Chapter 4

CHAPTER

4

PRESENT DAY

The first day of the fall semester, I arrive early and sit in the parking lot for half an hour, trying to work up the courage to head inside. The interior of my Volvo is a mess: crumpled-up receipts and straw wrappers are strewn around the passenger seat and stuffed in the center console. I stare up at the Hall of Letters and drum my fingers against my old Ed Hardy steering wheel cover. There was a time, years and years ago, when I thought that maybe I was impulsive enough to get a couple tattoos. I had a mood board on Polyvore and everything. But as much as teenaged me wanted to believe she was going to take risks and live life on the edge, it turns out I’m a lot more comfortable playing it safe.

Taking a deep breath, I grab my thermos of iced coffee from the cupholder and climb out of the car.

It’s not like I don’t have a say in the matter. I could have told Julien that I wasn’t comfortable sharing my office. But I’d already agreed to share it with a stranger, so to turn around and change my mind would’ve required me to disclose the exact nature of my discomfort, and something about that prospect felt juvenile—like when our cabin leader used to make us swap bunks because one of the girls complained. I’m by no means a social butterfly, but I’m at least amicable with my colleagues. As nerve-racking as it is to head into work this morning, I have to weigh that against my desire to be taken seriously. And professionalism always wins out. It’s not like I spend all that much time in my office, anyway. If it’s awkward—and I’m anticipating that it will be awkward—I’ll just schedule my office hours around his.

I pass by Andrew Greene while climbing the stairs to the third floor. He’s one of three distinguished professors in Irving’s Department of History, and the other two are retiring in the spring. His papercut-thin mouth flattens into something that’s probably meant to be a smile, but the end result is more of a lukewarm acknowledgment. Under normal circumstances, I’d spend the rest of the morning fretting about whether or not he hates me, but I’m too far in my own head at the moment to pay him much mind.

By the time I arrive on the third floor and turn down the hall toward my new office, I’m winded. My heart squeezes like a stress ball in my chest as I draw closer to the walnut door, marked by a 326 in hammered brass numbers. My hand settles on the cool metal handle and I take a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth.

Get it together.

I push down on the handle and let the door swing open.

It’s empty.

Well, not empty, but there’s no one else in here. No dramatic confrontation with my erstwhile friend standing behind a desk, his face cast an ominous green by a banker’s lamp. There is an extra desk, which I suspect Julien asked someone to move in here, but it doesn’t look like it’s been touched. Rumpled cardboard boxes of bric-a-brac from my old office are stacked in the corner. I haven’t bothered unpacking yet. The whole room is small, claustrophobic. Maybe I should’ve insisted that Julien find someone else to share their office, someone who has more space to work with—but I doubt any of the tenured professors would’ve given up their solitude, and most of the adjunct faculty are already sharing with two or three other people.

I set my thermos on the desk and duck out from beneath the strap of my cross-body bag before settling into my creaky office chair. I don’t have any lectures until 1:30 P.M. on Mondays. I spend half an hour or so decluttering my inbox in preparation for the wave of confused student emails that will no doubt flood it by sometime next week. I pick up my half-melted iced coffee and take a sip, the thermos leaving a ring of condensation behind on the desk. I wipe it with the baggy sleeve of my sweater before setting the drink back down. The summer weather hasn’t ceded to autumn just yet, but they always crank the A/C until it’s freezing in the lecture halls, so I choose to dress accordingly.

After I finish with the emails, I lean back in my creaky desk chair, contemplating what else I can do to keep my mind occupied. I thumb my necklace, the silver coin tarnished with years of fidgeting—a reproduction of an Elizabeth I sixpence, but I always wear it flipped to the side with the quartered shield of arms. With a sigh, I push myself out of the chair.

With nothing else on my plate this morning, I resolve to finish organizing. I kneel on the floor, my floral-print skirt billowing around me, and sort through the boxes one by one. Try as I might to stay busy, there’s a prickling at the back of my neck, feather-light. I know, on a conscious level, that there’s no one sitting at the other desk watching me. But I keep checking over my shoulder anyway, like I’m expecting him to materialize, quick and quiet as a cat. He’s somewhere on campus, even if he’s not here in the room with me.

