But that was probably too much detail to go into on a study break.
“Nothing too dramatic. We’d grown apart, and most days it felt like we were more platonic roommates than romantically involved. And then I decided to go to law school down here, and he got a job offer for a tenured position at Arizona State—he’s a professor of astronomy. It just seemed like a good time to split up,” I said.
I left out the part where Graham had agreed to come to New Orleans with me—he’d been offered an instructor position at Loyola, a lateral move from his current job at Ithaca College. And for the first time in a long while, I’d felt excited about our relationship again. Maybe this was what we needed—a new city, a fresh start. But then the offer from Arizona State came through. I understood why Graham wanted to take the job—it meant more money, more prestige, job security. But he hadn’t even discussed it with me. He’d just taken the job and assumed I’d change my plans.
“You can go to law school in Arizona,” he’d said.
“No, I can’t. It’s too late now to apply for the fall semester,” I argued.
“So, you wait a year and go next fall instead. Big deal.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
Graham spent another three months trying to talk me into going to Arizona with him—he even started to make noise about “maybe” getting engaged—and when I refused, he withdrew into a tight-lipped silence. The day he moved out, his suitcase packed and the plane ticket to Arizona jammed in his pocket, I wondered if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
“Still. That’s no reason to swear off men altogether,” Jen now said. “I think that will be my goal of the year—finding Kate a new and better man.”
“Shouldn’t your goal have something to do with, I don’t know, law school? Like getting good grades, or making Law Review?” I asked.
Jen made a face. “Spoilsport.”
“What about finding me a new and better man?” Lexi asked. “Although I do have my eye on someone.”
“Addison?” Jen asked. She’d obviously made the same assumption I had.
Lexi laughed, and as she did so, a plume of smoke shot out from her mouth. “Oh, my God, are you serious? Addison? No way!”
“Well, you two are always together,” Jen said.
Lexi waved her hand, dismissing the idea. “We just bonded over cigarettes at orientation and ended up in the same section. But, no, I’m definitely not interested in him. I’m not even sure if he’s straight,” Lexi said.
“Why, did he tell you that he’s gay?” Jen asked.
“No, but he’s way too sketchy about his past. I can tell he’s trying to hide something,” Lexi said.
“You think he’s in the closet?” I asked. “That’s kind of weird, don’t you think? He’s a thirty-year-old single guy—why not just be up-front about who he is?”
“I don’t know for sure. It’s just a feeling I got,” Lexi said, shrugging. “I mean, we’ve been hanging out a lot, and he’s never hit on me. Not once.”
“Nick hasn’t hit on me, and I’m pretty sure he’s not gay,” I said.
“Addison just seems…asexual to me,” Lexi said vaguely. “Anyway, even if he is straight, he’s totally not my type.”
“Who is?” Jen asked.
Lexi leaned in. “Do you know Jacob Reid?” she asked quietly.
“The name sounds familiar,” I said, trying to remember where I’d heard it. I still hadn’t put names to faces.
“Jacob Reid…Wait—do you mean Professor Reid?” Jen asked, her eyes suddenly round.
Lexi nodded and smiled coolly.
“He’s a professor here? At the law school? Is that even allowed?” I asked. Romantic relationships between faculty and students had been strictly prohibited at Cornell—in fact, it was pretty much a surefire way for a professor to ruin his or her career.
Lexi shrugged. “He’s not my professor, so I don’t see what the problem is. It’s not like he’d have a conflict of interest.”
“He is really good-looking,” Jen said.
“Isn’t he? And he’s got an incredible body. I saw him at the gym working out, and I have to tell you, he looks amazing in jogging shorts,” Lexi said. “While I was talking to him, he lifted up the hem of his T-shirt to wipe his hands, and his abs were rock hard. I think he caught me staring.”
“I don’t know who he is,” I said.
“Yes, you do, I pointed him out to you yesterday,” Lexi said. “When we were in the lounge checking our mail folders.”
“Oh, that guy? I thought he was a student,” I exclaimed.
“He’s just here for a year as a visiting professor, but he said that if it goes well, he might be offered a tenured position. He teaches Income Tax and Commercial Paper,” Lexi said.
“Did he seem interested in you?” Jen asked.
Lexi looked at her with an expression that bordered on smugness. What do you think? her face seemed to say. But then Lexi’s face softened into a smile, and she said, “I think so. He did tell me that he was going to be at the Bombay Club on Saturday night. He said he hoped to see me there.”
A group of guys exited the law school. We watched as they congregated by the back door, joking with one another and laughing.
“I think they’re in our section,” Jen said.
“They are. I recognize the tall blond guy,” Lexi said.
“He’s cute,” Jen said. “His friend too. Is either of them your type, Kate?”
“Please don’t try to fix me up with anyone. I’m begging you,” I said, shaking my head.
“What? I was just making casual conversation,” Jen said, although her grin gave her away.
“Hey, you’re the girl that Hoffman creamed in class last week,” one of the guys said as he approached us. I didn’t recognize him; he was short and broad-shouldered and had the thick, shiny dark hair of a Prell girl.
