That’s an easy one. “He used to have a fleet of boats. So when I left, he must have been making…I don’t know. At least a hundred thousand that year.”
Lucy whistles.
“But,” I clarify quickly, “that was to run the fleet. Relatively little of that came to him personally. It was all going back into the business. Then the year I left, they changed the groundfishing rules. He had to close down and go into business alone.”
Lucy’s eyes close slowly in a knowing kind of way. “And did you ever get your financial aid reassessed?”
“How the hell do you know so much about this?”
“Girl! When you’ve got money, you want to keep it. My dad is a legendary tightwad. I know all the ways to get cash from the system. It’s an art.”
“Not my art. And no, we didn’t. Can you imagine me asking my dad for his W-2 tax forms? That’s not a conversation we have in my house.”
Lucy puts her sunglasses on. “I believe there’s been a clerical error, my dear. We’ll figure it out when the dust settles.”
“It’ll never settle.” “That pessimist nihilist whatever-he-is is rubbing off on you,” she says as she turns up the volume on the stereo. “Just leave it to Lucy. I’m probably going to need your social security number.”
“Don’t get me arrested, that’s the last thing I need.”
She giggles. “Tell me about it!”
I focus on the road. Slush spews from either side of the Fiesta. Right now, I don’t care about financial aid. I don’t care about tuition or why she needs my social security number or my financial assessments or scholarships or anything at all. Right now, I just want to get back to campus and fix everything before Ben blows his life up. Because of me.
We park on Elm. The plow drifts are higher than my head. I’m pretty sure there’s an Emergency Warning Do Not Park order, but I can’t be bothered with that. I’ve got a career to save. I leave Lucy on Elm with the luggage and hustle inside. There was a time when I’d have thought she couldn’t handle it. But not anymore. I have never seen such a tiny person manhandle lobster traps like she could.
Through the quad I go and then through the door marked, DEAN’S SUITE. I run up the flight of stairs, with my red Hunters squeaking on the granite. As I go up, I think about exactly what I want to say and how. Truthfully I have exactly no idea whatsoever. The only way is to be honest. When in doubt, go straight at them.
Yep. I’m becoming my father. Or my mother. Either one, it’s actually not so bad.
I rap on the Dean’s door and then put my hands to my side. To steady myself, I focus hard on the fisheye of the peephole.
Within seconds, he opens the door, saying, “I was expecting you, Miss Costa.”
“Can I come in?” I say. I notice that he’s gotten a new toupee. He looks like himself again. Much less angry now, and a nicer hairstyle besides. “Please?”
I’ve never been inside his apartment. I don’t know that anybody has.
But he opens the door wider, without hesitation, and lets me come through.
The room is sadly, painfully bare. There are no decorations, there are no photographs. It’s empty, except for a few books on one of the far shelves. I hear a tinny radio playing in the kitchen. I realize he must have everything interesting in his office, because his work is his life and his life is his work. But here at home, he’s just a rather lonely old man. Hardly the villain I’d made him in my head for the last eight hours, let alone the last four months.
“I think I know why you’re here,” he says, offering me a chair in front of the fireplace. Instead of a fire, he has a plug-in radiator in front of the grate.
“Dean.” I bite my lip and get my words in order, focusing on the carpet for a moment before lifting my eyes to his. They’re steadily on me, waiting. I say, “I cannot explain how embarrassed I am about what you saw.”
He raises his fingers, like that’s not something to talk about.
“But I’m not ashamed I did it,” I say.
His eyes flicker at me. “Miss Costa. I think you should know that Professor Beck has resigned.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. You can’t accept that resignation.”
“That was his choice, Miss Costa.”
I scoot forward on my chair a bit. “He is the most wonderful thing that has happened to this college since I’ve been here. Haven’t you noticed? Everybody’s behaving, the seniors have stopped getting drunk upstairs. There are actually interesting people coming to speak, because they want to meet him. The fellows are donating more,” I say. “That’s all because of him. “
The Dean tips his head side to side, like maybe, maybe not.