About halfway through the boxes, I reach onto the desk to take another sip of my coffee while I work, but I’m met with only ice. What time is it? I’m trying to pace my caffeine intake because too much coffee gives me the jitters, but it’s already almost eleven, and there’s a Keurig machine in the faculty break room calling my name. I clamber to my feet and smooth my long skirt over my knees before grabbing the thermos and heading out.

The uneasy feeling creeps back over me as I wander the halls, certain I’m going to bump into him around any corner. This feels like a game of hide-and-seek back at sleepaway camp—peering between the dense branches of a Virginia pine, fingertips tacky with sap, heart pumping because you know there might be a face peering back at you. Maybe I’m worrying for nothing. Maybe he called in sick today, on his very first day, and maybe he’s already fallen out of Julien’s good graces, and they’ll be sending him back to Carnegie Mellon posthaste.

Not that I wish any ill on Teddy. I really don’t. I hope he’s healthy and I hope he has a long, successful career. It would just be a lot simpler if said career was somewhere far away from me. It’s a lot easier to accept the reality that our friendship is dead and buried when I don’t have to worry about bumping into him at the water cooler.

Speaking of.

I tense in the doorway of the break room, sucking in a surprised breath. Surprised, but not that surprised, because I knew this was going to happen at some point today—I just wasn’t prepared for it to happen now.

Standing in front of the Keurig is a tall man in well-pressed slacks and a rumpled button-up shirt—meticulous enough to own starch and an ironing board but just distracted enough to toss on the wrong shirt on the way out the door. There’s no pod in the Keurig, just hot water trickling out. He tears open the paper wrapping on a tea bag, dunking it in the plain white coffee mug.

Before I manage to say anything, to react at all, he turns to leave, mug in hand, and his dark brown gaze locks with mine. There’s a flicker of surprise, but not outright shock, so he must’ve already known that I worked here. “Clara,” he says, setting the mug on the counter.

Why is he setting his mug down? It’s not like we’re going in for a hug—we’re not on hugging terms, and he seems to realize it a second late, his hand doubling back for the tea.

“I was just coming for a refill on my coffee,” I say in a small voice, hoping to give us both an out from this uncomfortable encounter. He shakes his head, faintly, like he can’t believe he’s seeing me again after all these years—like he’s seeing a ghost.

The feeling’s mutual. Well, sort of. So much about him is exactly the same as I remember, but there are things that are different, too, like the way his biceps strain against the seams of his rumpled shirt. And he’s changed his glasses. They’re tortoiseshell now, and rounder than they used to be, which complements his strong jaw and angular Greek nose. I wonder whether Mindy helped him pick these new ones, whether this was what she thought looked best on him. If so, I hate that she’s right.

“How have you—” he starts to ask, right at the same time as I blurt, “We were supposed to be sharing an office.”

His brows pinch together—half confused, half wary. “What?”

“I didn’t know if you knew and asked them to move you somewhere else,” I say. “Julien asked me if I was okay with sharing my office with a visiting professor. I had no idea—” I break off, shaking my head. “I agreed before he told me your name. So if you want to ask them to switch, it’s really—” If I could string a full sentence together without my thoughts getting all jumbled, that would be great. Teddy leans a hip against the counter and takes a sip of his tea, waiting for me to finish. Even after all these years, he seems to remember that I need silence to organize my thoughts—no filling in the blanks or trying to finish the sentence for me. “I won’t be offended,” I say finally.

He lowers his mug. “I don’t have a problem with sharing. I don’t see myself spending that much time in the office, anyway.”

I relax my shoulders a little. I hadn’t been entirely conscious of hunching them, but I guess I was. It’s so strange, seeing him again like this, but at least I know he’s not blindsided by my being here. After that painful run-in in Baltimore, I expected this would be more awkward. But that was quite a while ago. Maybe, for him, it’s all ancient history.

I move toward the Keurig and he steps out of my way. He watches as I stick my thermos under the ice dispenser on the fridge.

“Did you just get here?” I ask, for the sake of filling the silence.

“I drove down from Pittsburgh yesterday.”

