On the morning of October 20 I showered, then turned on the harshest light to shave and pluck and trim every errant hair I could find. I massaged my cellulite with oil and clipped my nails. I used a blow-dryer, smoothing spray, curling iron, hair powder. I took twice as long as usual applying my makeup—priming, concealing, blending, setting.
Lately John tended to sleep in past eleven or twelve, but today he was up as early as I was and cornered me in the kitchen, where I was taking a few moments to finish my coffee before leaving for the grocery store. He was shaved and wearing a suit and looked quite handsome, really.
“D-Day,” he said. “I’m going to meet Wilomena in town before the hearing begins.” I could tell he was nervous: his face was pale and fixed, his breath high in his chest.
I looked out the window at our maple tree, its yellow-red leaves fidgeting in the wind. I knew that if I took in too much of his worry I would cave with compassion and decide to accompany him to the hearing after all. “Remind me when it is?”
“It starts at eleven.”
“How long will it be?”
“A week, a month, three months, I don’t know.”
“How are you feeling?” I rubbed my finger against the fraying edge of our laminate countertop that I’d wanted to replace for years.
“I thought you didn’t want to know anything about it.”
“You can tell me or not, I was just asking.” I pinched one of the tattered plastic threads to pull it free.
John brushed my hand away from the counter. “Don’t pick at that,” he said, and walked loudly out of the kitchen.
He stopped at the bench on the back porch to tie his wing tips. I followed him and put a hand on his shoulder. I wanted to say something about Cynthia and what I saw the other night, but I was too ashamed to admit I had been following him.
“Will you text me when the day is over?” I asked instead. “I don’t know when I’ll be home.”
“Neither do I,” he said, annoyed, and then, maybe because he felt some twang about the institution of our marriage, his brow softened and fell over his eyes. He looked old and battered. “I’ll let you know when we’re out.”
He finished tying his laces with a yank, stood and grasped me in an awkward side hug, planted a hard kiss on the top of my head, and walked away.
I moved through the grocery store with swift precision. Seasonal fruit, grapes, bananas, lemons and limes, herbs, carrots, lettuce, tomato, avocado, garlic, onion. Good cheese, good crackers, good bread, bacon, sausage, a roasted chicken, tubs of premade salad and slaw, nuts, chocolate, large bottles of sparkling water, coffee. Eggs, milk, yogurt, popcorn, vinegar, olive oil, butter, flour, sugar. Most of it went into freezer bags, lined with ice packs. It would all need to keep until later in the afternoon.
The Women in American Literature course, my final class before the study break, was inspired and energetic, the conversation lively. We discussed selections from Mrs. Spring Fragrance, a work I was sure they wouldn’t have encountered in high school (it was always better when they hadn’t previously been exposed), a collection of short stories written by Sui Sin Far from 1912 that explored American expectations of assimilation. After class I returned briefly to my office to drop off notes. Edwina stood at my door, waiting for me.
It was petulant and foolish, but I still couldn’t help acting like a bit of a spurned lover with her. She had received several emails from me over the past two weeks, either directly or as part of a group, and hadn’t responded to any of them. I greeted her distantly and let her follow me into my office rather than invite her in. She sat on the edge of the chair across from my desk, which I stood behind and neatened, with what I knew was obnoxious and demonstrative officiousness.
“I know this is last-minute,” she said, “but I wondered if you wanted to grab that coffee.”
“Oh no, I can’t!” I said, rapping papers against the hard surface. I was acting like a phony, I could tell I was disappointing her.
“Okay,” she said, and looked down at her hands like she wanted to cry. “Well, I wanted you to know that I got an interview with the film company, so thank you.”
I immediately regretted my coldness and stopped what I was doing, letting my voice drop into a sincere place, low in my chest. “I’m so glad,” I said. “I didn’t do anything, just told the truth about you.”
At that her face twisted into a pained grimace and she started to cry, tears flowing so freely they dropped onto the lap of her jeans.
“What is it?” I asked. I was used to students crying in my office, but Edwina wasn’t the type to break down. “Edwina, are you all right?” I closed my office door, pulled a chair, and sat down beside her.
