Chapter 16

CHAPTER

16

PRESENT

September breezes by so fast that before I know it, we’re already in the first week of October, and the gala is looming ever closer. I’m trying not to stress, because for the most part, it’s coming together. Various local businesses agreed to donate gift certificates for the raffle. Limitless Party Supply donated two boxes’ worth of autumn decorations—last year’s overstock that would’ve been sold this year for 75 percent off anyway, because apparently mushrooms and orange twinkle lights have fallen out of fashion sometime in the last twelve months, but for my purposes, they’re perfect: cute, secular, and inoffensive. And on Monday, I’m picking up the vinyl banners from the office supply store the next town over. But I’m starting to feel a little overworked, strained—a button sewn on with a single thread, threatening to pop at the slightest movement. I keep reminding myself that it won’t be like this forever, that this is only one semester, but between my classes, the gala, and rewriting my dossier, I haven’t had a lot of time to myself. I haven’t touched my article about Elizabeth of York in weeks, let alone polished it up enough to submit to journals.

I burst into Franklin 106 like a storm banging through the shutters, causing everyone’s heads to snap up. “Sorry, sorry,” I say, breathless. I’m fifteen minutes late to our Thursday meeting. I let my messenger bag drop from my shoulder and it hits the floor with a thump as I plant myself in the seat between Bel and Teddy. “One of my students had a few questions about the midterm and I lost track of time.”

Teddy’s brows pinch together and I give him a tiny shake of my head.

“Fine. Great,” Gary says, his tone a mixture of boredom and annoyance that doesn’t sound anywhere near fine, never mind great. “Let’s get this thing over with, shall we?”

We cruise through everything on the agenda at breakneck speed, partly because everyone’s over this and just wants to get on with their day, but also because there isn’t a ton to address. Beside me, Bel fidgets with an acorn-shaped earring, twisting it between her thumb and forefinger. Asking her to participate on the scholarship committee wasn’t part of our deal, but subcommittee members are technically required to be part of the overseeing committee, so she’s shown up like clockwork every Thursday—looking bored out of her mind, sure, but present, and words can’t express how much I owe her for all this. As soon as I declare the meeting adjourned, everyone pops up like dandelions, collecting their things. I’ve met students less eager to escape a classroom.

“Before we go,” I say, earning a murderous look from Bel and a very audible sigh from Gary, “this is off the record, not official committee business or anything, but I just wanted to ask to see whether you guys have any local performers to recommend for entertainment. For the gala,” I clarify, because Trina is looking at me like I’m from Mars.

“I haven’t listened to music since ’83,” Gary says, deadpan. I can’t tell if that’s his idea of humor or if he’s serious. Neither would really surprise me.

“I could ask my band,” Dean Goodman offers, running a hand through his thinning blond hair so that it stands on end like he’s Beetlejuice. Trina narrows her eyes at him, like he’s betrayed some secret pact to barricade my progress every step of the way. Considering how standoffish they’ve all been, maybe he has. But he just shrugs. “I might not buy into this whole gala business, but a gig is a gig.”

“What sort of music do you guys play?” I ask.

“We’re a cover band. Mostly indie rock or alternative. Think Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie, that sort of thing.”

Not exactly in my wheelhouse, but not that far off, either. “Are the songs clean?” I ask. “I mean, are the lyrics sort of family friendly?”

Goodman squints. “We could make them family friendly.”

“Then great,” I say. “That works for me.”

He digs around in his laptop bag and unearths a business card that identifies the band as Eleventy-One Elephants, complete with an Instagram handle and a SoundCloud. Afterward, Goodman and Trina and Gary all leave in a whirlwind of notebooks slapping shut and book bags swinging from slumped shoulders. Bel and Teddy are left behind, both seeming to purposefully linger, and I’m not sure whose purpose I’m dreading more.

“So I won’t be able to make it to the subcommittee meeting tomorrow,” Bel says. I already suspect she’s abandoning me for Krav Maga. “My aunt is flying in from Atlanta and needs a ride from the airport.”

Okay, so maybe not Krav Maga, though I can’t rule out an elaborate cover story. “No worries. I’ll email you the minutes.”

