by Karina Halle
The subject is still the same: analyzing Harold Lloyd’s performance in Safety Last. But that’s the problem with working on things months before you need to. You’re often a different person by then. We’re all changing, even in the subtlest ways, and now I’m realizing—last minute¸ as per usual—that I need to make things a bit more dynamic to capture the students’ attention. They are grad students, but still, they could have easily chosen another class. In most grad classes, you assign the film for the students to watch on their own, but I want to do things a little differently.
With one minute to spare, I grab my briefcase and head down the hall to the classroom, passing Professor Charles Irving on the way. That man’s a real piece of work. He gives me a snide side eye, along with a nod, as if he acknowledges my presence and hates me for it. I guess that happens when you’re the new guy at work. And in teaching it’s just a little bit worse. Generally, when you have a teaching positon at a prestigious university, you hold on to that for the rest of your career. Turnover is minimal unless you fuck up. Which I did at my last job because of my breakdown. And I’d only been there for two years. Nothing quite like ruining a good thing the moment it’s in your hands.
Of course the loss of my job was nothing compared to the loss of everything else.
I heard the man I’m replacing had been here forever, an old but brilliant man with a fondness for hitting on the students until it turned into full-on sexual harassment lawsuits. I’m pretty sure the only reason I got hired is because they wanted new blood, and my uncle Tommy is friends with the department chair, which reminds me I should get in touch with my cousin Keir who said he’d been in London for a few days. It would be nice to have someone to talk to other than Winter and Max, the bartender at the pub.
I take a deep breath outside the classroom door and then stride on in.
I nod at the students, walking over to my desk, throwing my briefcase on top, and taking out my notes. While they’re getting settled in their seats, I glance around at them. A few more people here than last week which is what I expected. In a class of twenty students, it’s easy to notice absences.
My eyes pause on a girl sitting in the middle. She’s staring at me curiously, and the moment I make eye contact with her, her brows raise as if in shock and she quickly looks down at her laptop. She looks strangely familiar, but I can’t exactly place her. I guess she kind of looks like every girl. Long dark hair that’s been fussed over with a curling iron, a big wide forehead, small eyes, thin lips. She’s cute but would be ultimately forgettable if it weren’t for the fact that she’s eyeing me like she knows me too.
I clear my throat, putting my focus on the rest of the class. “Good afternoon,” I tell them. “Hope you all got a chance to get started on Funny Faces of Celluloid over the weekend. Anyone catch a good film?”
There’s that bloody awful moment where the question hangs over the classroom and I’m afraid no one is going to answer. But one girl, with a red bob and a wide smile, raises her hand. I nod at her.
“The Phoenix cinema was playing a double header of The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes.”
I walk around the front of the desk, trying to keep my eyes on the redhead and not the girl who keeps gawking at me. “Some of Hitchcock’s earliest work, before he moved stateside. What did you think?”
The redhead beams at me, folding her hands on the desk. “I thought the attention to detail was a bit weak and the actors were stiff, particularly in The 39 Steps, but in terms of the cinematography, you could see where Hitchcock got his fondness for shadows and the use of the MacGuffin, as well as comedic timing.”
Clearly this girl is a go-getter. “Very true. And your name is?”
“Sandra,” she says.
“It’s a good observation, Sandra,” I tell her, offering her a smile as I lean back against my desk. “The Lady Vanishes in particular set the tone for Hitchcock’s future films by the use of witty dialogue. However, the film would still be considered a comedy thriller even without the one-liners or any dialogue at all. That’s when farce comes in, something we’ll be analyzing today as we watch Harold Lloyd in Safety First.”
Smooth segue, I tell myself, and start asking around the class if anyone has seen it. Surprisingly, a couple hands shoot up and I get them to introduce the film to the class while I go and hit up the computer until the movie is playing on the TV. All the while, I’m trying to place the mystery girl. It’s driving me a bit mad.
As Safety First starts and a few students start chuckling, I bring out the roster and start going over names. The girl with the big forehead wasn’t here last week, that’s for sure, and one of my TAs for my undergrad class never showed up either. I check my TAs and see them listed as Ben Holmes, Henry Waters, and Melissa King.
Casually I look back at the girl. She’s watching the film now. Maybe she just felt bad because she missed both my classes last week and thought I was going to call her on it.
That must be it. I try and let it drift away from my mind and start going over the next lecture as the movie plays.
When class is over, though, she’s the first one to burst up out of her chair and scurry out of the room like she has a fire lit under her arse.
Curious, I follow her out the door and into the hall, seeing her practically run down it, shaking her head and waving her arms at a girl at the end.
A tall girl with long honey blonde hair, who stands out among the passing people, like everyone else is a blur and she’s the only thing in focus.
Fair skin, full cheeks, eternally youthful.
And her eyes, those beautiful eyes that used to shine brighter than the stars.
Only now they aren’t shining.
They are locked with mine.
Fearful.
She’s convinced she’s gone mad.
But so have I.
Because how on earth could this be?
To so clearly see a ghost.
Natasha.
