Eye to Eye Read online

  It’s rare, but sometimes I catch the Bernsteins on my way out. Mrs. Bernstein arrives as I’m packing up my stuff. They’ve never been anything but polite and nice to me, desperate for someone to help their kid actually learn something in school. And I get the sense that they understand precisely what a pain in the ass their kid can be, because they give him as much shit as he shovels out to them. In my house when I was growing up, if I ever talked to my parents the way Ian talked to his parents, I would have had a hand across my face and a foot up my ass, but they call that child abuse now.

  Both the Bernsteins are writers for television, but I try not to hold that against them. They work on the same show together, some tug-on-your-heartstrings drama about a poor teenage brother and sister from Kansas, who happen to be perfect-looking in that boring, Hollywood kind of way, who happen to be homophobic, but get dropped on the doorstep of their gay uncle who happens to be loaded and living in Malibu. I watched it once and howled with laughter.

  “Veronica,” Mrs. Berstein says, putting her briefcase down on the table in the study. “I saw your car outside. We’ve not seen you in a while.” She smiles a genuine smile and takes my hand in a half hold, half shake. She was an older woman in Hollywood who looked great. Everything about her face looked natural and nonfrozen. She was skinny in that rail-thin, vein-y way that women who don’t eat sometimes get, but at least she hadn’t crossed over to the dark side, the land of plastic faces. She was lanky like Ian and had wild brown hair that surrounded her face in tight curls, and green eyes. Ian’s eyes.

  “Yes,” I say, trying to figure out if her comment’s meant to mean something about the fact that Ian and I sometimes knock off early, depending on how much abuse he and I are willing to take from each other. “Ian and I worked late.” I smile, already out of small talk for some reason.

  “Yeah,” Ian argues, “it was a party. The best time of my life.”

  “Ian has told me some of the things you talk about,” Mrs. Bernstein confides, sitting down at the table.

  Uh-oh.

  “And I don’t think he could have a better teacher.”

  Ian sneers and rolls his eyes, hard to do, but the little bastard does it.

  Mrs. Bernstein catches Ian’s expression and points a finger at him, but looks at me. “Don’t take any of his bullshit. He can be a real shit sometimes, but don’t take it.”

  I raise my eyebrows and grin at Ian. I’ve been given permission to break his tiny balls with no fear of getting fired.

  He tries to stare me down, but turns to his mother. “Thanks, Mother dear,” he says, and saunters out of the study.

  Mrs. Bernstein runs her hands through her unruly hair. “My bundle of joy,” she quips. “After him, one bundle was enough.”

  doris

  The Romantics: A group of poets writing largely between 1785 and 1830, immortalized by Julian Sands and Gabriel Byrne in bad mideighties film. Progenitors of the puffy sleeve poet blouse. The Romantics were lovers of the individual, believers in spontaneity and freedom, and, most importantly, an all but disastrous influence on both people and poets of the early twenty-first century.

  What does it mean to be a romantic in the early twenty-first century, and really, is such a thing even possible? A question I’ve been pondering from my less-than-romantic apartment, having read at least seven horrible poems this week, defended in class by their authors with the rousing cry of “but it’s how I feel,” coupled with the inevitable chorus of some equally under-read soul saying, “I could really identify with that. I’ve felt that way, too.” No doubt, Byron was able to translate feeling into prose with greater facility, not having been raised on MTV, instant messaging, comic book renditions of Anna Karenina, and E! Online. Personally, I can identify with the occasional letter to “Dear Abby” and any Lifetime movie that involves a single woman dating a string of lunatics, but that does not make either of those media art. Try telling that to the bulk of my students, who prize feeling over craft, emotions over practice and control.