“You know it’s true. And not to mention what he’s done for the Philosophy department. That class of his, it’s the very best one I’ve ever taken.”
“You may be biased.”
That catches me off guard, not because it’s exactly right, but because he said it with a kind of strange kindness. “I know I am. But Dean Osgood, you know I’m right. You know he’s been so good for Durham. And you know me. He has made me,” I point at myself, “feel like I belong. Like my brain isn’t so strange. Like my story isn’t so strange. I cannot be the only one who feels this way. Even if I am in love with him.”
He winces. “That cannot go on. It just cannot.”
But I’m on a roll now. I’ve got my wings on, somehow. All my courage is boiling up and over. “What has happened with me and Dr., Professor, Master…” Damn it, steady on, Naomi, “With Ben.” I clear my throat. “What has happened with us had nothing at all to do with him. He didn’t seduce me, he didn’t trick me. We were strangers and now we’re not. We had no idea what was going to happen when we first met.”
Flashes of that ball run through my head. It’s true. I really and truly couldn’t have imagined it.
Osgood holds up his hand to stop me. “The fact remains that it did happen. It has happened. There have to be consequences. This is a college. This is a university. This kind of thing cannot go on without something happening in response. And the scandal, Miss Costa! Think of the scandal if the world learns that we’ve got some kind of playboy for a Master. Durham cannot handle it.”
The anger rushes right up to my face, and I don’t mind it at all. “He is not a playboy. You know that, Dean. Even if you don’t like him, you do know him. Have you seen him talking to other girls? Has he been inappropriate, as you say, even once?”
Osgood shakes his head. “No, I haven’t. That’s true.”
Deep down inside I feel a wave of possible relief. “I know you’d have preferred someone else, but he’s incredible. Absolutely an incredible, kind, brilliant human being. With a huge heart.” I’m making a gesture like I’m talking about some impossibly enormous trout I once caught. I slap my hands together and put them in my lap. “I think it says a lot about him that he’s willing to resign to protect me.”
Osgood sighs so hard that his shoulders drop. But he doesn’t take his eyes off me. He doesn’t give me some speech about conduct and ethics and all the rest.
“So please, tear up that letter. Just throw it away. I've submitted my transfer papers. I will be out of your hair…”
His eyes perk up, and he shakes his head at me, laughing.
“What? What did I say?”
“Professor Beck said that same thing. Exactly that same thing.”
My heart pinches my ribs. “Don’t let him resign, Dean. Please,” I say. I realize I’m clasping my hands together, literally begging him. “There has to be something, something we can do.”
Dean Osgood sighs heavily, blowing air past his inflated cheeks. “You’re both willing to give up everything for the other, you know,” Osgood says, standing to pour himself a brandy. “You’re either exceedingly stupid or…”
I have a whole speech lined up in my head about love and humanity and this burning, wondrous feeling that floods through me every time I say his name.
“Or…?” I ask.<
br />
He doesn’t answer.
It’s then that my eyes light on the only picture in the room. A much-younger Osgood, with his arms wrapped around an even younger woman. He’s smiling so wide, I barely recognize him, but those eyes are the same. It’s definitely him. He’s got a full head of hair, cut like one of the Beatles. The girl is beautiful and is kissing him on the cheek. She’s young, really young. As young as me.
So maybe, just maybe, he knew this feeling himself.
I stop talking. I stop pleading. I put my hands in my lap.
The Dean gazes out his window a while. I sit quietly and listen to the heater tick. There are ten thousand things to say, but no matter what I do now, it’s just words. It’s not going to help my case. Silence is the very best friend I have.
“There are going to have to be sacrifices,” the Dean says to the window.
Whatever that means, it’s not a no. “I know that. And I’m ready to make them. Just don’t punish him. Please, Dean Osgood. Please.”
