by Karis Walsh
CHAPTER TEN
“You’re home,” Berit stated the obvious with a big grin when she saw Tace sitting at the kitchen table on a Thursday morning and reading the paper.
“You’re home,” Tace said with an answering smile. “Are you playing hooky?”
“October break, thank God,” Berit said. Only a month and a half into the semester, and she was ready to collapse. She’d been barely staying one step ahead of all her classes, planning lessons and writing exam and quiz questions in her office until dark and staying up until late grading papers and reading the texts she should have studied before she got here. “I have a long weekend.”
“Do you want some pancakes? I have extras.” Tace got up and got a platter stacked high with tiny golden disks out of the oven. “Chris would only eat them if they were small and thin, and I can’t get out of the habit of making them that way. They’re more like crepes than pancakes.”
“They smell delicious,” Berit said. She piled some on her plate and poured maple syrup over them. She took a bite and sighed, feeling part of herself relax for the first time in weeks. She’d decided to take these two days off and not read a single chapter or grade even a short quiz, and the relief of not having schoolwork made her cheerful. But the bonus of seeing Tace here in the house, looking settled and not rushing off to the store or the brewery made her ecstatic. The concern over her obvious reaction to Tace was mild and easily pushed away. Today, at least. She could worry about it Saturday, when she had to return to her routine of cramming and slogging through her lectures. “I haven’t even seen you for over a week. Do you work this afternoon?”
“I have today off from Drake’s and I made an executive decision that I don’t have to go to the brewery. I finished clearing the yard and, well, I’m not really sure what to do next. I thought I might go to some local wineries today and see the way they run their tasting rooms. I don’t suppose you’d want to come?”
Berit chewed her pancakes and watched Tace’s expressions change while she talked. They hadn’t spent much time together in the past month, and she couldn’t claim to know Tace well, but she thought she saw self-doubt in her eyes. Even clearer was Tace’s reluctance to admit her uncertainty about the brewery and how to run it.
“Spend a sunny afternoon drinking wine? I’m in. I suggest we try each winery in town to make sure you’re getting plenty of research done.”
Tace laughed. “There are over a hundred of them, but I’m game if you are. I’ll be driving, so you’re in charge of the drinking.”
“Maybe you don’t need to be as thorough as I first thought. When I was writing research papers, I found that three or four well-chosen citations were worth more than a hundred of them.” Berit liked seeing Tace smile again and lose her worried frown. She understood what it was like to be in over her head at work. She herself could barely stay one page ahead of her four classes. The students were eager and full of questions, and Berit felt the stress of constantly being out of her depth. Perhaps she’d had the right idea about trying every winery in town. She needed to loosen up after six weeks of tension. A day of wine and laughter and Tace might be just the break she needed. She could forget about her injury and her exile in this Podunk town and about those midterms scheduled for two weeks from now that she hadn’t yet written.
She had to get one chore out of the way, though. “Do you mind if we take some boxes by my office first? I have them packed and ready to go.”
Tace put their dishes in the sink. “I suppose that’s my cue to haul them out to my car.”
“I was trying to be subtle,” Berit said, following through with the joke even though she felt its sting. She’d always taken her strength and independence for granted, and she chafed under the necessity of asking for help every time she had to lift more than a teacup.
“You’ll be back on your feet in no time,” Tace said, as if able to read Berit’s mind. Maybe it was because she was like her and would be as frustrated as Berit was if she were in the same situation. Tace understood. “It’s short term. To make sure you heal.”
Her understanding nature didn’t keep her from complaining, though, as she carried the four heavy boxes and stowed them in the backseat, leaving the trunk empty for Berit’s wheelchair. “I’m sure your office will look much nicer with all these anvils in it,” she said when they were on the short drive to the college.
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Berit pushed at Tace’s shoulder. She realized she’d been hoping for physical contact between them. Usually they were either at different levels when they talked—with Berit in her wheelchair and Tace standing—or they were seated across from each other at the kitchen table. She rarely was right next to Tace and she couldn’t resist the urge to touch her, even if it was only a playful gesture. A natural reaction, she assured herself. Tace was the only person she knew here who wasn’t connected to the college in some way, and Berit wanted to avoid Whitman as much as she could. Tace was a refreshing change—that was all. “I guess I’m supposed to put some things on the shelves next to my desk.”
“I think they’re called books.” Tace parked in the lot behind Olin Hall.
“Very funny. I mean some of the artifacts I have in my room. I’ve been told my office is sort of spartan.” Berit thought back to Kim’s visit last week. Berit had been feeling a momentary sense of accomplishment since one of her classes had gone better than expected. She’d enjoyed lecturing for once and hadn’t spent the entire hour internally criticizing her delivery. She’d just talked, and the students had responded well. Then Kim had come into her office, looked around, and told Berit she needed to make some changes. But if she changed any more, she’d be barely recognizable to herself. “Kim—you met her at the reception—called it empty. She said she knows I want to be on the first plane heading out of town as soon as I’m better, but that I should keep up appearances and look like I really want to be here until then.”
