by Various
Outside, Hensley argues with a person standing on my front steps, behind the columns. “No, Dad,” he says. “I’m not going back.”
Speak of the devil.
“Madame?” Henri’s voice calls over the noise. “Should I call the police?”
“No. It’s not an emergency.” I hope.
Rob huffs from the steps. “You should be taking your finance exam, Hensley. Didn’t your professor already give you an extension? You’re going to ruin everything. The internship. The job. All of it. When will you stop throwing your life away?”
Rob’s face glows bright red under his mop of white hair. He drops off the last step and walks toward Hensley like the boy’s a bomb that might go off.
Hensley chucks an envelope at Rob’s shiny shoes. “I don’t want this. I’m done.”
The curious feeling that recently grew around my heart perks up, making me feel a little dizzy and strangely happy. What is going on with me? I grip the purse I still haven’t set down tighter to me. Am I having a stroke?
Rob picks up the envelope and examines the contents: a thick stack of $100 bills. His brow wrinkles. “This is for your rent. Your books. You—”
“No, Dad. I’m leaving.”
“And just where do you think you’re going?”
“I only came to give that back.” Hensley points to the envelope. “Sorry. I’m not who you think I am. This”—he waves his hands at the ridiculous fountain—“isn’t my life. It isn’t what I choose.”
“You don’t get to choose until you are the one paying the bills, son. Now, stop being an idiot and come inside.”
And then I’m out the side door and standing in the driveway. The curious feeling pulls me toward Hensley’s car.
“Are you going to the airport?” I ask Hensley. I touch my purse, feeling the outline of my wallet, keys, and that beloved, freedom-giving passport.
Suddenly, I know exactly what I want.
Cafés full of small dogs and ripe conversation. A countryside bursting with growth that inspired so many artists. A land heavy with the history of expression through visual demonstration.
I want France.
Hensley frowns, confused. “Uh. Yeah. Need a ride?” He glances at the house, surely looking to see if David is about to storm out and tear him a new one.
Rob stutters something unintelligible.
I turn to glare at the judge. “I’m not running off with your son, Rob. I’m going to France. To Giverny. It’s where Monet lived a lot of his life. This”—I copy Hensley and wave my hands at the stupid fountain—“isn’t my life either. Tell David I’ll call him. Maybe.”
Did I just say that? Did I just throw away my marriage, my house, this life? My head feels like it’s full of feathers.
The curious feeling inside me is joy. Freedom. It’s me busting out of this prison I’ve been in for far too long.
Hensley opens the passenger-side door, and I climb in as Rob creates new swear words on the front steps. The car seats are chilly, but Hensley’s smile reminds me of Henri’s—simple, kind, not meaning more than it should.
As his phone rings, unanswered, he peels out. “So, you’re tired of being someone else, too?” he asks.
“Yes. I believe I am.”
“Who do you want to be?”
An artist. A woman who smiles. “Myself.”
He nods and turns on some wild violin music. “Love it.”
The night air pours in through the windows, and I breathe it in. Rob keeps calling, and Hensley silences his ringer. We’re at the airport before I realize my own phone is on the charger in my room.
I may never bother to get a new one.
C’est la vie.
Four
The Giverny breeze smells like the color green. I leave the tiny tour bus and trail my fellow artists toward the spot we paid to visit. Monet’s home. We will paint here today, in this very special spot, and it will be the best check on my bucket list yet.
I’ve been in France for three weeks now. I have zero regrets. My flat is nothing to crow about, but it’s my own and it’s covered in paint. The kitchen is blue, the living room/bedroom is deep purple, and the bathroom is full-on metallic gold. There isn’t a glass of wine in the place. I have a lime tree in the window and three cheap cocktail mixes near my never-ending supply of croissants. My newly adopted cat possesses the proper amount of French disdain.
I paint every single day.
The tree limbs creak above my head as I unpack my paints, along with the small group of other painters. My new phone rings, and my heart goes a little cold.
It’s David.