“It’s so stupid,” she said. “I’m embarrassed.”
“But you want to talk about it, otherwise you wouldn’t have come—please tell me.”
She took a moment to get her breath under control. “I—I got an F on my first memoir-writing assignment from Professor Tong.”
“She’s not a professor, she’s an adjunct.”
“Well, she—I got an F. Look at this. I’ve never gotten an F in my entire life. I’ve never even gotten a D. The last time I got a C was on a test in high school precalc.” She pulled the paper out of her satchel as she spoke and thrust it in my face.
I didn’t register the contents of Edwina’s paper. All I saw, scrawled diagonally across the front of the double-spaced typed words, was “THIS IS A LIE.” I looked at the next page and it was the same. I wanted to laugh but looked at Edwina’s face and swallowed it. God, I loved Cynthia.
“Why does she hate me?” Edwina asked, pleading. “We, like, bonded when she came. We went out for lunch and she gave me her number and said to text her anytime and—I don’t know, I was really excited.” So Cynthia had been trying to woo her after all. Was it purposeful? Or merely shared good taste? As teachers we all want our favorites to favorite us in return.
“Oh, Edwina,” I said. “She doesn’t hate you at all. I bet she wrote the same thing on every paper. And if she didn’t, you should take it as a compliment.”
“Why?”
“She’s a firebrand, she wants to shake you up. She wants to make you go deeper, write from a more honest place.”
Edwina shook her head. “Everything I said was honest.”
“Not factually honest, emotionally honest. You’re a good judge of character. Think. She’s trying to disrupt you is all.”
“Should I drop the class? I want to go straight to a master’s program. I don’t want to fail—”
“No,” I said, though if I wanted to maintain primacy in Edwina’s affection, I knew I might be arguing against my best interests. “I mean, you could, if you didn’t enjoy it. Haven’t you ever had this kind of teacher?”
“Never,” she said. “Maybe I had teachers who said they were strict graders, but I could always handle that.”
“She just wants to get to you, believe me. I think you should stay. She wants you to prove her wrong. Think of it as a fun challenge. Trust me, by the end of the semester she’ll be in love with you. I promise.”
Edwina sighed, looked down at her paper, and placed it neatly back into her folder. She sat for a while, seeming to deliberate, and then without meeting my eyes she said, “John’s trial started today, didn’t it.”
It was the first time she had ever mentioned it directly and I found myself nervous as I realized she did, in fact, have opinions about it. “It’s a dismissal hearing, not a trial, but yes.”
She continued to look away. “Well, whatever you want, I hope that’s what you get.”
“What would you like to have happen?” I asked her. Edwina was so level, not inclined to melodrama or whipped-up outrage. Erudite and inclined to please, she always formally engaged with the literature in my classes. I thought of her as a rarity among her peers, someone who preferred succeeding to nursing wounds.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with me,” she said. Her face was tense and she was breathing hard out of her nose.
“Why not?” I asked. “You’re in this department—you can have an opinion. Everybody else does.”
“I don’t have an opinion because it would never happen to me.”
“Not to get into sordid details, but it has been several years since he’s been involved with a student.” I felt a prick of annoyance. How many times must this be said?
“Even so. It’s not about me. This is a white girl thing. White—woman thing.” Her chest heaved, and she turned to face me with daring eyes.
“I see,” I said. I nodded at her, and a feeling of dull dread opened in my rib cage, right below my heart. I hadn’t considered that she would have this response. If I interpreted her reaction correctly, this scandal brought up a different anger in her—an anger about a world of complicity between white teachers and white students, where they shared secrets with each other and patted each other on the back and sometimes fucked each other, all the while keeping students of different races out of their interior, intimate circles.
I fumbled, feeling the need to defend John, who was a cad, as I have said, but not, I thought, a bigot. “No, Edwina, the reason it wouldn’t happen to you is not because you’re not white—”
“Please,” she interrupted me. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t even want to talk about it, actually.”
“No,” I said, “I want to explain. Listen, the reason it wouldn’t happen to you is because you’re—” I struggled with my words. I wanted to say, “Serious,” but I knew the implications that would come with that—was I saying the women he engaged with weren’t serious?
