“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I just think…you like to stay in your comfort zone,” Nick said.
“Doesn’t everyone? In fact, isn’t that how you’d define ‘comfort zone’?” I asked sarcastically.
“Yeah, but you sort of take it to an extreme.”
“Are we still talking about my Crim grade, or are we talking about what happened between us in the Quarter that night?” I asked. The wine was making me bolder than I’d have otherwise been.
Nick was quiet again. “Is there anything to talk about?” he finally asked. “Or can we just pretend that I had too much to drink and exhibited shockingly bad judgment as a result?”
I smiled. “We can.”
“Good,” Nick said. “Because now that you’ve proven yourself to be a legal genius, I’m counting on you to get me through Property. That class is going to be a bitch.”
“You’re on,” I said.
La Crêpe Nanou was a French bistro nestled on a side street in the upper Garden District that specialized in, not surprisingly, crepes.
“Yum,” I said, digging into one of the dessert crepes that was filled with fudge sauce and topped with coffee Häagen-Dazs ice cream. “This is the best thing I have ever tasted.”
“Are you going to share that?” Armstrong asked. We were supposed to be splitting the dessert, but he’d been sipping an espresso while I greedily attacked the crepe.
I grudgingly moved the plate a quarter inch closer to him.
“Did you get any work done on the new book while I was gone?” I asked.
Armstrong looked guiltily down at his coffee cup.
“You still haven’t started, have you?” I said accusingly.
“I told you, it’s a process. The creative juices have to flow for a while,” Armstrong said. He brightened. “Although I did get the most fabulous carpet for the living room while you were gone. And I finally boxed up all of Mother’s Limoges miniatures and sent them off to Goodwill.” Armstrong shuddered. “Good riddance. Elvis ate one of the boxes, and I had to take him to the animal emergency room.”
“Did they pump his stomach?”
“No. We had to wait for him to crap it out,” Armstrong said. “It took three days.”
I could have lived without that mental image.
“That’s it,” I said firmly. “We’re getting to work on the book tomorrow. Real work. No more shopping.”
“Bossy pants. I’ll have you know I happen to be a world-renowned historian,” Armstrong said.
“A world-renowned historian who never actually works.”
“I just have a slight case of writer’s block,” Armstrong corrected me. He sipped his coffee. “How was your first day back at school?”
“Oh! I forgot to tell you—I have Hoffman again this semester,” I announced. Armstrong knew all about my tortured history with Hoffman.
“Not by choice,” Armstrong said, his eyebrows raised.
“No, of course not. I was supposed to have another professor for Constitutional Law—Professor Chai—but she didn’t show up. My friend Addison said he heard she’s an alcoholic and had to go to rehab. Hoffman took over her class,” I said. I shook my head, the horror of it washing over me anew. “I can’t believe I’m saddled with that asshole for another semester.”
“Can’t you drop the class?” Armstrong asked.
“No, we aren’t allowed to change classes. But want to know what else Addison told me? It’s juicy.”
“What?” Armstrong set down his coffee and leaned forward eagerly. He loved gossip, even if he didn’t know any of the people involved.
I gave a little wriggle of happiness. “Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg was in town last year giving a talk at the law school. Hoffman sat next to her at a luncheon and apparently ate some bad shrimp, and…,” I hesitated, reveling in the climax of the story, “Hoffman ended up getting food poisoning and threw up right on poor Justice Ginsburg.”
“What do you mean on her? On her shoes?” Armstrong asked.
“No! On her lap,” I crowed triumphantly. I could picture it vividly—hell, the same thing had happened to me four years earlier when Fitz upchucked on me at the Cornell student union—Hoffman’s stomach heaving, his pale eyes watering. The moment of panic he must have had when he first realized what was going to happen. He’d probably been turning to get up, ready to race to the men’s room, but didn’t make it out of his seat in time. “He must have been humiliated. I’d have given anything to see it.”
“Good evening, Ms. Bennett,” a familiar voice said.
I froze.
Oh, no. Oh, please no.
This wasn’t happening.