We spoke briefly before hiring lawyers to do the rest. This call is unplanned, and I’m tempted not to answer.
Heading toward a sunny spot by an old farmhouse, I click the phone and hold my breath.
“Hello.”
“I’m sorry.”
I can’t speak.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to say anything. I just…I wanted to tell you that I get it. We changed. It wasn’t the life you wanted. If you think you might come back—”
“David.” My heart clenches. I’m not regretful, but I am a bit sad. We could’ve been great.
“I know. I know.” David’s voice is quiet.
“I bet you’ll make it to the top without me weighing you down.”
David’s laugh is weak. “Maybe. Hey.”
“Yes?”
“I loved you. I did.”
And the final piece of us falls into memory. “I know.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
And my heart warms at that. Finally. This is honesty, and I can’t hate him when he’s being a good person. “Thank you. I will. Same for you.”
I click the phone off and walk through the damp grass back to my paints and my new friends. I almost want to cry. It’s a strange feeling. Sadness and happiness in one. I thought there was only loving someone or not loving someone. I didn’t know there could be an in-between. I did love David. And I will hold those memories of love inside me while I grow this new life across the ocean.
I smile so wide that my cheeks ache. It’s a better ache than the one my heart suffered in David’s life. A happy ache. My brush sweeps across the canvas, and I glance in the direction of Monet’s house. With the river gurgling and the sun filtering through the leaves, I fully understand why Monet picked this place above all others.
Setting my brush down, I wander into the garden in front of Monet’s ivy-covered home. Flowers burst from the turned soil like purple flames, and I stroll through their head-high blooms. Birds flutter in the mature trees that guard this special place. The scent of sun-warmed earth rises, and I stop, look down.
My toes wiggle at the ends of my sandals.
I’m standing where Claude Monet stood.
I am in his footsteps, breathing the air he breathed. The earth here is exactly as strong and soft, rich and gorgeous, as I imagined it to be when I saw this place in the book. My lungs pull the air inside and my soul lifts, soaring.
No more parties with criminals. I never have to sit through a charity event filled with fake grins. My life is finished with giant jewelry, David as the first concern, and friends who really aren’t friends at all.
Now my life is gardens, paint, cats, and raw honesty.
Hugging my arms, I take another deep breath of the earth and the flowers and the history of this new church of mine.
I am finally home. I am finally myself. And this is the best kind of joy.
The Professor
Laura Benedict
I’ve never been so happy to wake up and realize it’s Monday. After a weekend full of too many questions asked and unanswered, and too little sleep, I’m ready for a new start. In fact, I feel so energized that I write the first three pages of a new cha
pter from my next book right after breakfast. Then, with a last, skeptical look at the black velvet box sitting between the salt-and-pepper shakers on my kitchen table, I grab my laptop bag and travel mug of coffee, and head out the front door.
Kelly, my across-the-street neighbor, is already in her elderly Dodge minivan, idling at the curb. Firing up my Jeep, I pull out of the driveway to follow her to Sisters of St. Mary of the Cross Women’s College, where we both teach. As we climb out of our valley, the roads steepen, and I sip my coffee carefully to keep it from spilling on my mostly clean linen dress. On Mondays I have the 254 writing workshop, and office hours in the afternoon, but today I have more than students on my mind. The rich October colors of the trees we pass are just so much background to the image of the delicate diamond solitaire in the velvet box. Before I slip completely into my own thoughts, a sharp plink on the Jeep’s windshield grabs my attention. I automatically scan the glass for a spreading crack, but then have to brake hard because I realize I’m suddenly right up on Kelly’s bumper, who’s slowed her van to a crawl. Letting fly a curse word that would fry the ears off the good Sisters of St. Mary of the Cross, I ease the Jeep to the left to see if there’s traffic ahead. Nothing. Kelly puts an arm out her window and gestures wildly. I look up. There, running nearly the length of the rust-streaked surface of the town’s only overpass, is my name, spray-painted in black letters:
Mia Jensen Is A Harlot
It takes me a few seconds to understand exactly what I’m looking at, to attach the name on the overpass to myself. Can there possibly be another Mia Jensen in town that I haven’t heard of? In a freakish flash of self-protection, the English major part of my brain steers my attention away from the message’s meaning. It notes that my name is spelled correctly, as is the word harlot. Altogether it’s a good, clear sentence: subject = Mia Jensen; predicate = is a harlot; verb = is, noun = harlot. Mia Jensen is a harlot. It’s the kind of short, declarative sentence I encourage my creative writing students to construct. Except not a single one of them would think to use the word harlot.
