Colleen raced to Magnolia Grace, coming so close to breaking the speed limit that this near-rebellion only made her heart beat harder and faster.
She angled the car against the curb on Prytania and slammed forward as she braked too hard. She was halfway to the front door when she realized she’d left her purse in the front seat, and even in the Garden District, even in her state of mind, that was too big of a risk.
Evangeline stepped out onto the porch. Her hand came up to shield her eyes from the midday sun, which today was too hot, too bright, even for New Orleans.
Her body language shifted as she watched Colleen race down the path toward the wide steps.
“Colleen, what is it? Is it Mama?”
Colleen shook her head and took Evangeline by the arm as she led her inside. “No, nothing so serious. I didn’t mean to scare you, but for once, I’m the one who’s desperate for some advice.”
“You? I’m intrigued!” Evangeline’s worried lines dissolved from her face, replaced by a wide grin.
“You won’t be smiling when I tell you the trouble I’ve gotten myself into.”
Evangeline stopped just inside the front door. “Real trouble, or your idea of trouble, which would be speeding tickets as mortal sins?”
“This is bigger than that.” Colleen looked around. “Augustus is at the office, right?”
Evangeline snickered. “Where else would he be? If you want to catch him at home, try between one and three in the morning.”
“Okay.” Colleen pulled at the bun sitting at the nape of her neck. She spun around with her eyes closed. “Okay, okay.”
“Jesus,” Evangeline said. “You are in a state.”
“Do you remember me telling you about Professor Green?”
Evangeline’s mouth parted, and her eyes widened. “Let’s go sit down for this.”
“Don’t look at me like that!”
Evangeline pulled her lips back together into a tight line. “I remember you talking about Philip.”
“I’ve never called him that, don’t be catty.”
Evangeline sat on the couch, and Colleen joined her after a pause.
“Okay, so your professor. You just got back from shagging him in his office, I take it?”
“Evangeline! I said I needed advice, not your attitude. No, I didn’t shag him.”
“Then I don’t know why you look like you need a lawyer.”
“I do not.”
“So, what? If you didn’t screw, then what?”
“Well…” Colleen tried to sit back, to nestle in and get comfortable, but she was too stiff. She ran her hands over her green slacks and inhaled a deep breath. “He’s very nice. Most of the teachers I’ve had in college look at students a certain way. Like they’re just children, or less than. Not worth their time. They look past you, not at you. And even if they like you, once you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind. But not Professor Green. He looks me right in the eyes when he speaks to me, and he doesn’t go somewhere else in his mind when I’m talking. He seems to be genuinely interested in what I’m saying. In who I am, and what matters to me as well. I didn’t notice it at first, because I figured this special treatment was thanks for grading his papers and making his life easier. I’m very efficient, you know. But I realized at the start of summer that it was more than polite interest.”
“You seem surprised that this guy is into you,” Evangeline said.
Colleen thought for a moment before answering. “That’s not an indictment of me, but rather the system. I’m just a student. But he seems to have seen something more in me, and we’re past the point of convincing myself I’m just imagining it.”
“So something did happen then?”
“Not what you think, but yes… and I could have prevented it, but I didn’t, and that’s why I need advice. You know me. You know my values… my moral code. My willpower isn’t easily compromised.”
“No,” Evangeline agreed. “You’re goddamn Mother Theresa, relatively speaking. You know, if Mother Theresa was a Deschanel and slightly fucked up.”
“I’m sure you committed blasphemy somewhere in there,” Colleen said with a sigh.
“Okay, I need to ask you something first. You need to be honest with me.”
“You don’t have to say that. Of course I’ll be honest.”
Evangeline nodded. “This all doesn’t have something to do with Rory and his shotgun wedding to Carolina, does it?”
Colleen didn’t tense at the mention of this, as she once had, not very long ago. “No, and if I’m being perfectly honest, meeting a man like Philip has helped me to see that what Rory and I had wasn’t lasting. It wasn’t enough for me, and I was holding onto a childhood romance out of nostalgia.”
“Philip.” Evangeline smirked. “Now I feel like we’re getting somewhere.”
“I never called him that until today.”
“About today, then. Wanna start at the beginning? Or skip to the good stuff?”
Colleen waved her hand in the air, pretending to smack her. “I used to study in his office, because I had a key and it was quiet, but I started to think perhaps I was giving him the wrong idea. So I’ve taken to studying in the cafeteria. Even though it’s loud, it’s the noise of people who have nothing to do with me, so I’m not distracted like I am at home.