I looked up, hoping that the person who had suddenly materialized at the edge of our table was not who I thought it was—even though I wouldn’t have mistaken that voice anywhere. It was the very voice that mocked me in my dreams, sneering at me coldly, ridiculing me for my incompetence.
Hoffman.
He was standing next to our table, staring down at me with his flat, malevolent eyes. He looked much the same as he did in class—the windblown hair, the button-down blue oxford shirt with the rolled-up cuffs, the wrinkled khakis hanging down over his flat ass (which I couldn’t see at the moment, since he was facing us, but I knew it was there).
“Um, hi,” I said, wondering if I looked as wild-eyed as I felt. Had he heard me? Had he?
“Are you having a nice dinner?” Hoffman asked, as though we were just old friends meeting up.
“Yes. Yes, we are,” I said. I looked at Armstrong. “This is Armstrong McKenna. Armstrong…this is, um”—Don’t say Professor Satan, don’t say Professor Satan—“Professor Richard Hoffman. He teaches at the law school.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Armstrong said pleasantly, extending his hand out to Hoffman.
“I know you by reputation, of course,” Hoffman said. He smiled thinly. “And how do you know Ms. Bennett?”
“She’s my research assistant,” Armstrong said. “And my right arm. I’ve been lost without her for the past three weeks.”
“How…extraordinary,” Hoffman said dryly. I considered stomping on his foot. “Are you out celebrating, Ms. Bennett? I know grades came out today. I hope you were pleased with how you did,” Hoffman continued. And this time when he looked at me, I could have sworn I saw a malevolent glitter in his eyes. I gaped up at him. Was he gloating? Should I confront him? Maybe if he was so eager to let me know what he’d done, he’d come right out and admit to violating the Honor Code.
The silence stretched awkwardly between us until it was verging on the point of rudeness. And then, just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Hoffman’s pale eyes suddenly slid down…to my cleavage. I glanced down and saw that an extra button on my black oxford shirt had come undone, offering a glimpse of my lace-edged bra.
I flushed with embarrassment, a red stain that started at my cheeks and crept down until it covered the exposed skin. I wanted to button the shirt back up—in fact, button it all the way to my neck—but I resisted the urge. It would be like handing Hoffman a victory.
“We are celebrating,” Armstrong said, apparently unaware that Hoffman had just graduated from asshole to lech. “Kate received the highest grade in her Contracts class.”
“Did she indeed?” Hoffman said, his eyebrows arched up, and I blushed even darker, now with fury at the insinuation that he wouldn’t have thought it possible for me to shine academically.
“They’re ready to seat us, Richard,” a woman said, appearing at Hoffman’s side and tucking her arm around his. His date, I presumed, although I wondered where that left Dean Sullivan. The woman was blonde and pretty. She looked glamorous in a black sweater ringed with a fur collar and charcoal gray pants, although she’d made the mistake of encircling her mouth in mauve liner that was a shade darker than her lipstick, which gave her a slightly tacky, Jersey Girl look.
“It was nice to meet you, Dr. McKenna,�
�� Hoffman said to Armstrong. He nodded to me. “Ms. Bennett. Oh, and by the way…I didn’t eat the shrimp. I just had the flu.”
Oh, fuck.
And then Hoffman turned and followed the hostess and his date off to their table while I stared after them, openmouthed and horrified.
“What a pompous asshole,” Armstrong said as he glanced at the bill the waitress had left on the table.
“Oh. My. God. He heard me telling you about how he puked on Justice Ginsburg,” I whispered. “Hoffman heard me making fun of him. I’m doomed. Doomed. He already hates me…now he’s going destroy me.”
“It’s remarkable, if you think about it.”
“What is?” I asked. The veal and pommes frites I’d just consumed were sitting in my stomach in a heavy, congealed mass.
“Do you know what the odds are of randomly bumping into someone in a city, much less of being overheard by the very person you’re gossiping about? Statistically, it’s practically an impossibility.”
“Not for me,” I said grimly. “I’m cursed. No one believes me, but I am. I have the worst luck in the history of bad luck.”
“Which reminds me,” Armstrong said. He pulled a small wrapped package out of his jacket pocket and pushed it across the table toward me. “A late Christmas present.”