Kelly pulls the minivan onto the road’s narrow shoulder, and I park behind her, staring up at the overpass. Someone with a can of paint thinks I’m a sixteenth-century slut? No. Someone wants to embarrass me or humiliate me. A flush warms my neck, rising to my cheeks, and I feel the tips of my ears begin to burn. But I take a deep, meditative breath and close my eyes to let it wash over me in a bright red wave. The flush sails off on an imaginary tide, and I decide I can let the shame and embarrassment go.
Nope. I’m not going to let this freak me out. It doesn’t matter where it came from.
Kelly’s brisk knock on the window makes me jump. Her face is an exaggerated mask of shock and indignation.
I burst out laughing.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kelly’s muted voice is distant, as though rising through water. “Can’t you see it?”
I bite my lip once I’m out of the Jeep. She’s genuinely upset, and I’m grateful that she cares so much.
“Mia, this is a nightmare. Who would do that?”
The words on the overpass appear taller, more real without the windshield in the way. “You know,” I say, shielding my eyes from the morning sky. “It’s kind of amazing, really. I mean, wow. They must’ve worked awfully fast not to get caught.”
“Don’t act like this doesn’t bother you.” Kelly tugs at my arm so I’ll look at her. Her hazel eyes are sincere. Concerned. It’s nice to have a caring friend like Kelly. At thirty-five, she’s like the slightly older sister I never had. That doesn’t mean I tell her everything.
“But it doesn’t bother me. Why should it?” Okay. Maybe there’s still a tiny ember of anger left in me about it, but I’m of the fake-it-till-you-feel-it school of emotion management.
Cars pass us without slowing. Even if the people inside had never heard the name Mia Jensen before they got out of bed this morning, they know it now. Except they, like Kelly, don’t have any idea that Mia Jensen, the unmarried, blond, rumpled creative writing professor standing on the side of the road, has a four-and-a-half-month baby bump hidden beneath her baggy linen dress.
————
On campus, Kelly and I park our vehicles side by side, and walk toward the cluster of brick buildings overlooking the hazy Virginia valley where our little town of eight thousand people rests. She’s encouraging me to phone the police and the county highway office to get the overpass cleaned up. I do my best to listen, but the coffee made me queasy, and the anticipation of having to explain who I am, and describing that stupid graffiti to the authorities, is making it worse. Maybe I just won’t call them. Surely some government person will eventually decide it needs to be cleaned up. Kelly continues our (mostly one-sided) conversation until one of her twins calls from the school bus to complain about the food Kelly packed in his lunch. “Just eat the damn lunch, Trevor!” Then, “Wait, I’m sorry I cursed at you…” We reach the junction of sidewalks that will take us to our respective buildings, and I give her a quick wave, turning away before she can get off the phone.
The leafy quad is quiet, except for squirrels and a few noisy birds. It’s early enough that the students are either just rolling out of bed or are at breakfast in the dining hall, so Kelly’s retreating form is the only one in sight. But the overpass crosses the very road that leads up the mountain to both the school and a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Anyone who arrived on campus this morning will have seen it. Also, it’s Monday, and the graffiti might have been there all weekend. Everyone on campus might have heard by now, and my students aren’t subtle. I’ll know if I’m wearing my scarlet letter as soon as I hit the classroom.
At the entrance to the humanities building, I pause to kiss two fingers and touch them softly to the bronze plaque beside the door.