My student, Melissa—now I remember where I know her—grabs Natasha by the arm and whirls her away. For a moment our eye contact is broken, and I feel nothing but panic and the hollowness in my chest. I always wondered what I would do if I ever saw Natasha again, and now I’m standing in the middle of a busy hall and she’s here.
She’s here.
And I am useless, frozen, empty. Because I don’t know if I should turn around and get my stuff and lock my office door and pretend I never saw her. Write her off as a ghost from the past, a fading reminder of who I used to be.
Ruined.
But the word fading can never be applied to someone like her.
And I know that I’ll never be able to write this one off.
I’ve seen her, whether I wanted to or not.
The damage is already done.
And so my feet start moving down the hall after Melissa—my TA, my student, god I’m going to have to see a reminder of my past several times a week—and Natasha.
It’s probably a mistake.
But I can’t help myself.
Natasha looks over her shoulder again and sees me coming closer, a man on a mission with no objective, and she looks like she still doesn’t think I’m real. I’m not even sure I’m real at this point because I’ve never acted so on autopilot before with no self control.
“Hey,” I call out hoarsely when I’m within touching distance. I’m too afraid to say her name, like if I did it would make her real.
She stops before Melissa does, her friend tugging hard on her arm, but Natasha is standing tall, immovable, a living statue as she turns around to face me.
I’m this close to dropping to my knees. The wind has been knocked out of me, the sight of her a literal gut punch.
My Natasha.
My mouth falls open and I gasp lightly for air, unable to form words.
She doesn’t say anything either but her eyes speak volumes as they search mine. It’s the same question as mine.
How can this be?
Why?
>
Finally, somehow, I find the strength to talk. “It’s really you,” I say softly, my voice ragged as I look her over, trying to memorize her as if I’ll never see her again, trying to see the changes the years have passed on to her. Her hair is lighter now but it suits her face, which is beautiful and glowing. She’s lost some weight but not too much—she’s still very much a woman.
The only major change is in her eyes.
That brightness, that zest for life, that liquid longing for something to surprise her—that’s all gone. And in its place is something dark and sad and lost.
I put the shadows in her eyes.
She blinks and tries to smile at me. “Hi,” she says unsurely. Her voice is still husky, still makes all the nerves at the back of my neck misfire. “Brigs.”
“Professor Brigs,” Melissa says, and I briefly tear my eyes away from Natasha to look at her. “I’m in your class.”
“Aye, I know,” I say to her before looking back at Natasha. I’m grappling for words. What is there to say? Too much. “How are you? I…it’s been a long time.”
“Four years,” Melissa fills in. “Natasha was in France. What were you doing?”
I frown at Melissa, giving her a pointed look. “Do you mind giving us a minute here?”
She raises her brows and looks at Natasha for an answer.
Natasha gives her a quick smile. “It’s okay, Mel. I’ll text you in a bit.”
Melissa looks between the two of us, obviously not believing it’s going to be okay. I can’t really blame her. It’s been four years, and she had to have been there through the aftermath. Bloody hell, I think back to the things I said to Natasha on the phone that night, sick with grief and lashing out at the only person I could blame other than myself.
Finally, Melissa says, “I’ll be at Barnaby’s getting us our beer.” And then she goes, leaving the two of us alone.
“It is you,” Natasha says slowly, frowning as she looks me over. “I didn’t think you’d be teaching here.”
“I didn’t think you’d be going here. Are you a student?”
She nods, swallowing thickly. “Yes. Finishing my master’s.”
She had just started the last year of her master’s degree when we broke apart, excited to start on her thesis. I would have thought she’d be more than graduated by now. Maybe working as a teacher already.
“So you were in France for a while?” I ask, trying to learn more, trying to keep her here, talking to me. Trying to pretend that I can do this.
But I can’t do this.
Just breathing the same air she breathes hurts me.
I inhale and look down, rubbing my hand on the back of my neck, trying to get stabilized.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly.
I stare down at her feet. She always said she had clown feet, and I always thought they were beautiful. She’s wearing pointed black boots, and I wonder what color her toes are painted. Her toes were nearly a different color every day. I remember trying to write and she’d try and stick her feet in my face to distract me, giggling her head off.
The memory cuts me like a knife.
The memory has a hard time coming to terms with the woman before me.
“I’m fine,” I press my hand into my neck, wiggling my jaw back and forth to diffuse the tension. I shake my head once and look up at her, giving her a half-smile. “No. I’m not fine. I can’t lie to you.”
Though you did once. The last time you ever spoke to her.
“Should I go?” she asks, forehead furrowed. Worried. Prepared to walk.
Let her go.
“No,” I say quickly. I straighten up. “No. I’m sorry. This is just…you’re the last person I thought I would see today. I just need to process this. That’s all. Because…well…it’s you. You know? I mean, bloody hell, Natasha.”
But maybe she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. How I’m feeling. Maybe I’m a fleeting image from her past, dust on a negative. Maybe she hasn’t thought of me at all in these four years and I’m just another man she’s met on the way.
It can only be for the best, I think.
She nods, her face softening. “I know. I don’t know what to say either.”
