I fought the queasiness coming from the realization people did this all the time; searched for any little scrap of “we are connected” to try to get someone to talk to them. I had done the same yesterday with James.
At least in my case, it had worked.
I listened at Professor Dylan’s door. I didn’t hear the wistful cadence of an impressionable young woman but two male voices.
Great. Not only would Professor Dylan give me crap when I entered his office late, but he’d do it in front of a student who no doubt he had already started to buddy up to. Forget about fawning, the two of them had probably come up with a secret handshake.
I exhaled again, letting go of my stress. It didn’t matter. I would fill my time with thoughts of James. Maybe I would go get waxed today. Send Mandy a text to meet me. Maybe I would finally have a reason to get rhinestones affixed to my pelvic bone in the shape of a butterfly.
I hadn’t been with anyone since moving to Miami, and writing as Candy with no male outlet was like having a vibrator with dead batteries and a cast on both hands.
I was a hamster spinning in a wheel with no water bottle in sight.
And James was one tall glass.
I knocked and waited. Pressed at my black Capri pants front and back, and pushed my hair behind my ears.
“Yes?” Professor Dylan said from behind the closed door, even though he had to know it was me. Even though he could have just said, Come in, Candice.
Instead of playing his game and responding, I opened the door.
I’d been right. There was a guy sitting, filling out paperwork with his back to me in the chair I had occupied the day before. Across from him, Professor Dylan scowled.
Something about the guy in the chair seemed familiar—his hair, his height, his heft. But stuck in the doorway and with him busily writing, I couldn’t be sure.
“Oh good,” Professor Dylan said, “you’re only fifteen minutes late.”
“Sorry,” I said, trying not to feel the way Professor Dylan’s eyes hit me like twenty tons of ocean-blue bricks. “I had to stop at the copy center to print out my new syllabus.”
I had barely finished speaking when the person sitting in the chair across from Professor Dylan finally turned. Seeing his face, my mouth wouldn’t close. It was like a piece of wood propped it open, like my lips had been affixed by superglue to my forehead and chin.
It wasn’t just some kiss-ass student occupying the chair.
It was James.
Yes, that James.
The person I was supposed to be able to use to make it through the torture of office hours with Professor Dylan was sitting in a chair across from him.
What the hell?
“Hello?” Professor Dylan snapped his fingers at me. “You were giving me your excuse for being late.”
“I was printing out my syllabus,” I repeated, because I didn’t know what else to do.
James looked at me. He seemed as surprised as I felt, but he managed to keep his face composed. I, however, still had a face-hole big enough to catch 747s.
“You could have e-mailed it to me to ensure your punctuality, but it’s fine,” Professor Dylan said, gesturing at James. “It gave Mr. Walker and me some time to get acquainted with each other.”
“Oh good,” I said, amazed I could form words. I felt like I might faint.
I tried to calm myself. Big deal. So James is one of Professor Dylan’s graduate students, too. Maybe I hadn’t met him yet because we didn’t have any classes together. It seemed implausible, but I had to believe it, because the academic alternative would mean I had a lot more to be embarrassed about than just being late.
“Anyway, take a seat,” Professor Dylan said, waving me toward the chairs at the back of the room. “Candice, this is James. James, Candice.”
James stood and held his hand out like we’d never met, which I gave him credit for. My chin continued to graze the carpet.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, his hand in mine moving up and down, up and down. I didn’t feel a heat coming off his skin anymore, but an almost bitter distance. We now needed to be at a distance, because what happened just after flipped all the good from the morning onto its back.
Not in the way Candy liked, but in the way Candice feared it would.
“This is the student in my Modern Literature 301 class I was telling you about yesterday,” Professor Dylan said. He was watching the two of us, having no idea I’d thrown myself at James and just minutes ago he’d caught me, held me even, offered me dessert. James finally sat back down, his jaw tight.
“Candice is the teaching assistant for your discussion section,” Professor Dylan said. I saw something register in James’s eyes, the understanding I already had. He was an undergrad. And he was in my discussion section.
Instead of looking as mortified as I felt, he appeared amused. I wasn’t sure why. If he was in my discussion section, it meant he was also my student, which made him beyond off-limits.
So much for getting waxed.
So much for having James get rhinestones stuck in his teeth.
Forget about asking on my Candy Facebook Page how to impress a sexy new guy. I should have asked how to deal with a guy with career poison for a penis.
“James transferred here from NYU,” Professor Dylan said.
“Your junior year? Why?” I asked. Even in my agitated state, I understood that if he was in Modern Lit 301 it meant he had to be a junior.
I guessed it also meant he was also about twenty years old. At least I hoped so. If he was a star student, he could be a prodigy and possibly younger than eighteen, which would mean I would have to add hypothetical-statutory-rape to the pile of humiliation I’d already amassed.
“To study with Professor Dylan,” James said.
NYU was one of the best schools in New York State for creative writing, one of the best programs in the country. I knew because I’d applied to NYU’s graduate writing program and had not gotten in. Of course, undergrad is easier, I told myself as the only consolation I had left.
