6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

A s her lips formed his name, they puckered ever so slightly. Puckering was what lips had to do to make the f-o-r sound. It was basic linguistics.

Forrest had never been so glad to have his name. It was a really fine name when spoken by Lucy O'Shields.

A pause stretched out between them as Forrest processed the reaction his body was having to his name on Lucy's lips. There was a tightening in his abdomen, and his breathing shallowed imperceptibly. He had felt similar sensations earlier in the week, but this time was different. This was no panic attack. Forrest chose to not name the feeling, but rather, to be grateful for the expanse of desk wedged between them.

Realizing the pause was quickly approaching awkward-silence territory, Forrest said, "That wasn't the most polite way to phrase it. No 'please.' But seeing as how I'm a Southern gentleman..."

Lucy made a sound adjacent to a snort.

"I'll give in. Here's your chocolate."

He pushed the chocolate across the desk, purposefully leaving his fingertips on it. She reached across the other half, and laid her fingers on the chocolate, their fingertips touching for the briefest of moments. A shock ran up his arms.

Lucy unwrapped the chocolate, popped it into her mouth, and then said, "Thanks, Dr. Graham."

He rolled his eyes in exasperation as she giggled. The moment had passed. Forrest stood up to throw away the bags and wrappers from their meal. Never one to allow someone else to wait on her, Lucy stood up and joined him cleaning.

Still with laughter lacing her voice, Lucy said, "It’s after 8 o'clock. Clark and I had better head home."

"I'm done here for the night. I'll walk you home."

"That isn't necessary. It's a short walk, and I have Clark to scare off the boogie-man."

They both looked at the dog, who had suddenly started whimpering in his sleep.

"Luce, I've known that dog for years, and I love him very much. But..."

"There's always a but."

"But, he is a total coward. I've seen him run from one of the campus stray cats. Odds are, he's whimpering right now because he's dreaming of nothing more ferocious than a squirrel."

"And your point is?"

"I'm not trusting Clark to get you home safely."

Lucy scowled in exasperation. “Clark and I have made this walk home - unescorted, in the dark - countless times.”

“Clearly, I’ve been remiss.”

Forrest was, like the vast majority of English professors, a feminist. If he had not been, he and Edith never could have coexisted in the same office for so long. Forrest’s sudden chivalry would have elicited the middle finger from Edith, and Forrest wouldn’t have faulted her for it. But he also knew that he would be escorting Lucy and Clark home. Period.

Lucy tossed the last Sun Drop bottle into the trash. "Fine. You win. But you have to wake up Clark."

"Fair enough." Forrest bent down and gently shook Clark's shoulder. The dog snored loudly and rolled back, even in his sleep seeing if the nearby human might rub his belly. "Come on, Clark. We've got to go, bud. You can do it. Let's wake up."

Forrest did not see Lucy bend over his shoulder, so he jumped an inch when she whispered into his ear, "Don't worry. I won't tell any of your students you baby-talk to dogs."

Forrest pursed his lips and turned his head to find her eyes surprisingly close to his own. "I'm sorry. Do you have a better way to get your dog to move?"

With a chummy pat on the back, she said, "Nope. Proceed."

A few more jiggles and pleas to get moving finally brought Clark back to the land of the living. Lucy held the leash and Forrest shut off lights as the trio left Hart Building.

The fall air was chilly but mild as they headed to the edge of campus towards Lucy's apartment. It would take about fifteen minutes to walk to her apartment and another ten to circle back towards campus and get to his own place. He hoped a brisk walk coupled with escaping the tiny confines of his office would alleviate some of the tension he had felt, so unusual for time spent with Lucy. She had always made him feel at ease with her off-kilter humor and attentiveness.

Tonight, though, there had been blushes and pauses and unspoken questions Forrest had not expected, and he had no idea what had caused them. Well, that wasn't entirely true. On his part, he was quite certain the thoughts that had invaded his mind the previous afternoon after his break-up with Dr. Wray had been at least partially responsible. But surely a few unruly thoughts in his mind didn’t account for all of the subtle changes in this evening's meeting.