Not what I meant, though now I’m sort of curious what his living situation is. Whether he left Mindy behind or brought her along. “I meant ‘here’ as in campus,” I clarify, popping a cartridge of breakfast blend into the coffee maker and pressing a button to start it brewing.

“No, I, um—” He clears his throat. “I’m teaching a class in the mornings, Monday and Wednesday. American Colonial History to 1763.”

Right. He’s here as a visiting scholar, which means he has to teach. I remember the day he told me he was majoring in history—he said he wanted to research, not teach, because he didn’t think he had the people skills for it. But we all end up teaching in the end. I wanted to, but for so many of my colleagues and classmates over the years, it’s been more out of necessity. The research is their real passion.

Back then, I never gave much thought to what Teddy would actually be like as a professor. He’s younger than any of the male professors I’ve had. And—I can’t lie to myself—more attractive, too. The kind of hot that used to get the chili pepper rating on Rate My Professors, before they realized that allowing students to score professors on their attractiveness was wildly inappropriate.

Teddy raises his eyebrows and nods at the Keurig. “Your cup—”

I glance over my shoulder about half a second before my thermos overfills—I must’ve pressed the button for a tall cup, too distracted to account for the ice. Frantic, I snatch the thermos out from under the dispenser. A stream of coffee splatters the drip tray, spackling the laminate counter. “Son of a biscuit,” I mutter, ripping a handful of paper towels from the roll and wadding them into a ball to soak up the coffee.

Teddy watches me with an unreadable expression, brow slightly furrowed. Probably thinking about what a disaster I am. I’ve always been a little all over the place. Driven, yes, but disorganized in my personal life.

“Since when are you afraid to cuss?” he asks.

I suck a bit of hot coffee that splattered the side of my thumb, the skin beneath seared an angry red. “Since I started teaching.”

“College, though, not kindergarten. Plenty of professors say whatever they like.”

“Tenured professors,” I correct him. My hand still stinging, I collect the sopping paper towels and press the pedal on the trash can to throw them away. “Which I’m not yet.” I wet a paper towel in the sink to wipe down the sides of my thermos—I’m dawdling because I don’t know how to wrap up this encounter without it seeming like I’m brushing him off. I screw the cap back on my thermos. “I should be heading back to the office.”

He exhales. “Right,” he agrees, tossing a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got a meeting I should really be—”

But for the briefest of moments, neither of us moves. We’ve kept our distance this whole conversation, so we’re certainly not going in for a hug and a diplomatic it’s so good to see you. “This is weird,” I say instead. “Right? Seeing each other again.”

He nods, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Weird,” he agrees, and we leave it at that.

Between class and meeting with a couple advisees, the remainder of the day keeps me on my toes and out of Teddy’s way. I’m a little relieved that our first encounter is over and done with, but there’s a lingering anxiety that we won’t be able to dodge the awkwardness all semester. And seeing him again was like a crash course in all the little details it was easier to forget: his hair curling at the nape of his neck whenever he’s gone longer than usual without a haircut, and the way he always smells like pencil shavings and Earl Grey tea. On the drive home, I try to call Izzy again over Bluetooth, but it goes straight to voice mail. It’s ten at night in Lisbon, so she’s probably already in bed.

My sister’s Jeep is parked in the driveway when I pull up to the house. I’ve been renting for the past four years, waiting for tenure before I commit to buying anything, so it’s not quite mine—the clapboards are painted an uncomfortable shade of pistachio green and the hedges beneath the living room window could use a trim. But it’s home for now, at least. And it’s given Reagan a place to stay off campus, so she doesn’t have to worry about the cost of housing.

I unlock the door and hang my bag on the hall tree before heading for the kitchen, where I grab some strawberries and canned whipped cream from the fridge—it’s been a dessert before dinner kind of day. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen isn’t quite to my liking, all white cabinets with disinterested steel hardware and a peel-and-stick backsplash. But I do like the window behind the sink, which overlooks the old maple on the side of the house, its leaves the first herald of the changing seasons every year. They’re still mostly green right now. I stare out the window as I rinse the strawberries in a colander beneath the tap. The sun sinks behind the neighboring houses, wispy clouds tinged salmon pink.