“That’s me,” I said, smiling tightly. My notoriety did not thrill me.
“What’s your name?” Lexi asked flirtatiously. She tipped her head to one side and narrowed her eyes.
“Scott,” he said.
Lexi smiled creamily. I watched her, realizing for the first time that Lexi was the sort of woman who reveled in male attention. The type had always made me wary.
“I remember. Mr. Brown, right? Professor Legrande called on you in Contracts yesterday,” Lexi said.
“That’s right,” he said, grinning at her.
I remembered him too. Scott Brown had remained poised while handling a line of questions. He’d flubbed one of the answers but ended up deflecting it with a joke that amused the class and Professor Legrande. I had no doubt Mr. Brown was headed toward a career in a courtroom—I could already picture him in a dark suit and red tie, charming the jury with his sugary Southern accent.
“You’re in my section?” Scott asked.
“We all are,” Jen said. “I’m Jen, this is Lexi, and that’s Kate.”
“Kate, right. Man, that was harsh the way Hoffman called on you. The entire time you were standing there, I was just cringing,” he continued.
“Me too,” I muttered.
“Hey, Berk, come here,” Scott called out. A tall, heavyset guy with shaggy blond hair and hangdog brown eyes left the group still standing by the front door and walked over. “This is Pete Berkus. He’s a One-L too, but he’s in a different section. Berk, this is that chick I was telling you about, the one that Hoffman demolished.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re the one who cried in class, right?” Berk asked.
“I didn’t cry!”
“He made her stand up while he grilled her. Man, it was painful,” Scott said. He hooted with laughter.
“Gee, thanks,” I said. My face flushed a hot red.
“Just ignore him,” Jen said, patting my leg soothingly.
“Aw, I’m just teasin’. It could have happened to any of us. Hey, I got called on yesterday,” Scott said.
“Yeah, but you did great,” Lexi sa
id, slanting her eyes toward him. She tossed her dark hair back over her shoulder.
“I’m so glad I didn’t get stuck in your section. I’ve heard that Hoffman is a prick,” Berk said. “All of my professors seem okay so far.”
“Lucky you,” I said.
Chapter Four
My parents were married on New Year’s Eve. My mom claimed that they chose the date so they’d always be able to celebrate each passing year of marriage with a big blowout of a party. My dad, the more pragmatic of the two, disagreed; he said my mom just wanted to make sure he’d never forget their anniversary.
Even so, the New Year’s Eve/anniversary party became a family tradition, going back as long as I could remember. My parents’ friends—and, later, my friends too—would come over to our house every year to celebrate. My mom always served fondue, a nut-encrusted cheese ball, and meatballs that were basted in grape jelly and chili sauce and then kept warm in a Crock-Pot. My dad would pull out his old Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans Trio records. Everyone drank too much and got a little loopy.
Their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary fell in the middle of my sophomore year of college, and my mom was planning to go all out for the party. This year, there would be a caterer and a bartender and waiters circulating with trays of chicken saté skewers and sea scallops wrapped in bacon. A pianist in a tuxedo and tails would play jazzy show tunes. The engraved invitations would request that everyone dress in formal wear. It would be, my mother proclaimed, an Event.
“Guess what?” Mom said one night. It was midway through the fall semester at Cornell, and she’d called me at my dorm, interrupting my Modern American History homework.
“What?” I asked, only half listening as I scanned the reading assignment on the Civil Rights Movement.
“I ordered new furniture for the living room,” Mom announced. Her voice was breathy, as if she’d been running laps around the house before she called. “It got here today. Oh, Kate, it’s gorgeous. The sofa is sage green chenille, and there’s an armchair and ottoman, both of which are covered with the most beautiful striped fabric that coordinates with the sofa. I can’t wait until you see it.”
“That sounds nice,” I said without much enthusiasm. “I didn’t know you were redecorating.”
“It’s for the party.”
“You got new furniture just for a party?” I asked.
“I want the house to look nice. And we needed new living-room furniture anyway. I thought this was a good time to do it,” Mom said.
“Oh,” I said. And as I lay on my narrow bed, looking up at a poster of Monet’s Water Lilies stuck to the puce cinder-block wall opposite me, I silently promised myself that I would never be as boring and suburban as my mother.
The party was a huge hit. Everyone had a great time drinking too much (including the pianist, who guzzled down a bottle of bourbon and then passed out, face-first, on the piano) and dancing late into the night. My mom wore a sparkly black sequined cocktail dress and had her hair and makeup professionally done. Just before midnight, my parents hooked their elbows together as they drank a champagne toast. I snapped a picture just as they lifted the flutes to their lips, but it didn’t come out well; in it, both of my parents have sallow yellow skin and glowing red eyes.
Five weeks later, on a chilly February night, a young doctor left his bachelor party after downing an untold number of martinis and lost control of his BMW when he hit a patch of black ice. The car went careening into the oncoming lane. My parents were on their way home from the movies, and though my father had likely seen the car coming, the investigating officer told me there probably hadn’t been time for him to swerve out of the way.
“It would have happened very quickly,” the assistant medical examiner later told me. “They wouldn’t have felt anything.”
