Elle remembered a time so distant it seemed prehistoric when the week after spring break was dedicated to the wholesome activity of comparing tan lines, piña coladas, and stories from Mexican jails.
Over the March vacation, selections for the Stanford Law Review had been made on the basis of first-semester grades and a writing competition that had taken place in February.
On the morning of her first day back, Elle found Eugenia by the coffee machine. Eugenia watched the excited members jump around as if they were on speed while the rejects muttered plastic congratulations. She shook her head and motioned for Elle to follow her to the dreaded law library.
On the way upstairs, it occurred to Elle that Eugenia’s straight As should have earned her a spot on this Law Review. “Did you make it, Genie?”
Eugenia grinned. “Yeah, thanks but no thanks. If I wanted to be a librarian, I would have been.” She maneuvered expertly through the bookcases to a shelf of Stanford Law Reviews. “Open it at random, Elle.” Eugenia picked out a recent volume. “I think you’ll agree that there are better ways to spend your time.”
“Probably few worse,” Elle laughed, cracking the heavy book open to a worn interior page. She leafed through the vacuum of time and talent.
Eugenia sighed suddenly. “You’d think with all their economic analyses, the inefficiency of spending twenty hours a week checking somebody else’s homework would occur to one of these people. Oh, by the way, Sarah made it, but Warner didn’t.”
Sensing that everyone would be caught up in the Law Review excitement, Elle decided that a massage and a facial would be a better way to use the next few hours than attending class. She didn’t notice that Larry had followed her out until he caught up with her in the hall.
“Elle, wait up.”
She turned around surprised. Larry stared intensely at Elle, walking next to her. She fished in her purse for her car keys, nearing the parking space where her trusty Range Rover was primed for exit.
“Elle,” Larry said as he placed a hand on his hip and watched her struggle through the clinking contents of her bag. “You’re too sexy for law school.”
“Larry, my mom’s Volvo is too sexy for law school.”
Larry laughed and agreed with her, but added that it didn’t make Elle any less sexy.
“Jezebel, my painted Jezebel,” Larry shifted lyrically into the Old Testament, extending one arm as if heralding Elle to a royal audience. “‘See to this accursed woman, and give her burial; after all, she was a king’s daughter.’”
Elle glanced up from her purse, surprised. “Jezebel? What on earth are you talking about?”
Larry leaned against the Range Rover, gazing at Elle with a dreamy, quiet calm. “A loving theft, a pilfering, a joining of the lips. A trade of moisture, warmth and breath, in soft and tiny sips.” He paused, watching her mouth drop in astonishment.
“You’re the Secret Angel!” Elle cried, recognizing the verse from her outlines.
“Every true romantic needs his Guinevere, Elle.” Larry’s gaze seemed detached, his John Lennon sunglasses hiding a world only glimpsed by his eyes.
“Oh, Larry, they’re so…unique,” she said. “Your poems…you’re inspired!” She paused, gazing at the English professor gone wrong. “But why on earth are you wasting your talents in law school?”
“Elle,” he smiled, “my talents aren’t wasted.” A. Lawrence Hesterton turned back toward the house of law. “A poet needs but one,” he said quietly.
Elle rested her weight against the car door and watched her Secret Angel depart. The unlikeliest people, she thought to herself, confounded by this flash of Larry’s private mind. Now that she knew that it was someone who was with her and saw how she had struggled in all of her classes, she decided that if she was his Guinevere, he was her Palo Alto Knight.