Bel mumbles a thank you. She’ll likely never read the minutes even if I do email them—and to be fair, I don’t blame her, because she’s only really in this for me. And maybe for her resume. She scurries out of Franklin 106 and I follow not far behind, slinging my messenger bag around my neck as I go.

“Hey, wait up.”

I turn. Teddy jogs to catch up with me in the bright, fluorescent hall of the Franklin Complex. I wasn’t trying to skip out before he had a chance to talk to me, but if I’m being honest, I’ve thought about him more than I’m comfortable with these past few weeks. I feel like I need to put a little distance between us.

“So for tomorrow,” he says, “I was thinking maybe we meet at The Falconer again.”

“Why?” I ask. We’d met on campus the past couple of meetings after I emailed administration and managed to secure one of the conference rooms on the third floor of the Hall of Letters.

“To be entirely honest, because you look like you could use a drink.”

I snort. He’s not wrong, but I don’t want to admit that he’s right, either. I push through the glass double doors, emerging into the brisk evening. The beech trees have turned yellow and the maples have faded to a dull ochre; their leaves sweep up in the wind. “How do you figure?”

He gives me a sidelong look, because there’s nothing he could say that I don’t already know. I’ve known you since you had braces, so I can sort of tell when you’re stressed out and overworked.

I press my lips together. “Right.”

He flips around and walks backward so that he can look at me, his coffee-brown curls tousled by the breeze. “So, The Falconer, then?” he asks. When I just keep walking, he ducks down in a way that forces me to look at him, all puppy dog eyes. That’s a new one. I guess he’s learned a few tricks over the years. “Please say yes. If I’m being honest, I could use a drink, too.”

I sigh, resigned. “The Falconer it is.” I’m certain this is a bad idea, but I’m helpless to put a stop to it.

By the time I arrive at The Falconer on Friday, seven minutes behind schedule, it’s packed with people. A Dropkick Murphys song rattles the dark wood paneling, so loud that it’s hard to hear myself think. I find Teddy at one of the booths, a pair of drinks already on the table. He’s almost drained his gin and tonic, the wedge of lime bled dry. The other drink—a chocolatey one in a skinny martini glass—sits untouched on the opposite side of the table.

I slide into the booth across from him. “What’s this?” I ask, indicating the martini. I have to raise my voice to be heard over all the chatter.

“A cold brew martini with gin.” Upon noticing my raised eyebrows, he explains, “That was still your drink of choice, last I checked. Which was”—he pretends to consult an invisible watch—“a couple weeks ago, I’m pretty sure.”

“Thanks.” I pinch the stem between my fingers and raise it in a quick toast before taking a sip.

And then I cough.

He winces. “I might’ve asked them to make it a double shot,” he admits. “Thought you might need it.”

I shoot him an exasperated look before taking another, more experimental sip. It’s a bit strong, sure, but this time I’m expecting it, and he’s also not wrong. I probably do need it.

“You look nice,” he says. “The…” He waves his hand around his own face. “Makeup, I mean. And the hair.”

“High praise,” I mumble, though I can’t help feeling mollified that he noticed. I asked Reagan if I could borrow some of her makeup, because I figured if I’m once again going to find myself in a bar on a Friday evening, I might as well look the part.

Teddy looks like he might say something else, but he’s distracted by a guy with a neat, square beard standing on a stool in front of the bar so that he towers over the throng. He flips on a cheap karaoke microphone and it squeals from the proximity to the speakers. Some people cover their ears. Teddy doesn’t react, save a slight lilt of his dark brows.

“All right,” our host says after stepping down from the stool and dragging it between bargoers to put sufficient space between himself and the nearest speaker. He pops up again like a meerkat. “Welcome to The Falconer Quiz Night. Before we begin, let’s lay down a couple ground rules.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, turning to Teddy, “did he just say ‘quiz night’?”

“First Friday of every month,” Teddy confirms, raising the remainder of his gin and tonic to his lips and downing it. He lowers the glass, frowning at my expression. “Don’t look so scared. It’s team based.”

“I’m not worried about beating you,” I say sharply. He did beat me at trivia on that rainy day in the cafeteria the summer we first met, but he hasn’t beaten me since, and he knows it. “I guess I’m just—we’re supposed to be having a meeting here. Maybe we should go somewhere else. My car or—”

Wait, scratch that. My car, alone with Teddy, is an obviously bad idea.