“He came in, and I pretended not to see him. You see, I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea about spending all that time in his office, but I also didn’t want him to think I was avoiding him.”
“Oh, tangled web!” Evangeline cried in delight.
“You’re enjoying this far too much.”
“If I am?”
“Anyway, he saw me. We made small talk, and then he asked if I’d had lunch. By this time he’d been talking to me almost five minutes, which was enough to start to draw attention to us. I told him I hadn’t, he asked me to have lunch with him, and I started to say no, but… God, as my witness, Evangeline, I swear it wasn’t me who said yes. I said no in my head, but yes is what came out.”
“Maybe you are a human, after all.”
Colleen swatted the air again. “People were looking at this point, so I said, I’ll meet you there. He was amused by this, which made me feel like a child, because if he wasn’t concerned, why should I be? But I was, and so I said, we need to leave the area. He suggested Carrollton, but I don’t quite think he was getting what I meant, so I told him Metairie instead. I don’t know how he came up with a suggestion so quick, but without hesitation he said to meet him at Salvaggio’s, which he said was a quiet little Sicilian restaurant near Metairie Cemetery, just behind the New Orleans Country Club. I was just working up the nerve to correct my answer to no, when he winked and left. I couldn’t exactly run after him without making the audience situation worse, so I returned to my studies for a few more minutes.”
“So you had no choice.”
“I detect sarcasm, Evangeline, but no, I didn’t feel it would be good form to not show up, seeing as I had no way to reach him to let him know I’d changed my mind. Nor did I have time to point out that Metairie Cemetery and the New Orleans Country Club are actually within New Orleans city limits, and not in Metairie.”
“So you went to Salvatore’s…”
“Salvaggio’s.”
“Salvaggio’s. And then?”
Colleen drove around the block twice before she spotted the restaurant. It was easy to miss, a small brick building nursed behind two large buildings. The parking lot was almost empty, and the four arched windows were blacked out, giving it the air of a place forgotten. If she hadn’t spotted Professor Green’s Volvo parked to the side, she wouldn’t have exited her car.
The inside was as empty as the parking lot, but the colorful décor eased her mind. An older couple sat under a brick arch that was wrapped in faux olive branches, and a businessman ate alone, reading the newspaper.
Professor Green sat alone in a corner, looking oddly out of sorts. She was so used to seeing him commanding an audience in the dark lecture hall, or poring over his syllabus and notes in preparation. He was an unusual, almost painfully assured man, but at present he looked like an apprehensive teenager.
He didn’t think she would show, Colleen realized. He wasn’t nervous to be around her, he was anxious he’d played his hand and lost. If Evangeline were here, she’d have all sorts of insights into the professor’s body language, choice of seat, choice of restaurant. Evangeline was a walking tome of interesting but ultimately useless information in social settings; a veritable mix of Gray’s Anatomy and Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life. She would analyze his decision to wait without something to do or read; why he sat instead of waiting for Colleen in the parking lot.
And as she imagined Evangeline’s assessment of such things, Colleen became aware she was doing it, too.
It’s only lunch, he’d said, but they’d both understood, without words, without anything other than the strange energies that exist between humans, that this was more.
She could have read his mind, but two things prevented her. Firstly, this crossed her own self-imposed ethical boundary, where she’d promised to herself, and to the unknowing world around her, that she’d never employ this unless she believed herself or someone else to be in danger. Colleen so seldom read minds anymore that she was no longer very good at sifting through the randomness for anything useful. This realization was both maddening and also a relief.
Secondly, and she only knew this because she had broken her one rule, but only for a second, just as he’d asked her to lunch: Professor Green was either a most unusual man, whose mind was closed off to the telepaths of the world, or he himself was blocking.
Tante Ophelia once said that there was no such thing as a mind that couldn’t be read, so long as the host wasn’t aware to stop it. If her great-aunt, who’d lived close to a hundred years, whose father and grandfather had lived through the Civil War, believed this to be true, who was Colleen to question it?
If Philip Green was blocking, where had he learned it, and why would he know to do it around her? Blocking took tremendous energy, too much to continue the effort endlessly, so if he was blocking, then it was happening selectively.
If he was blocking, then he had a specific reason. What could it mean? And how could she ask without outing herself?
