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said unnecessarily.
    Jason held the microphone, still in its stand, right against his lips. “I’m Jason Burkie,” he said. “Can you all hear me?”
    He held his poems up to his eyes, then paused. He spotted me over the rim of his paper. “This goes out to Ms. Gallagher, bestlooking English teacher in Copenhagen.”
    There was a ripple of laughter. People turned in their seats searching the room. A few applauded, and one wolf-whistled. I nodded, waved tentatively, and slid down in my chair.
    Jason was grinning. “All right!” He punched the air. “Power to the English teachers.”
    “He’s a total moron,” Everett said. “Do you encourage this kind of Neanderthal stupidity in your classroom?”
    Jason read his work with unbridled pride. It was evident that he considered his performance superior to those that had preceded his.
    Everett nudged me halfway through the fifth poem. “Do you know that guy?” He nodded his head toward the right side of the room.
    I turned slowly to follow Everett’s gaze. A tall man stood against the far wall, his arms folded across his chest. Our eyes met. Immediately he looked away.
    “I’ve never seen him before.”
    “Well, he’s been staring at you.”
    “I’m sure he wasn’t doing it on purpose.”
    “Um, yes, well, the performance is up there, and his eyes were here .”
    “Everett, honestly, can you just pay attention for five seconds.”
    I glanced back, but the stranger had disappeared.
    “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Everett as soon as Jason finished.
    “Thank you.”
    We slinked off into the adjoining gallery to listen to a freckled freshman recite her haikus about dirty laundry and a cat named Fiasco. When the punishment was over, we stationed ourselves at the food table to eat Mini Gherkins and Ritz crackers. To my combined relief and disappointment, Adam never showed. It was unfortunate that he couldn’t be there to see how well I was doing without him.
    Everett poured us each a plastic cup of wine, a modest portion for me, a generous portion for himself. Everett thought better when he had something to sip—if not wine then coffee, if not coffee a cigarette. His graying teeth bore proof of this abuse.
    “All I’ve had to eat since yesterday is a severely deficient powdered donut,” Everett said. “And I have to say this spread is a decided disappointment.”
    “Everett,” I said. “Can I ask you a question?”
    He leaned over the table to pick at the platter of chocolatedipped strawberries. “I’m all the proverbial ear, my dear.”
    “Would you write if no one listened?”
    “I’m not sure I understand you.”
    “Should we keep producing work if no one ever reads what we write? If I never publish, should I just give up?”
    He frowned, licking melted chocolate from his finger. “You’re suggesting the worth of your work is contingent upon its readership.”
    “Isn’t it?”
    “If so, we’re all screwed, honey.” He patted me on the back and drained his cup. “Take my life as an example,” he said. “Let’s say, hypothetically, I write a groundbreaking essay on a previously overlooked line of stage direction given in Shakespeare’s Othello . My work will be printed in Shakespeare Quarterly , where all of fifty academics will dissect it, gleaning from its overwrought prose some halfway singular thought to inspire their own overdue articles. Or worse, they’ll photocopy the essay and assign it to undergrads as homework.” He widened his eyes and dropped his jaw in mock terror.
    “But you’d still be entering a public dialogue,” I countered. “And you wouldn’t have that without being published.”
    “It’s disconcerting for me to hear you say dialogue . It’s like when you say text . I feel as though we’ve tainted you.” He examined a cheese cube. “I think these have jalapeños.”
    He held it up to my lips. I took a bite from the corner.
    “No.” I said. “It’s fine.”
    While we were standing at the food