Finally, the Dean turns around. His face is softer, and his smile is coming back. There are no words spoken, but the feeling in the room shifts. It’s just possible, I realize, that I did it. That I convinced him.
And then he says, “Off you go, Miss Costa. Give me some time to see what can be done.”
I nod. I stand up. I turn to leave. The ball is out of my court. Jury in session.
“One last thing, Miss Costa,” he says, just as I’m putting my hand on the doorknob. I hold my breath and look back over my shoulder, meeting his eyes as he smiles, nods, and says, “In the meantime, be discreet.”
47
I am in the bathroom about to brush my teeth when I lose heart for it. I haven’t shaved in days, I’ve resorted to eating stale crackers from the pantry. I don’t remember if I’ve even had any water, and there are bags under my eyes that make me look like a total lunatic. Whatever. Nothing matters anymore.
“Let that shit go,” I tell myself in the mirror.
It sits in the air. Let that shit go?
Yeah. Right. Like that’s happening.
Closing my eyes, I press my forehead to the frosted window next to the sink. I can’t let her go. What have I done pushing her away? Did I really, for even one instant, think that was possible?
What an idiot.
Opening my eyes, through the blurry frosted pane, I see that it isn’t empty like it’s been for days on end. Now, I see a shape moving across the quad. It’s like a living watercolor. It only takes me a minute to make sense of it. Long brown hair, red boots.
Naomi.
I tear out of the bathroom. I throw my sweater over my head and book it down the stairs, nearly killing myself on the bottom two but managing to sort of hand-over-hand my way down the railing while my ankles become totally useless.
Shoes. Where the fuck are my shoes? I search the foyer like a blind man with his hands out. The only thing I find are my flip-flops from the summer, stuck in the side closet, under an umbrella.
They’ll have to do.
So in my flip-flops, I slog through the snow in the quad, mesmerized by the patterns of her footsteps, searching everywhere for that beautiful face.
She must have gone up to her room. Her footprints disappear at the shoveled walkway. I reach for my wallet to get my keycard. I pat myself down, left-hand pocket, right-hand pocket, back pockets. Repeat. But then I realize I’ve left it in my house. With my phone.
I am the Master of Durham, and I am locked in the quad. In sandals. In the snow.
And my sweater is on backwards.
This is the state of things. This is the truth.
Benjamin Beck is a disaster.
I make a snowball and hurl it at her window. I may be a pathetic sack of sad who can’t feel his feet, but at least I can still throw a ball.
There is no answer. No beautiful face in the diamond windows.
“Naomi!” I yell.
“I’m right here.”
I spin around. She’s in the Zen garden, peeking out at me from over the gate.
All the things I wanted to say? They just vanish. She’s got this huge smile on her face, a smile of hope, a smile of delight.
I stumble and try to get to her, but fall to my knees in a snow bank, helplessly stuck.
She makes her way through the bank towards me, the snow coming up past her boots, and then I’m in her arms. With my face pressed into the pockets of her hoodie, my cheek tight against her stomach, I say, “I’m so fucking sorry.” I cling to her body and close my eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Where are your boots?” she says. “You’re going to freeze to death.”
I couldn’t care less. “Doesn’t matter.” I take my hands from her pockets and then rest them on the small of her back.
Her arms are wrapped around my head. So warm, gentle. So much like home.
“I think it’s okay. I saw Osgood.”
Staring up at her, I rest my chin on the zipper of her sweatshirt. “It’s okay?”
She nods down at me and rubs the back of my head gently with her thumbs. Now she’s smiling, her face a little red from the cold. “I think so. So let’s get you out of the snow.”
But I don’t move. I just hang on to her. I smell lemons and winter. I cannot feel my legs. I am overcome by the shimmering fear of the unknown, in love.
For the very first time in my life.
48
six weeks later.
I stand in the frigid January night, smoothing my tie. I feel as nervous as I ever have. I don’t feel like the Master. I feel like I’m going on my very first date.