Professor Green noticed her shuffling through her mental conspiracy theories, smiled broadly, and waved from his table. Colleen returned the smile and made her way over, now sufficiently even more nervous about agreeing than she had been sitting amongst hundreds of students in the cafeteria.
“You made it,” he said, with a light note of surprise.
“The place wasn’t easy to find,” Colleen said. She let him pull her chair out and ease her back in, even though this felt more and more like a date every minute.
Professor Green chuckled. “I’m sorry. I should have mentioned that, but I was in a hurry to leave.”
“I noticed.”
“I could already see you working through your very calculated and reasonable list of refusals.”
“Was it that obvious?” Colleen, without consciously realizing it, reached for her cloth napkin and settled it into her lap. Her hands went to work on the hard cotton, a way of keeping at least part of herself busy and centered.
He laughed again, a bright, sparkling sound that matched his brilliant eyes. “What would you like to hear? That you’re the master of misdirection? The authority on avoidance? The expert in evasion?”
“Your alliteration is quite impressive for a science teacher.”
“When one commits themselves to scholarly endeavors, one must commit to them all.”
“Do you also espouse terrible puns? Someone might commit you for that.”
“My, wouldn’t that be a dramatic way to show one’s jealousy.”
Colleen regarded him very seriously, and he in return, and then they both erupted in laughter that broke the surface of the ice formed around the witty returns to keep things on the level.
“Professor Green—”
“Philip.”
“I can’t call you that,” Colleen said before he’d even finished the second half of his name. “I’m your student.”
His smile faded some. “You’re not my student anymore.”
And what would Evangeline have to say to that?
“You’re not a child, Colleen. And you’re more than a student. I teach many, many young men and women each year, and I remember some of them years later. The ones who took the lessons seriously and made time after the lecture to engage me further. Those are the students who went somewhere, I’m certain of that. I know where several of them landed, and I may have played a part in that.”
Colleen’s heart sank a little at the insinuation she wasn’t the first, or the only, student he’d written a letter for, and she felt ridiculous for this disappointment, because his recommendations were a part of his job.
“I won’t tell you how long I’ve been doing this, because it will reveal I’m not the young, svelte man I know you believe me to be.” He grinned, but she didn’t miss the hopeful gleam. “My biography is out there, in several publications, if you’re so inclined. But I don’t think you care how old I am.”
“No, I don’t,” Colleen said. “Age is either a number that holds us back or pushes us forward.”
“Of course you’d say that,” he said. “I’m never surprised with you, but I’m always amazed. I enjoy not knowing where I stand with you. I don’t even mind the disadvantage, or the vulnerability. Many men are afraid to be vulnerable, but I don’t think you can face the idea of your own strength without first understanding how to be exposed to another, for their review and assessment.”
Colleen prayed she wasn’t wearing the heat building within her on her face as well.
She thanked the waitress who brought them water. She started to order a glass of cabernet, when Professor Green—Philip, he had insisted—instead ordered a bottle of what he said was his favorite Sangiovese from Tuscany. He then said they’d share a plate of carbonara, assuring Colleen with a laugh that neither of them could finish a plate themselves.
“I spent a semester studying in Florence, when I thought I had a call to be an art major.” They both laughed. “Ask me about the Renaissance and prepare to be dazzled.”
Colleen had very little interest in art, but she’d always been drawn to the dark, rich colors of the Italian Renaissance… of the strange mix of beauty and finance that lay over the history of Florence. In her less modest moments, she even fancied the Deschanels as the Medicis of New Orleans.
“Who is your favorite Renaissance artist?”
“I can’t pick one, because they each contributed in such powerful ways,” Philip answered. “Most would say Botticelli, and certainly Venus and the Primavera are incomparable. But I can tell you the artist and the painting that made me both realize I was in the right and wrong place at the same time.”
Colleen leaned forward, listening.
“Are you familiar with the story of Judith slaying Holofernes?”
“From the Book of Judith, which is part of the Apocrypha, and not the traditional Biblical texts.”
Philip grinned. “I should remember never to be surprised with you. Holofernes was an Assyrian general whose antics threatened Judith, her loved ones, and her city. His desire for her was his weakness, which she exploited by entering his camp and decapitating him. This is too racy and violent for the men of the church, who can neither deny Judith’s texts without denying those that have been deemed canon, nor include them without exposing that women are as formidable as men, if not more.”
Colleen smiled from the corner of her mouth. “Yes, more.”
