20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

L ucy had been President Burke's assistant for a week. Her last day in the English Department had also been Forrest's last day of bereavement leave, so they missed each other by the barest of margins. As she’d planned.

It wasn't that Lucy planned to spend the rest of her life dodging Forrest Graham. They worked at the same small university, so that was hardly possible. But she did intend to postpone until she could nonchalantly greet him while dressed in the perfect outfit, without a blush or a tear in sight. In this future, she'd also have a man hopelessly and conspicuously in love with her. A man with a British accent.

Each morning of her first week, Lucy woke up, chose an outfit from the line of new clothes she’d purchased on a particularly fun day trip to Memphis with Edith, and went to work hoping the new look and new job would make her feel like a better, more mature version of Lucy O'Shields. While she enjoyed catching glimpses of herself in non-beige clothing, the novelty of the new job had worn off in about three days. Soon, she realized she was doing the exact same tasks for Dr. Burke that she'd done in the English Department, only in this situation, it was without editing complicated academic pieces or laughing at the antics of Billy and Luke or sipping on bourbon with Dr. Hubert after a particularly busy week. What was the point of going to Broadway if you couldn't get tickets to a show?

This morning, Lucy was meeting Miriam for a coffee before heading to work. Occasionally, they met at the coffee kiosk in the center of campus for a cup of coffee so potent it could keep the most sleep-deprived of college students awake for their eight o'clock class. Sitting on a bench nearby, they would pretend for just a moment that they were carefree undergraduates watching their classmates rushing by, still wearing their plaid pajama pants.

Usually, they saved these walks down memory lane for special days, like birthdays or when one of them had a particular victory at work. Once, they met after a surprisingly controversial altar committee meeting in which the bane of Miriam's existence, a Mrs. Archibald Dunroe, finally resigned over the choice of peonies over lilies for an upcoming service. Miriam's relief had merited a second cup of coffee.

On this nippy fall morning with brightly colored fall foliage all around the campus, Lucy and Miriam weren't meeting for any particular reason. Rather, Miriam had set it up claiming she was in the mood for some extra-strong coffee. Lucy suspected, however, that Miriam was currently in full-tilt mother-hen mode. Since Mr. Graham's funeral, Miriam had thought of excuses to check on Lucy daily. She'd brought meals for them to share, a Frisbee to throw for Clark, or called to run by a line from an upcoming sermon; she liked to know Lucy's opinion on how likely she was to get in trouble. Lucy called it the Provacata-meter.

Lucy knew without doubt that Miriam's ministrations were in fact helping immensely. At times, she wanted to be left alone to stare at the copy of Eve's Diary that still lay on the table next to her couch. She'd wonder how Forrest, who loved the book, couldn't love her, too. She would ask herself how he could worship Mark Twain, but not want for himself the love Mark Twain had so eloquently memorialized.

Because if he wanted that kind of love, Lucy could provide it. She would love Forrest to distraction. She wouldn’t be able to help herself.

But since she was in love with someone incapable of loving her back, Lucy was grateful the phone kept ringing, that it kept calling her away from Eve's Diary and gave her a moment of respite from memories of twin beds and Gandalf posters and the pleasant scratch of whiskers down her neck.

Lucy was standing in a line of groggy college students when Miriam joined her.

"Hey, you. How's it going?"

"Morning, Miri. I'm fine." I'm fine. I'm fine. How many times did one say those two words in life when they weren't exactly true? If you combined all of the I'm-fine's into a single setting, would it create a meditation in which a person was transformed until the words were true?

Miriam certainly heard how hollow they rang, but she graciously let it pass. "I desperately need a coffee. I was up until one o'clock last night working on my sermon for the Sunday before Thanksgiving."

"Are you stressed about it?"

"Not really, but it'll be a full house with people's families visiting, so I'd rather not sound like an ass."

Lucy shook her head as she chuckled. "Miriam, you've never sounded like an ass in your life."

"If that’s true, which I sincerely doubt, it’s because I’ve never walked into that pulpit unprepared. Can you imagine what would happen if I went off-script and did a stream-of-consciousness hour?"