As the two walked together, each tall, their gaits matched easily. Soon, they were once again conversing like the old friends they were. Lucy said, "Are you looking forward to the basketball game next week?"

Basketball season was starting to crank up in Kentucky, and the PSU team was predicted to have a better-than-usual season. Lucy was adamant that the English Department needed to show their support for all aspects of the PSU community, so she organized for the entire office to attend a game together each fall. Lucy knew her way around campus politics. As Chair, Edith trusted Lucy implicitly on such matters, and Lucy had never failed to point the office in the right direction.

"I am looking forward to it. I think we're going to have a good season this year."

"Yes. That is what I've heard, as well. But I'll have to admit, I don't go for the game as much as I go for the experience of watching a bunch of nerdy English professors try to look natural in an alien habitat."

Forrest laughed. "There is that. But I think there is even more to it. I think you go because you don't trust Edith to not approach a coach about some player's late essay or poor mid-terms."

"Wow, it's like you know my job or something." Lucy bumped him with her elbow. The brief physical contact, though made in jest, had the odd effect of narrowing the gap between them. Lucy's warmth crowded out the night's chill.

"Do you remember the first thing you ever said to me?"

Forrest was surprised by the question, and by the hint of insecurity he had heard in her voice. Of course, he knew she had been in his first class. He could probably recite each student’s name and recall the topic of their final essay. After, all, they were his first class. However, he couldn't remember an exact moment at which Lucy had entered his radar, or what he had said to her in that moment. "Let me think..." Forrest's eyes looked up as he contemplated the question. "I'm not positive, but it likely had something to do with Mark Twain."

In the darkness, Forrest could barely make out Lucy's facial features, but he sensed her smile. "Solid guess, but no. You might have started the class with that. In fact, I'm pretty sure you did start class with a Mark Twain quote. But you actually spoke a single sentence to me before class began."

"Why is this conversation making me nervous?"

Lucy looked down at her feet as if it was imperative she keep track of which was stepping forward at a time. She proceeded with the story, "Like I said, it was before class began. Miriam and I were talking..."

"There's a shocker." Forrest could not resist the opportunity to inject this little tease.

Lucy elbowed his arm again. If she was trying to reprimand him for his joke, the additional physical contact was not working. Lucy continued, "We were discussing upcoming appointments with the Career Center. Anyways, Miriam asked me if I was going to go, and I jokingly said, 'What's the point? Don't all English majors become secretaries?'"

Forrest didn't like the direction the story was heading.

"We didn't realize the new professor was standing right behind us until you chimed in, 'I think we can do better than that.'"

Forrest nodded his head like a slow-moving oil rig. "So I was an asshole?"

This time, Lucy didn't elbow him. Rather, she grabbed his wrist with her hand and stopped their walking. She faced him and said, "No, Forrest, that isn't what I meant at all..."

"I know, but I was sort of an asshole."

With her eyebrows slanted in consternation, Lucy said more emphatically, "No. The lesson here is not that you are an asshole. Not that there is a lesson. It's just that you said I was your smartest student, and here I am celebrating a decade of being a secretary. By and large, I'm proud of the job I do. I'm good at it."

"You're damn right you're good at it."

"But..."

"But?"

"But aren't you a little disappointed your star pupil became a secretary?"

"I could never think of you as a disappointment, Luce." The use of her nickname, one used only by the closest of friends, softened her whole expression. "Secretary is only a title. It isn't you, and it doesn't begin to describe everything you have done since you graduated."

As Forrest looked down at Lucy and felt her hand squeezing his wrist, he saw uncertainty. His words had not been quite enough to fix whatever insecurities she was battling. He really wanted to fix it for her. She released her grasp on his wrist, her hand falling to her side.

"When I'm teaching my students, and I walk them through four years of classes and then cheer them on as they walk across that stage, I'm not hoping they go on to fancy job titles. I'm hoping that whatever job they find themselves in, the education they received in our department helps them be a better person in that role. Better at their job. Better at just being. Better at working with those around them. So by my measurements, you are still my star student."

