CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Bordeaux met me at my place Friday afternoon so we could travel up to Quentin’s together. Today she had blue beads knotted throughout her blonde hair, although they didn’t seem to have been chosen to coordinate with her shirt, a bright orange, or the flower-print Capri-cut pants she wore to finish her ensemble. Still, there was something fresh and fetching about her. Made me want to go out and buy my own hair beads.

“I just wanted to let you know,” I said, “why you can’t go wandering alone at the Phillips house.”

She was moving through my apartment, inspecting things, laying a light finger on the items that intrigued her most. She came to a full stop before the statue of the butterfly girl.

“That is dimensionally marbro,” she said in such an admiring voice I was certain it had to be a compliment. “That is jazz without cessation.”

“A friend gave it to me. Listen, Bordeaux, you need to be careful when you’re at Quentin’s house. You don’t want to be alone there if his dad is anywhere around.”

She turned to look at me, her blue eyes narrowed but not shocked. “What would he do to me?”

I spread my hands. “I was alone in the library with him, and I was terrified. He didn’t touch me, but he seemed like he might—do anything. You want to make sure Francis or Bram Cortez is present to escort you any time you’re walking through that house.”

“I know how to defend myself,” she said. Her hand went to the little purse she carried over her shoulder. It was so small that I had assumed it only had room for gum and a tube of lipstick. But her gesture made me think she carried a weapon of some sort, a knife or some tiny stun-gun designed for the woman traveling alone at night.

“My point,” I said, “is that you shouldn’t have to. Just make sure you have company when you’re walking the halls.”

“What does Quentin think about all this?”

I ushered her out the door. “I never asked him.”

We teleported one at a time to the outer gate and then the inner foyer. Francis was waiting and walked beside us in his usual stately fashion. When we reached Quentin’s room, I motioned Bordeaux to go on in ahead of me, and I stayed behind.

“I’m thinking Bordeaux might be coming here even more often than I do,” I said with a smile.

Francis nodded. “Which would be perfectly acceptable to me.”

“Maybe she should get her own code for the foyer gate.”

He looked regretful. “I’m sure that would be much more convenient for her, but I’m afraid I can’t comply.”

“Why?”

He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “The only one who can authorize an individual new door code is Mr. Phillips himself. And since I don’t believe he’s aware of Miss Bordeaux’s presence here—and I am not entirely sure he needs to have it brought to his attention—I cannot see an easy way to get Miss Bordeaux her own code.”

“I see,” I said and thought for a moment. “Hypothetically speaking,” I went on, in phrases just as careful as his, “would one person be able to lend another person his or her individual door code?”

“In theory, that would be possible. But the system keeps track of who has arrived and when they’ve left. If, say, Dennis lent his code to one of his friends—who perhaps wanted to come over for an afternoon swim—and then Dennis attempted to teleport over and join him, the foyer door would reject Dennis’ transfer. He would be automatically rerouted to the front security entrance, and then, I’m afraid, the guards would be called and everyone would know how he had tried to circumvent the system. At that point, things wouldn’t look so good for Dennis.”

“So if Dennis ever lent his code to a friend, Dennis had better be sure he didn’t come over when his friend was here.”

Francis nodded. “Exactly. I am glad you understand.”

Which, of course, was not Francis’ way of endorsing my idea of giving Bordeaux my gate code, but he had certainly explained how I could do it if I wanted to. I thanked him and went in to join the others, and within five minutes had given Bordeaux my code. She seemed to understand perfectly that she could never use it on Tuesday or Friday afternoons when I would also be arriving, but I found myself hoping that she would use it very often on other days.

Today’s session went even more smoothly than Tuesday’s, since both my students had read the assigned homework. I was a little startled to learn, halfway through the hour, that they’d read the chapter together.

“Oh. So you’ve come here since Tuesday,” I said blankly to Bordeaux. She must have arrived the way ordinary visitors did, teleporting to the outer gate first before a guard got the okay to send her on to the house.

“Oh, yeah. It’s practically the only way I can really concentrate,” she said nonchalantly. “I have to find a study buddy. And Quentin’s the only one in this class.” She grinned at him. “I figure I’ll come this weekend, too. Supposed to be beautiful out. We can get a blanket and study out in the yard. Francis said he’d bring us sandwiches when we got hungry.”