“And having your heaviest treasures on the shelves will accomplish that. You’d at least have to wait long enough for me to come pick you up before you left.”
“Exactly. It’s the kind of helpless permanence the college wants to see from me.”
Tace helped Berit out of the car and looked at the three-story brick building. “Don’t tell me. Your office is on the third floor.”
Berit nodded. “At the end of the hall. You can put one of the boxes on my lap and we can do this in two trips.”
“It’d cut off all circulation. I’ll go check inside. There must be a handcart somewhere. Unless you happen to know those kids over there?”
“I think I know one of them.” Berit pictured her classrooms in her mind, trying to place the young woman who was walking down the street with three friends, just beyond the low brick wall surrounding the campus. Diane? Diana? Berit had started the semester with the noble goal of getting to know all her students by name, but she’d long since had to give up on everything but staying up-to-date with her own reading and homework. She’d been focused more on herself than on her kids. She raised her voice. “Diana?”
“Hello, Dr. Katsaros.” She waved and came through an opening in the wall. “Do you need help with something?”
“We’re taking some boxes up to my office. Do you mind giving us a hand?”
“Of course not. Hey, guys, come grab a box.”
Tace pushed Berit into the building and to the elevator with the four students following, each carrying a box. They all crammed onto the elevator and Berit—uncomfortably waist-level with everyone—was glad they only had a short ride. She was surprised Tace, who seemed to avoid all things collegiate, had suggested they ask Diana and company for help. Berit should be the one wanting to engage with her students, but she was silent while Tace introduced herself to the kids.
“I remember you from Drake’s,” Diana said as they got off the elevator and started down the hall. “You helped me pick out a dress for my sorority pledge dance last year. I was going to get something pastel, but you sugge
sted royal blue.”
“I did?” Tace asked. “How was the dance?”
“Awesome.”
“She looked beautiful,” one of the guys said, hoisting the heavy box under his left arm and putting his other around Diana’s shoulders. “You helped her pick the perfect dress.”
Berit unlocked her office door and the students put her boxes on the empty desk before saying good-bye and leaving the room. After their brief, energetic company, Berit and Tace seemed to fall into an awkward silence.
“I should have you pick out my clothes since you seem to have such awesome taste,” Berit said, mimicking Diana’s voice.
Tace gave a little laugh, but she shook her head. “I don’t even remember her. My friend Allie says I’m too detached at work, but I thought it was my customers who were unfriendly. Especially the college kids. They always seemed to pay more attention to their phones than to me.”
“Maybe you were wrong,” Berit suggested. Tace seemed to think her lack of college education made her less interesting or less worthy of notice than someone either with or working toward a degree. She was very wrong about that. To Berit, Tace was fascinating and bright. Distractingly worthy of notice.
“Maybe I was,” Tace said. She seemed about to say more, but just shook her head and glanced around the office. “When you said spartan, I thought you might be exaggerating and your office wouldn’t be that bad. But it’s worse than you described.”
Berit pushed at the books on her desk, straightening the small stack. She had the texts for her classes here, along with a Greek grammar and a critique of Pindar’s odes. On one shelf was a copy of the poems in Greek. Berit had meant to read them and offer the class one of her own translations to compare to the text, or at least give them some sort of enlightening insight about the original version. She hadn’t found the time to do more than scan them in English. She didn’t keep anything else in her office except for a sweater, since she carried her laptop, paper, and pens with her. She’d noticed Tace looking in the few open offices they’d passed on the way here. The professors’ doors were covered with cartoons, flyers for job and study opportunities, and colorful schedules. The insides were full of books, overflowing inboxes, and mementos from travels. Walls were lined with maps and posters.
“I never saw the point of really settling in since I’ll be—”
“Leaving as soon as you can,” Tace finished for her. “We all know that you don’t want to be here, Berit. You don’t need to prove it to us every minute.”
Berit thought she detected a note of sadness in Tace’s voice, but Tace turned away and Berit chose to ignore what she’d heard. As much as Berit was attracted to her, Tace belonged here in Walla Walla. Berit had a secret hope that as her body started to get stronger, she might have a chance to explore Tace’s, but no matter how their relationship evolved, it would end with Berit leaving and Tace staying. They both knew it.
“I don’t belong here,” Berit said. “Not just because I don’t want to be here, but because I’m really a miserable teacher.”
Tace looked up from the box she was unpacking. “I can’t believe that. I know you thought your first day didn’t go well, but surely you’re more comfortable now.”
Berit picked up one of the objects Tace had taken out of the box. It was a small clay bowl from a dig in Turkey. A household object with no scholarly significance, but Berit had rescued it from a trash pile. She had several more treasured items like it, everyday utensils and dishes people had used centuries ago. Objects for home and hearth. Berit loved them, but she had very few personal things like them, from her own time period and for her own use. She went over to a bare shelf and put the bowl on it. She’d paid for it to sit in storage and was glad to have it displayed where she’d be able to see it every day, but the thought of buying a modern mixing bowl for herself made her unable to breathe right. Too confining.
