“A set of books. They’ll send them to you this summer.” He stood with his hands folded in front of him. We were outside on the steps now. Wide marble steps that led down onto the beautiful lawns of a quadrangle with huge old oak trees.

“I don’t know what to say. That’s wonderful. That’s so good. I mean, thanks for entering it. It’s really wonderful. I won first place?”

“You did indeed. I thought it was a fine piece of writing. When are you leaving for home?”

“Right now. I have a car to drive. They left me a car because my family moved somewhere this spring. I won first place?”

“You did. When you get back next fall, come and see me. I want to set you up with some extra studies. I’m going to be in charge of the honors program for English students. Hopefully, I’ll have finished my dissertation by then.” He smiled and laughed to himself. “God knows I’m sick of working on it.”

“I will. Well, thanks again. I mean, thanks so much.”

“You did it. Well, goodbye then. I’ll look forward to reading your exam.” He laughed again and shook his head.

“I’ll see you in the fall.”

“I’ll see you too.” I walked on down the steps, putting each foot down into a pool of sunlight, so exhilarated and pleased, so thrilled and excited it seemed that my whole life had been lived to arrive at this one conversation on this one day. I walked down the steps and around the building and got into the car and started driving. I glanced in the rearview mirror once and noticed that my entire collection of 45 rpm recordings had melted in the sun into crazy little warped black sun hats but it didn’t mean a thing to me. I had won the freshman writing contest. I was a writer. I could write things and win. Nothing mattered in the world but that. I left the campus and turned onto the highway leading out of town and began to drive to my new home.

Chapter

3