"Ooh. Good point. You'd better lose some more sleep."

"Thanks, friend."

They moved up a few more steps in the line as a few more students headed to their eight-o'clocks with fuel clutched in their hands.

Miriam said, "So, what are your plans for Thanksgiving?"

Lucy thought about her conversation with her father earlier that week. He’d called a few times, eager to hear about her new job. It had been more hands-on parenting than she was used to, but she appreciated the effort. However, he’d let her know that he was heading South to his brother's Thanksgiving gathering. So unless she wanted a road-trip to Alabama, she was on her own.

"My dad is going out of town, so normally, I would join Porter and Charlotte. There is always an open invitation to their Thanksgiving, and Porter is always eager to take in all the pies I'm willing to bake."

"But?"

"But, I don't know what Forrest's plans are. Sometimes, he goes to his sister’s, but sometimes he goes to Porter's. It depends on if Gracie is spending the holiday with her in-laws. Normally, I would be privy to all of this communication because I would be the one keeping up with everyone's plans in the office. But now..." Lucy's words ended on a sigh.

They moved up a step. Only two students to go.

"Are you missing them? Do you miss your old job?"

"Yep. Not very entrepreneurial of me, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm an intelligent, capable woman without a family of my own. My career should be my thing. I should be climbing to the top. But really, if I could rewind and spend a day as the Pam Beasley of the PSU English Department, I would. I still see Edith and Porter and Dr. Hubert around. Small campus and all. But it's not the same."

"The largest, most caffeinated beverage you have," Miriam said. Lucy hadn't realized they'd reached the front of the line. In all their time standing in line, she’d failed to actually decide on her order.

"Oh, um, I probably shouldn't have a latte. All the calories and such."

"She'll have a latte. Make it a large."

"Thanks, Miri."

The two took their warm drinks and sat down on a nearby bench. Miriam was clutching a scarf tightly around her neck. It concealed her tab collar, making it a little easier for Lucy to pretend for just a moment that they were their undergraduate selves. But then Lucy remembered the embarrassing crush she’d nursed on Forrest (or Dr. Graham) all those years ago, and she decided that reminiscing is overrated.

"So, you never answered my question. What are you doing for Thanksgiving?"

"Doing recognizance on Porter's Thanksgiving, and then I'll decide. Clark and I can always eat a frozen turkey dinner while watching Planes, Trains, and Automobiles ."

"No, you are not going to have a lame-ass Thanksgiving for two with your dog and frozen dinners. I'll figure out something. For starters, Porter and Charlotte have invited me to their Thanksgiving, so I can call Charlotte and snoop around for you. If that is a no-go, we'll figure out something. But just for the record, you shouldn't let a guy determine whether you get to spend time with friends on Thanksgiving."

"You're right. And I want to be in that place, the place where I can be in the same room as Forrest without feeling like I'm drowning. But I'm not there yet. Not that I've tested the waters. I know his schedule well enough to be an expert at avoiding him."

They each took a sip of their coffee, soaking in the beauty of PSU in fall. Everywhere one turned, there were oranges and purples and hot, intense reddish-pinks.

Miriam broke the silence. "I'm sorry that bastard hurt you."

"He's not a bastard."

"I know."

"He's just a broken mess."

"Aren't we all?" On this point, Miriam was uniquely well-aware.

"I would have taken him all broken and messy." Lucy was surprised at the confession. She was surprised it had escaped so untethered and unbidden. By some miracle, though, her eyes remained dry.

Miriam reached over and squeezed Lucy's gloved hand. "I know, Luce. I know."

***

Forrest had been back at the office for a week. Being in the classroom had been a balm, soothing the more egregious aches from his father's passing. Lecturing and class discussions and speaking with inquiring students in the moments following class had all felt like he was right where he belonged, right where his father had been proud to have a son.

But then class would end, the last of the students would trickle out of the classroom, and Forrest was left still raw, still aching with another pain.

