by Penny Reid
. . . Or does Lavender pick up guys?
For some reason, this thought made me grimace, which made me feel like an asshole.
I’d seen and spoken to Lavender just once, and just for a few minutes. And yet, as disconcerting as it was to admit, that single encounter had definitely made a lasting impression. Yes, Emily had been beautiful playing the part of Lavender. Stunning by objective, societal standards. But it wasn’t her beauty that I’d noticed, that had sliced so efficiently through my mantle of external-facing apathy.
It was when she’d said, “Think of me as a clothes hanger,” with that dry, pragmatic tone of voice, and I’d never been so charmed by anyone or anything in my life.
This gorgeous woman with her perfect limbs and torso and face, whose job was to wear overpriced lingerie, truly made me believe she considered her beautiful body to be background noise, and I wanted that. God, how I wanted that, comfort in my own skin. I wanted to feel that way about my own body. What would that be like? I had no idea.
At those words, something within me had shifted, a door had opened without my consent. I noticed her, I looked at her, I wanted her. And Lavender—Emily—had waltzed right in, having no way of knowing that the intensity and direction of my interest was just as novel to me as an alien abduction would’ve been to her (or to me).
I’d been completely out of my depth.
And so, I’d been incredulous, but also envious, surprised, confused, and charmed. I’d never been charmed by a woman before. I’d been charmed by animals—dogs mostly, and videos of otters—small children, and my grandfather’s girlfriend at his assisted living facility when I visited. But never by a woman close to my age. Again, Emily as Lavender had been an outlier.
“So, are you gunna ask her out?”
“What?” I wasn’t paying attention to Andy. He’d been talking the whole time, but only this last question cut through my thoughts. “No. I already told you, no.”
“Why not?”
“For all the reasons I’ve already explained.”
“For someone so smart, your reasons seem dumb,” he muttered.
He could think what he liked. Over the last seventy-two hours, I’d come to appreciate the simple descriptive elegance of the phrase being charmed. Lavender, the memory of her, had an enigmatic hold on me, as though I’d been charmed with actual witchcraft. I’d behaved rashly, buying a membership to a lingerie shop, buying lingerie I couldn’t afford, would never need, and—logically—I knew I shouldn’t want. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her, replaying the short moments over and over in my mind.
Breaking oneself out of the spell of being charmed is . . . difficult. I thought I’d snapped out of it yesterday upon discovering that Emily Von—my student—was Lavender. But then last night I’d realized the kind brunette from the gym was also Emily. Now I was something way beyond charmed. More like beguiled.
But I would figure it out. I’d ushered her out. I would close the door. All would be right again. Eventually.
Chapter 6
*Emily*
I wasn’t 100 percent certain, but I had a sneaking suspicion Dr. Ford was picturing me naked.
“Pardon my ignorance,” she said, her overwrought eyebrows pulled together, “but what exactly does a private lingerie model do?” I say her eyebrows were overwrought because they couldn’t seem to decide where to settle. One moment they were up, the next down, still the next meeting together in an upside-down V over her nose.
I opened my mouth to respond, but she spoke before I could. “Dr. Hanover’s account of the event is quite detailed.” Dr. Ford picked up a stack of papers—typed, small font, single spaced—and her gaze scanned the front page. “But I’m afraid I lack the context necessary to understand the situation.”
I’d never met Dr. Ford before. I’d seen her, from a distance, and heard rumors about how she’d ascended to the position of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences—an iron will and cold, calculated ambition—but I’d never had an occasion to speak with her.
She was busy. Bigly busy. Why Dr. Ford was meeting with me now instead of one of her underlings—I, a mere undergraduate of no consequence—made no sense. Yet, here we were, sitting in her immense, lavishly decorated office, her peering at me with clever hazel eyes and a slight, hovering smile. Waiting.
Frowning at the sheets she held, I cleared my throat and prepared to respond.
But again, before I could speak, Dr. Ford dropped the papers, leaned back in her burgundy leather chair, and returned her searching eyes to mine. “You’re not a prostitute . . . right?”
Though her question and expression lacked any hint of judgment, embarrassed heat burned the back of my throat. I snapped my mouth shut and shook my head.
“So you model—what?—underwear? And bras and such?” She sounded both curious and confused.
I nodded.
“Privately?”
“Yes.”
“In people’s houses?”
“No. At a shop downtown.” Was that my voice? Why did I sound so hoarse?
“Hmm . . .” Her head tilted to one side. “For men?”
“My clients are usually men, yes,” I said firmly.
“Hmm . . .” Now she was nodding, and her eyes moved over me again. “Cross-dressers?” she asked, the hopeful note in her voice catching me off guard and distracting me enough to ease my embarrassment.
“Not that I know of.”
“Okay,” she said on an exhale that sounded disappointed. “So, Dr. Hanover came in with his father, who is a client of your shop, and you were their model, and blah blah blah”—she gestured to Dr. Hanover’s dry retelling of the events—“Victor saw you in your undies.”
“That’s right. But being in my undies is my job.” I lifted my chin.