Her new apartment is on the corner of Crown and Howe. She lives on the second floor of a brick building with plaster gargoyles on the walls. I can see the lamplight coming from the windows, sparkling and warm. I check my jacket pocket and feel the invitation for the Lux et Veritas Winter Gala inside.
I press the buzzer, holding my finger on the button a second longer than is totally polite.
Waiting there, I put my hands in my pockets.
This was the fix. Osgood, Naomi, and I hashed it out. It is completely impolitic and risky. Osgood revealed himself to be a hopeless, devoted romantic, much to our utter surprise. Love, he said, isn’t scandal. Not when it’s sincere. So we sorted it out. Quietly, privately, discreetly.
Now, she lives off campus and we stay deeply under the radar. We tell nobody. Only Osgood and Lucy know our secret. If we go out, we go out of town. Like tonight, when we’re finally going to go to the bistro we never made it to all those months ago.
I also know, as of today, that her tuition is covered. Completely covered, for the rest of her time here. That’s sixteen months and three weeks, not that I’m counting. Financial Aid reassessed her dad’s income. And it’s 100%, no questions asked, covered through graduation.
So as potential life explosions go, this one turned out pretty damned well. I keep my job, she’ll finish her degree, and we get each other, which is most important of all.
This is a new tux, the first real one I've ever owned, and it feels too nice. My shoes feel too fancy, my shirt feels too starchy. She’s still got my black tie. She said it would be perfect. She’s picked all this out for me, and she says it’s just right. I believe her. I believe everything she says because she’s got my heart, and I trust her with it completely.
A voice comes out of the speaker. “We’re not interested,” says Lucy, followed by an explosion of giggles. Contagious, smile-making giggles.
“Hi, handsome,” comes Naomi’s beautiful voice, lower than Lucy’s, sexier by far.
The door buzzes and unlocks.
Inside, the place is a tumbledown old apartment house like every campus apartment in the world. Once a mansion, now diced up into little two-bedrooms with cheap doors and brass knockers. There are scuffs on the walls on the way up the staircase. But only fourteen steps to get to them, I count. A big change from 72.
Standing at the door, I hear soft music fro
m inside.
Before I can knock, Lucy flings open the door. She’s wearing her parka, carrying her book bag, and smiling at me wider than I’ve ever seen her smile.
“Don’t you look nice,” she says, giving me elevator eyes.
“Thanks,” I say, holding the door open for her as she passes through under my arm.
“See you tomorrow,” she whispers, and heads downstairs.
Inside, I don’t see Naomi anywhere. What I do see are two glasses of champagne on the table. Leading down from them, tiny white chalk dots, down the table leg and across the floor.
I take both glasses and follow the dots to a door that’s closed, but not completely shut. I open it with my shoulder. Inside, it’s full of candles, with a bed in the middle. On the bed is the love of my life, in that black satin dress, lying on her stomach with her bare feet behind her, up in the air. Wearing the same mask she wore the first time I saw her.
As I come inside, she gets on her knees on the mattress. Her hair is off to one side, showing off the curve of her neck, leading down to those perfect breasts, just peeking out from the dress. Just right. Just fucking right, always.
She takes the champagne from my hands and sets it on the bedside table. Then she pulls me to her by my lapels. Hanging from her dresser is the gold half-mask I wore all those months ago, and my tie too.
“We’re going to be late,” I manage to say through a growl.
“Is that a problem?” she asks, blinking one slow blink. She slides her finger down my jawline.
“Definitely not.”
She raises those big blue eyes to mine. She brings her lips to my ear and whispers, “Vos estis lux et veritas.”
You are the light and the truth.
Goddamn. “So are you.” I slowly unzip the side of her dress, taking my time, because we can do that now. We can take our time forever. The dress slips from her body, revealing WELCOME, MASTER written across her stomach in Sharpie.
Holy shit.
“Ready?” she whispers.
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