Staff Spotlight: Nadja Maril

Interview

What do you write?

While my pre­vi­ous pub­lish­ing career was in non­fic­tion, I am cur­rent­ly focus­ing on writing fiction and am working on a novel. I am also writing short stories and like the short story form because it forces the writer to make every sen­tence count.

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?

Writers I admire include Shirley Jackson, Kather­ine Mans­field, Alice Munro, Michael Chabon, Jorge Amado, Mar­garet Atwood, and Ray Bradbury.

Why did you choose Stonecoast?

While my chosen genre is fiction, I like that Stonecoast offers popular fiction as a genre choice. Good writing is good writing, regard­less of whether it is clas­si­fied as lit­er­ary or pop. Par­tic­i­pa­tion in two writing work­shops each res­i­den­cy pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work direct­ly with more members of the excep­tion­al faculty in a variety of genres. And lastly, I chose Stonecoast for its com­mit­ment to Social Justice and aes­thet­ic diver­si­ty. It’s a great program.

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?

I’m still in my first semes­ter at Stonecoast, but lis­ten­ing to the speech­es at the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies in January 2018 is def­i­nite­ly a good memory, along with the dance that fol­lowed (I like to dance).

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

I want to write and publish a short story col­lec­tion and a novel that will touch people’s hearts.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?

The Blind Assas­sin by Mar­garet Atwood, which has a his­toric setting, con­tains a science fiction novel within the outer story, is told in the past and the present, and has a mar­velous twist ending. It’s the kind of book that makes you ask ques­tions and a book you want to read more than once.

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Featured Work

Timepiece

The fol­low­ing is a work of fiction exclu­sive­ly for Stonecoast Review.

Iris checked the time on her phone. The flu­o­res­cent light­ing and gray-tiled floor in the Good­will Store made every­thing look washed-out, includ­ing the three women ahead of her waiting in line. She clutched a child’s blue blazer in her right hand, while tapping her left hand against her thigh.

The first woman in line placed three Pyrex bowls on the counter to be indi­vid­u­al­ly wrapped. Iris looked at her phone again. Eleven minutes and two cus­tomers left.

She pulled three dollars and fifteen cents out of her purse and tried handing it to the clerk working the cash reg­is­ter. “Excuse me,” Iris said. “I’ve got to pick up my son. Here’s the exact change.”

The clerk barely turned her head. “Lady, you’ve got to wait in line like every­one else.”

The next cus­tomer, an old woman with frizzy yellow hair, started pulling items out of her cart: a tweed jacket, a pair of boots, a silk flower arrange­ment, and a small mirror with a ceramic frame.

Iris’s eyes focused on the mirror. The frame held glazed carrots, pea pods, onions, and purple grapes: it was def­i­nite­ly the same little mirror that hung by the back door in her kitchen. Could there be two?

No. It was def­i­nite­ly her mirror. Its soft green and tan­ger­ine colors remind­ed her of the kitchen in her first house­hold when she’d lived in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia. In the yard, there’d been orange and avocado trees. Paul—her first husband—had made the best gua­camole. In the morn­ings they’d walked down to the beach, mist in their faces and feet crunch­ing into the damp sand.

The mirror had been part of the house she’d built with Paul. April four­teenth would mark the third anniver­sary of his death. She’d carted that mirror across the country, from west coast to east coast, a touch­stone to her memories.

Iris’s new husband, Greg, thought the mirror was a “mass-pro­duced piece of junk.” “Tacky is how I’d describe it,” he’d said.

They’d been married six months.

“Are you kidding?” she’d replied. “That mirror was hand­made by a potter friend of Paul’s aunt. It was a house­warm­ing gift. I can’t get rid of it.”

Last weekend, Greg and Iris had hosted a neigh­bor­hood bar­be­cue. Several of the moms and kids were still outside, lis­ten­ing to the crick­ets and orga­niz­ing left­overs when Iris decided to get a head start on the dishes. Her hands immersed in the warm, soapy dish­wa­ter, she’d almost lost her grip on one of the plates when she’d over­heard Greg talking. He was in the dining room, drink­ing beer with some of his buddies. “You should have seen this place when we first started dating,” he said. “Talk about clutter.”

“Women,” his friend said. “They’re always shopping.”

“She’s got so much stuff around here, I just sneak a little out now and then.” Greg sounded proud of himself. “She doesn’t even miss it.”

Each week she took at least one bag of items to the Good­will Store. Wasn’t that enough?

Two people were now ahead of her in line. The first lady had paid for her three Pyrex bowls and Iris stared at the mirror again. Maybe she should stop the sale and ask for her mirror back, or even offer to pay the lady right there, personally.

Excuse me, she imag­ined saying, but that mirror is really mine. My husband donated it by mistake. I’d like to have it back. She felt her face flush and she began scru­ti­niz­ing the blazer. Perhaps it was too big for Billy to wear for his piano recital next week. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything.

Iris tugged on a lock of her long, dark hair until she could feel where the strands attached to the base of her scalp. She couldn’t wait any longer. She stepped out of line, put the blazer back, and left the store. As she drove to pick up Billy, she kept think­ing about other things in the house—the antique bronze clock that needed repair, the manual coffee grinder, Paul’s comic book col­lec­tion. What other things had Greg removed?

Billy was stand­ing with his teacher in front of the red brick ele­men­tary school. He waved when he saw the car. “What took you so long?” he said as soon as Iris buckled him into his car seat.

“I wasn’t really late,” she said, turning the igni­tion key to restart the engine.

“I was the last one.”

“I got here as quickly as I could.”

“I painted a blue whale today on the big easel,” Billy said. “When I bring it home I’m going to give it to Greg for his office.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “Do you remem­ber the time we went out on the boat, you me and your father Paul, and saw the whale spout­ing water?”

She could see Billy in the rear-view mirror shaking his head no.

“Greg says when we go to Car­oli­na, he’ll take us whale watch­ing,” Billy said. “We’ll prob­a­bly see dol­phins too. Greg says he’s gonna teach you how to water ski.”

Iris laughed. “Yes, that Greg is always trying to teach me new things, but I’m not sure about waterskiing.”

*

“Would you like a sand­wich?” she asked as they entered the house. Billy fol­lowed her into the kitchen and she imme­di­ate­ly looked toward where the mirror hung, check­ing if Greg had devi­ous­ly removed the nail from the wall.

But it was still there, the mirror, hanging where it had always been next to the back door. It was the very same mirror as the one she’d just seen at the Good­will store—but how could that be?

She pulled it off the wall and studied the work­man­ship. She’d assumed it was hand­made, but maybe the potter had bought it at the store after all.

The colors of the ceramic frame no longer matched her current kitchen. The veg­etable shapes looked clumsy and crude. Greg was right: it was a piece of mass-pro­duced junk. If the Good­will store had found a buyer for the first mirror, they could cer­tain­ly sell a second.

“Mom,” Billy said, tugging on Iris’s elbow. “Could you make my sand­wich with peanut butter banana and honey, like the ones Greg makes?”

“Sure. Maybe I’ll make one for me too.” She set the mirror aside, for next week’s dona­tion bag, think­ing about the funny story she’d tell Greg when he got home from the office.  Some­times, it was best to let things go.

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