I clamped my teeth together and smiled, because if I didn’t I might have started screaming.
It looked like Professor Dylan had screwed me again.
“Have a seat, Candice,” Professor Dylan said. “We were just about to go over the first three chapters of Ulysses page by page.”
And, again.
Chapter Seven
I was lying on my bed reading when I heard our doorbell ring. I let Amanda get it. I hadn’t even been able to enjoy Professor Dylan’s attempt to hide his disappointment at my new syllabus when I finally gave it to him at the end of office hours.
Correct that—I was trying to read, but I couldn’t stop thinking about James. How not only could I never be with him, but I’d made beyond a fool of myself even trying to. I would have to stand in front of a room of students with him in it and demand respect. That was hard to do when you’d practically put your panties into the pocket of one of the sets of eyes staring back at you, waiting to hear which chapters he needed to read.
I put the book down and glared at the ceiling. My room here was as different from my room at my parents’ house as I could make it. Sure, I’d lived in a dorm at college in Syracuse, but I still felt like when I moved to Miami I had to leave any trace of my childhood room behind. My parents didn’t want to be in the life I’d chosen, so I didn’t want them in it, either—any reminder of them. I had all new Ikea furniture and bedding that I’d bought when I got here. It was easier than seeing something from my past that might make me miss them, because sometimes as much as I hated it, I did.
As the ultimate reminder to forget them, I’d painted my walls in colors my mother would have detested: one black, one red, and the ceiling Big Bird yellow. I felt like I was living in a traffic light, but my room in Miami was all about fierceness and doing what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered staring at my ceiling for too long would make me want to barf.
Amanda knocked on my
half-open door and ducked her head in. “Someone’s here for you.”
“Ha-ha, very funny, Mandy,” I said, still splayed out on my bed. “Is it the pizza-delivery guy and I don’t need to pay him in money?” My gaze hadn’t moved from my ceiling.
“Seriously,” she whispered, which let me know she was serious, but I didn’t care.
The only guy I would have wanted to be at the door was out of my life forever, because he was in it for the next semester.
She jumped on my bed, bouncing me. “Candice. It’s a guy, a cute guy. And he brought you red tulips.”
Who the hell was cute, a guy, and bringing me tulips? I checked my phone. It was 6:59 p.m.
James?
That James?
He was actually still going through with our date. He must not have understood I was now covered in an academic chastity belt.
I had understood it completely, which was why I was lounging in sweats and a tank top with no bra, my hair held up with pencils.
“Oh crap,” I said.
“Not exactly the response I was expecting,” Amanda said, squinty with disappointment.
“Oh crap,” I said again, louder.
“Should I tell him to leave?” Amanda asked, smiling slyly.
“I don’t know?” I said. “Maybe?”
“Who is he?”
“A student,” I said. “My student, and he’s here to take me to dinner.”
“Hot for teacher,” she said, wiggling her brows.
“No, I came on to him.” I covered my face with my pillow, feeling the full embarrassment of the realization hit me again.
“Candy, you dirty girl! I’m impressed.”
“Before I knew who he was,” I explained through fabric and feathers. “Before Professor Dylan introduced us in his office this morning.”
“That sounds far too juicy to send him away,” she said, pulling the pillow off me.
“I think that’s the problem,” I said.
“Buck the fuck up, Candy. This guy is hot and he’s here for you. Who cares who he is?”
“Professor Dylan,” I said.
“Oh please,” Amanda said, pushing me. “I’m not about to let you have any more sexual frustration at his hand, or lack of his hands.”
“This is real,” I said, sitting up. “This is my career.”
“One dinner is not going to ruin your career,” she said her face intense. “You deserve it.”
Maybe Mandy was right. Dinner was no big deal. I mean, Professor Dylan had tried to kiss me. James and I were just going out to a restaurant, eating, and leaving. I just had to make sure it was all that happened. The problem was, I had wanted a lot more than dinner—I had wanted dessert. But I could control myself and I did deserve it. I had earned some male companionship even if it couldn’t go as far as I wanted it to.
“Fine,” I said, “tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I’ll say five,” she said, appraising me. “You should probably get dressed or brush your hair or teeth or something.”
Amanda closed the door behind her and I sprung from the bed, pulling clothes off hangers. I wrestled myself into a pair of jeans, a push-up bra, and a clean white tank top. I pulled the pencils out of my hair and turned it upside down, shaking it into a mane.
I looked in the mirror, slicked some black liner on my slate-blue eyes, and brushed blush into the center of my cheeks, accentuating my cheekbones. It was one of my quickest makeup applications ever. I popped a piece of mint gum into my mouth and went to meet James.
I found him sitting in our kitchen. The tulips lay on the table in front of him like a velvet rope separating us.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said, trying to even out my breathing from my mad dash to look decent.
“We had a date,” he said.
“Had.” I positioned my arms over my chest when I noticed he was staring at it. Not like I didn’t want him to; I had put on the push-up bra, after all. “I’m your professor now, or maybe you didn’t follow along earlier?”
