Say You're Sorry

by Sarah Shankman

  “Oh, I’ve always wanted to go,” said Chloe. “Was it as romantic as Chopin portrayed it?”

  Now Diana smiled. Such smart, literary girls, alluding to Kate Chopin’s feminist-novel-before-its-time, The Awakening, while talking about boys.

  “It was heaven,” sighed Amber. “He was fabulous, sweet as could be the whole time. And we stayed for the sunset the next evening. I’ve never seen such a sunset.”

  “Oh, I wish I were in love,” Chloe longed.

  “You will be. Any minute now. You’ll see.”

  *

  Love, oh love, the last thing that Diana had expected. Or wanted.

  The affair with Rob was meant to be like all the others. Just for fun, right?

  Though unlike her other lovers, Rob wasn’t just a roll in the hay who managed to hold her attention for a candle’s length. He also sported that perfect trifecta of intelligence, imagination, and sweetness.

  Rob wasn’t just for laughs.

  Rather, he made her laugh.

  What a world of difference between those two.

  (Though sometimes she asked herself, as their games-playing grew ever more filigreed, Is this love or sexual obsession?)

  In any case, how ridiculous that the one who’d finally battered down the gates, bridged the moat, and scaled the steep walls to her heart/whatever was so inappropriate.

  An adjunct! A baby adjunct. A man without a full-time job in the very field at whose apex she stood.

  Okay, at thirty-seven, Rob wasn’t really a baby, but still…

  The moment she’d realized that she could no longer imagine her life without him, she’d begun to fret.

  What if he grew tired of her? What if he wandered? Someone at the university uncovered their secret and compromised her position? What? What? What?

  Yet losing implied having. She had no claim on Rob. It wasn’t as if they used the L word.

  Diana worked herself into a perfect frenzy. Her love-making took on a desperate edge. What new trick to titillate her lover? She spent hours poring over the Good Vibrations catalogue.

  “Is something bothering you?” he asked.

  “No. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem, what, worried about something. Need more space? Want to see less of me?”

  “No!”

  He laughed. “More of me?” The question delivered with that cocked eyebrow, a fiddling with his top shirt button. Followed by a sweet tumble.

  Get a grip, she told herself. Don’t screw this up. Don’t be a ridiculous older woman. Don’t grasp.

  And then, late February, Rob used the L word.

  It just wasn’t the one she wanted to hear.

  “Livingston,” he said. “It’s a small liberal-arts school in Cambridge, Mass. Great rep. An old friend’s in the English department there. Gave me the heads-up that they’re going to have a full-time slot. He has a lot of pull. You loved Cambridge, right?” Then he’d stopped, seeing her face. “Oh, honey bun, you know I don’t want to leave. I love New Orleans. I love being here with you.” Then, finally, finally, dear Lord, “I love…you.”

  And there it was. He loved her, but also he needed a real job. With real tenure. Real benefits. Real pay. Real retirement.

  “Have you already applied?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean…”

  “I know. I know.” She’d hugged him close. And then the question occurred. “Other places, too?”

  He shook his head into her shoulder. “Livingston’s the only one where I have some kind of inside chance.”

  What was he talking about? Was she not an insider at the university right here? Did she have no influence?

  But what she didn’t have, unfortunately, was an opening in her department. No retirements on the horizon. No one on leave who might not return. And no one was ever fired unless—to use the infamous words of ex-governor Edwin Edwards speaking of himself as a shoo-in for a second term—he were “caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.”

  Then lightning struck. Diana had an inspiration. There was one possibility. A little tricky, but possibly doable. Probably. No, definitely. She would make it work.

  And, oh, what sweet revenge: exchanging Arnold Venable for Rob.

  * * *

  “I just wish we could spend more time together,” Amber complained. “But he’s so busy. And then there’s—”

  Chloe jumped in, “Yeah, but you’re busy, too. Like have you finished your senior thesis for the psych course?”

  “No. But he’s helping me with it. I mean, he’s been reading what I’ve got, and he makes such great suggestions.”

  “Well, sure, he’s—”

  Then Amber interrupted. “Look! The Columns. Ohmygawd! We spent the most incredible night there.”

  A heavyset woman across the aisle from Amber and Chloe shook her head. A frown of disapproval rumpled her handsome brown face. A church lady, no doubt.

  Diana, however, smiled. The Columns Hotel, once upon a time a family mansion, had starred as Madame Nell’s bordello in the film Pretty Baby. In actuality, the late 19thearly 20th century’s red-light district, Storyville, had been downtown, fronting Basin Street.

  The Columns did, however, possess an aura of naughtier, bygone times: its bar elegant with chandeliers and fireplaces, the rooms upstairs tricked out in flocked-velvet Victorian finery. Diana and Rob had frolicked there one night in an amazing four-poster bed.

  Now she spied their private balcony, right there. That’s where they’d sipped morning-after mimosas.

