“Weren’t you afraid that Jason would meet some girl up at Tech?”
That mysterious womanly smile returned. “No, ma’am. I always knew Jason would come back to me. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”
I envied her that certainty. Maybe if I’d been as confident about Finn’s love, certain he would come back to Dalliance for me, I wouldn’t have married Wayne Jones. But then again, maybe what Finn and I had wasn’t as strong or as real as the love Crystal and Jason shared.
I’d learned the hard way that there was no point living in the past, second-guessing the choices I’d made.
“I never doubted Jason,” Crystal continued, the smile fading from her lips, “but this whole thing with Bryan has made me glad we’re getting married now. Not waiting even longer. Jason, I trust. Life, not so much.”
“Your mom said you and Jason knew Bryan pretty well.”
“As well as anyone could know Bryan.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he was a tough nut. He had big dreams, wanted to be important and make money. But most people want to be good at something particular, like Jason wants to be a really great prosecutor, and my mom wants to be an amazing caterer, and my stepdad wants to raise the very best horses. Bryan didn’t seem to care what he was successful at, as long as he was successful.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I said.
She tilted her head, a skeptical expression on her face. “I guess not,” she conceded, “but it meant Bryan was easily distracted. He’d be your friend, but then if he saw a better path to getting ahead, he’d never talk to you again. He wasn’t mean, just driven.”
“That sounds like a lonely life.”
She nodded. “Last time I saw Bryan was at a holiday party. A bunch of debaters got together and hit the Bar None for cocktails a couple of weeks before Christmas, right after a lot of us came back from school on the semester break. We were doing the whole ‘What are you up to?’ thing, and we got to Bryan. Everyone else had talked about school and significant others, even a few babies and weddings, and Bryan starts telling us about his five-year plan. How he’s going to graduate and get a postdoc and write a novel and sell a screenplay.”
I frowned, not sure what point she was trying to make.
“The rest of us were talking about what we were doing, then, at that time. Bryan never even mentioned what he was working on at Dickerson, his dissertation, his classes, anything. It was all what he planned to do. That was Bryan in a nutshell, so busy scheming three steps ahead of the game that he never got to enjoy what he’d already accomplished.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to talk about school because of all the trouble he was having with Dr. Clowper.”
Crystal scrunched her face. “Nah. Jason asked him about that, pulled him aside and said, ‘Hey, I know some lawyers if you need one.’ Bryan waved him off, said there was nothing to worry about, he had bigger fish to fry.”
“Just because he didn’t want to talk about his troubles with his old friends, doesn’t mean they weren’t weighing on him,” I insisted.
Crystal balled up a napkin and scrubbed at an imaginary spot on the café table. “I guess you’re right. And he did get pretty drunk that night. Hooked up with a girl who called him ‘Dr. Campbell.’” She snorted. “He left with her, without even saying good-bye to the rest of us.”
“Was she his girlfriend?” If Bryan had a girlfriend, the police needed to know. Maybe she wouldn’t be a suspect, but she might have information about other people who had bones to pick with Bryan.
“No,” Crystal said, her voice ringing with certainty. “Definitely not a girlfriend. Just a hookup.”
It crossed my mind to ask her how she knew, but I wasn’t sure I’d understand. Alice’s generation had strange ideas about boy-girl relationships, about what constituted dating as opposed to just “hooking up.”
Crystal glanced down at her wrist. “Oh, dear, I have to run. Jason was supposed to drop off the deposit check for the band, but he got a part-time job with a firm in town, so now it’s up to me.”
“That’s good news about the job,” I said.
“Yeah. He’s taking the bar in July, so he needs to study, but he’s hoping that Madeline and Kristen will hire him on permanently in the fall.”
“Jackson and Ver Steeg?”
“You’ve heard of the firm?”
I smiled. Dalliance really was a small town. “Only good things,” I said.
“Do you have enough for the milk shakes?”
I looked at my notepad. Dr Pepper and raspberries. Huh. “Do you trust me?”