“I’m going to go,” she said, and thrust herself forward in her chair, threatening to rise.
“No, listen. It’s because you know what you want,” I said. “He thrives off people who are conflicted, lost, adrift. You’re none of those things. He wouldn’t know what to do with you if he tried. And you forget—he’s a flirtatious man, don’t get me wrong, he has a reputation, but—mostly those women pursued him. You would never have done that.”
She sat back, crossed her arms and legs, and looked toward the door, shaking her head. “They were girls, they didn’t know what they were doing.”
“Do you think that about yourself? Do you not know what you’re doing? Is that how you want to be treated?”
“I know that I would do a lot of stupid things if I felt like I was allowed, but I don’t have that privilege.” I could see that despite her best effort, tears were once again pressing against her eyes.
“Would I ever have pursued a teacher? No,” I said, “but everyone has the privilege of having experiences and making mistakes and being forgiven.”
She sat back and huffed. Hurt dimmed her expression and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself. “No, they definitely don’t.” Her mouth twisted, dismissing me.
I knew I had made a misstep. The students she was surrounded with, all these white non-scholarship kids, these kids with so much money, they could make mistakes and have them cleaned up in a way that was impossible for her. “I understand what you’re saying, but they should, right?”
“I’m confused,” she said, though she wasn’t; she was using the word confused in the way so many of my students did, to mean they disagreed or didn’t like what one was saying. “Do you mean John should be forgiven? Or the women?”
I didn’t know what I meant, I felt turned around, my words weren’t coming out the way I intended. “I think I was talking about the women. But both?”
“You say he preyed on young women who were adrift, then you say they have agency. You say you would have never done it, but everyone involved should be forgiven.”
My insides quivering, I managed a smile. “You’re good at debate. You remind me of my daughter.”
“I actually don’t have the time or resources to care about this,” she said, and she lifted her hands, palms facing down, closed her eyes, and lowered them with an exhale, as though to press against the earth. “I just want to live in a world where I can pretend that stuff like this doesn’t exist. I have more important things to think about.”
She rose, holding her backpack by the loop at the top. “Thanks for the rec letters again,” she said. “I’m not mad at you, I just—don’t care.”
And she left the office.
I sat, looking out the window, feeling sickened, worried that I had lost the admiration of Edwina forever. I understood something I hadn’t fully admitted before, which was how cleaving the act of choosing could be. John’s history was not necessarily disruptive and painful to me, or even to the girls he engaged with. His affairs were painful because they created an atmosphere in which some women were chosen and others weren’t. It was mostly through stories and lore—but it nevertheless turned all the female students of the English Department into candidates, to be selected, dismissed, or ignored.
But that had been the case throughout all my education, I thought, and we females had all shrugged and monitored our behavior, believing we were the ones personally responsible for either inviting in or keeping our male intellectual stewards at bay, or being deemed worthy or unworthy of that kind of attention. Moreover, didn’t any kind of choice, romantic or not, create a discriminatory environment? We discriminated when we bestowed honors, when we gave prizes and awards at the end of the year, of which Edwina had received several. The act of choosing was embedded in academia, it was meant to be a place in which a student could rise, could distinguish themselves. We had to select some students over the others and those selections caused more pain, at least in my opinion, than the amorous fixations of an over-the-hill professor.
I didn’t fully finish my thought, because Vladimir said, “Knock knock,” and walked in. He was a delight to regard—a black V-neck T-shirt, black jeans, distressed leather blazer, neck chain, high boots. Again, he was so fashionable it was almost arch, like he was impersonating a member of the Italian intelligentsia in a late Antonioni film.
“Don’t you look nice,” I said, rising to greet him.
“I dressed up for you,” he said. “Plus I just got this blazer and I couldn’t wait to wear it.”
“It’s stunning,” I said, and he popped his collar, squinted his eyes, and pursed his lips in a male model pose, then shook it off, embarrassed.
