Amy Falls Down by Jincy Willett

frantically away from a horde of armed Thuggees as Sam Jaffe sounds the alarm. In her writing days, Amy had never benefited from peace and quiet. She had done her best writing in chaotic, noisy settings—parties, cafes, even softball games, putting down her notebook only to rise and strike out. She had written the final chapter of Ambassador of Loss by penlight during a Lewiston Community Theater production of Waiting for Godot. (Thus annoying Max, whose friend-of-the-month was playing Vladimir.) In those days, there were only a few, mostly venerable, writer’s retreats; she had actually turned down an invitation to Sewanee and a residency at the Moose Watch Colony in Jackman. She was unlured by the prospect of month-long serenity, repulsed by snapshots of cloistered rooms, simple oak desks awash in pearly sunlight from a single uncurtained window, where writers were “free to inhabit and explore the quietest of spaces.” This to Amy amounted to the freedom to congeal inside a Vermeer.
    But she was in the minority there, and over the years, retreats, colonies, conferences, and weekend workshops had multiplied, keeping pace with a terrifying growth in the population of writers, both real and would-be. And now here came another one: the Birdhouse, in affluent, sun-blind La Jolla. Amy could actually picture the brochure, an aerial view of the house itself, whose two curved, sweeping wings mimicked a bird in flight. What did Carla want her to do? Write the brochure?
    “I know you probably wouldn’t want to be our Writer in Residence,” said Carla.
    “I have a residence in Escondido.”
    “Right. But this could be a permanent teaching place for you.”
    “I have one of those too. My home. I teach online.”
    “Well, will you think about it?” Carla looked so hopeful, so vulnerable, that Amy relented.
    “Okay,” she said. “But no promises.”
    “Also,” said Carla, without a pause, “I’d like to hire you to vet the applicants. I’ll pay top dollar!”
    Ricky’s face fell. “There goes that dream,” he said, as if Amy weren’t in the room. There had been a couple of promising writers in Amy’s last workshop, but Ricky Buzza wasn’t one of them. In fact, one of them was in prison.
    Tiffany asked, “You were thinking of doing it?”
    “Well, yeah, what have I got to lose? I’ve started working on something. It’s not serious fiction, though.”
    Everybody started talking at once. Tiffany, also unemployed, was interested too. Dr. Surtees wanted in, which was ridiculous, but he said he’d like a room of his own. He was working on a new novel, another medical thriller. Amy interrupted him before he could spill the plot.
    “Look, I’ll do this, but only with blind submissions.” No one knew what that meant. “I’ll read the samples, provided that the writers’ names aren’t on them.” Blind submissions, at least as far as this crew were concerned, were a forlorn hope: she’d be able to identify any of these writers at fifty paces. But the principle was important to Amy. There was precious little blind reviewing going on in the publishing world, which was why so much that got published was mediocre.
    Amy’s concession ultimately made everybody happy but Harry B, with whom she exchanged shrugs and knowing looks. Amy wasn’t worried. Carla being Carla, the whole retreat idea would probably vaporize in a month or two when she was faced with legal hurdles and administrative minutiae. And even if she went ahead with it, chances are she’d just get these three “writers,” and after awhile they’d give it up. Meanwhile Amy could make a few extra dollars without leaving her own home.
    A few hours later, after the doctor’s mojitos, Tiffany’s cornbread, Carla’s spectacular shrimp moqueca, and Ricky Buzza’s store-bought pie, and a fair amount of pleasant non-retreat-focused conversation, Amy took her leave. Carla, obviously concerned with Amy’s feelings, begged to be allowed to keep the