Eye to Eye Page 24

  I am thinking, in this order, “I have two red bras,” and “is hooker-y an adjective?” Paige is clearly frustrated, but I’m still not sure what any of this has to do with me. I slip out of my tennis shoes, working-girl style, and slide into my less comfortable but much cuter work shoes, a pair of gold-tone ballet flats that I didn’t want to get wet in the morning rain. The third thing that crosses my mind is that I’d really like to find out is what they’re teaching in good wife classes, but I don’t want to seem like a total smart-ass.

  “Then there’s you,” Paige says. She says it like she’s pointing to my chalk outline sketched across the carpet. “You have this job where people listen to you—” (dubious, but I’ll let it slide) “—and you have your independence, and you say what you think no matter what other people think. I can’t see you going to church class for some guy named Phil, but at the same time, you’re not married. None of you all are married. Not you, not any of the other women professors. Is that because you have so many opinions? Do you even want to get married?”

  This is rapidly becoming worse than talking to my own mother. I can see what’s happening. It’s no longer good mommy-bad mommy time with the mama Prentiss as my foil, but a Goldilocks situation, where one is too hot, the other too cold, and the younger Ms. Prentiss cannot seem to fathom where one finds the life equivalent of just right. She, and everyone else I know.

  “That’s a personal question. For one thing, there are a lot of married or partnered professors, they probably just don’t wear rings or announce it. And it’s not that marriage or having children are things that I never think about, but I’m happy with most of the choices that I’ve made. I’m happy to have this job, and the chance to put my education to something that at least approximates good use. It’s not that I don’t date or think about having a family, but that doesn’t automatically solve the problem of who you are, or who you want to be in the world. There are lots of unhappily married people in the world. It’s not a cure-all for loneliness. And believe it or not, there are lots of smart, independent women with boyfriends.”

  I’m thinking at least I hope there are, but now is not the time to show weakness. Paige sighs.

  “My mother thinks being married proves something.”

  “Well, the beauty of life is that we don’t have to model our lives on our mothers’. We can model them on whomever we choose, or pick some course that’s totally different from anything they might have imagined. But I’ll tell you, just because you pick a certain kind of life, doesn’t mean that everything will go as planned. You need to get to a place where you are not only happy with your own choices, but you can let your mother make her own choices and mistakes, as well. Or me, God knows I make some mistakes.” And at that exact moment I’m thinking about Zach, wondering if I’m not being a bit too cold, too uncompromising. I continue, “But the nice part about life is that if you live long enough, you can at least work to correct some of those. You’re young. And you’re going to make some good choices and some bad choices—it’s just a given. Though you’ll be a lot happier if you cut everyone some slack, including yourself.”

  She sighs. “I’m sorry about my mother coming to class. And the other things…”

  Either she’s been possessed by a good demon or shelling out mucho dinero for therapy. It’s actually a little frightening, like one of those gangster dramas when things are going really, really well and you just know the massacre is a moment from your door. But the massacre never comes. Instead, Paige picks up her bag just as Asa ducks her head in my office.

  “Doris, can I talk to you when you’re finished?”

  “Sure,” I tell her, trying to conceal my utter lack of enthusiasm. “Just a minute.”

  Paige notices my tone and smiles. When Asa leaves, Paige lowers her voice a bit. “I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

  She holds her bag a bit closer to her and whispers, “Dr. Block. I didn’t want you thinking that…I know there are things people say about him. And I didn’t really believe them. But I think he might have tried to kiss me. I just…”

  So the silences in class aren’t only about me.

  “Paige, it’s not your fault.”

  She sniffles and looks toward the ceiling. “I just thought that he believed I was this amazing writer. And he’s such an incredible writer. I just…”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “Was it just the one incident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have to have any contact with him?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “But I need his recommendation to help get me into law school.”

  “Oh, well, don’t you worry about that. He’s going to write you the glowing recommendation that you deserve for your writing.”

  Paige looks relieved.

  “You don’t think less of me.”

  I shake my head. “I hope you go back to talking in class. The last thing I want you to feel is silenced. Even if your opinions are different from my own, I do want you to have opinions.”

  “I know. It’s not that. It’s just been a bad few weeks. But I’ll be back to normal soon.”

  “Threat or promise?” I ask, wondering immediately if sarcasm is the right approach. But Paige comes back quickly.

  “Promise.”

  Asa walks by again, looking quickly in my office. Scary that at this exact moment I like Paige better than I do Asa.

  After Paige leaves, I spend a few minutes prepping for my morning class, then I go to check on Asa. She’s a bit more chipper than usual, surrounded by stacks of papers and opened books. Either she’s working her ass off, or just far better than I at creating that illusion. On close inspection, though, her eyes look watery, and her hair, while brushed, is at least two days’ worth of dirty.

  “I just thought you should know that David and I broke up.” She folds her hands together. Her nails look professionally manicured. So Asa is at least part regular girl underneath it all, heading for the salon in times of crisis. “And I wanted to tell you because I wanted you to know that I know what went on between the two of you.”