“Well, then,” I said briskly. “Let me make sure I assign lots of homework so that you have plenty to keep you busy.”

The rest of the hour went fast, and once again I was the only one to leave when the metaphorical bell rang. Francis was waiting for me in the hallway, though part of me had hoped to see Bram there instead.

“Miss Bordeaux is staying late again?” he inquired.

“If you think that’s all right.”

“I think it’s splendid.”

“Good. So do I.”

*

The weekend was quiet, enlivened only by phone calls, trash TV, and Sunday brunch at my mother’s. Monday I spent at Sefton in a series of staff meetings Caroline called to discuss recalibrating the graduation requirements for a liberal arts degree.

Tuesday I had hoped to spend my afternoon session at the Phillips mansion working outdoors, to prove I could be just as free-spirited and fun as Bordeaux, but a chilly wind blowing off the lake made the ideas of “spring” and “Chicago” seem incompatible. So we stayed indoors and spent the hour deconstructing classic science fiction short stories like Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall” and Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life.”

“You coming or staying, Bordeaux?” I asked as I got ready to leave.

“Oh, I’ve gotta stay,” she said lazily. “I still haven’t beaten Quentin at chess. I’m going to, though. It’s my lucky day.”

“Good luck, then,” I said, smiling, and stepped out of the room. To find Bram Cortez leaning against the wall, waiting for me.

“Hi,” I said, shutting the door.

He nodded toward the room. “She’s going to stay a little longer?”

“She is. But I have to get away. All the teenage energy is wearing me down.”

He smiled. “I’m here to offer you a ride, if you’d like it.”

“Oooh, a car ride? That’s a special treat for a girl.”

“Special and rare. Accept or reject.”

“Accept, thank you.”

We didn’t talk much more as we threaded our way through the mansion. Only after we were settled into the leather luxury of the silver Mustang did the conversation began in earnest.

“I haven’t seen you since I brought my new student in,” I said as we drove down the tree-lined streets. “But you haven’t said a word about her. Does that mean you approve?”

He glanced at me. “Once I checked her out, I thoroughly approved. I wish her grade-point average was a little better, but as a hired professional girlfriend for Quentin, she seems about perfect.”

“She is perfect,” I said. “I hope Quentin likes her. So far, he seems to.”

“Quentin likes everybody. No fear.”

“Then I’m a happy girl.”

He kept his eyes on the road. “You’ve had a bad time of it lately,” he said. “I heard about your student at Sefton. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “I keep asking myself—what else should I have done? What signs did I miss? I know his friends were paying attention. And, at the end, none of us helped him.”

He signaled and pulled onto a highway ramp. “Been times in my life,” he said, “when I’ve thought no one could ever help anyone. I could tell that someone I knew was hurt—I knew I was hurt—and no one could figure out how to reach a hand over to the next guy. I had this picture in my head, all these bodies kneeling on the ground, hunched over, their hands over their heads. Just one big desert landscape dotted with these dark sad people who were close enough to touch and yet separated from each other by miles of—grief, I suppose.”

“That’s pretty bleak,” I said. “You still feel that way?”

“Some days. But mostly not.”

“More often right after you got divorced,” I guessed.

He glanced at me. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“After I first left Danny,” I said, “I had this sense of panic. All the time, in the pit of my stomach. ‘I’ll never find anyone to love me again.’ And I had this sense of time running out. Every day that would go by—another day without love. And the panic would intensify. And I just wanted to rush out—meet somebody on the street—fall in love right away—and have that happy delirium again. I thought nothing else would dissipate the fear.”

“So did you?”

“What, rush right back out into romance? No. Dated a few guys, but nothing ever turned serious.”

“And what about the panic?”

I laughed. “Strangely enough, it dissipated on its own, to be replaced by an easy contentment at the shape my life has taken. Not that I wouldn’t like to be married again—or at least fall in love. I just think I’ll be more leisurely about it when the next chance comes.”

“So you won’t be inviting a guy to spend the night any time soon, but a kiss in the doorway is okay.”

