THE AFFAIR
Ford’s inability to fall asleep has always been an issue. Though she dutifully climbs into bed at 10:00 p.m. every night, sleep mask on to help her melatonin levels rise, she often lies there, listening to her own breath, until she finally gives up and goes to her desk.
Tonight’s nagging worry, the conversation she had with Muriel Grassley about Ash Carlisle before her untimely demise.
“She hasn’t been playing, certainly. Said her parents’ death has traumatized her. You should have told us, Ford. She shouldn’t be held to such a standard, trying to hide the fact that her parents are so recently deceased.”
“I will take your opinion under advisement, Muriel. She’s planning to quit entirely?”
“Yes. Says her heart isn’t in it. Honestly, Ford, I can’t say I disagree. She certainly isn’t the same player we heard on the tapes. Such a shame to let such an astounding, God-given talent go to waste, but we can’t force art. She’s just a child. A hurting child.”
“Oh, my. That is distressing news. We certainly don’t want to force her. She seems to have shown an aptitude for computers, of all things.”
“Really? Well, if she’s giving up the piano, it isn’t a bad substitution. Still a creative field, in many ways. I do hate to see her lose this much practice time, though. You know how hard it is to get yourself back to tip-top shape.”
“Yes. Why don’t we revisit the subject in a few weeks? Give her a chance to settle in. Thank you for letting me know, Muriel.”
Ash is a concert-level player. Could be, that is. If she isn’t interested in playing anymore, Ford isn’t going to force her. And now that they’ve lost Muriel—what a shame. What a damn shame. The two would have made magic together.
She’s left the window open to help circulate some air; even the night is warm still. The cottages have air-conditioning, but she prefers to leave it off, instead listening to the night sounds from the forest—the wail of a solitary mockingbird, the chirps of crickets, the rustling of nocturnal creatures coming out for their dinner.
If she can’t sleep, she might as well try to write.
She rolls a piece of paper into the typewriter, runs through a few lines, stares up at the school. Lights flicker in the Commons, and she smiles. What are her girls up to tonight? Earlier, there was noise coming from the grounds. One of the secret societies, no doubt, titillated by roaming the grounds after dark.
The secret societies at Goode are a centuries-old tradition. Ford knows of at least ten, though some are secret enough they’ve stayed off even her radar. The school has been pressured to disband them over the years, and there have been quiet lawsuits now and again due to hazing gone wrong.
Ford is realistic enough to know Goode can ban the societies and they’ll continue on regardless. Cliques form in large groups, this is simply a fact of life. Belonging is good for teenagers. Finding like-minded individuals, girls with whom they can feel at home, will strengthen them, ready them for the world. She has always resisted the idea that all the girls are equal. This is why Goode is so successful. All girls are not created equal. All girls do not fit a preconceived notion, a standardized cutout. Some are good at math, some are good at English. Some can ride, some can run. Her job is to nurture their strengths and help them find ways to mediate their weaknesses. To make them strong, not delicate creatures easily crushed by the world.
She knows this method works. Not only did she graduate with honors, she’d been in a couple of the societies when she was a student, too. Whenever a parent freaks out, Ford has the right words: “Trust me when I say it’s all in good fun. No one is getting hurt. They are doing nothing wrong outside of breaking curfew now and again. And it’s good for them to find their allies in this world.”
With one exception. Everyone knows Ivy Bound can get too intense. Every year, they skirt the edges of what’s allowable, and Ford has had to have a word with their leaders before. But not recently.
She wonders who’s taken over Ivy Bound this year. If pushed to guess, Becca Curtis would be the most likely candidate.
Becca, again.
Ford makes a mental note to have a private word with the girl in the morning. Ford has been accused of being too lenient in the past, but this is her school. Her duty. The girls are, on the whole, incredibly well behaved. She’s found that giving responsibility and expecting maturity works. Ford’s hands-on approach nips problems in the bud.
She doesn’t want to make the same mistakes her mother did. The school can’t survive another scandal like that.
She sits back in the chair, the sexy line of dialogue she was about to commit to paper retreating. Perhaps writing isn’t the solution to her insomnia. Perhaps she needs a different release.