“We match,” he said, recovering. I was wearing an ensemble I had considered for weeks, a long-sleeved jumpsuit that was modest but had what I thought were youthful lines. It was black as well, and I wore it with taupe platform slides I prayed I would not twist my ankle in.
“Ready?” I beamed my whitened teeth and threw my work bag over my shoulder, stumbling a bit as its weight hit me on my upper back.
We made our way out of the building to the parking lot. John’s car was parked beside mine. I imagined him in his hearing, crumpling a half-drunk plastic bottle of water, the label shredded, silent and red-faced as his colleagues conferred on the end of his career.
Once we were in the car, Vladimir asked where I was taking him. I acted intent on adjusting the settings on the dashboard and spoke in what I hoped was an offhand way so I could gauge his response.
“I was thinking we’d go a little farther afield,” I said. “I know a little farm place by a brook, it has a screened-in glass terrace, with a fire, it’s lovely.” I was jangling with nerves, I heard myself as I spoke, my voice false and tight.
“Amazing,” he said. “For once in my life I’m completely free this afternoon. Well, till five.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said, started the car, and pulled out. He laughed, then after a moment cautiously protested that he did in fact need to be back by five. He and Cynthia switched off in the evenings after a five o’clock dinner with Phee.
“What does ‘switching off’ mean?” Now that I was driving and could keep my eyes on the road my self-consciousness began to fade and I felt more at ease.
“She goes and works at my office. She’s trying to power through the end of her book. She’s up against it—the publishing company is pressuring to take back the advance if she doesn’t get the draft in soon.”
So that was what he thought she was doing. “So you’re home at five, and then she goes out for the night to work? What if you wanted to see a movie or a friend?”
He shrugged. “It’s temporary. She needs to get it done more than I need a social life. We’ll get a payment on delivery of the draft. We’re drowning in debt. Sorry, I shouldn’t mention that.”
“Why not?” We were on the road out of town now, and wide vistas of farm scenery spread out all around us.
“Nobody wants to hear about money troubles.”
“Who doesn’t want to hear about money troubles?” I said. “Money is real life.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so.” And I was pleased to detect an acrid note to his voice, directed, I imagined, at his wife’s financial irresponsibility.
I felt encouraged by his tone. “Marriages are so different now,” I said. “John and I had no schedule. He came and went as he pleased. I was content to ‘keep his dinner warm,’ ” I sang, then said, “I mean, not really, but—”
He interrupted me. “What’s that from? I know that.”
“Oh God, a musical—How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
“That’s right. I was in the chorus in high school.”
“My father had the cast album. He loved musical theater.”
“I love musical theater too,” he said. “Cynthia can’t stand it. I tell her that I think musicals are like novels, but she doesn’t think that’s a good excuse.”
He expounded on his theory, that while plays were more like poetry—contained, hermetic, and symbolic—musicals, because of their breadth and the function of the melodic and harmonic motifs, their peaks, valleys, and “numbers,” were actually useful structural comparisons to the novel.
I nodded and murmured assent enthusiastically, but when he finished we were silent. American academics, like the rest of America, become shy when our conversations get too earnest. It is one of the reasons that I both love and am put off by conversations with Europeans, who never undercut their assertions with the discomfiture of having been emphatic, the way Americans do.
And Vlad, though born to Russian parents, was an American boy. “Didn’t you mind it,” he said, leading us back to a more comfortable track, the personal track, “that John would do whatever he wanted while you were at home with your daughter?”
“It wasn’t like that. His freedom gave me freedom,” I said. “And we had more babysitters. Parents today are so crazy about spending so much time with their kids. I love Sid but I never felt guilt about hiring a cheap college student to come and watch her while I lived my life, did my writing, saw friends, went to the gym.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, indicating that the complications of his situation were beyond any simple solution. Though they weren’t, I thought. We make our lives so complicated, when often all that’s needed is a bit of time and space. I flicked a glance at his sturdy knees bursting against the dark denim, pressing against the glove box. When I next spoke, I tried to bring a smile to my voice, a sense of irresistible and fun wickedness.
“I think you should text Cynthia and let her know you’re not sure when you’ll be home.”