His voice was absolutely uninflected. I stared over at him and felt the blood rise, vein by vein, to the top of my head. My mouth opened, but at first no words would drop out. Finally I said, “To pick an example completely at random, yes.”

“Good. Just checking.”

At the exact same moment, we both started laughing.

“Is this one of those days,” I said, “that you would say no if I invited you in for a beer?”

“Gotta get back,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say no on Friday. In fact, if you were interested in going to dinner on Friday evening, I wouldn’t say no to that either.”

“Now, wait,” I said. “Would that be a date? I mean, advance planning, that sounds like a date to me.”

He was grinning. “I don’t think people over forty are allowed to use the term ‘date.’ Maybe we should call it a social engagement.”

I crossed my arms. “I won’t go unless you admit it’s a date.”

“Fine,” he said quickly. “We’re dating.”

I opened my mouth to parse the differences between one date and dating, but then I decided I didn’t want to wade in waters so muddy. “You’re sort of a tricky guy,” I said instead.

“You’re not the first to think so.”

“And probably not the last.”

He gave me a quick, appraising look. “You never know.”

All too soon, or so it seemed to me, we were pulling up in front of my apartment. He kept the car idling, obviously not intending to come up this time. I paused with my fingers on the door handle. “I’ll be seeing you Friday, then,” I said.

He seemed amused, as if he knew he had knocked me off balance, but knew also that I didn’t mind at all. “Get some beads for your hair,” he suggested. “Maybe some gold string.”

“I was going to go with some jewel insets.”

He reached over and touched the corner of my mouth. “Ruby,” he said. “Right there.”

“You think it’ll make the boys like me better?”

“Guarantee it. You’ll get lots of dates then.”

I laughed and opened the door. “Maybe you don’t know it, but sometimes I take the stupidest dares.”

“Counting on it,” he said. He was still laughing when I shut the door—appeared to be still laughing as he drove away. I, feeling dizzy and girlish, made my way unsteadily up the walk and up the stairs.

My heart is like a singing bird . . .

*

Wednesday I said goodbye to my students at Sefton in the last class of the semester. It wasn’t really a class, in that no subjects were actually taught, but—to me, anyway—it seemed like the most important hour of the past four months. I handed out grades and returned final papers and told them how much I had enjoyed teaching them. We talked about Evan, and the memorial service, and their summer plans, and the grades they’d gotten on their standardized tests. (All of them had passed, several of them with exceptionally good marks. Nancy, in fact, had gotten one of the highest scores in Texas.) We talked about the classes they planned to take next year, and I was gratified to see how pleased many of them were to learn that I would be teaching a sophomore comp class in the fall.

“Well, there’s an easy A,” Devante said loudly.

“I don’t think I want you in another one of my classes,” I said. “I think it’s full already.”

“Are you teaching summer school?” asked one of the girls who had struggled most of the semester but pulled out a solid B at the end.

“No,” I said. “Are you taking a class?”

She nodded glumly. “Yeah. I need another English credit.”

I shrugged. “Hey, you’ve got my email address. If you need a little help some afternoon, just let me know, and I can meet you here.”

“Good, because Dr. Fullerton just doesn’t understand my papers,” she said.

I wanted to say, Well, it’s a learned skill, because it was, but that was obviously the wrong response. “Glad to help,” I said. “And I’d be glad to hear from any of you, any time—with good news or bad. And anyone who doesn’t take my class next year, I hope you’ll drop by my office now and then and let me know how you’re doing.” I glanced over at my favorite student. “Not you, Devante.”

He smiled broadly. “Hey, I’m in the class. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

The time passed too quickly. I wanted to silence the alarm when it signaled the end of the hour. I rose and stood by the door so I could shake each student’s hand as he or she walked out. “Goodbye—have a good summer—it was great having you—goodbye—”

Nancy and Simone gave me quick embraces and promised to come by from time to time in the fall. Devante gave me a bone-crushing hug that practically lifted me off the floor, tall as I am. “I’ll be around,” he said and sauntered out. I stood in the middle of the empty room and tried not to cry.

This happens to me every year.