“Clara. Look at me.” His deep voice is so authoritative that I listen almost instinctively, turning and blinking at him across the table. “Everything for the gala is on schedule,” he says firmly. “Better than on schedule. You’ve gone above and beyond to make this thing work. I think you can afford to take the night off.”

“I really shouldn’t.”

“Please.” His brown eyes soften, pleading, maple syrup running over pancakes. “For old times’ sake, if nothing else.”

I blow out a breath. For old times’ sake. Practically the magic words, though I’m not sure he knows it. Everything about him is always so nostalgic and sticky-sweet, and that’s exactly why rekindling our friendship is a bad idea.

One of the pub employees passes out handheld whiteboards with markers. They’re blank, wiped clean of most of the evidence of last month’s quiz night. “It’s been a while since I’ve played trivia. And I still suck at sports questions.”

The employee fills in a series of team names on a chalkboard behind the bar, like QUIZ ON MY FACE and THE CUNNING LINGUISTS , because this isn’t sleepaway camp anymore. When the host adds I AM SMARTACUS to the board, I suck a surprised breath and my head whips back to Teddy.

“I’ll handle the sports questions,” he says, eroding my resolve. “But I’m pretty sure you’ll nail the rest.”

The quiz kicks off with science questions. The host reads from a sheet of paper and everyone scribbles their answers on the whiteboard, holding them up when the timer goes off. The blackboard behind the bar tracks the scores, with bartenders pausing in the middle of pouring beer from the tap or shaking cocktail shakers to add chalky tally lines next to each of the team names. We make it through a question about Nikola Tesla without argument, but then the host asks, “Which planet in our solar system has the most moons?”

I lean into the table so that Teddy can hear me beneath all the noise. “Saturn,” I say, thinking back to that night sixteen summers ago, cross-legged in the damp grass and staring up at the sky with a chart splayed on my lap. “I think.”

“Not Jupiter?” he asks uncertainly. “Ganymede, Io, Europa, what’s the other one, Calypso?”

“Callisto,” I correct him. “And anyway, just because you can name more of Jupiter’s moons doesn’t mean it has more. Look at the size of Saturn’s rings.”

After a hushed debate, we agree to write Saturn, and I scrawl it across our board just as the timer goes off. Around the room, teams are holding up their respective answers. Most of them say Saturn, though a couple say Jupiter.

“The correct answer is Saturn,” the host confirms, and I lower the board back to the table.

“Told you,” I say, wiping the board clean.

We work our way through the questions. Despite my initial reluctance, I’ve always been a little bit competitive about trivia, and that familiar rush pushes past any lingering reservations. I want to get the answers right, bickering with Teddy over Jane Austen characters and the invention of penicillin. He nails a question about Game of Thrones, which I’ve never actually watched, and in our excitement, we exchange a high five across the table. Another team—Dazed and Confused—has taken the lead, but we’re not that far behind, and between the two of us, I’m pretty sure we can catch up. After struggling through a couple questions and breezing through others, we finally reach the history section.

“What year did Martin Luther nail his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg?”

“That would be, what, sometime in the sixteenth century? You ought to know this,” Teddy says.

“I mean, I specialize more in early Tudor history than continental stuff,” I say, which is mostly true. But I also wrote a paper about the formation of the Church of England for undergrad, and I’m sure I mentioned Martin Luther somewhere in there. It’s been so long, my honors thesis is little more than a vague and foggy memory, buried somewhere on the hard drive of my old MacBook. What about more recently? I had an article published in Renaissance Quarterly a couple years ago, analyzing the tone of a letter written by Anne of Cleves in response to Henry VIII’s request for annulment. Anne was born in Germany around the time the reformation started, and her family had some involvement in it. What involvement? I should know this. But that doesn’t mean I do. Not when I’m put on the spot with Teddy deferring to me. “Anne of Cleves was born in 1515. And I think… I think maybe it was a couple years after that. 1517.”

“How certain are you?” he asks.

“Not a hundred percent,” I admit. “Call it an educated guess. Unless you know the answer?”

He doesn’t, and he writes the year down in sloppy, square numbers. His handwriting has grown careless over the years, like he doesn’t have time to ensure it’s neat and legible anymore. We wait for the timer to go off.

