The Foster Girls

by Lin Stepp

  “Why was that a problem with your faculty?”

  “It’s silly, but they seemed to resent the affection the students and the locals seemed to have for me. Students would call out to me when I was walking across campus, stop by my office for advice or tutoring, or just come by to visit.” She stopped to think for a minute. “ I was the only faculty member in the English department who didn’t have an unpleasant nickname.”

  Scott laughed. “They were jealous of you.”

  “No, I think I was just different from them.” She sighed. “They seemed to think it was a mark of softness or weakness if your students were too attached to you or too familiar with you. I was often spoken to about that. But I couldn’t seem to be any different. It just wasn’t in me to brush off my students or not take time to talk to them. They’d come by my house many evenings and sit out on the porch with everyone. My department called this fraternizing with the students. This was frowned on, too.”

  “So you think this writing thing was really just another way for them to get at you when they were already upset with you about other things?”

  “Oh, no.” Vivian shook her head. “The other they might have been willing to continue to overlook. They often said these problems, as they termed them, were because I was so young, and that I would toughen up over time with the students. No, the writing was an entirely different thing.”

  Vivian stopped to consider this quietly for a while.

  “Well, are you going to just sit there and think about this all by yourself or are you going to tell me about it?” Scott demanded, interrupting her thoughts.

  Vivian looked up and smiled at him. “You caught me wool-gathering. Doing all this talking has gotten me to thinking about everything again.”

  Vivian sipped at her coffee.

  “You know,” she said, thoughtfully. “ I believe there was a part of me that was still like my mother even then, a fanciful woman that adored fiction, high drama, and an imaginative story. Sometimes academics began to feel very dry to me and, on the side, I wrote fictional stories just for fun. Actually, I started weaving stories even as a girl in little notebooks. Later, when academics wearied and drained me in my masters years at California State, I began to write some of my old stories and ideas into books.”

  “How did your stories get published?”

  “An editor, Betsy Picardi, and one of the family owners of a small California publishing company called Picardi Press, came to speak at our college.” Vivian smiled, remembering. “I was the Grad Assistant assigned to pick her up at the airport, entertain her, and see that she got to all the conference meetings on time. Somehow, she and I got to talking about books and writing, and I told her about my little books. She insisted on seeing them, took them back to her agency in Sacramento, and before I knew it, I was working with Betsy to get the books edited and press ready for publication.”

  “That’s great.” Scott cocked his head to one side. “I still don’t see what could be wrong with that.”

  Vivian shook her head. “It’s the kiss of death for a rising academic to become known for secular fiction. The focus of an academic is supposed to be on research and publication in scholarly journals. Betsy published my little books under a pseudonym to protect me. The readers liked them, even though my college department probably wouldn’t have. Also, the publications paid me a nice little side income, which came in handy in those lean years of grad school. I was making my own way then and didn’t like asking the Meros for money.

  “And to be perfectly honest,” Vivian added, smiling a little. “I really had fun writing those books. And once they began to sell, I had even more fun writing more. However, I never neglected my academic work to do it. It was just my leisure activity, my avocation, like some people play golf or research their genealogy or something. But I never told anyone about them.”

  “Ahhh,” said Scott, the light coming on at last. “You didn’t reveal that you were a secular fiction writer to Armitage College when you were interviewed and offered a job there?”

  Vivian nodded and sighed.

  “But they found out.”

  “Yes.” She looked up at him now. “And they were as mad about my not telling all as you have been. They saw it as dishonest and deceiving that I hadn’t told them I was publishing in other fields under another name. Even worse, they disdained the type of light fiction I’d been writing. I had numerous very heated conferences with Dr. Wright and Dr. Stillman, and with others in the department. Also, I had conferences involving a few higher administrators at the college, as well. I wasn’t tenured yet, you know, and although no one suggested firing me, a number of veiled threats made it clear that this would reflect on my opportunities to become tenured at Armitage in the future. After all, as Dr. Wright said at least a hundred times to me, ‘We have our reputation to consider.’”

  “Haven’t you figured out yet, Vivian Delaney Mero, that telling the truth is often better than telling a lie? Even lies for a good reason?” Scott frowned at her. “Lying never profits. Never.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” Vivian bristled at his criticism. “If I had told the truth to Armitage in the beginning, Scott, they probably would not have hired me at all. And if they had hired me, they probably would have insisted that I give up my outside writing entirely.”

  “Do you think most other colleges would see it that way?”

  “Yes, I do.” Vivian’s reply was emphatic. “I’ve been around academia all my life, and I know the rules of the game.”

  “But I thought you told me that you could go back and teach if you wanted to,” Scott said to her, reminding her of a comment she had said to him earlier.

  “Well, now at this point, I could go back more easily simply because my novels have become rather well known.” She smiled. “A little fame and recognition in any area makes its own way regardless of the rules.”

  Scott sat up in surprise. “Did I hear the word fame used in there?”

  “Yes,” Vivian answered him quietly.