For the past ten years, the small suite of offices on the third floor of Hart Building had housed Forrest's family. Dr. Hubert with his depth of experience and wisdom that he never weaponized to make Forrest feel naive or less than. Dr. Rose with her fierce loyalty to the field they both loved, but also to the people in that suite. Dr. Finch with his warm and too-quirky-for-academia personality that denied any of them the opportunity to get too ensconced in their ivory tower.

And Lucy. Lucy who kept them fed when they were buried in grading or in good graces with the campus's political powers. Lucy who mothered their students and made their corner of campus feel warm on the coldest of Kentucky winter days. She’d been his proof-reader, his conversation companion on all topics ranging from campus gossip to the newest research idea he was pursuing, and here lately, she'd been his confidante as he had watched his father deteriorate. She was, ultimately, his friend.

But when Forrest was at his most honest, he knew that what he felt was not as simple as friendship. It was more powerful than any feeling he had ever had, even towards the dearest of friends. On that night in his childhood bedroom, all that he felt for Lucy had come bubbling over the surface. Slowly, Forrest was coming to admit that the night with Lucy had been so explosive not because of some cocktail of adolescent nostalgia and the presence of a tall, strawberry-blond beauty, but rather because he was, for the first time in his life, authentically and completely in love.

And while Forrest knew, although perhaps feared was a better word, that he was deeply in love, he didn't know how a person showed love or lived love when it was coupled with such mind-obliterating passion. Sure, he knew how to love Porter or Dr. Hubert or Edith. At the risk of being self-inflating, Forrest believed he had been a good friend to them during the past decade. But romantic love? All-consuming love?

So Forrest had decided this morning after yet another mostly-sleepless night in which he had tossed in bed with images of wisps of curls escaping a bun and glasses slipping down a freckled nose and, well, breasts (he was still in awe of how that particular asset had outpaced his most outrageous expectations), Forrest had decided that he would go to the one source that had never let him down: books. He would find books that would teach him how to love Lucy.

So in between his eight o'clock class and his eleven o'clock, Forrest used his short window of time to visit the campus library. For the first time in a while, he did not head directly to the fiction section or the biography section where he could find his favorite sources on the American authors who populated his studies and writings. Instead, he headed to the non-fiction section and, within that, the section on relationships. Because even Forrest Graham could admit that he was unlikely to find high-quality relationship advice in 19 th -century literature.

As he stood running a finger over the spines of the top row, silently mouthing each title to himself, a crickety voice whispered from behind, "Dr. Graham, can I help you? This is not your normal section."

Forrest barely managed to not jump, turning quickly and, in the process, hitting his elbow on a shelf. Forrest grabbed the offended elbow, grimacing. Apparently, leather elbow patches did not protect one's funny bone.

"Mrs. Applebaum, yes, I'm venturing out of the 19th century today."

Mrs. Applebaum was a relic of the PSU library, a couple of decades past traditional retirement age. Her penciled-in eyebrows, shockingly black next to the tight, bluish curls of her hair, raised in shock as she looked over his shoulder. "Are you trying to work things out with Dr. Wray?"

Didn't they have policies against talking here? Apparently, campus gossip was as active in the library as it was in the PSU English Department, where he had recently learned from Dr. Hubert that the Dean of the Business College had been engaged in an affair with his secretary for the better part of the past two decades. To which Porter had replied, "Well, it is the Business College," and they had all nodded in agreement.

"No, I'm afraid that is a bit of a done deal. Just doing some research."

Her eyebrows raised even further, the wrinkles gathering like a topographical map of the Appalachians.

"I'm writing an article on Mark Twain and Olivia Clemens, his wife." Her quizzical expression was unmoved. "About their love story. I thought research on relationships might help me better understand what made theirs so special." As Forrest said the words, he realized he wasn't lying. He really was going to write that article.

"Ooh, wonderful idea, Dr. Graham. I look forward to reading it. I've always been particularly fond of Mr. Twain."

Forrest smiled. "Aren't we all?"

"Indeed. I'll leave you to it."

Forrest turned back around, placed his finger on the spine of the first book in the second row, and continued scanning the titles.