He scoffed. I could almost hear his eyes rolling. “She’ll go ballistic.”
I tried to keep my voice in that light, insouciant register. “So give her the privilege of being the injured party for once. Listen, it’s almost two—this place is still quite a drive from here. Be expansive. I think it’ll be good for you both, Vlad. Trust the old woman.”
He was quiet. I could tell he was thinking. I kept my eyes on the road and listened to the clicking of keystrokes on his phone. “Done,” he said. He sounded giddy, disbelieving his own actions.
“Good for you,” I said, though I hated that phrase and its empty support of what was usually a lazy or at least self-oriented act.
I heard the soft bloop of a response, and Vlad exhaled and texted back.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Have fun, stud.’ ”
And I could feel an air of tension that had been swirling around the both of us dissipate. We were free. Thank you, Cynthia, I thought, graceful, funny Cynthia.
I patted the small strip of seat to the left of his leg. “We’re going to text her the number of a student I know who babysits when we get to the restaurant. I’m paying.”
“I don’t know. I don’t like leaving Phee with someone I haven’t met.”
I patted his seat once again, this time allowing my hand, when raising it, to brush ever so slightly against his outer thigh. “Vlad, you have to let go a little. You can’t be a parent and an academic and a writer if you don’t let go. I know this girl. She works part-time at the college day care. Phee has probably met her. I can fully vouch for her character.”
He nodded. “Okay. Thank you. I think Cyn will like that.” And I took a moment to silently marvel that everything was going so perfectly well.
We paused at a four-way stop sign and let a comically slow tractor pass. A group of dirty cows crowded against a fence on our right, their milk bags heaving. Vlad’s voice settled. “You know it’s hard for me to let go. I have to hold on tight. She’s been better in the past few weeks. Ever since she started getting back into her book. I wouldn’t even have considered this a couple months ago. Still, she’s barely sleeping, which can be a warning sign, and it feels like it could always just—crumble. One wrong move and—” He stopped himself, to keep the emotion from overtaking him.
I squinted in the sun to do something with my face, then proceeded along our route after the tractor finally cleared. As enthralled as I was with Vladimir, he took too much melodramatic ownership over Cynthia’s psychological well-being. He acted as though it were his burden and his alone. I felt umbrage, as a fellow female, that Vlad insisted on bringing up her troubles nearly whenever she was mentioned. It smelled of condescension and a gooey fetishizing of her suffering.
“I’m glad she’s doing better,” I said, remembering her and John in the doorway. No doubt she was elated by her little affair. Nothing boosts one’s spirits like secret plans and schemes and meetings and new hands and a fresh mouth to fixate on. Good for her creativity too. I’m sure she was writing with a renewed sense of energy, like I was when I thought about Vlad. Though I hadn’t consummated anything, and she got to feel the burning memory of someone’s touch while she crafted her sentences. How would I feel if Vladimir touched me? Would I lose myself completely? Would I dissolve? Become nothing but particles?
“Vladimir Vladinski,” I said, attempting to shift the tone.
“Yes, my dear?” he asked, countering me.
“Today I want you to think about you. Should we talk about your book now? Or wait until the restaurant?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded pleased and modest, and though I kept my eyes on the road, I could tell he was smiling. “Let’s wait until we sit down?”
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “I’ll tell you now that I think you’re a genius, and I think you’re going to be very famous.”
He laughed. “Literary fame. That and a dollar will get me a dollar.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. “Things will happen for you, I know it.”
“You’re kind to say so.”
I allowed myself to glance at him and saw that his cheeks were taut and his eyes were shining with pleasure. “I’ve embarrassed you. We won’t talk about it until we get to the restaurant.”
At my request he found the cast album of How to Succeed in Business on his phone and played it using the Bluetooth on my car speaker. We sang along to the songs—tentative at first, then with full-throated abandon. I took the female parts, he took the male ones, we messed up the words of the verses and came in strong on the choruses. The more we sang, the more brash and emboldened and confident I felt. He was happy, I could tell. Happy to be free, happy to be a genius, happy to be a beautiful man with his elbow out the open window, squinting at the sun in the October afternoon.