. Even though she felt weird being alone in the house, she didn't really want to see her housemates either. She thought about trying to read, but her eyes felt too worn out and she gave up after several sentences. Now that the tears had dried and stopped lubricating her contact lenses, she could feel them resting uncomfortably on her eyeball. Add that to the list of things she had to deal with-new contacts. While she was at it, she could also add it to the list of things she couldn't possibly afford.
A few minutes later, Bristle joined Helen in the living room. Bristle walked up to her, tensed her haunches like she were going to jump on Helen's lap, but then snapped her head around and began biting her lower back. She did this several times, then scratched with her hind legs repeatedly.
“Oh, Bristle. You've been outside all day and you're covered with fleas.”
Helen got down on her knees and studied Bristle's coat. She saw the tiny blood-sucking creatures, jumping maniacally among her short hairs.
“Poor thing. I'll buy you a flea collar tomorrow, I promise.”
Helen got up and went to her bedroom, preparing to sleep alone.
Works
Recent Writing
- 1989 A Novel: Tim and April walk to the liquor store
- Volume III: Helen meets Roxy for coffee at the Fremont College coffee shop
- Volume III: Tim walks back from Contemporary American Fiction
- Volume III: Helen conducts section, can’t prevent Michael from being dissed
- Volume III: Helen conducts section (HSZ version)