“The correct answer is 1517,” the host announces, and we grin at each other across the table, victorious. Teddy orders a couple of shots of whisky when a server passes by our table, and despite the fact that I haven’t done a shot since undergrad, I accept it, clinking glasses with him before stamping it on the table and tossing it back. A comfortable, toasty feeling settles over me. I’m starting to feel like it’s okay to be here, enjoying this. It’s Friday, and aside from grading a few discussion posts on Sunday night, I don’t have anything looming over me.

We sail through the rest of the history questions with relative ease, but so do a number of other teams. It’s neck and neck right now, anyone’s game. And then the host announces the theme for the next round of questions.

Sports trivia.

When I was growing up, on the rare occasions my dad was actually at home before his injury, he would sometimes force me to sit on the couch and watch the Orioles game with him. Baseball was America’s Pastime, he said, and to not enjoy it would be very un-American. His intentions were good, but it backfired during my teen years, when sitting on the couch with my dad was the last way I wanted to spend my weekend. The end result was that I pledged to never watch another game, baseball or otherwise. And I’ve done a pretty good job of sticking by that. I’ve never been to one of Irving’s football matches. I refuse to watch the World Cup or Wimbledon. The only sport I get any real enjoyment out of watching is those mock jousts they put on at the Renaissance Faire, and that’s not really a sport—it’s more like choreographed entertainment.

Which has all been fine and good, until now. Now, my competitive streak is cursing me for not paying attention. Teddy said he’ll handle the sports questions, but I’m not sure he’s much of a sports person, either—or at least he didn’t used to be, but maybe that’s changed. Maybe Mindy dragged him to hockey games and bought him monogrammed jerseys and shared hot dogs with him at PNC Park.

I shouldn’t be thinking about her. It’s not her fault we drifted apart, and I know that she’s well out of his life now, but it’s always felt a little like salt in an open wound. I’ll never forget that afternoon in the sandwich shop, three whole years after we’d fallen out of touch. He couldn’t even look at me.

The host reads off a question about basketball, something about hoops and points that sails right over my head, but Teddy writes down an answer—which turns out to be wrong. Next comes a question about which city hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics.

“Oh, I know this one,” I say.

“I’m pretty sure a lot of people know this one,” he reminds me with a gentle smile, and the tallies confirm it. As of right now, we’re tied with The Cunning Linguists. There’s a chance we might actually win this.

“How many times have the Philadelphia Eagles appeared in the Super Bowl?”

Teddy leans back in his chair, folding his arms—which I can’t help but study, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to the elbow, toned forearm muscle and a dusting of dark hair visible—and stares thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Two,” he says, when he comes back down to earth. “I’m thinking two.”

“How certain are you?” I ask, echoing his earlier question.

He teeters his head back and forth. “Fairly certain. My dad was always an Eagles fan.”

Not particularly reassuring, but I don’t have a leg to stand on, so we go with two.

The answer is four.

“All right, last question of the night, for double points,” the host announces. I turn away from Teddy and straighten in my seat, prepared to give the question my full and undivided attention. If we can just answer this question, we might overtake The Cunning Linguists. “How many horses are on each team in a polo match?”

And with that, my heart plummets. I have no idea. At least baseball and football are the sort of games blue-collar families go to, the sort my dad tuned into every Sunday, but polo is a world away. I glance at Teddy, but he shakes his head faintly. He doesn’t know either. Why does it feel like neither of us ever seem to have the answers? We’ve done fine at this quiz night, sure, because we’ve always been book smart, good at the facts, the research, the technical stuff.

But it’s never been enough.

“You have thirty seconds,” the host calls out.

“We have to write something down,” Teddy says. “Maybe… I don’t know… ten?”

I shake my head. “Ten sounds like too many.” Don’t ask me why it sounds like too many, considering I’ve never seen a polo match in my life, but it just does. Like there aren’t enough stuck-up rich folks to maintain those numbers.

“Eight seems reasonable,” he suggests instead, holding my gaze.

Nothing about what I’m feeling right now is reasonable. I press my lips together, wishing he would just take the plunge. Commit to a probably wrong answer. But neither of us wants to be the one to do it.

“Ten seconds.”

He exhales. “Should we go with eight and call it a day?”