“You already gave me a present,” I protested. Armstrong had given me a ridiculously high bonus. Since we hadn’t actually done any work yet, I’d tried to refuse the bonus and all of my paychecks, but Armstrong had insisted.
My fingers were still shaking with horror after the exchange with Hoffman, but I managed to unwrap the paper. A snowy white rabbit’s foot on a chain fell into my hand.
“Um…a foot. Thanks,” I said, without any enthusiasm. What was he going to get me for my birthday, a stuffed bird?
“For luck,” Armstrong said. He rolled his eyes heavenward at my ignorance. “What are they not teaching you in school these days? Don’t you know a lucky rabbit’s foot when you see it?”
“Oh,” I said, realization dawning. “Because of my bad-luck streak.”
“Because of your bad-luck epidemic,” Armstrong corrected me. “And after your run-in with Professor Prick back there, you’re going to need this more than ever. Keep it close. Tuck it in your brassiere.”
I sputtered with laughter. “Thanks, but no matter how bad my bad luck gets, I’m not going to start stuffing my bra with dismembered rabbit parts.”
“Suit yourself,” Armstrong said, shaking his head.
Just to be safe, though, I slipped the rabbit’s foot into my purse.
Chapter Seventeen
That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Jen said. She turned so pale, the spattering of freckles covering her nose and cheeks stood out prominently against her paper-white skin. We were all sitting in the courtyard after a painfully boring Property lecture, and while Jen and Addison chain-smoked, I recounted my run-in with Hoffman at La Crêpe Nanou.
“Are you going to drop out of school? Move away? Change your name?” Addison asked.
“Add,” Lexi said warningly. I was glad to see that her anger—or jealousy, if Nick was right—from the previous day had passed.
“What? That’s what I’d do,” he said. “Hoffman’s going to slice and dice her in class tomorrow.”
“Addison! That’s not helping!” Jen exclaimed, glaring at him.
“What are you going to do?” Nick asked.
“What can I do?” I said, hating the way my chest was pinching and swelling. I took a deep, ragged breath, hoping to quell the tears before they started leaking out. “I can’t take it back. I can’t get out of his class. I can’t do anything.” I shrugged helplessly.
“You have to talk to Dean Sullivan,” Nick said quietly.
“And say what?” I asked. “That Hoffman overheard me making fun of him? Yeah, I’m sure that will go over well.”
“Was his date really that attractive?” Lexi asked, frowning.
“She looked like a slightly tacky interior designer—very well groomed, although not with the greatest taste. Look, I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I said. I stood up and heaved my knapsack, laden down with textbooks, onto my shoulder. I had Con Law tomorrow and knew with a sickening certainty that Addison was right: Hoffman would be gunning for me. I had to be prepared for him, even if that meant throwing my shoulder out from lugging all of my textbooks home with me.
“Do you want a ride home?” Dana asked. She’d been sitting quietly, perched on the edge of the stone bench. Her hair was still braided, although some of the brown curls were starting to escape, rising up in kinky wisps over the cornrows.
“You’re leaving?” I asked, surprised. Dana usually camped out at the school library all day. She even had claimed her own cubicle on the second floor of the library, tucked back behind the stacks. It was well known within our study group that if you needed to get ahold of Dana, it was far more reliable to leave a Post-it note stuck to the wall of her cubicle than to leave a message on her answering machine.
Dana nodded. “Didn’t I tell you? My parents gave me a puppy for Christmas,” she said, grinning. “I’m going to have to start studying at home, because he doesn’t like being alone for that long.”
“A puppy! Really? What kind?” I asked.
“A poodle,” she said. “I named him Oliver Wendell Holmes.”
Holmes had the worst breath I’d ever smelled. It was like something that had crawled into a garbage Dumpster and fermented there until even the cockroaches were offended. But it was hard to hold it against the little guy. From his bright coal eyes to his tail, which whirled in constant motion, he was a charming little dog. I held my breath while he attacked me with stinky puppy kisses, licking my face as though it were a hamburger iced with liver-infused frosting.