  Yet in my so-called real life, I confess to being no better at all. After exchanging three e-mails with Maxwell, the technically perfect man, I worry that my so-called feelings seem to be winning sway over my far more clever (and definitely more on-my-side) mind. I worry that while I am perfectly capable of having Maxwell on the brain, I feel a deep emptiness, a bodily sadness when I think of Zach and the zygote. Even macaroni and cheese can no longer fill the void. To complicate matters, Zach did some drunk dialing of his own last night, and the whole useless exchange has left me nothing but confused. Yes, he misses me. Yes, he still cares about me. No, he doesn’t want to move to Atlanta. Yes, he understands that I can’t go back to Langsdale. We’d gone from love, to animosity, to détente. The reality of relationships: real feelings, real confusion, real pain, and no real resolution—romantic or otherwise.

  When Ronnie calls, I am grading the last of my world-lit papers and feeling genuinely blue.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I ask Ronnie. “Maxwell and I are going out on Friday. He’s cuter, better employed and cruelty-free, has never dated a lesbian or a prepubescent, both of which are inexplicably attractive to Zach. Maxwell is geographically desirable, probably even likes his mother and small children and all that Hallmark crap, and still, I just want my smelly hippie ex-boyfriend to chuck his life and come be my man-pet. Is this a new manifestation of intimacy-phobia? And if it is—is it for Zach, or for Maxwell?”

  From through the wall I hear Lotto whistle, “Oooh, baby, baby…oooh, baby, baby,” a slightly off-tune holdover from the Salt-N-Pepa “Push It” days. I’d bang the wall, but Toni has enough problems already.

  “Crazy freaking parrot. This whole starting-a-new-life thing is completely overrated. I’m going to vanish one morning and no one will even notice. Zach will probably bring his kinder-whore to my funeral. He probably won’t even wait for me to be declared legally dead before getting on with his life.”

  “I don’t know,” Ronnie says. “Things could be a lot worse. You could have some fucked-up demon child like Ian, or your own personal jackass like Charlie, then you’d really be in a mess. You’ve got a nice date lined up for Friday, and you’re making it into a bad thing. And unless Zach has a real change of heart, you’ve got to see the Atlantans as your future. Not Zach.”

  The number-one reason I am friends with Ronnie: no romantic delusions, just the facts.

  “Do you promise that if I drop off the planet, you’ll send the police out looking for me? You have to check in on a semiregular basis, even if you become superfamous from your Burning Spear celebrity.”

  “Seriously doubt it, black Dottie,” she scoffs. “The book’s awfully and purposefully schizophrenic, both tongue-in-cheek and knife on wrist.”

  “So come to Atlanta and meet your editor. Please. I’ll meet her, too. I’ll wear my afro.”

  Ronnie laughs. “You need to come out here first. How’s tricks otherwise?”

  “Well, aside from accidentally almost dating my colleague’s boyfriend, and the fact that I now avoid her pathologically when she’s one of only two half-friends that I have here, and the fact that since Toni broke up with Tino, she is officially far more interested in her couch than human interaction, and I think I heard her muttering something about ‘white people’ under her breath so I still haven’t figured out what I can talk to whom about, there’s the fact that I got a letter from the administration giving me a warning about how I conduct my class, content wise. Otherwise, life is just Georgia peachy. What’s that saying? That you’re not paranoid if they’re really after you?”

  “What kind of warning?”

  “I had the nerve to say something truthful about the administration in class. I get this letter telling me that…Wait I have it, I’ll read it to you.”

  I unfold the piece of paper, which is short and to the point.

  “Here goes:

  Dear Dr. Weatherall—

  It has been brought to our attention that your Wor
ld Literature class is being used as a forum for political discussion not necessarily related to material covered on the syllabus. We ask, in the interests of accurately representing courses to our students, that you stay focused on the syllabus, which was previously approved. We also request that you allow a follow-up visit from one of the volunteer steering committees to observe, to provide an outside assessment.”

  “Whhaaaattttt?” Ronnie says. “You’re making that up.”

  I toss the letter back on the coffee table.

  “No. And here’s the even sicker part. ‘Volunteer steering committee’ is code for a bunch of mommies and daddies who have enough time on their hands to come in and harass teachers about their teaching. You know, I don’t go to people’s work-places and tell them how to do their jobs, especially when they’ve had ten years of professional training.”

  “I can’t even believe that’s legal.”