  She says this with zero affect. Like she’s cross-referencing a witness to see if she can trick her into talking.

  “Nothing went on between the two of us,” I say as clearly and unemotionally as possible. If there’s one thing I know about a liar—that is to say, David and/or Andrew—it’s that he never lies about just one thing. If he lied about his name and lied about their relationship, it’s highly likely that he lied about whatever allegedly happened between the two of us.

  “I know. I should probably thank you in a way. He was so nervous that you might have told me something, that he came clean, from out of nowhere. I guess he feels threatened by the fact that I have this job, and he’s still in school. He said that he needed to feel important, like the ‘alpha.’ Can you believe it? He actually said that. ‘Alpha.’ Like he’s some mutt and I’m, what, his bitch? A Ph.D.”

  “And not even like some saucy music video kind of bitch, he’s talking actual dog. God, that burns me up. Like you can’t win for trying if you do well in this world.”

  Asa sniffs and wipes her hand against the corners of her eyes. “I thought he was better than that. I really did, that’s the thing. He never acted this way when we were both in school.”

  I sit down, and push the candy dish filled with mini-Snickers across the desk.

  “People change, Asa. You really don’t want someone who speed dates behind your back. For all you know he’ll start dating Paige. That’s all you need.”

  Asa smiles, and even though her eyes are red, they crinkle genuinely.

  “Thanks. For not telling me. I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it.”

  She has, of course, proven what I feared. That she’s half-crazy. But right now she is half-crazy and contrite, and I’m still in the position of trying not to alienate anyone.

  “I honestly wasn’t sure what to do. But at the end of the da
y nothing had transpired, and I didn’t feel it was my place.”

  She nodded. “I was angry at you at first. I thought you should have told me, but then I could see why you wouldn’t want to get involved, and that maybe you thought in some way that I was better off not knowing.”

  Which is academic for “we all have situations in which the course of action is grey, where you’re not sure if it’s best to involve yourself or stay out of the way, where you can’t say for sure if what you’ve been seeing is something or nothing, and you don’t want people to hurt unnecessarily.” It’s academic for “thank you for behaving like a friend.”

  The rest of the afternoon, I stew over what I’d like to say to Antonius Block the next time that I see him. Unfortunately, I am in the unenviable position of David to his Goliath. Untenured junior faculty taking on the one departmental institution. Yet, if I’m the archetypal David figure, what does that make Paige? Who’s going to stand up for her, and what message does it send if the Antonius Blocks of the world are not merely tolerated, but tacitly encouraged when people like me turn the other cheek?

  It’s not so much that Block hit on Paige, as that by hitting on her he undermined her security in her own accomplishments and intelligence. And the whole thing is so clichéd that my inner writer cringes. Antonius Block, of all people, should know better than to fall into such a bastardized narrative. Antonius Block, whose sonnets I shall not again be able to read with any degree of pleasure, and damn him for that, as well!

  I decide that the best thing to do is confront him directly. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the paper trail of class complaints, it’s the courtesy of direct address. Block’s office door is half-open, the inside lit with the last natural light of the day. He has on reading glasses, and is reclining in an oversize leather chair with a book by Robert Pinsky held arm’s distance from his face.

  “Why, Dr. Weatherall,” he says. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  I take a deep breath.

  “One of my students came by this afternoon. Paige Prentiss. It seems she had a rather troubling encounter with you recently.”

  Block waves his book at me as though he’s swatting a fly. “You know how imaginative girls that age can be.”

  I wait two more seconds before committing possible career suicide.

  “No, I don’t. I don’t think she was being imaginative at all. I think she was upset, and felt betrayed, and you’re responsible for that whether you like it or not. You. Are. Responsible.”

  Block raises an eyebrow and lays the book down.

  “Well, you seem to know everything having heard only half the facts. Did Ms. Prentiss mention what she was wearing into my office that afternoon? Did she stress her own half-clothed state?”

  I measure my response.

  “You’re the adult. She admires you. And you know better.”

  He hesitates a half second before squint-smirking at me as though everything I’ve just said is beneath his consideration. Then he sighs, picks up his book, and says, “Well, if that’s all, Dr. Weatherall, I have some reading to attend to.”

  And I know better than to argue any further, to quit while I’m not completely in over my head. I look him straight in the eye, hold the gaze so he knows that I mean it, and then leave. Career suicide, possibly, but there still have to be a few causes worth dying for.

  The next day, I decide against leaving my bed. Part of me is still angry at Antonius Block, angry that regardless of how badly he behaved, he will never, ever, ever acknowledge it—not even to himself. I fantasize about writing a rebuttal book of poems to his sexist-but-brilliant sonnets, a Phair-esque “Exile in Guyville” to his Stones-canonical “Exile on Main Street.” Delusional, yes, but nice that I’m finally fantasizing about writing again.