“Many Renaissance artists took a stab at this scene, from Donatello to Caravaggio. I’d say you’d be hard-pressed to find a serious artist from this period who didn’t tackle this. You can’t enter a museum in Italy without coming across some rendering of Judith slicing the head off her would-be captor. The Uffizi alone has multiple renderings, and while I’m also partial to the especially violent and dark take by Gentileschi, the one I spent hours watching, alone, was the one by Peter Paul Rubens.”
“He was Flemish, right?”
Philip nodded. “Flemish, yes. Very good. But he was heavily inspired by the Venetians, like Titian and Veronese. And he was an especial favorite of two kings, Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England. You might say his style was both uniquely his, and uniquely belonging to all this major influences. Most of the renderings of Judith and Holofernes have a whimsical, inspirational feel. Good triumphing over evil. Have you seen Rubens’ turn at this?”
Colleen hated to shake her head.
“Judith with the Head of Holofernes, it’s called. I have a replica poster of this framed in my apartment that I’ll show you one day, though I wish you could see it right now. It’s not even considered among Rubens’ most influential or well-known paintings, and when I tried to get my art professor to tell me more about it, he had very little to say, so I drew my own conclusions.”
Colleen tried to stay focused on his words, but she didn’t miss his casual promise to take her to his apartment, said as if there was nothing wrong with such a thing, as if she would agree, as if….
The waitress arrived with their wine, pouring them each a generous glass. Philip toasted Colleen without losing his focus.
“You see, Judith, here, is the dominant figure, which you think would be true in all renderings of her slaying her foe, but this is not true. She often takes a backseat to the crime. Here, she stands over him, all of her in rubenesque glory, a pure and enraged show of strength. Here, her servant is not a woman, but a man. That is what stood out to me when I first saw it, and on all my many subsequent visits, as I sat upon the bench and lost myself in Judith’s victory. She’s both beautiful and powerful, and the man servant is small and subservient. So many takes on Judith paint her as either violent or a seductress, but here she’s just Judith, and she’s incredible.”
How Colleen wished she were standing in his apartment as he described this formative painting with more passion than she’d ever seen him attack science with. Or better yet, hands linked in the Uffizi in Florence, before the real thing. “You said this painting made you realize you were in both the right and wrong place at the same time.”
Philip nodded. “That I did. Art scholars have a way of refusing to accept different interpretations of an artist’s work. I’ve always believed that to be the ultimate beauty of any form of art, that even if you have a glimpse into the mind of the artist, you’re still allowed to experience and interpret it in your own way. You’ll find this mad, I’m sure, but I realized then that when it came to scholars, there was really no such thing as art at all. All scholars sought was a common thread and explanation to hang their hats on. To be right was more important than to be in the moment. You know what’s worse? I have these inclinations, too. I need things to make sense, in a world where so much doesn’t. Does that sound crazy?”
Colleen shook her head. She sipped at her wine, which was the best she’d tasted, and she felt so provincial in the shadow of this worldly man, who knew his wines and his art. “No, I understand what you’re saying exactly, at least I think I do. I can look at the beauty of a flower garden and enjoy it, but sometimes that’s ruined because I know exactly, because of science, why the roses have thorns, and how the colors came to be.”
Philip’s grin lit up his entire face. He slapped his leg. “Yes, yes! Exactly that, Colleen. Exactly that. I decided I was a better casual aficionado of art, because to tear it apart was to destroy the enjoyment. That’s when I knew I had to follow my pragmatic side and return to the sciences.”
“What we’re good at isn’t always the same as what we love.”
“Wise words,” Philip said. “But we can love what we are good at because we are good at it, no?”
Colleen thought about this. “Yes, there’s joy in success. In feeling accomplished, and in knowing what you’re capable of.”
Philip nodded as he refilled both their glasses. “In reaching our potential, yes.” The food arrived in that moment, and Colleen was glad of it, because she had nothing more meaningful to contribute and she worried he’d see that and see her as less than.
Using two spoons, he divided the generous plate of carbonara—he’d been right, this was no meal for one, and possibly not even two—to the two smaller plates provided. The smell was rich and delicious, and her stomach growled. This was not her mother’s comfort cooking.
“Well?” he asked with a delighted look as he watched her tackle her food, using a spoon and fork to swirl the carbonara into a workable bite. She lifted the fork to her lips and sighed as the tastes erupted in her mouth. The oily saltiness of the pancetta was a delight against the softer flavors of the egg and cheese.