“He’s adorable,” I panted, when Holmes had turned his attention back to Dana and I was able to breathe freely again.
“Thanks,” she said happily. Dana gathered the squirming mass of black fur into her arms and hugged him to her chest. “I’ve been wanting a dog forever, but my mom is allergic so I couldn’t have one growing up.”
“What made you choose a poodle?” I asked.
“They’re really smart. And clean,” Dana said.
“I can see why you got him. It’s hard to be stressed out when he’s around,” I remarked, watching Holmes, who had squirmed free from Dana’s embrace, begin to spin in circles, chasing his tail. I’d have to take her word for it on the “smart” part.
“I thought the same thing,” Dana said. She watched Holmes scamper about, her face shining with happiness.
“I should probably get home, though. I have to be prepared for Hoffman tomorrow.”
“I’ve never had a problem with him,” Dana said. “He’s always been pretty nice to me. Well, maybe not nice, but…”
“I know what you mean. He hasn’t targeted you,” I said. “But you sat in the front row last semester and raised your hand a lot.”
“Maybe you should try doing that.”
“I can’t sit in the front row. The seating chart’s already been drawn up.”
“No, but you could try raising your hand more,” Dana said.
“But…,” I began, and then stopped. Because as much as I wanted to dismiss her idea—volunteer in Hoffman’s class? It was suicide!—maybe she did have a point.
“Hoffman always goes easier on the students who volunteer a lot. I’ve noticed that,” Dana said.
“It could be too late. I may have already pissed him off too much,” I said.
“Maybe,” Dana said. She scooped Holmes back up and giggled as he writhed toward her, his long pink tongue outstretched. “But what do you have to lose?”
“How did Chief Justice Warren define justifiability in Flast v. Cohen?” Hoffman queried.
“What are you doing?” Nick whispered.
I stretched my hand farther up into the air and ignored him. I didn’t even dare pass notes in Hof
fman’s class, much less carry on a whispered conversation.
“Put your hand down,” Nick hissed.
Hoffman’s flat eyes swept over the class. I thrust my hand up a little higher to catch his attention. Hoffman stared at me for a long moment. I returned his gaze, keeping my hand up in the air.
“Kate, are you insane?” Nick asked. He was still whispering, but the room was so quiet, his voice carried.
“Mr. Crosby, are you volunteering?” Hoffman asked mildly.
Shit. Nick had just been trying to help me. I raised my hand even higher, so that one butt cheek was actually lifting up off my chair, and I waved it around a bit, the way I’d seen Dana do.
“Yes, Ms. Bennett, I see you. You can put your hand down now,” Hoffman said, the words laced with acid. I lowered my hand and glanced at Nick, who seemed to have frozen. I’d never seen him have such trouble being called on before. He’d even suffered through a withering Hoffman examination during our first semester and lived to joke about it afterward.
“I don’t know,” Nick said softly.
“Speak up, Mr. Crosby, the rest of the class would like to hear you.”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “I…I didn’t read the assignment.”
Hoffman looked at Nick with a sour mixture of amusement and scorn. “Is that so? Perhaps you should rethink your friendships, Mr. Crosby. It seems that Ms. Bennett’s lackadaisical approach to her studies is rubbing off on you.”
To my surprise, Nick chuckled. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he said, shooting me a self-assured grin. The class tittered. Hoffman’s lectures weren’t normally ripe for a laugh, so we’d take what we could get.
Hoffman, however, was not amused.
“There’s nothing humorous about incompetence, Mr. Crosby. Or bad judgment,” Hoffman snapped. “Perhaps some of Ms. Bennett’s other friends will be more helpful. Mr. Quinn,” Hoffman said, his eyes snapping over to Addison, who was suddenly sitting up very straight in his chair. “The holding of Flast v. Cohen, please.”
By the time class was over, Hoffman had grilled Addison, Jen, and Lexi, sneering at their responses and goading each of them in turn. And even though I raised my hand with each question—although now instead of trying to win his favor, all I wanted to do was to draw his attention away from my friends—Hoffman studiously ignored me. It was awful.
Testing Kate Page 17