Crystal grinned. “If that cone was a fair representation of your work, then, yeah, I trust you.”
“Well, if you trust me and you’re willing to be a bit adventurous, I think I have you covered.”
chapter 13
Emily and Finn had already staked out a spot at the back of the A-la-mode that Friday evening, and both were busy tapping away at their laptop keyboards, when Alice stormed in. She covered the distance to their table in long, purposeful strides and let her backpack drop to the floor with a menacing thud.
“Hey, kiddo,” Finn said as he raised his head. “How’s tricks . . . ?” He let the question trail off as he took in Alice’s furious expression.
“Alice?” Emily said. “What’s going on?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” Alice ground out.
By that point, Bree and Kyle had joined me at the counter, and we watched the drama unfolding before us with cautious concern.
“What do you mean?” Finn asked.
“I mean that Dr. Clowper has been lying to us all.”
“Alice,” Finn said, his tone stern, almost fatherly, “that’s a serious allegation.”
“I know,” Alice said, “but it’s the truth. Dr. Clowper is a liar.”
A fine tremor of rage vibrated through Alice’s whole body. Bree took a few tentative steps toward her child, but I reached out to stop her. As angry as she was, Alice was apt to lash out at Bree if she interfered, and then we’d never get to the bottom of this.
Emily met Alice’s fury with stone-faced calm. “I have not lied to you, Alice.”
“Really?” Alice raised her chin in challenge. “I know about you and Reggie.”
The color leached from Emily’s face, leaving her ashen. Ghostly.
“What are you talking about?” Finn said.
Alice and Emily simply stared at each other.
“Seriously,” Finn said, clearly exasperated, “one of you needs to start talking. Now.”
Emily cut her eyes in his direction, a furtive glance. The tip of her tongue peeked out and moistened her lips. I thought she might explain, but then she clammed up again.
Finally, Alice propped her hands on her hips and turned her attention to Finn.
“After class today, Reggie and I met to go over the grading rubric for the midterm. The message light on his phone was blinking, so he put it on speaker so he could take notes while he listened to the messages. One of the messages was from Dr. Clowper.” Her voice hitched, and she cleared her throat before continuing. “She said, ‘Hey, babe.’ ”
It took a second before the penny dropped. A teacher didn’t call her student “babe.” Not unless they were engaged in some serious extracurricular activities.
Finn’s eyes widened in surprise, and he looked at Emily for confirmation. She couldn’t hold his gaze for long. And while she didn’t say a word, the misery on her face was eloquent.
I couldn’t hold Bree back anymore. She dashed around the counter and to her baby’s side. But when she tried to wrap her arms around Alice’s shoulders, Alice shook her off and stepped toward Emily.
“You knew,” she said.
“Knew what?” Emily asked.
Alice’s eyes narrowed. “You knew I liked him. And you never said a word. Just let me make a fool of myself by asking him out and getting turned down flat.” Most of the time, Alice was the smartest
person in the room, so it was easy to forget she was a teenager, just turned seventeen in May, and her world revolved around Alice.
“I didn’t—” Emily protested, but Alice rushed on.
“Did you two have a good laugh over that? Poor, silly Alice mooning over a guy who’s way out of her league.”
“Of course not,” Emily said. She reached for Alice’s hand, but Alice jerked away. “It wasn’t my place to interfere.”
“If not yours, then whose place was it?” Emily physically flinched at the venom in Alice’s voice. “I know you’re my teacher and not my friend, but what kind of person does that? Sits back and lets someone get hurt? Watches a crime being committed and says nothing? Watches an accident and doesn’t get help?”
Emily’s expression had shifted from contrition to puzzlement. Something Alice had said had caught her attention, gotten the wheels in her brain turning.
She leaned forward. “What if—” she began, but Alice stepped back and turned her head away dramatically.
“Whatever,” she hissed.