  “Ronnie, I don’t know if it’s legal, but at the end of the day, I’m a first-year junior faculty member. I am as disposable as toilet paper. If it’s the biggest load of crap in Georgia, I still have to go along with it.”

  “Until you have tenure.”

  “That’s a long road. Okay, let’s change subjects because this just depresses me. Tell me again how I’m supposed to conduct my dating life?”

  I switch on the TV and turn the volume low.

  “Doris, just go out. Resist the urge to compare Maxwell to Zach. Give the vegan a chance. You might actually like him.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I say. “How’s Earl? Is he superproud of you?”

  “Best part of Earl is that I think Ian is as confused as I’ve seen the child. Can’t make sense of me with Earl. Didn’t come in the appendix to his ‘how to be black’ handbook.”

  “But really, can’t you translate it into Hollywood terms for him? Tell him that Earl has that Justin Timberlake cross-racial kind of cache. How is Earl?” I ask.

  “Fine,” Ronnie replies. “Fine.”

  I hear something in that “fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Ronnie says yes, and so I leave it at that.

  “I miss you. Really, I’m not this negative about Atlanta, not usually, but you have to admit that it’s a little weird that I’ve already accidentally almost aided and abetted an infidelity, come down on the wrong side of the thought police and learned that being alone is being alone no matter where you are. It sucks.”

  Ronnie pauses. “Well, there are worse things.”

  I assume she’s thinking about Bita, and the compromises people make to keep from being alone.

  “I’ll call you Saturday morning. And I’ll look into buying a ticket. Swear!”

  The next day, walking down the hallway to my office, I am greeted by a sight that I can only liken to Mia Farrow waking up mid-drugged-encounter with the Devil in Rosemary’s Baby. Paige Prentiss is all but arm-in-arm with none other than Antonius Block. He’s not so much walking as he is sauntering, and I am not making this up, whispering in her ear. Paige reddens slightly and appears a bit embarrassed when she notices me looking at them.

  “Well, hello, Dr. Weatherall,” Antonius says, nodding in my direction with Southern-boy grandeur.

  “Good morning, Dr. Block.”

  “Ms. Prentiss has been telling me all about your classroom. Sounds very lively.”

  I look at Paige, who won’t meet my gaze.

  “Well, Ms. Prentiss helps keep it lively,” I say. She blushes an even deeper crimson.

  “Ms. Prentiss is uniquely gifted.” He’s daring me to think what he must know I’m thinking. That he’s pervy and using power and seduction to praise, but ultimately undermine Paige Prentiss’s competence and talent.

  “That she is.” I unlock my office door. “And I’ll see her later this afternoon.”

  “And we,” he says, directing a bit of that pervy seductiveness in my direction, “shall drink bourbon again in the very near future. Dr. Weatherall and I had an afternoon of Byronic intensity.”

  If he were not senior faculty, I would be going seriously ballistic. Instead, I smile politely and gently open then close the door. Not two minutes later, I hear a soft knock. Asa. Asa looking like last night was long and rough. Her eyes seem tired, slightly swollen, with dark circles beneath that not even David Blaine could make disappear. A half-filled coffee mug dangles precariously from her index and middle fingers. Yet her voice is high and measured when she says hello. It’s friendly in that fake way that signals she might rip my lungs out if the conversation goes wrong. And if it weren’t just plain awkward on the baseline human level, I must remind myself that this is also a woman who will someday have a say in my bid for tenure. While she is not technically my boss, she can still technically make my future extremely unpleasant. I mentally gear up to choose my words as only a Ph.D. in English can: very, very carefully.

  “Sooooo,” she says. “I hear that you’re the latest on the Dean’s hit list.”

  “Yeah. I got my demerits through the mail. No more political discussions, or I’m going to get a little talking to.”

  “Get used to it.” Asa gestures widely with her mug. “You can never stop thinking about what you say. It all comes back to haunt you.”

  Thus begins the uncomfortable silence.

  I shuffle my papers.

  Asa puts the cup to her mouth, but seems to forget to drink.