I just nodded and stared down at my scuffed L.L. Bean duck boots.
How do you know what they felt? I wanted to say as anger bubbled up through the heavy blanket of grief. You didn’t even know them.
The Bar Review that the law school threw for us at Tipitina’s was the first chance I’d had to see what my classmates were like outside the pressure cooker of law school. The answer: They were pretty much the same.
Everyone was still posturing, still trying to impress one another. The free beer lubricated things, though, and eventually conversations moved on from who had started their class outlines (normally phrased to freak out anyone who hadn’t: “You mean you haven’t started outlining yet? Are you serious?”) and early speculation on who would make Law Review, to the more normal topics of where people had gone to college and what had brought them to Tulane.
I had a beer and spent most of the night hanging out with Jen, Nick, and Addison. We didn’t see much of Lexi; she was too busy flirting. Pete Berkus in particular seemed besotted with her and looked visibly annoyed whenever she talked to another guy.
Lexi intercepted me on my way to the bathroom.
“What are you doing after this?” she asked.
“I’m so tired, I’m just going to head home. But I think Nick and Addison, and maybe Jen, are going to check out a bar called the Maple Leaf. It’s over near campus,” I said.
“I’m going to go to the Bombay Club,” Lexi said casually.
“By yourself?” I asked, but then suddenly I remembered that the professor she was interested in was going to be there. “Oh, that’s right. Have fun. But be careful.”
“Always am,” Lexi said. She gave me a saucy wink.
When I returned from the ladies’ room, a perky blonde coed wearing a pink sparkly cutoff shirt and low-slung jeans that showed off a diamond belly ring had joined our group. She was holding on to Nick’s arm, laughing up at him.
“I think you have some competition,” Jen said.
I glanced at the giggling blonde and shook my head. “I already told you, there’s nothing going on between us,” I said.
“Nothing going on with whom?” Addison said.
“No one,” I said.
“Nick,” Jen said.
“Nick? I thought you said Kate had the hots for that Scott guy.”
I turned to Jen, my mouth open. “What?” I said.
“I didn’t say that,” Jen said, giving Addison a warning look. “I just said I thought you’d make a cute couple.”
“Jen wants to marry everyone off,” Addison said.
“I have my eye on someone for you too,” Jen said.
“Oh, yeah? Who?” Addison asked eagerly.
Jen nodded toward a tall, good-looking black guy I recognized from our section. He had wide shoulders and a shaved head and was wearing a white polo shirt.
“What…him? Are you kidding me?” Addison stared at her, aghast.
“You think he’s out of your league?” Jen asked sympathetically.
“I’m not gay!”
“You’re not?” Jen looked confused. She frowned. “But Lexi said…”
“Lexi told you I was gay?”
“Well, no, not in those exact words…”
“Because I’m not,” he said hotly.
“Okay,” Jen said.
“I’m entirely one hundred percent hetero.”
“Fine,” Jen said soothingly. She looked to me for help, but I just grinned.
“Serves you right for trying to play Cupid,” I told her.
“I just want my friends to be happy,” she said. “And you have to admit, Add, that guy is hot.”
“I admit no such thing,” Addison said. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find a woman to hit on.”
He stalked off in the direction of the bar.
Nick drove me home in his little Mini Cooper.
“This car is so cute,” I said.
Nick shot me a dirty look. “It’s not ‘cute.’ Babies are cute. Kittens are cute. This car is cool and hip,” he said.
“And don’t forget fuel-efficient,” I said. “So, who was your girlfriend?”
“Who?”
“The blonde teenager who was dry-humping you at the bar,” I reminded him.
“Ah. Tiffy,” Nick said fondly. “She’s actually a sophomore at Loyola. She said she’s majoring in Pre-Law, but what she really wants to do is move to Las Vegas and be a showgirl.”
“It’s good to have a dream,” I said.
“She gave me her number,” Nick said. He held up his hand, where a phone number was written in black ink on the back, along with TIFFY—CALL ME!!! She’d dotted the “i” in “Tiffy” with a heart-shaped bubble. “She said she wants to get together sometime so I can tell her what law school is really like.”
“Jesus,” I said, rolling my eyes at the blatant come-on. “Tell her it’s like the army: First they grind you down, and then they build you back up. Only instead of soldiers, they turn us into humorless robots set to destroy mode.”
“I take it you’re not enjoying school,” Nick said.
“I don’t think anyone with a soul enjoys law school,” I said.
“So why do it?”
“It’s a means to an end,” I quipped, mostly because the truth—that I’d undergone some sort of quarter-life crisis, where I felt an inexplicable urge to Make A Change Before It Was Too Late—sounded silly and juvenile. Normal people, adult people, don’t quit their jobs, break up with their boyfriends, and move across the country, only to spend several years of their life and many thousands of dollars embarking on a career they’ve only been exposed to through movies and television shows. In fact, when I thought about it, which wasn’t often, that was what my future career felt like—something distant and vague, something that was going to happen to someone else. The only thing I was sure about was this: A law degree meant I’d always have a job, and a relatively well-paying one at that. A law degree meant safety.
Testing Kate Page 4