She spun on her heel and stalked back to the front door. “I’ll be back to help clean up later, Aunt Tally,” she threw over her shoulder before yanking open the door and exiting as furiously as she’d entered.
Kyle was hot on her heels, hesitating only briefly at the door until I gave him a little nod of approval, and then he shoved out the door behind her.
In Alice’s wake, a consuming silence filled the A-la-mode, the sort of airless hush that fills the eye of a storm.
Hurricane Finn hit with a wallop. “Bryan was telling the truth.”
Emily, who continued to watch the door through which Alice had disappeared as if it were a puzzle to be solved, snapped her head around toward him. “Bryan was not telling the truth,” she insisted.
“You slept with a student.”
“Yes,” she said softly. And then again, with more force. “Yes. I did. But not with Bryan Campbell.”
“Really?”
She glanced away for a moment before looking Finn square in the eye. “Really. I never slept with him, never propositioned him, never even made an improper comment in his presence.”
“So it’s just a coincidence that he accuses you of sexually harassing him, when you happen to be sexually harassing another student.”
Emily sat down hard, as though Finn’s words were a physical blow. “I didn’t sexually harass Reggie. Our—” she hesitated, “our relationship was consensual. It didn’t start until after he took his exams, and until he finishes his dissertation, I don’t officially have any authority over him.”
Officially. She was splitting hairs, and we all knew it. If her affair with this Reggie kid was entirely kosher, she wouldn’t have taken such pains to keep it hidden.
“And it’s not a coincidence,” she continued. “Bryan knew about Reggie and me. He called Reggie one night, late, about a paper they were coauthoring. We were asleep, and Reggie’s phone was on the bedside table. I was barely awake, and I answered it without thinking.” She sucked in a pained breath. “As soon as Bryan found out, I realized how stupid I was being and I ended things with Reggie. I’ve barely spoken to him since then, and I’ve kept our relationship purely professional.”
“Hey babe,” didn’t sound professional to me, but I knew how hard it was to change the way we thought about people. Wayne Jones and I had been divorced for over a year, and I still sometimes thought of him as my husband. Habits of the heart are the toughest to break.
Finn laughed. “I know you’re not a country girl, but surely you’ve heard the old saw about closing the barn door after the horses have gotten out.”
“Finn,” Emily pleaded, but he held up a hand to forestall any explanation.
“If you were having sex,” he sneered, “with Reggie but not with Bryan, why didn’t Bryan report you for the sin you were committing instead of making one up?”
“Because at most my relationship with Reggie would get me fired. That wouldn’t help Bryan. He’d still be thrown out of the doctoral program for failing his comps. But if I pressured him for sexual favors, he might be able to hang on. And the reality of my relationship with Reggie would make his allegations more credible. As you yourself have so deftly illustrated.” She waved her hand as though she wanted to dismiss that particular subject. “I think—”
“Enough,” Finn snapped. He closed up his laptop and shoved it into its carrying case. “I’ve got to call it a day. I’ve got a lot to digest, and we have a staff meeting at the News-Letter first thing in the morning.”
Emily sat up, startled. Finn smiled grimly. “Don’t worry, Em. I won’t mention your indiscretion to my colleagues. If anyone’s going to get this scoop, it’s going to be me. And I develop a story, get all the facts, before I print. So you can rest easy.”
He slung his laptop bag over his shoulder, plowed his fingers through the swoop of dark hair that perpetually fell in his eyes, and strode out.
Beside me, Bree slipped her apron off. “I’m gonna go find the kids before Kyle comforts Alice right out of her panties,” she said softly.
That left me alone with Emily Clowper. I had this weird sense of déjà vu, like I was watching my own life unfold again, this time from a distance. Almost exactly nineteen years earlier, I’d disappointed Finn Harper and watched him storm out of my life. Emily and I might not have much in common, but at that moment, I was uncomfortably aware of how she must feel.
“He’ll get over it,” I said, though I was all too aware of Finn’s ability to hold a grudge.