Lucy broke eye contact to glance down at Clark as he wedged himself between them and sat on their feet, confused that they had all stopped walking. But right before she looked down, Forrest could swear he had seen moisture in her eyes. Were words he had carelessly spoken over ten years ago causing her to doubt herself today? He rued the thought, and it made him desperate to see her eyes one more time, to see if they still looked so broken.

Gently, Forrest placed his index finger beneath her chin and guided her face back towards his line of vision. Then, with almost reverence, Forrest pushed up the glasses that had slid down her nose a smidgen when she had glanced down at Clark. There, now he could see her eyes. His hand returned to the base of her chin. He didn't want her to look away again. Not just yet.

Lucy's eyes were staring wide-eyed into his own, and what he saw there caused him to inhale deeply, just short of an actual gasp.

He didn't see hurt there anymore, thank Walt Whitman and all of his leaves of grass. The insecurity seemed to have been banished, at least for a little while. The emotions of just a moment ago had left her face raw, and what was exposed in the rawness was longing. Could it be longing for him? Was it possible that the blushes and awkward silences had been a product of attraction? Forrest doubted such a seismic shift had occurred in two days. Which led him to ask, had it been there before? Had it been there, unnamed and untapped, for years?

"Lucy?" Just as Forrest was about to say something or ask a question or lean forward or just do something (he hardly knew what), he heard a deep voice call out from down the block.

"Forrest? Lucy? What are you guys doing out?"

Jogging towards them with a stroller was Dr. Porter Finch.

***

Lucy and Forrest each jumped back a step, partially to create distance and partially because an extra exuberant Clark had bolted forward, barking a greeting to yet another friend. Lucy must have let go of his leash at some point, but she could not possibly identify when or why.

Lucy was stunned. In the minutes that had preceded this moment, she had forgotten that a world existed outside of the bubble in which she had stood facing Forrest while he had seemed to stare straight into her soul.

Her mind was racing, lobbing questions at herself faster than she could possibly process them. What had she seen in Forrest's eyes just now? More importantly, what had he seen in her eyes? Had he read there in a single moment everything she had kept hidden for the past decade? And where had that feeling come from, the feeling that had washed down her body? It was everything she had known about desire, but it was also more than she had ever felt. And when had her treacherous body started desiring Dr. Forrest Graham, for the love of all that was holy? She would blame Miriam and her ridiculous “free agent” comment for sowing seeds Lucy had no intention of reaping. And finally, where had Porter come from, and what would he think of what he had seen? It was dark. Perhaps he would think (Lucy frantically reached for a plausible explanation) they had been drawing on each other's body heat because they had forgotten heavy jackets?

Willing her mind back into the time and space where she stood, Lucy smiled as she greeted Porter with an enthusiasm the situation did not warrant. "Hey Porter! It's great to see you! Forrest was just making sure Clark and I made it home after some editing on campus!" Why was every sentence coming out with exclamation marks? She was not, nor had she ever been, an exclamation-mark kind of girl. English majors could fail a whole course for the use of a single exclamation mark. Breathe, Lucy. Breathe.

Thankfully, Porter was happily distracted by Clark. The dog's tail-wagging had blown into some kind of bizarre rotating dance that Porter encouraged with petting and ear-scratching. Good boy, Clark. He was giving Lucy a few more minutes to compose herself and, hopefully, tone it down a bit.

"So, it's an editing night?" Porter looked up from Clark, darting his eyes back and forth between Lucy and Forrest.

Forrest said, “Yes, you know, the Whitman piece I told you about?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right. How'd it go?"

"Fine. Fine. It's all going fine" Forrest's usual self-confidence and calm seemed to have abandoned them in the dark, and if Porter's eyebrows were to be trusted, he had noticed. Lucy decided to shift the conversation.

"So, what are you and Anna doing out past dark?"