  He grinned and gave her a teasing look. “And are you going to tell me who this famous person in my kitchen is?”

  “Only if you make me tell you by threatening to make more calls to my friends and family because you don’t trust me,” she told him candidly, looking up at him with an open appeal in her eyes.

  Vivian watched several emotions pass over Scott’s face at that. Annoyance, confusion, and perhaps hurt as well. Then he focused his gaze out the window.

  “Look at me, Scott,” she said to him. “I came all this way to these mountains, just as you suggested, to run away from being rather too well known once my pseudonym came out. It changed everything when people knew that I wasn’t just Dr. Vivian Mero. They acted differently around me. And people invaded me. I couldn’t get my work done. I couldn’t have any space or any peace.”

  Vivian stopped to look down at her hands.

  “The college sort of gave me an ultimatum,” she said. “Choose the college and give up the writing or choose the writing and give up the college. I found I couldn’t bear the idea of giving up the writing. It’s a vital part of me. If I go back to teach again, it will be to a school that won’t expect me to give my writing up at all. A school that will realize I can be both a good professor and a good fiction writer. I need to teach at some place that will accept the fact I need both things in my life.”

  Scott sighed. “And you don’t feel that you can trust me with who this other side of Vivian Delaney Mero is yet?” Vivian could tell that he was disappointed that she didn’t want to tell him more, but she had told him far more than she wanted to already.

  “I’d like you to enjoy me for just what you see and have come to know.” She bit her lip anxiously. “Just for who I am and who you see every day.”

  “Vivian, why do you think knowing what you write will make any difference in what I think about you?” Scott asked her, scowling. “I believe you’ve really told me the truth with this story, but I don’t understand
why you don’t want to tell me the rest.”

  “I have my reasons,” Vivian insisted, lifting her chin. “You’re the only person I’ve even told this much to here. I’d like to keep it that way for now, if it’s okay with you.”

  Vivian could see the war of emotions cross over Scott’s face again, frustration, annoyance, and even a little hurt.

  “Let me think about this for awhile.” Scott pushed back his chair and started gathering up their coffee cups to take into the kitchen. “We’ll hit the bathroom and then move into the living room. I need some time to digest all you’ve told me.”

  Vivian complied, giving him a little space.

  He paced restlessly off down the hall and into the back of the house.

  Vivian went into the kitchen and washed up the cups, then explored around the living area to look at pictures on the wall and books on the shelves. She’d always believed you could tell a lot about a person from how many books were in their house and what those books were about. Scott had an interesting and eclectic collection.

  A little later, Scott came around the corner of the living room and walked right up to her, almost like he had done that day in the kitchen. He put his hands on the wall on either side of her as she turned to greet him, capturing her tightly between his body and the bookshelf behind her.

  “I’m not really comfortable with all of this,” he told her candidly, looking down into her eyes. “I’m a real open person, Vivian. I’m not comfortable with secrets. I feel that although you’ve really let your hair down to me in one sense, that you’ve left out all these other pieces in your story you don’t want to share with me yet.”

  “I’ve told you that I didn’t want to share everything,” Vivian said softly. “That was honest, Scott.”

  “Well, I think there are more pieces you’ve left out than just your writer’s pseudonym. And, quite honestly, Vivian, I don’t like being left out of your life in any way, because you’ve started to matter to me. You’ve started to invade my senses in a way no woman has ever done. You are on my mind and thoughts too often, and I don’t like there being secrets between us.”

  He cupped her chin with his hands and tilted her face up until her eyes met his. His voice was husky when he spoke. “I dare you to tell me, Vivian, that you don’t feel what there is between us.”

  “I feel it,” she whispered. And she did, sizzling down to her toes and back up again. Any time this man got close enough to touch her, she felt it.

  “It’s like lightning,” she said to him softly. “ Like the lightning in the air the first night we met.”

  That was all she got to say, because Scott’s mouth closed over hers possessively. And she felt dizzy, like her feet would fall out from under her.

  Their kiss deepened, Scott’s lips warm on hers, his body pressing against her, stirring all her senses. Their breathing grew fast and ragged, and Vivian’s heart started to race. Somehow, Scott got her over to the couch and lowered her into the cushions while still kissing her. He started to touch her softly then, up her arms, on her neck, under her hair. His hands were surprisingly soft and gentle, not grasping. It felt like he was exploring her with his fingers. Sensations rolled over her like waves crashing on the shore. And there seemed to be a crashing in her mind. Vivian’s normal defenses felt shattered, and she felt drugged, almost unable to think. All she could feel was a whirl of sensations.

  She heard soft sighs and little whimpers and recognized with alarm that they were hers. A side of her mind realized she was slipping slowly out of control, but she didn’t seem able to stop herself. The feeling of Scott’s mouth moving softly across her own mouth was just too wonderful. She didn’t want it to stop. She didn’t want to think rationally.