Emily laughed humorlessly. “No, he won’t.” She looked at me, not as a professor or as a rival, but as a fellow woman. “One of the things I loved about him was that overblown sense of integrity of his.”
“Finn?” I was genuinely startled.
“Yes, Finn. It’s the Harper Way or the highway,” she said, and I got the sense she’d said it before. Probably to Finn. When they were both naked.
Ack.
To clear my mind of that image, I pulled a diet soda out of the cooler. “Can I get you something?” I asked.
“No, thanks,” Emily said. “I’m—”
“Diabetic,” I finished. “I remember.”
Emily laughed. “Am I that predictable?”
I returned her smile. “Pretty much. But we have soda and juice and water. I think Bree even has a block of pepper-jack cheese and a box of crackers in the back, if you’re hungry.”
“Actually, I was going to say that I’m stuffed. Finn and I went to the new Thai place for dinner.” Just mentioning his name chased her smile away.
I popped the top on my can and sat down across from her. “You know, when he was in high school, Finn was a total rebel. He drank and listened to punk music and even got a tattoo.”
She nodded. “The little anarchy symbol on his shoulder blade. Yeah, he told me about that.”
I wondered if he’d told her that I’d been with him that night, driving his Scirocco since he had to do shots of whiskey to work up the courage to face the needle.
“He’s not all that interested in other people’s rules,” she continued, “but he has his own sense of right and wrong. And when it comes to his own personal code of conduct, he’s as rigid as they come. Like I said, that’s one of the things that drew me to him. His strong principles.”
I took a sip of my soda. “He said the same thing about you,” I admitted. I didn’t particularly want to play intermediary in their relationship, even if it was purely Platonic, but I felt so bad for her. “He said that you were a straight shooter.”
Hand to God, I meant to make her feel better, but my words had the opposite effect. She buried her face in her hands. “I really blew it,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why, what?”
“Why have a fling with a student? I mean, I’m not judging here, but it doesn’t seem like a very smart life choice. And you’re obviously a really smart lady.”
That elicited a ba
rk of wry laughter. She lowered her hands and sat up straighter. “Even ‘smart ladies’ do stupid things sometimes. I think there’s a self-help book with that very title.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I was lonely and stressed out.”
I must have looked skeptical, because she rolled her eyes. “I know most people think college professors have a pretty cushy life. I guess in a lot of respects we do. But it’s hard, frustrating work, and it’s never ever done. First, there’s the teaching. We’re supposed to be rigorous, demanding, but then, at the end of the semester, the administration lets students evaluate us. Do you think students like rigorous, demanding teachers? Most don’t. Most want an easy A. So they slam you on your evaluations, and the same administrator who told you to be tough tells you you’re a bad teacher because the students don’t love you.”
I had to admit, that didn’t seem fair.
“Even if I please my students, it’s not enough. If I want to keep my job, I have to publish scholarly articles. Publish or perish, as they say. But I can’t control whether my work gets published or not. I can spend months working on an article, submit it to a journal, and two anonymous reviewers give me completely contradictory reasons for why it sucks. You know who those reviewers are? Other scholars, who are competing to get their articles in the exact same journals. I don’t get a chance to explain why they’re wrong and I’m right, I just have to lump it.”
She looked around at the A-la-mode. “Running a small business must be frustrating, too. You can make great ice cream—and Finn raves about your ice cream, by the way—but you can’t make people buy it. It’s the same for me. I can give kids a good education, but I can’t make them like it. And I can write insightful scholarship, but I can’t make anyone publish it.”
I confess, I’m a sucker for compliments. That little bone she threw me, about Finn liking my ice cream, went a long way in softening my heart toward her. And it sounded like we had more in common than I ever would have imagined.
“Anyway,” she said, “the academic world is stressful and isolating.”
“Did you ever think about getting a pet?” I asked. Sherbet had become quite a feature in my life, and it seemed to me that a dog or cat beat an inappropriate sexual liaison by a long shot.
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