"My mom came over to help put the kids to bed while Charlotte is out of town. She is focusing on the boys, while I'm putting Anna to bed. Last I saw, Billy and Luke were running naked around the dining room while she pretended to be a pirate chasing them. Seemed like a good time to leave." Porter was grinning as he told the story. He was not the sort of parent who bemoaned the antics of his children. Rather, he relished the chaos, having never completely outgrown the playfulness and orneriness of childhood.

Relieved to be talking about Porter's children, Lucy asked, "And how exactly are you putting Anna to bed? While jogging?"

"Oh, that. While babies in commercials can be laid down directly into a bed and fall peacefully asleep, my children demand a bit more effort."

Seeing Lucy and Forrest's confused expressions, Porter continued, "Specifically, Anna likes to fall asleep in the stroller while it is moving quickly. The strategy she and I have worked out over these past 6 months of her life is that I jog clockwise around the block twice, counter-clockwise once, and then back to two laps of clockwise. It works like magic."

"Funny," Forrest said, his usual ease seeming to have returned. "I always thought magic made things easier. Wave of a wand - a little incantation, and poof! You get whatever it is you're going for."

Donning his professorial confidence, Porter said, "Oh Forrest. On the topic of parenthood, trust me. Five laps around the block is a wave of the wand compared to pacing with a screaming baby for half the night."

Forrest raised his hands in defeat. "Clearly you are the master. I, on the other hand, have never raised a houseplant, much less a baby."

Snorting at the truth of the statement, Lucy shook her head. "Speaking of bed-times, I think Clark and I are ready to go curl up with a book."

Forrest questioned, "At eight thirty? Really?"

"Do you know who I work with? I'm exhausted."

Forrest and Porter spoke at the same time. "True, you have a point there." "Good point. Very good point."

Porter said, "Since Lucy and I are headed to the same place, I can walk her the rest of the way if you want to go ahead to your place, Forrest."

Forrest looked directly into Lucy's eyes for just a moment, not long enough for Lucy to discern what she saw there. Was he disappointed they had been interrupted? Did he wish to walk her the rest of the way?

"Yeah, I think I'll head on home. Are we still on for the Kentucky game this weekend?"

Porter beamed. "Absolutely. I'm ordering an obscene amount of junk food from the Corner Bar, and I fully intend on us both making ourselves sick while cheering on the White and Blue."

At Porter's enthusiasm, Forrest's dimples made an appearance. Lucy couldn't look away. His dimples and his beard and his warm, brown eyes seemed to invite stares when he smiled. "Sounds perfect." There was that word again, but once again, he was not directing it at her. "I'll see you both tomorrow at work."

Forrest turned around and walked back towards campus to his apartment. Porter and Lucy started walking towards their homes, which, incidentally, were in the same place. Lucy lived in the apartment above Porter's garage. Before starting a family, Porter and Charlotte bought a historic home in a classic, two-story design with deep front porches on both levels. The home was a few blocks off campus. It was a relic of the early twentieth century, and it came with a detached garage with a quaint apartment built above in the same style as the house.

Porter had been as excited about his new home as a child receiving their first bike, and as was often the case with Porter, his enthusiasm had been contagious. When Porter mentioned that the new house had a garage apartment in need of a little updating, Lucy immediately volunteered to live in the space and fix it up. They agreed on a financial arrangement that suited them both, and Lucy was liberated from the cookie-cutter apartment of her college days, free to turn the small garage apartment into a space that reflected her aesthetic. She loved coming home.

On the last short leg of the walk home, Porter and Lucy chatted about the upcoming PSU game that the department would be attending, Charlotte's most recent travels and what story she was covering, and how quickly Anna had gone from newborn to six-months-old. It was so easy to talk to Porter. There was no tension in the air, no penetrating looks that made her wonder if she was hiding her feelings well enough or what those feelings even were and why she felt compelled to hide them.

As they came closer to the apartment, Porter said, "Forrest sure keeps you busy editing. I need to be publishing more."

"Yes, with all of that spare time you have," Lucy tilted her head towards Anna, looking perfectly peaceful in her jogging-induced sleep.