“TA.” He shrugged. “I followed just fine.”
“Exactly,” I said, standing taller. “I’m leading a discussion section for a class you’re in. That makes me your TA.”
“We can’t have dinner?” he asked, blinking those brown eyes. It was enough to make me want to throw him down on the table and rip off his clothes, rules or no rules. I held the doorjamb, steadying myself.
“How old are you anyway?” I asked. I had pretty much already broken a university regulation, but there was no way I was breaking a state law.
“Twenty-one,” he said, his eyes squinting. “Why, how old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” I said.
“Date with an older woman.” He smiled.
“No date,” I said, “only dinner.”
He stood and walked toward me with the tulips.
I didn’t move at first, just watched him: a beautiful guy standing in front of me with flowers, wanting to take me to dinner. I tried to push down any feelings I had for him, sexual or otherwise, but down was probably not where I should have been pushing them.
Candy’s persona was dying inside me, like one of those tulips rotting and turning black.
“So I should have brought you an apple instead?” he asked, the tulips out in front of him, holding them like he’d held my hand in Professor Dylan’s office when everything changed.
But maybe it didn’t have to. All the bright spots in my life in Miami so far had come from writing as Candy. One of her characters would have taken the flowers. She would have pulled off her tank top and run the petals over her exposed breasts. I knew I couldn’t do that, but I could at least put the damn things in a vase with some water.
I held my hand out and he put them in my palm, put his hand around mine, and squeezed. My skin quivered to life, his touch shooting electric pulses into me like each finger was a firework, his palm the finale.
My mind might have denied our attraction, tried to obliterate it, but that didn’t appear to matter to my body.
“I don’t care what you are,” he said.
“I got that.” I sighed, my body still not listening.
“So, dinner?” he asked again. “It’s clear Professor Dylan wants us to get to know each other.”
“Please don’t talk about Professor Dylan,” I said. I could only take dealing with one forbidden relationship at a time.
“Okay,” James said, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “No more tulips and no talking about Professor Dylan. Got it. Does that mean I can eat sometime soon? I’m starving.”
“We’re agreed, though.” I paused. “Only dinner?”
“It’s all I asked for, I think?” James smiled again—a perfect, face-filling, naughty-boy smile that definitely asked for more than dinner; a smile that would be very hard to say no to if he finally did ask for more.
A smile I was fairly sure would be my undoing.
…
“Where’s your car?” I asked, surveying the street. The sky was starting to darken, going from blue to gray.
“Right there,” he said, pointing to a Harley, black as a spider and leaning on its kickstand.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
He rocked on his heels. “You afraid?”
“No,” I said, rocking in beat with him, meeting his eyes to show him how unafraid I was. “I just thought you might have a car.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No.”
“So why would you think I had one?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t have a motorcycle, either,” I said, keeping his gaze.
“So what do you have?” he asked.
I paused. I had nothing. My parents had left me with nothing. I’d had a car, but they sold it as part of my you’re going to Miami over our dead bodies punishment. I didn’t really want to get into all that, though, so I pointed at my legs.
“No wonder you’re in such good shape,” he said.
&nb
sp; I felt my cheeks and chest bloom pink. I couldn’t help it. “I’m only going to remind you once. You are my student; I am your teacher. You should not be referring to any part of my ‘shape’ as good or bad.”
“Noted,” he said. He said it like he was going to salute but clearly didn’t feel the need to make me feel like more of a jerk than I already did.
And I did, because the truth was I liked hearing him tell me he thought I was in good shape. His words whirred around in my head and zapped at all the right parts of my brain.
“So you ready?” he asked, pointing at the motorcycle.
I stared at it. It wasn’t that I was afraid to ride it—even though I had never been on one. I was, however, afraid of having to cling to James like he was a cliff I didn’t want to fall off. I was afraid of getting comfortable enough to rest my head on one of his broad shoulders, to smell his shampoo, which I was pretty sure wouldn’t smell like the baby variety.
“I only see one helmet,” I said. It was lame, but it was all I could think of. There was no way I was going to admit that if I touched him, I would like it too much to not want to do more than touch him.
A lot more.
“You can have it,” he said. “Problem solved?”
I regarded the motorcycle, searching for any other excuse: a broken taillight, a wire hanging from it like a tendril of hair out of place, but it was polished and pristine. Shining like a black pearl in the streetlights that had just turned on.
“Fine,” I said, “but I want you to know, I’m only holding on to you because I have to.” I shut up, realizing my protesting was basically proving the opposite.
“Noted,” he said again, his head cocked to the side, which let me know he knew I wasn’t hiding anything, either.
He got on the motorcycle, gunned the ignition, and waited for me to follow. I put the helmet on, straddled the purring bike, and positioned my arms around his waist, holding myself as far back on the seat as I could without falling off, like I was dancing with a boy in middle school.
“If you don’t hold on tighter,” he said over the rumble of the motorcycle, “you’re going to be in a broken heap on the street when I pull out.”
Sneaking Candy Page 5