Colleen worked the food around in her mouth as quickly as she could without seeming indelicate. No one had ever watched her eat like this before. He’d folded his hands over the table, eyes regarding her with burgeoning interest. “Incredible,” she offered after she swallowed.
“I knew you would love it,” Philip said and began to eat as well. “Tastes just like the carbonara in Rome. I used to take the train there every weekend, because not even Florence does carbonara like the Romans.”
“How did you find this place?”
“Same way I find anything. My evenings are quiet and sometimes lonely, and I drive around until I see something different. I seek out the places that are quieter, less established. Maybe I see these as art as well. Passion projects, opened from the love of cooking but without the desire for all the noise, all the marketing. This is the best Italian restaurant in New Orleans and no one knows about it.”
“Doesn’t that mean they’ll eventually close?”
Philip shrugged. “I do my part by bringing my favorite people here.”
“How many people have you taken here?”
Philip smiled. “Just you so far.”
“I’m one of your favorite people?”
“One of a small few. I can get along with anyone, but it isn’t often I find a kindred spirit.”
“Now I’m a kindred spirit.”
Philip reached across the table and took her hand in his. She’d been holding her fork, but it dropped to the plate with a clank. “When I said you weren’t like the others who come in and out of my life at Tulane, I meant it. I’m a very private man, Colleen. I don’t seek out company if I don’t think the person can bring something new to my life. The day I heard you talk so passionately about the reason you chose to go to medical school… you were talking to your sister, I believe…”
Colleen felt the blood drain away from her face. “Evangeline. You were there?”
“Well, it is my office,” he said. “Don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Afraid of me. Of what I will think of you.”
“I’m not,” she lied. Her hand was damp with sweat now, but he hadn’t released it.
“Not many scientists are brave enough to admit they believe there’s more to this world. More to our minds, which are incredible and are still not fully understood. It isn’t foolish or misguided to think they might be capable of more. Of forcing energy into heals, or reaching deep into the mind of another to see what’s there.”
Her heart raced so hard her limbs tingled. “Do you believe that?”
“I believe just because we haven’t discovered something doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. I believe in the possibility of the unknown. And as it is, I have something of an interest in the extra senses humans possess, just as you do.”
Not possibly, not remotely for the same reasons. “Have you ever… met someone who pushed this belief along?”
“You.”
Colleen recoiled, and he dropped her hand as she fell back into her seat. What could he mean by this? What did he want?
“Simply, you remind me to never stop learning. To step outside what I know to be true and seek to find bigger truths.” Philip reached his hand across the tiny table and cupped Colleen’s cheek. Her eyes closed at the rush of emotional chills coursing through her, and when she opened them, he’d leaned across the table. His lips met hers, soft and inviting, and then he deepened the kiss, wrapping his other hand through her hair.
“You’re not my student anymore,” Philip said, breathless, as he settled back into his own seat. “I’d never pressure you toward something you didn’t want. But I’m going to leave you with an address and a date two weekends from now. And if you’re there, I promise you’ll walk away knowing more about yourself than you could ever learn wholly on your own.”
Evangeline chewed at her nails. She paused when Colleen stopped talking. “Wait, that’s it?”
“Is that not enough?” Colleen wore a look of pure torment.
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is he is my senior, and I am his subordinate!”
“I’m gonna have to side with the prof on this one, sister. Technically, he’s not your teacher anymore, and you’re volunteering to help him now, not for credit. Tell me this, have you ever had a conversation like this with Rory?”
“It’s not fair to compare them.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re nothing alike!”
“Exactly,” Evangeline said. “Exactly. Colleen, look, you’ve always been a weirdo. I mean that with love. Poor Rory never stood a chance, and most men your age won’t fare any better. Philip is on your level, even if he is twice your age, but who cares about that? He’ll have a nice pension when he dies and you’ll still be young enough to remarry.”
“Stop,” Colleen said, but she was smiling now.
“You have my advice. Go for it. Don’t let your inner old woman keep you from something that might make you happy. And since you’re here, we need to talk about the gold digger coming after our brother.”
“Cordelia?”
“Cordelia? No! I’m talking about Augustus and Ekatherina.”
“Who is Ekatherina?”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously! Am I supposed to know?”
Evangeline rolled her eyes. “Your turn to settle in for a story.”