"I do sort of have my hands full." Porter's eyes softened as he, too, looked at Anna.

They finally arrived at the base of the stairs that went up to Lucy's apartment. Lucy turned to Porter to tell him goodbye, but she paused at the contemplative look that had come over his face. He said, "Forrest dedicates himself so much to our profession because he's afraid. He's afraid if he doesn't, he'll become like his dad."

Lucy was silent. It was not like Porter to analyze someone else's motivations or behaviors.

"I'm glad he has you. I'm glad you're there with him."

Lucy knew that Porter's analysis was true, that Forrest's tireless work ethic was motivated by what he was running from. She had been friends with him too long to not understand something so central to his personality. But she had never heard another person acknowledge this reality. The quiet lingered as they thought about their mutual friend, then Lucy said, "I'm glad I can be there for him, too."

And just like that, the cloud of seriousness lifted from Porter, and he said, "Well, goodnight. You'd better get some sleep. The odds of the kids' nanny not getting another migraine tomorrow are pretty low."

Lucy laughed as she and Clark started up the stairs, calling back to Porter, "Goodnight to you, too."

Opening the door to her apartment, Lucy sank into the comfort of the living room. Despite the slight sting of shame that she was in her early 30s and still renting a garage apartment, Lucy loved coming home to her cozy quarters filled with an eclectic mixture of antique-shop finds and a few clean-lined, modern pieces. The Grahams granted Lucy wide-ranging freedom to decorate the interior of her apartment so long as her choices were period-appropriate. Lucy's closet-size kitchen was a sunny, daffodil yellow, her bedroom sky-blue, and the wall behind her sofa was accented with floral wallpaper that sparked joy the instant she opened her front door. After the evening she and Forrest had just had, she wanted to lay on the sofa, pick up a book, and escape the questions that were churning from the moment before Porter burst into their space.

But her mind would not allow her to escape. Instead, she busied herself in the kitchen preparing a cup of chamomile tea, the questions once again flying like debris across a window. Why, she wondered, had she not told Forrest about her meeting with President Burke? The opportunity had been wide open. Why had she blushed at their teasing, a dynamic they had managed for years without awkwardness? And why, in the dark street, had her body seemed so ready to step right into his? Why had his eyes looked like he would have welcomed her?

During her senior year, Lucy would have been lying if she claimed not to have felt the desire of a young woman for a man hopelessly beyond her reach. From the second row of the lecture hall, it was safe to indulge the occasional fantasy about the tall, handsome teacher with dry wit, chocolate eyes, and a magnetic smile she could never turn her eyes from. She had wondered more than once what his beard would feel like if it were to brush along the hollow of her neck.

But for ten years, she had denied the college-student within herself the luxury of fantasizing about her professor, and it had worked. Lucy had established a working relationship built on mutual respect and a friendship built on affection and compatibility. The dichotomy of the relationship had always worked because they had never entertained the possibility of anything more. Romance and (mercy) sex were off the table.

After her tea was finished, and she crawled under the ruffled white duvet of her bed, Lucy closed her eyes only to see Forrest looking down at her. Her mind had captured every detail of his expression from that brief moment when he had guided her to him, his finger so warm and gentle beneath her chin. Not forcing. Merely suggesting, asking, maybe even hoping.

As she relived the moment, her body once again reacted with the same need. But this time, in the privacy of her home, Lucy was able to recognize that the desire was not a resurgence from college-student Lucy. This was entirely different. This was the desire of a woman for a man who she knew, truly knew. A man who saw her and treated her as an equal.

At the realization, Lucy jolted up in bed. She walked to the couch, slumped down, and cradled her head in her hands, trying to run beyond the edge of the fog.

Lucy was the secretary; Forrest, one of her bosses. While he treated her as an equal, she was not an equal. And even if she ignored the uncomfortable dynamic of being a secretary dating a boss, there was the rest of the office to worry about. They had built a quirky little family, a family Forrest needed. He needed each and every one of them, because he had made that job his life. It was the fuel that kept him from sinking into his past.