It’s been a few days; she’s feeling the pleasant pull of abstinence coupled with desire. She checks the clock, it’s just past eleven. Not too late for a caller. Maybe he’ll stop by, unbidden, maybe he won’t. Their affair is casual, mutually beneficial, and totally, completely against the rules. That’s what makes it so fun.
She shoots off a text and immediately receives a smiley face with a wagging tongue and the number ten in response. She likes the fact that he responds so quickly when she beckons. He’s happy to be of service, asks nothing of her in return. He’s not been burned by a woman before, his heart is still open, free. Undamaged.
She texts back—Careful of the stomp—gets a thumbs-up.
It wouldn’t do for one of the girls to spy him entering her cabin in the dark.
She abandons the typewriter, opens her Clairefontaine notebook, runs a finger down the lines, the indentations made by her pen. She knows what the words say, doesn’t bother reading them, comforts herself in the knowledge of their existence. Words are going to get her out of here one day.
The novel she’s working on is good. Better than good, it might even be great. If she can bring herself to finish. And once she’s finished, if she can bring herself to submit. She’s such a private person, she’s afraid of what might happen. To have her words, her story, in the hands of a stranger. To draw out a laugh, to bring a tear to their eye, to make them smile and feel fulfilled—this is her calling. Goode is her job, but her destiny lies ahead.
Who will take over as dean, though, Ford? A Westhaven has always run the school, it’s tradition. You wouldn’t shirk your responsibility to the family, to the school, to our ancestors.
Go away, Mother. You had your chance, and you fucked it up. My school now, my decisions.
Ford will take a pen name, this she’s already decided. Her name is awkward at best: Ford Julianne Westhaven is a mouthful, too long for a cover treatment. F.J. West is her current favorite. Ford is her grandfather’s name, both Julianne and Westhaven vestiges of the school’s founding. She doesn’t know her real father, only remembers the cheerful, kind Santa Claus who raised her while her mother worked and worked, keeping Goode in check.
Cliff Morley died quietly in his sleep when Ford was sixteen. She misses him still.
All she wants is to move forward, to make a life for herself, a name for herself. But Goode has drawn her back into the muck of her mother’s disastrous life choices. She is mired in the past.
Then again, this angst makes good writing fodder.
Ash Carlisle is reinventing herself. Perhaps that’s why Ford can’t get the girl off her mind. A phoenix from the ashes, Ash is, exactly what Ford wants for herself.
Is she really jealous of a sixteen-year-old orphan? Is this the emotion she’s been carrying around, this mild obsession with the girl?
“Don’t be stupid, Ford.” She slaps closed the notebook. Her date is arriving soon.
In the kitchen, she fixes two drinks, an old-fashioned with her new favorite recipe: Basil Hayden’s whiskey, four dashes of orange bitters, a splash of simple syrup infused with cloves, a bourbon-smoked cherry for each glass, plus a lovely round ball of ice that she’ll add when he arrives. Symbolism is everything in a cocktail.
There is a soft knock at the door. Ford loosens the tie on her robe, pinches her cheeks and bites on her lower lip to make it swell, drops the ice in the glass, and answers the door with his drink in her hand.
“Welcome.”
He slinks in the door. Before the latch is set, he has her up against the wall. He is taller than she is by a few inches now, arms powerful and smooth, lips against her neck.
“I missed you,” is all he says. He is already hard and has her legs around his waist and is inside her before she has a chance to blink.
No words needed, no foreplay, no candles and roses. Just raw, hot desire, satisfied. They both take and take and take. They rarely give.
The whiskey sloshes out of the glasses as he strokes her, in and in and in again, until the release builds like a wave, a scream, and he is right there with her, ready to go.
“Come for me,” he says, and she does.
There is no cuddling. They sit at the table, refreshed drinks in their hands.
She asks about his day. Tells him she’s worried about a student.
He tells her she always feels this way the first week of school, not to be nervous.
He finishes his drink, tossing it back, gives her a long, searching kiss, then leaves, whistling, his whiskey-tinged breath lingering on her lips as the door shuts behind him.
Ford puts the glasses in the sink, shuts off the lights. Washes up in the bathroom, then climbs into bed. She can smell him on her still, and it turns her on.
She is finally tired enough to sleep.
If anyone knew, she would be in so much trouble.