I quickly look behind me at the classroom. Thankfully there isn’t a class after. “Do you mind, I need to grab my stuff from the classroom. You’ll stay right here? Do you have to be somewhere?”
Her expression becomes pained, torn. But she shakes her head. “No, I’m done for the day.”
I give her a grateful smile and move quickly down the hall and back into the empty classroom. I snap up my notes and my computer, shoving them into my briefcase.
Then I stop and place my hands on the desk, leaning against it, and hang my head down. I take in a deep breath through my nose, and when it comes out of my chest it’s shaking. My legs are trembling, the world is spinning, spinning, spinning on a terrible axis.
Holy fucking hell.
To rise from the ashes only to have them rain on you from above.
It’s her.
Her.
Her.
I try and catch my breath. I know I can’t hide in here forever, that she’s out there, waiting for me. I need to hold it together, to calm my heart, to ignore the pangs of sorrow, of regret, of guilt, that are trying to rear their mighty heads.
I run my hands over my face and straighten up.
I can do this.
I grab the briefcase and head out into the hallway.
It’s empty, save for a short Asian kid shuffling along, texting.
She’s gone.
“Natasha?” I call out softly, walking down a few feet and looking around. There’s no point in calling out for her again.
She’s gone.
Like she was never there at all.
And maybe she wasn’t.
Maybe my mind is so battered, so bruised, I conjured her up.
A real life ghost.
A figment of my imagination.
Goddamn it, I’m so bloody fucked up if that’s the case, and I wouldn’t put it past me.
I don’t even know if I’m relieved or disappointed.
All I do know is that for a few seconds, I thought I was looking into her eyes.
They may have been the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen.
I wonder what she saw in mine.
CHAPTER FIVE
Brigs
Edinburgh
Four Years Ago
A knock at my office door. I grin to myself because I know that knock. Silly, rapid, nonsensical.
She came after all.
“Come in,” I say, peering at the door.
It opens and Natasha pokes her head in, smiling broadly.
That smile is better than any bloody drug. I immediately feel the weight on my shoulders lift.
“I have a surprise for you¸” she says in that adorable, husky voice of hers.
“Well, the fact that you’re here when you didn’t think you’d make it is enough of a surprise for me,” I tell her, though honestly I’m intrigued by what she has to say.
“It turns out Freddie’s party was a colossal bore,” she says, exaggerating her voice to sound like a high society charmer. “So I thought I’d bring the party here,” she says, stepping in the rest of the way and raising her arms. She has a case of brown ale in one hand and Chinese take-out boxes in the other. She raises her chin proudly. “Do I get the award for the best research assistant already or what?”
“You win all the awards,” I tell her, grinning as she comes on in and plunks the items on the desk. “I really thought I was in for the long haul here tonight,” I tell her. “Though I can’t promise you this won’t be anything less than boring. Freddie’s may have been the better option.”
She pulls a chair up to the desk from the other side and sits down, reaching for chopsticks. “Well, you, Professor Blue Eyes, are anything but boring.”
I laugh. “I’m sorry, what did you just call me?”
&nbs
p; She shoots me a sly grin. “Professor Blue Eyes. Didn’t you know it’s what everyone calls you here?”
“Oh, that’s rubbish,” I say dismissively.
“It’s true,” she protests, grabbing a take-out box and flipping it open. “Whenever someone here asks me what I’m doing, I tell them I’m your research assistant, and they always go, oh Professor Blue Eyes, what a dreamboat.”
I narrow my supposedly famous eyes at her. “Bloody hell, stop pulling my leg.”
She laughs. “Okay, well maybe I just call you Professor Blue Eyes. In my head. But I promise you, if it’s in my head, it’s in everyone’s head. Girls and guys.”
I try to keep smiling but it’s hard because, shit, this is flattering. And not in a good way flattering. I’m flattered in a way I shouldn’t be. Then again, I’ve been working with Natasha nearly every day now for a month, and I’m becoming increasingly aware that I’m feeling a lot of things that I shouldn’t.
“Sorry, did I embarrass you?” she asks as she shoves noodles into her mouth. She eats with gusto, no restraint, just eating for the pure pleasure of it and enjoying every bite. That gorgeous mouth…
Stop it.
“No, no,” I tell her, attempting to snap out of it. I reach for a beer then eye the door. It’s open, as it usually is when we’re working together. But even though I’m sure what I do in my office is my own business—every professor here seems to have a bottle of Scotch in their desk—I don’t want to rock the boat. I’ve only been here for two years, and people talk.
I get up and close the door. The click of the latch seems awfully loud in the room. I turn around, and she’s watching me curiously.
“You want some privacy?” she jokes, but there’s something in her voice, a warble that tells me she might be nervous.
I sit back down and raise my beer at her. “I don’t want anyone to get on my back about drinking in my office, let alone with my research assistant.”
“Why not?” she asks saucily. “Too scandalous?”
I give her a tight smile, ever conscious of my wedding ring. “Something like that.” I point my beer at her, and even though I’m starting to question if drinking with Natasha is a good idea, I say, “Now, let’s say cheers to a productive Friday night.”