“I thought this job would be easy,” Berit said. She picked up a clay figurine of a chthonic deity. The little earth goddess statue was a replica of one she and her grandfather had seen at a museum on their first trip to Greece, when she’d known without a doubt she’d become an archaeologist. She’d been good at her classes in school, good at learning about the languages and cultures of ancient peoples, very good at her job. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so appallingly bad at something. “Embarrassing as it is to say, I thought I’d be able to do this job without any trouble. I guess I fell for my own hype. I figured I’d be everyone’s favorite teacher, and they’d…”
Berit hated to acknowledge the next part of the thought, but Tace finished the sentence for her.
“They’d hate to see you leave? They’d beg you to stay?”
Berit rolled her eyes at Tace’s dramatic rendering of the words, complete with an exaggerated supplicating gesture. She felt a rising tide of anger because Tace seemed to be taking her too lightly. “Tease all you want. This last month has been humiliating. I might not have taught my students anything, but I’ve learned a humbling lesson about my own vanity. And I still have seven more months to endure, watching their pitying expressions while I stammer through my lectures and…Why are you laughing? This isn’t funny. They feel sorry for me.”
“I’m not laughing at you. I just think it is funny because you keep saying how much you hate it here, but you actually care about teaching and your students. If you didn’t, none of this would matter.”
Berit put the tiny goddess on the shelf next to the bowl, careful not to harm either one even though she felt like smashing something. She’d thought Tace understood her, but she didn’t get what Berit was saying at all. She didn’t get how embarrassing it was for Berit to admit she was worthless in the classroom. How foolish and confused she felt for thinking she’d be such a brilliant teacher that no one would want her to leave, even though all she wanted to do was leave. Tace was being ridiculous. Berit was discomfited by her inability to teach, and angry at Tace’s words, but both were just momentary emotions. Once she was out of here…“I have a reputation to maintain.”
“Reputation? Please. You don’t seem the type to care about that sort of thing. I’ve read your books and I’ve spent some time with you. You’re more renegade than people-pleaser. Besides, you already know you’re a success in your field. You have nothing to prove here. You don’t need Whitman’s validation. What you do need, although you hate to admit it, is to feel like you’re doing well at a job you truly believe is worthwhile.”
“I…of course I think teaching is a worthwhile career. For other people. I’d rather be…” Berit paused. Tace’s words were seeping into her mind and somehow her perception of her position here at the school was shifting faster than she could follow. Something about this place was turning her into a bumbling fool. She hadn’t been able to carry on a coherent conversation or lecture since coming here.
“I know you’d rather be on one of your digs, excavating some ancient burial site or whatever. But for the time being, you’re here. And like it or not, this temporary job has meaning for you. I’ve seen you working at the kitchen table for hours at a time, and I’ve noticed the light under your bedroom door at night. You’re hiding it by feeling sorry for yourself, but really you’re scared you might not live up to the true value you place on this job.”
Berit was distracted momentarily from her irritation by the arousing thought of Tace outside her bedroom door at night. Would she ever knock and come in? Why did Berit even care, especially when she was feeling so annoyed with Tace right now? Berit tossed an empty cardboard box into the corner of her office and pulled a beautiful red-figure vase out of the next box. Even though she was mad and the vase was a replica, she was careful as she put it on display on her desk. The original had been her first significant find while she was still paying her dues in field school. Her instincts in the field had led her right to it. Her instincts in the classroom were nonexistent. “I’m not saying you’re right. But if you are, then I’m doomed to a failure even worse
than a little embarrassment if no one is inspired or educated in my classes.”
“As long as you fight against being here, you’re going to struggle in your classes.” Tace shrugged, and Berit wanted to throw the vase at her. Why did Tace think she was so wise all of a sudden? And how could she be so right? “Just admit that you’re doing work that matters to you. You’ll still leave when planned, but you’ll either take a great memory of sharing what you know with these kids, or you’ll take a memory of being miserable for an entire year.”
Berit pushed the box aside. She could finish unpacking her few belongings on Monday. She wanted to stop thinking about what Tace was saying, because she might be too late to give this year with Whitman’s students the meaning it deserved. And she didn’t want to face how she’d feel if she really dedicated herself to teaching only to find out she had absolutely no talent for it.
“You promised me wine,” she said. “I didn’t realize it came with a lecture.”
Tace laughed. “Lecture over, I promise. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tace drove back the way they’d come, passing her house and heading out of town. She’d considered going to some of the tasting rooms downtown, but she’d never be able to afford a store in the middle of Walla Walla. If people wanted to go on a tour or taste her beer, they’d have to come out to the brewery itself, so she wanted to see how these fancy wineries attracted such huge crowds to the outskirts of town.
“Hey, I didn’t know there was a park so close to us,” Berit said when they passed Pioneer Park.
“We haven’t had any time for sightseeing.” Tace probably should have offered to show Berit around, but they’d both been too busy to do much besides work over the past weeks. She forgot sometimes how limited Berit’s activities were with her wheelchair. She went to the college or the store and back again. Tace would have to make more of an effort to get her beyond the few familiar blocks around the house and Whitman, to show her the beauty of this place. And as she got more mobile, Tace could take her into the Blues or to Pendleton or to…