  “Look. This is a little weird for both of us, but I know that you met David before. He told me. That he saw you at a coffee shop, and that you might have gotten the wrong idea about something. He knows that it was probably partially his fault, since he doesn’t always remember to make clear that he’s in a committed relationship. That came out wrong. We had an open relationship for a while, but it wasn’t working, so we’re back to nonopen, but then sometimes he blurs that line. Committed seems to be among the many liminal spaces David is interested in exploring.”

  And that, my friends, is academic for “my relationship sucks and my boyfriend is probably cheating on me, so I’m going to half blame you, even though I am totally feminist in my non-dating incarnation.”

  “Great. I probably did get a mixed signal, but no real harm done. I don’t want things to be strange with us. I value you too much.”

  This is academic for “please, lady, don’t go psycho bitch on me. I don’t want your sad, lying excuse for a partner—not for coffee, not for dating, not for nothing. Nor, however, do I want to get in any form of discussion with you that might lead you to believe that I am either looking down on, or patronizing you, so that you can hate me later.” This is academic for “please, lady, I’ve got problems of my own.”

  “You know the stress of writing your dissertation,” she says. “I think that if we can just get through this…”

  But it doesn’t even feel like she’s talking to me now. And this is past academic speak to plain old person speak. Trying to rationalize a relationship you know is going down the tubes, but you can’t seem to let go.

  “I still have nightmares about the dissertation. No need to explain that to me.”

  “Uh-huh,” she says, and I know exactly what she’s going to ask, I just know that I won’t have a good answer. “I have one more question. David said that you told him that you were a stewardess. Is that supposed to be some kind of a joke? Or was he trying to get a rise out of me? I really can’t tell anymore.”

  The only thing I have going for me in this conversation is Asa’s clear disorientation. If I say yes, then she’ll think I lead some kind of Looking for Mr. Goodbar double life where I tell unsuspecting men that I am, in no particular order, a stewardess, a hot librarian, the night nurse and a Catholic schoolgirl. If I say no, I’m deeper in the middle of whatever home drama is taking place.

  “I was trying to say scholar,” I lie, yet again, “but I had a mouth full of oatmeal raisin cookie, and he misheard me, and you know us creative writers. I just thought it would be funny to go with it. I really didn
’t think I’d ever see him again.”

  A good lie! Not only does it faux (and might I add, poorly) explain the “misunderstanding,” it emphasizes my complete and total lack of interest in Andrew (or David, or whatever he’s calling himself these days).

  And I know that it’s worked because Asa’s face changes, almost like someone who’s been hypnotized, and she snaps back to reality, taking a swig of her coffee as if it’s laced with something stronger. She leaves, but not before popping her head back in.

  “Paige Prentiss is the devil. Just don’t ever forget that. And don’t hesitate to call for backup if you need it.”

  “Check,” I say, and then, because I’m already known as the wacky, girly one, and I can almost get away with it, “We girls have to stick together.”

  And, although Asa probably finds the word girl for women even more loathsome than I do, she smiles and points a finger in my direction.

  “Check,” she says.

  The next morning, Toni knocks on my door looking less tired and dejected than she has in the past week. At the very least, she’s changed out of her terry-cloth robe and pink rabbit slippers. She hands me the morning paper, the headline of which reads: “GROOM IN FANTASY WEDDING: GONE WITH THE WIND.” The picture beneath shows a red-faced Maggie Mae Mischner preparing to pitch a fit of biblical proportions.

  “Noooooooooo,” I say, perversely delighted.

  “Just read. I’m out of coffee, mind if I swipe some of yours?” Toni asks.

  “There’s a pot I made a half hour ago,” I say, gesturing toward my kitchen. “Knock yourself out.”

  Toni forages for caffeine, and I try not to rack up too much horrible karma delighting in the thwarted dog-and-pony show that was the Mischner-Jones wedding. Beneath the picture of Maggie Mae smaller letters announce: “Tomorrow is another day for jilted bride.” Part of me smarts for her. A jilted bride is still a jilted bride, and no one wishes that on another female, however vapid. Although, the more article that I read, the less empathy I feel.