“It’s too many,” I say again.

“Five,” the host begins counting down.

“Well, what do you suggest?” Teddy demands.

“Four,” the host says.

“Four, just put four,” I say in a panic.

“Three.”

Teddy’s dark brows are sky high above the frame of his glasses. “You’re sure?”

“Two.”

I just shrug. I don’t have time to say anything.

“One.”

He writes a hasty four on the board.

“Time’s up. Let’s see those answers.”

I swivel on my stool to see what the other teams have written down. One of the kids at the table behind us holds their whiteboard aloft, and written on it is a magnificent, sloppy four. It’s sheer luck that we got it right, but I know that we got it right, because now the host is announcing “The correct answer is four” and one of the bartenders is using his free hand to tally on the chalkboard. And we’ve won. We beat a bunch of drunk college kids at a quiz night. We high-five across the table, laughing a little at our own ridiculousness, because we better have beaten them, if we think we’re qualified to teach.

We order some waters and talk a little about work while waiting for the buzz from the drinks to wear off, and then we call it a night at seven thirty, because apparently we’re getting old.

“I guess maybe you were right,” I concede as Teddy walks me to my car. Wind rustles the trees and dead leaves clatter in the gutters, and I hug myself, wishing I’d brought a coat. “I did sort of need this.”

He peers at me curiously. “Is that a ‘thank you’ I’m hearing?”

I give him a tight-lipped smile. “Maybe something like that.” We stop when we reach my dinged-up Volvo. “Well, this is me,” I say, and then I immediately feel dumb, because of course he remembers my car. I’ve only had it forever. “Oh! Let me get you for the drinks.”

I unlock the driver side door and bend across the seat to dig in the change-filled cupholder, looking for the ten-dollar bill I stuffed in there a couple weeks ago after picking up the McDonald’s for Reagan. “No, really, it’s fine—” Teddy tries to protest, but he cuts himself short as he leans over my shoulder, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from him, a little too inviting in the evening air. “You still keep change in that thing?”

“And bills, sometimes. Aha!”

I straighten up with the crumpled ten in hand, victorious—and bump into Teddy in the process. He steadies me with a hand on my upper arm, lingering a couple seconds longer than necessary before letting it drop to his side. “I can see why you worry about getting robbed. You’re aware that leaving money lying in plain sight is probably a bad idea?”

I pat the side of the Volvo. “So is this thing being allowed on the road, but the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration hasn’t put a stop to me, yet.” I smooth the crumpled bill against the window, leaving behind scattered, smudged fingerprints before holding the money out to Teddy.

He stares at it, shaking his head. “I’m not going to accept this.”

“Donate it to the scholarship fund,” I tease, pressing it to his chest. The muscle is firm and warm beneath the fabric of his shirt, and against my better judgment, I don’t pull my hand away.

“That endowment would earn…” He casts a glance skyward, like he’s doing the math in his head. “A penny a year, by my calculations.” His gaze drops back to me, irises swallowed up by black in the dim glow of the yellow streetlamps. He takes a step toward me, so that it’s just my hand separating us. My heart thumps in my fingers—or maybe that’s his heart. It’s impossible to say.

“I think your math might be a little off,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. “It would definitely earn less than a penny.”

He chuckles under his breath, reaching up to touch something—to touch me. “Numbers were never really my strong suit.” My breath catches in my throat as his fingers find the Tudor coin pendant I’ve always worn, his thumb brushing over the burnished nickel. I wonder whether he reads into me wearing it, thinks it’s anything other than force of habit, something for me to fidget with when I’m lost in thought. His eyes flick back up to my lips.

I swallow. My mind has gone blissfully blank. But he doesn’t bend to kiss me. Seeming to emerge from some sort of trance, he shakes his head faintly and takes a step back. I try not to feel too disappointed.

“I should get going,” I say. “I told Reagan I’d pick up dinner.”

He only nods, his face an expressionless mask.

I bid him good night, climb into my car, and fix my eyes on the road. I’m on a sort of autopilot for the drive home, headlights and ruby-red brake lights passing across my windshield in the night. I’d like to believe that this, too, will pass. But it occurs to me that I am very much in danger of the thing I’ve been most afraid of: loving a man who knows better than to open his heart to me again.