Lucy was now able to answer one question from the past two days. She now knew why Forrest’s name was color-coded differently from the other English faculty in her mind. She was, simply put, attracted to him. But she knew that it was an attraction she must never indulge for the sake of the life they had built in Hart Building.

Looking at the clock, Lucy saw it was only 10 o'clock. She dreaded the long, sleepless night ahead of her.

***

Forrest opened the door to his apartment about an hour after he had left Porter and Lucy. He had felt restless, too restless to return immediately to the bare, colorless confines of his apartment.

Forrest's apartment looked exactly like what it was: a place avoided for all purposes but to provide a roof and a bed when its occupant needed to sleep. Home was the book-lined shelves of his office, the antics of his co-workers, the tree-lined walkways of Paducah State University. It was Porter's house for games and movies and Dr. Hubert's house for Sunday lunch. His apartment was not a home. It was sleeping quarters.

Forrest set his shower as hot as he could tolerate and walked into the steam. He scrubbed hard on his hair, harder than was necessary. Then he thought about Lucy knowing he was stressed by simply looking at his hair. Smoothing down his hair with even more vigor than he had scrubbed it, Forrest wondered how she had known his nervous tick when he had not known it himself.

Each task Forrest undertook in the bathroom, he did roughly and clumsily. Water sprayed all over his mirror when he shook out his wet toothbrush. The towel overshot the hamper by several feet when he tossed it. He jiggled the handle of the toilet so violently when it wouldn't stop running that it popped off, delaying bed by ten minutes while he fixed it.

When he finally walked into his bedroom, the nervous energy that had been driving him all evening began to dissipate. He sat heavily on the side of his bed and stared at the only ornamental object in the white and gray room. It was a picture frame, silver with "Paducah State University" embossed at the base and filled with blue and gold resin. Along the other edges of the frame were paw prints for the PSU Wildcats.

The frame and the picture within it had been a Christmas gift from Lucy the previous year, probably bought from the campus bookstore. The picture was of the whole office and Porter's boys, all scrunched together on a bench of the basketball stadium's bleachers. It was from their annual basketball game the previous year.

Edith was on the far left of the photo looking formidable. Forrest recalled that the picture had been snapped just moments after she had yelled at the refs for a bad call, hence the scowl. Next to her was Dr. Hubert, wearing his PSU baseball cap backwards, with Billy propped on a knee. The backwards cap was likely Billy's doing. Luke was sitting on Porter's lap while reaching across to poke at his brother. And on the right end were Lucy and Forrest, looking perfectly at ease while sitting side-by-side.

Lucy had walked into his office in the quiet following the English Department holiday party with a gift bag stuffed with decorative paper. After he opened it, they sat on opposite sides of the desk, just as they had done hours ago. Together, they laughed at the memory of Edith ostentatiously miming the appropriate signals for the call the refs clearly should have made. If he remembered right, they had marveled at how big Porter's boys were getting and how another Finch baby would soon join the office.

It had been a perfectly normal conversation, the type one might have whispered with a sister after a too-heavy turkey dinner while the rest of the family napped.

Maybe the breakup with Dr. Wray was affecting Forrest more than he realized. It felt like he was losing his grip. What had he been thinking tonight flirting with Lucy? Why had he looked into her eyes that last time? Hadn't he realized how dangerous it was? How much there was to lose? In truth, he hadn’t realized the danger until he’d seen her eyes looking into his own with undisguised longing.

Dr. Wray was a decent person, and he wasted six months of her life. And before her, more women than he cared to count had wasted three to six months with a guy who was incapable of giving them more than the barest level of intimacy. Lucy deserved better. She deserved better than a Graham. If he insisted on being the noble gentleman and walking her home in the dark, the least he could do was protect her from himself.

Thankfully, Porter had interrupted. Forrest still did not know what would have transpired had Porter not arrived, but he had no doubt Porter had saved him from a grave mistake. Tomorrow, Forrest would go into his office and treat Lucy like the dear friend and work colleague she was. He would move on from tonight and never look back.