“That’s a good point.” Dr. Ford moved her head from side to side in a slow, considering movement, her gaze unfocused, somewhere over my head. “For example, if you were a bartender, and Dr. Hanover walked into the bar where you worked, and you made him a drink—as per the requirements of your job—well then. . .” She tossed her hands up, leaning back in her chair and shrugging. “Do you have any concerns or changes to Dr. Hanover’s version of events? Is it correct?”
I struggled with how to respond, and finally settled on, “It’s factually correct.”
“But?” The older woman gave me a wide, white smile.
“But.” I sighed, the lingering irritation and ire since he’d left me standing alone in the lecture hall yesterday, and upon reading his dossier on our interactions last night still simmered. “But I don’t understand why any of this is necessary,” I said flatly, maybe with a hint of antagonism. Or more than a hint.
Dr. Ford flinched, her smile waning. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, using your analogy, if I’d been a bartender serving him drinks, would I be sitting here right now?”
She gave me a little shrug. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” I scoffed. Giving into belligerence, I rolled my eyes.
“Yes,” she said, unruffled. “If a faculty member believes he or she has behaved inappropriately, even in retrospect, as Dr. Hanover clearly feels he’s done, then yes. You’d be sitting here right now.”
I grunted my disbelief but said nothing. I was now ready to leave. I’d been ready to leave since walking into her office.
A wave of impatience seized me, and I reached for my bag. “Are we finished?”
“No.” She smiled softly at me, her gaze once more assessing. “I see what you want, what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?”
“You want to think this”—she gestured to the stack of Dr. Hanover’s words on her desk—“is about your job. You think Victor brought this to me because you try on underwear for a living.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Well . . .” She paused. “Well mostly no. He did see you nearly naked, and he clearly, uh—” Her gaze grew suddenly piercing. “May I speak candidly?”
/> A short laugh tumbled from my lips. “You haven’t been speaking candidly?”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t speak candidly. It always gets the university sued. Let’s just say, Dr. Hanover’s behavior was inappropriate and leave it at that.”
“But he didn’t even know it was me, he did nothing wrong!”
“But now that he does know it was you, one of his students, he was right to report it. In retrospect, it was inappropriate.” Her voice was patient, but a twinkle had entered her eyes, like she found something about me adorable.
“How so? He didn’t do anything dozens of other men and women haven’t already done. It’s my job.”
“Maybe. But now he knows it was you, he’s taking steps to protect your interests against any potential bias he might show you—good or bad—in the future.”
I snorted. “Why would he do that?”
“Protect you?”
“Show bias.”
“Oh Lord, give me prudence.” Dr. Ford lifted her eyes heavenward, and then was quiet for a long time, glancing at the clock on her desk, straightening the papers, aligning two pencils such that they were perfectly parallel, all the while visibly biting her tongue and trying not to smile. Her movements were restless, and I got the sense she really, really wanted to speak candidly.
After folding and refolding her hands at least four times, she leveled me with a still twinkling gaze and said, “Ms. Von, why don’t you ask me something I’m allowed to answer?”
Now I flinched, surprised, sitting up straighter in my seat. I decided that at some point in the future, after Dr. Ford retired, I’d find her, take her out for a beer, and force her to speak candidly. My life would remain incomplete until that day.
While I stared at her dumbfounded, her smile seemed to grow, and eventually she said, “Why don’t you ask me why Victor came to me, instead of student affairs or your advisor, to triage this issue? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Why did . . .?”
“Let’s just pretend you asked,” she whispered conspiratorially. Using her normal voice, she said, “Dr. Hanover asked me to personally oversee this matter as he wanted to protect your privacy as much as possible. He said he was concerned that small-minded folks might judge you, or hold your current job against you, or that you might miss out on future opportunities, and he didn’t want that to happen. Therefore, this incident will stay out of your record completely, and will only be added to his—with your name and details redacted—should you wish it. Furthermore, I’m giving you the option of having an advocate appointed, to grade your assignments and such, should you wish it.”
I was officially a swirling mess of confusion.
“He did that?” I croaked, my bag now forgotten on the floor along with any urgency I’d felt about leaving.
“Yes. He did. He told me that he thinks very highly of you and didn’t want you to be distressed.”
Relaxing into the cushion of my chair for the first time since sitting down, my eyes drifted to the papers on her desk.
He doesn’t want me to be distressed . . .
My chest felt tight, and soft, and warm all at the same time, but her words had whipped my mind into a frenzy. Before I could settle on just one thought, she was speaking again.
“Ms. Von, I don’t think this’ll shock you, but folks aren’t ideal. In an ideal world, a professor would never admire his students for anything other than their academic erudition. Likewise, admiration for academic erudition would never lead to attraction. Similarly, a professor would be able to go into a private lingerie shop, watch a private lingerie modeling show thing, admire the beauty of the female’s form, and carry no traces of desire for that female’s form after he—or she—left, such that, should that female turn out to be one of his or her students, it wouldn’t cause any problems.”
She paused, as though watching me for some reaction, maybe a sign of distress, but when I stared at her unflinchingly, she continued, “Though you may not be experiencing any lasting effects or troublesome thoughts after your brief encounter with Dr. Hanover at your workplace, he obviously is. I am sorry if this information is burdensome to hear, or if it makes you uncomfortable. Like I said, you will always have the option of an advocate, should you feel you are being treated unfairly. You have my word.”