I’m alerted to Reagan’s presence by the sound of bare feet slapping against the vinyl flooring. I glance over my shoulder to see her dressed in a satin pajama set, toweling off wet hair. She flips her head upside down and twists it up in the terry cloth.

“Hey,” I say before turning back to the sink. “How was class?”

She settles on one of the barstools on the opposite side of the counter and reaches across to pluck a strawberry out of the colander, popping it into her mouth. “Good. I think the instructor for women’s lit is going to be a real stickler about MLA, though. She made us all go to the Purdue website and popcorn read the guidelines.”

I raise my eyebrows. I don’t know all of the English literature faculty by name, but I can think of a few who would do that, and I can’t say I blame them. “She’s probably tired of juniors and seniors not properly citing their sources.”

“But the medieval lit professor seems cool. He started class by reciting the opening lines from Beowulf. We were all like, whoa, what language is this? And then he explained that it’s Old English, but that Old English isn’t like Shakespearean English. Old English is a whole different language.”

I toss the last of the strawberries onto the cutting board and dry my hands on a dish towel before chopping them and adding them to a mixing bowl. “I could’ve told you that.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t.”

Shaking the can of whipped cream, I shoot her an exasperated look. I uncap it and squirt a mound on top of the strawberries. She pokes out her tongue before continuing. “And then I had political science with this guy who seemed like he was having a super bad day. Like I thought maybe his dog died or something.”

“That’s probably Gary Reid.” The Poli-Sci Department shares the old social sciences building with us, so we’ve had our fair share of run-ins—plus he’s on the scholarship committee with me. “His dog didn’t die, he’s just like that.” I grab a wooden spoon out of the dishwasher and mix the strawberries up before scooping a generous helping into a bowl. I stick a fork in it and push it across the counter to Reagan, and keep the mixing bowl and wooden spoon for myself. “Is that everybody?”

“Mmm.” Mouth full, she shakes her head and swallows. “I’ve got history with Professor Harrison.”

I freeze with my spoon halfway to my mouth. “Why didn’t you mention that first?”

“I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about him,” she says. “I didn’t remember him being so good-looking. A couple of the girls in class already nicknamed him ‘Professor Hottison.’”

I press my lips together. “That’s an awful nickname.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, first off, it’s objectifying.” I point the wooden spoon at her, end coated in whipped cream. “Don’t objectify your professors.”

“I didn’t say I nicknamed him that,” she protests.

“And second, it doesn’t really roll off the tongue.” I shovel a whole heap of strawberries and whipped cream into my mouth.

Reagan arches a brow. “But you don’t disagree.”

“With what?”

“You think he’s hot.”

I’m not sure it really matters what I think. That train left the station years ago, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. He’s with Mindy now. Wishing things were different will only end with me getting my feelings hurt. “Teddy’s always been good-looking,” I say in what I hope is an offhanded way. “The only reason you don’t remember is because you were, what, six years old?”

A devious smile spreads across her face. “Oh my god. You do think he’s hot.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with—”

“Come on,” she groans. “Just own it.”

I exhale through my nose. I’m still holding the wooden spoon and I’m considering conking her over the head with it. But instead, I grit out, “Fine. I’ll admit that I’m… attracted to him—”

She slaps the counter. “I knew it!”

“—but it doesn’t mean anything. That ship has sailed.”

Reagan watches me with a fascinated expression, like she’s seeing me for the first time, but doesn’t push the issue further. We finish our strawberries and I stick the bowls in the sink, dousing them in dish soap and running the hot water.

“What actually happened with you guys, anyway?” Reagan asks.

I shut off the tap. “Why the sudden interest?”

“No reason.” She rises to her feet and pushes the stool into the counter. “Just curious, I guess, if I’m going to have class with him all semester. Hoping he doesn’t dock my grade when he finds out we’re related.”

“Teddy wouldn’t do that,” I assure her with a heck of a lot more confidence than is due, because the truth is, I’m not sure I know him all that well anymore. We’ve been apart longer than we were ever friends. For all intents and purposes, he’s a stranger, and that’s how it needs to stay.