  Scott teased at her lips with his tongue until she let him begin to slip it inside her mouth just a little, touching his tongue against her teeth, touching it against her own tongue. How gentle and sweet he was in his exploration. He didn’t press and grope as so many other boys in her past had tried to do. He didn’t try to take off her clothes or grab at her. He just seemed to be tasting and reveling in her.

  She opened her eyes to look up at him, and he smiled lazily down at her.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” he asked her huskily. “It’s really good between us. I thought it would be. It’s been on my mind a lot, Vivian.”

  She nodded and sighed, too overcome for words.

  “Touch me, too, Vivian,” he coached her, putting her hands up on his face and moving them around behind his neck.

  His skin seemed to tingle under her fingers, and Vivian soon found herself wanting to continue her exploration, touching his hair, running her hands down his arms and over his back. They seemed to be playing a child’s finger game, touching everywhere they could that was acceptable, seeing how each place felt, reveling in the sensations.

  Somehow in all the touching, they went from sitting up to lying down, and soon their bodies were touching, too. It was the most marvelous feeling. Vivian had had boys hug and hold her before, but she had never felt with them the way she did with Scott now.

  Her mind drifted lazily away in a haze of feeling, only to surface again when Scott rolled over on top of her. How sweet it felt it to have him there. But how dangerous, too. Vivian wasn’t a child anymore, and she knew how aroused they both were becoming.

  She began to shake her head and struggle.

  “No, Scott,” she said, her voice only seeming to come out in a whisper.

  “Oh, Vivian, don’t say no,” he whispered. “Say yes. You know you want to say yes.” He kissed her again, and her mind whirled.

  “No, Scott.” She struggled a little against him now. “Really, no.”

  He looked down at her with agony in his eyes.

  “Is it because I’ve hurt you checking on you, calling your college?” he asked her hoarsely.

  She smiled at him. “With all of these wonderful feelings,” she answered softly. “All of that went right out of my mind, Scott.”

  He groaned. “Let me make it go away some more.” He leaned down to run his lips softly and tantalizingly across hers again.

  Vivian felt like she could purr contentedly if she were a cat.

  “Oh, you’re good at this.” Her words came out in a hoarse whisper.

  “Yes, I am,” he told her softly and with a little laugh of pleasure. “And this is only just the beginning, Vivian.”

  His mouth found its way under her hair then and to her ear, and then he was kissing her ear and doing some sort of erotic nibbling thing with her earlobes.

  “Oh, Scott, stop,” she whispered again, all her senses reeling.

  “Why don’t you stop fighting what you feel, Vivian?” he encouraged her seductively. “I promise you it will be good.”

  She managed to push him back a little more, trying to clear her head.

  “Scott, it’s not because it’s not good or that it doesn’t feel wonderful. Or because I don’t think I’m beginning to care more than I should.” She sighed against him. “It’s just because I believe people should wait. Because I haven’t ever …”

  His words cut her off. “Now don’t tell me you’re trying to convince me you’re a virgin and that you’ve been saving yourself?” Scott asked her a little mockingly. “Come on, Vivian, you’ve told some tales in the past, but this one won’t hold water. This is the twentieth century now and you’re almost a twenty-eight-year-old woman and I’m a thirty-two-year-old man. We’re not a couple of kids here. And we’re past the age of consent.”

  Scott’s irritation woke Vivian up from the fog of sensation she’d been wallowing in. She pushed her way out from under Scott, and got up from the couch.

  “I’d like to go home now.” She straightened her back, offended at his words and tone.

  “You said before you could find your own way back.” His voice was cross and irritable and he was scowling at her.

  “All right,” she said, looking out at the darkness now. Surely she could find her
way through that little woods and over the creek even in the dark.

  She started toward the door.

  “Thank you for the nice dinner,” she said softly, remembering her manners.

  Scott groaned and muttered something that sounded like profanity.

  Vivian let herself out the back door and started picking her way down the pathway from Scott’s house. It was really dark now, and there were no street lights here in the country.

  Suddenly, a friendly bark met her in the night, and Fritzi came up the path to rush around Vivian’s legs.

  “Oh, Fritzi, I’m so glad to see you.” Vivian sighed with relief. “Will you help me get back home? I’m really scared to go alone. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “I’ll walk you home, Vivian,” said Scott’s voice behind her. “Disappointment doesn’t mean that I get to forget my manners, either.”

  Vivian didn’t say anything, letting Scott step ahead of her to take the lead down the path.

  She looked ahead into the dark. “Don’t you have a flashlight?”

  “I don’t need one.” His voice was snappish. “I’ve taken this path a million times, and we have a moon for light.”

  As Vivian’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see a full moon shining in the sky above the trees. It was pretty and shed some light on their path, but she still would have preferred a flashlight.

  Carefully, she kept pace with Scott so she could follow in his footsteps. She could tell he was angry because he was taking long strides, where usually he strolled easily when he walked.

  Fritzi dashed up on the porch ahead of them when they got to the farmhouse. And Dearie was there already, meowing as soon as she saw them to let them know she was ready to be let in.