Sister Mary Paul, 1931–2011, Believer in the Word, Beloved of God, Beloved of Us All.
It was Sister Mary Paul who hired me to teach writing here, and then supported me in my failed full-professor bid. She was a smart, unsuperstitious woman who hadn’t blinked when she learned my only published book was a middle-grade novel about a girl who discovers she’s inherited supernatural powers from a hapless aunt who everyone thought was crazy but was really a good witch. I miss the gentle nun every day, and count myself lucky that certain parties haven’t resumed trying to get rid of me because they think I’m a Satan worshipper.
What would Sister Mary Paul have done when she heard about the graffiti? I imagine her watching me carefully as she passed me the cut-glass bowl brimming with Hershey Kisses she kept on her desk. “Tell me how I can help,” she might say. No judgment. No jumping to conclusions.
Except she’s been gone well over a year, and the issue of the graffiti pales in comparison to the notion of having an unmarried, pregnant teacher in front of a class of impressionable young women. (Impressionable Young Women sounds like a band name, doesn’t it?) I know it seems ridiculously old-fashioned, but that’s the thinking here among the ancient nuns and the lay administration. Maintaining an image of upstanding morality is a big deal for them, especially because this particular college has become a haven for complicated, creative, insecure young women who are fearful of the world at large. Privileged young women whose families want them sheltered and protected.
I unlock my office door and close it behind me once I’m inside. You’re probably expecting me to tell you how stuffy and small and hot it is, with scratched wood furniture, a dented file cabinet, and windows that were painted shut years ago. The few remaining single-sex colleges in the country do suffer with miserable budgets. But my office is spacious and light and cool, with newish windows, a view of a neighboring mountain, and built-in everything, including a nook for a tiny, humming refrigerator. It’s the perfect office for a writer/professor, with one small exception: Too many people have keys to get inside.
Two notes lie on my desk chair. One is a single fold
of creamy ivory stationery, an invitation (read: an order) from Mother Mary Joseph to have tea with her at 2 p.m. The second is scrawled on a ragged sheet of lined paper torn from one of my open notebooks. It’s signed C., for Carlo, and asks me to call or text him. He has used three exclamation marks.
The notes are not unrelated.
I won’t hold you in suspense about Carlo. Or my pregnancy. Carlo is the father of the baby girl somersaulting in my womb. I haven’t seen an ultrasound yet, but I’m 99 percent sure the baby is a girl, which will disprove a theory I once heard that intelligent men are more likely to father girls. Carlo is no genius.
Carlo is a brilliant groundskeeper, and a very sweet man. He knows plants and planting tools, and he has a great eye for symmetry. In fact, he’s kind of a symmetry junkie and once pointed out to me that my right eye sits just a smidge lower than my left eye. Of course I’ve known forever about the difference in the way my eyes are, and, frankly, find it a little embarrassing. It was rude of him to mention it, but we were both a little drunk, and it didn’t keep me from having sex with him, again. And again.
I call Mother Mary Joseph’s secretary to let her know I accept the invitation to tea. Hanging up, I give my wrinkled dress and scuffed navy flats a despondent look. I usually dress more carefully for run-ins with Mother Mary Joseph, but who knew the whole harlot thing was going to happen?
Carlo can wait.
————
No one is late for my 254 writing workshop today, and I can tell by their smirks that the word about the graffiti is out. My guess is that they only find it interesting for the entertainment value. Their faux sophistication won’t let them feel anything like empathy. How funny that the nuns and administration are worried about them being scarred by their teachers’ immorality. If they only knew how savvy the students were, or at least imagined themselves to be.
“I bet you thought I was only famous for my books,” I say, laying my folder with the day’s manuscripts on the desk. The famous part is a joke, of course. I make tidy royalties on my Giselle’s Spells series, but I’m not big on the whole promotion thing. In my author photo I’m a concoction of hair and makeup and leather that I barely recognize, so it’s not like my young readers would know who I am if they saw me, anyway.