  By midafternoon, I still have not received an e-mail letting me go, so I finally change out of my sweats and decide to face the day. It’s been autumn for a while now, but this is one of the first afternoons that really feels like fall. Sweater weather. People are outside enjoying the sun, the crisp air and the cool breeze. There’s something wonderful about being alone, about walking in silence among the pairs of people, the groups of people, even the solitary readers nestled under the trees, carefully chosen books in hand. The little dogs are out en masse, and I have canine envy, trying to decide whether a Boston terrier or an Italian greyhound would be a better companion-savior from this life of thwarted intentions. Atlanta isn’t yet my city, but it’s a great city, and I love being here. Funny how you can suddenly become attached to a place just when it seems like the option to stay might evaporate.

  I consider whether I haven’t been engaging in a bit of Paige Prentissing myself, drawing an unnecessary line in the sand between Zach and my life here. Sure, long distance isn’t anyone’s first choice or fantasy, but I’ve been working so hard not to give an inch of ground, to prove that I’m not the kind of woman who tosses everything away for some guy, that I’ve forgotten that everyone who has a healthy relationship cedes an inch or two of turf in the interest of peace and parity. And that taking two steps toward Zach doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m taking three back in my life. Even I know that summer in Langsdale wouldn’t be that different from summer in Atlanta: hot and sweltering. I just wouldn’t have to spend it alone. Not, I might add, that there’s anything wrong with that. It just seems that my life lessons lean toward the other direction—toward understanding that it’s okay to learn to need a person, faults and film series and all.

  If Zach has been lighting candles, he must be on God’s good side, because the phone is ringing and it’s Ronnie. I park myself beneath a tree, and the light filters through the leaves and freckles across my legs.

  “I got blown off over voice mail,” I tell her. “For the nut-bride.”

  “Noooooo,” Ronnie says. “I saw that picture online here, and I thought it was just a coincidence. You know, two hot black men in Atlanta, both named Maxwell, who like dating crazy white women.”

  “Har-har. No, that’s my very own fetishist. Maybe she’s willing to give up burgers for him.”

  “Maybe she sees another good publicity opportunity.”

  “Yeah. I guess. I hate being dumped.”

  “Why? Because you were so deeply in love with him and your soul mate is gone? Every time I talk to you you’re finding reasons not to like him. He just beat you to the punch. And didn’t you go on three dates? I’m not sure you can even be dumped after three dates.”

  A beautiful-past-heterosexual man with a miniature pinscher walks by and gives me a sympathetic smile.

  “Random strangers in the park feel more sorry for me than you do.”

  “I don’t know, Doris. This seems to me to make your life easier. You’ve had one door closed for you, so you can concentrate on the one that’s been half-open this whole time. I think you need to decide where you are with Zach once and for all before you take on another Maxwell or anyone else. Besides, I simply cannot think that it’s a bad thing to lose a man who won’t eat meat. Think of all the other things he might abstain from on moral grounds.”

  “I do like them a little depraved.” I wish that Ronnie were here, and that we could have this discussion over two martinis and a bowl of hot wings. “So Zach wants me to come stay with him for the summer.”

  “In Langsdale?” Ronnie asks, barely disguising her horror.

  “Thank you, yes, in Langsdale. I feel like if I go, I’m like one of those women in a horror movie who’s escaped from a dungeon, but goes back into the haunted house to look for her cat, or some shit like that. I worked so hard to leave that hellhole behind.”

  I get a raised eyebrow from a passerby.

  “Depends on how important Zach is to you.”

  “Why can’t I be so important to Zach that he comes here? Why!”

  “Deep breath, Doris. Maybe it’s because you have the summers off. Did you talk about the possibility of his moving?”

  “How can he, with that st
upid movie theater? See, I end up back in the same place. And I can’t give up my job for him. I worked too, too, too hard. Even if I am one of those miserable career women that Toni clips articles about in the newspaper. I simply don’t think it’s fair that I move on right now. Not when I just got here.”

  “You haven’t even seen the stupid movie theater.”

  “I know. And I’m only getting mad because I miss him. I really, really, really miss him. He would never, ever, ever in ten million years date a Maggie Mae Mischner.”

  “Unless she were a lesbian.”

  “Or a twelve-year-old,” I say, laughing. “And this is the person I so romanticize.”

  “He’s a good man, and he loves you. I’d say see the theater with an open mind. I really think the two of you need some face time before you make any more decisions about the rest of your life.”

  Maybe I am giving in to nostalgia for the past, or the desire to be the person I was when I was with Zach, but upon arrival home I book a ticket for Langsdale. I leave December tenth with an open-ended return date. Obviously I won’t stay there any time past when school starts here, but I’m going to try to leave judgment at the door and see what happens in freezing-ass Langsdale with my pseudohippie un-ex-boyfriend. The minute I buy the ticket I feel relieved. I remember what it was like the first night I spent with Zach, the way his hair smelled, the way his voice sounded lower in the dark. I remember the time he made me dinner with anemic farmer’s market vegetables that had wilted in his refrigerator, and the hat he knit me, shaped vaguely like a beret, even after all the times I’d barbed him about knitting. I remember driving around in the middle of the night when neither of us could sleep, and parking near the lake to listen to the frogs.