It was just a sheet of green photocopy stuck on a bulletin board along with notices about kayaking lessons and dog boarding and math tutoring, but they’d put her name in big script so that my eye fastened on it before my brain sorted it out. It was exciting, like seeing the name of somebody you know in the newspaper.

I stopped to read it through. I’d never been to a poetry reading and I didn’t have any clear idea of what went on at one. That is, was it a serious occasion, like church, or was it more rip-roaring? (Depends on the poet, I came to learn.) The poster identified Viridian as a winner of various prestigious awards, at least I imagined they were prestigious, and the author of eight books of poetry, and there was a quote (from someone I’d never heard of, but the name was apparently important), calling her “our modern-day Delphic Oracle,” which sounded cool, and that she “beguiles us with nets of artful words that contain hard truths.”

Well. It all took my breath away, although I had no clue about oracles or beguilement. It was like a code I needed to crack. The reading was this very evening, right on campus. And it didn’t sound like the kind of thing you needed an invitation for.

I called Aaron and I could tell from the tin-can sound of the phone that he was in the car driving home. “Hey,” I said brightly. “Want to go to a poetry reading tonight?”

“A what?”

“Poetry reading. At College of Marin. It’s somebody you know.”

“Oh God. Oscar.”

“No, the lady. Viridian.” I waited, but he didn’t say anything. “You there?”

“Yeah, I had to change lanes. Poetry. So you’re an intellectual now.”

“Yes, it pays better than landscaping. Do you want to come?”

He asked me when it started and how long it was likely to last, the driving would be a pain. I couldn’t argue with that. It was the end of a long day for him, so I let him beg off. It was a little disappointing, because I thought he’d be more excited. I knew he’d liked Viridian.

I swam and then I changed into clean clothes and bought a turkey wrap at the market across the street for my dinner. I found the small auditorium where they were having the reading, and since it was still early, I walked past it all casual, like, Poetry, who, me?

There were a couple of other people skulking around the same way, and one of them, a kid my age, caught my eye and said, “The doors are open, we might as well go in.”