Sometimes, my own thoughts and feelings frustrated me. I wanted to be unaffected by this very clever woman’s assessment of the situation, but I wasn’t. I rolled my lips between my teeth so I wouldn’t say something stupid like, “Do you really think he admires my academic erudition?!?!” and also to give my heart and brain a moment to settle down and stop throwing an impromptu Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! HE LIKES ME!! celebration.
Swallowing, I nodded to indicate my understanding, and tried to think of an intelligent question to ask, a good segue that wouldn’t make me look like I’d also been lusting after Dr. Hanover’s . . . academic erudition.
“Is there any downside to having an advocate appointed?”
Dr. Ford’s eyes narrowed infinitesimally. “I take your question to mean that you are uncomfortable with Dr. Hanover continuing as your professor?”
“No. Not at all.” I was quick to contradict, and leaned forward again, placing my hand on her desk. “Not even a little. Like I said before, I don’t think Vi-uh, Dr. Hanover has done anything wrong. So, no. I don’t want anything about this to be put on his record.”
“Okay,” she nodded slowly, her shrewd eyes now cloudy with confusion, “but you want an advocate?”
“Not necessarily, not for me. But if it would make Dr. Hanover more comfortable. I guess, let me ask you this, why do students usually have advocates? Other than in my case, where there might be some potential for bias with the professor.” I stopped myself before bringing up my friend Anna Harris, the one who’d fallen for her Russian Lit professor. She’d been appointed an advocate over the summer when she and Luca, i.e. Professor Kroft, had started dating.
“Advocates are assigned exclusively for that reason, where there might be bias, negative or positive.”
“Can you explain what you mean by positive bias?” Despite the continued internal squeeing between my heart and brain, I was feeling more relaxed, and this was feeling more like a conversation than an interview.
“Positive bias, as in when a professor is showing preferential treatment for a student they might have a relationship with,” she said this evenly, her features unaffected, giving me the impression Dr. Ford was merely answering the questions as I asked them and suspected no ulterior motive. “An advocate may be used to give both the student and the rest of the class assurances that the grade given is the grade earned if, for example, a student is related to a professor, or is the child of a close friend.”
Or a significant other.
“Hmm.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, meeting Dr. Ford’s gaze evenly, as I tried to keep my imagination from running away from me.
Too late.
I was already imagining the moment I would tell Professor Hanover that I’d opted to have an advocate. In my daydream, he would understand my reasons immediately, give me that clever grin, stalk toward me until my back was against the wall, cup my cheek with his strong hand, and then—
“Ms. Von.”
“Uh, yes?” I shook myself from my musings, bringing Dr. Ford and her fancy office back into focus.
Her eyes had turned sharp and now shone with what looked like suspicion. “Ms. Von, are you officially asking for an advocate?”
I nodded. “I am.”
I didn’t know how it was possible, but her gaze seemed to grow even more perceptive, like she was picking through the gray matter of my brain. “Because you worry for Dr. Hanover’s level of comfort?”
Pressing my lips together so I wouldn’t smile, I reclaimed my bag, I stood, and I shrugged. “You could say that.”
Chapter 7
*Emily*
I was a creature of habit. One might even call me habitual. I wasn’t a big
deviator. I stayed in my lane.
As an example, over my college career, I typically took all my course hours on Mondays, Tuesdays (during the day), and Wednesdays. Tuesday nights were trivia night with BFF Anna. Wednesdays after class I usually (but not always) drove home to visit my mom, spent the night, and drove back Thursday afternoon. Thursday evenings I taught sewing and pattern making workshops at the North Side Community Center, because knowing how to make your own clothes is a) awesome and b) saves a lot of money.
I worked Fridays and Saturdays.
Sundays were my day of rest, catching up on homework and preparing for the week.
But every morning except Thursdays, I always, always, always worked out for two hours. I always arrived as soon as the campus gym opened at 5:30 AM, 5:45 AM at the latest. My current employability was dependent on what my body looked like, which meant whether or not I ate, had funds for tuition, or money for rent also depended on what my body looked like.
And yet, I dreamed of the day when I could quit my job and sleep in, because sleep was the best. Also the best? Banana splits with caramel, cashews, and more caramel. Also, fettuccine alfredo with bacon, peas, and mushrooms. Also, fried chicken.
Oh man. I could go on and on. But I wouldn’t, because thinking about things that were firmly out of my reach never put me in a good mood. Since working at the Pinkery, I’d developed strategies for dealing with temptation, for distracting myself when my mind wandered to something I wanted or craved, but couldn’t have.
If self-control was a muscle like all those experts claimed, mine was on steroids.
Which was why I found myself in a state of absolute befuddlement as I stared at Dr. Hanover’s closed office door twenty-two days after my meeting with Dr. Ford.
Who am I?
What am I doing?
Why am I here?
I couldn’t swallow, I was too nervous. I knew Dr. Hanvor was on the other side of the door. Alone. Here I was on this side of the door. Also alone. How convenient.