  *

  Arnold Venable had been the department chair for eons before Diana took that post, and few were the toes he hadn’t mangled. Even when young, which he certainly wasn’t anymore, Arnold had been imperious, affecting a British accent, grandly furnishing his office with Persian carpets, subdued lighting, and a slender walnut desk. Arnold didn’t hold office hours; he received. He held court. And he’d long ago perfected the art of slipping a silver dagger into one’s soft spots, his targets universal. University president to office cleaner, no one escaped Arnold’s withering blue gaze or razor tongue.

  Immediately upon succeeding Arnold as chair, some six years earlier, Diana had been swamped by the English faculty’s campaigning for a piece of the pie of privileges he’d hoarded.

  “Not fair that Arnold never takes a lower-division class.”

  “Not fair that he’s had a lock on Shakespeare and the Romantic poets from time immemorial.”

  Diana couldn’t agree more, having herself suffered from Arnold’s barbs and slights, and drawing up that next term’s class load, she assigned Arnold a section of English 101. Freshman grunt composition. Arnold refused it, sneering as if she’d handed him a bag of manure.

  Fine. So be it. And, as was the university policy, Arnold taught less than a full load, though for full pay.

  This pattern had continued year after year, with Arnold accruing an ever-growing debt of classes owed.

  Just a week after Rob’s announcement of his application to Livingston College, Diana had casually, ever so coolly, brought up The Arnold Situation at lunch with an administrative dean.

  He’d jumped. “We absolutely must do something. Just yesterday the president was laying down the law about tightening all financial belts, closing all loopholes. Now.” He’d leaned closer to Diana. “Do you have any ideas?”

  Why, yes, she did.

  “Three sections of 101?” Arnold had slammed through Diana’s office door without knocking. He’d delivered the question as if she were a ridiculous child who’d donned a clown outfit for a wedding.

  “Yes. Three. Close the door, Arnold. Come in and sit down.”

  Then Diana had the delicious pleasure of explaining to Arnold Venable that he’d reached the end of the line. Administration had done the toting—she handed the figures across her desk to him—and he was in arrears for so many classes untaught but salaried that he must a) teach whatever offered with zero compensation for the next two years, b)
pay back the money advanced, or c) take early retirement, effective the end of the term, and the debt would be forgiven.

  Within hours Arnold had begun packing the leather-bound tomes that lined the walls of his office.

  Oh, what sweetness, what joy as, later that same evening, just as Rob, spent from love-making, sleepily pulled up the sheets, she whispered into his ear, “Guess what?”

  And wasn’t it terrific that they’d been so discreet, that no one at the university knew that they were lovers? Now Rob’s application for the position could be tendered like any other candidate’s.

  Any other, except, of course, that he had the advantage of being a known quantity. Well-liked by both students and faculty, Rob had done a terrific job with his classes. Yes, Rob definitely had the edge.

  “Darlin’, you genius, you Wonder Woman!” He’d jumped out of bed and danced his happy dance. Then he’d grabbed Diana up and two-stepped her around the room.

  He was a shoo-in, Diana exulted. He’d win the post, and then, and then… Well, after a semester or so it wouldn’t be so untoward, would it, if they were to “begin” dating? No, the age difference between them would never lessen, but with the change in Rob’s status, their having a liaison—and, well, who knew where that might lead?—wouldn’t be nearly so scandalous.

  *

  “When’s he going to tell her?” Chloe asked.

  “Not for a while yet. The timing’s got to be right.”

  Hmmm, thought Diana. Amber’s boyfriend already had another girl.

  The church lady was shaking her head again.

  From somewhere beyond the Mississippi, thunder rumbled, and the church lady rolled her eyes.

  See? Lord don’t like that nonsense. That fooling around with somebody else’s man? You go doin’ that stuff, ain’t nobody gonna want you.

  Oh, please. Diana read the church lady’s body language. It’s not that serious. Amber’s young, and men really are like streetcars. There’s always another one.

  *

  The stumbling block to Diana’s plan was the presence of those sworn enemies, Gloria and Phil, on the hiring committee. They—dammit—and Diana were the three designees from the English department, and while Phil gave Rob highest marks, Gloria was busy with equivocations.

  Just to spite Phil.

  The other five members, from various departments and branches of administration, were poised to approve Rob and get on with it. End of term and summer vacation were within sniffing distance. Everybody was antsy.

  “I really think she has stronger qualifications,” said Gloria, tapping the application folder of a young blond thing from California. Yes, she’d interviewed beautifully, this smart cookie with the body of a Victoria’s Secret model.

  “But her concentration is feminist theory. We don’t need another one of those,” said Phil.

  “Now, wait a minute!” steamed Gloria, who was herself a feminist theorist.

  Diana shook her head. What the hell was Gloria thinking? Did she really want a younger woman, particularly someone who looked like that, in her sandbox?

  “Well,” said the dean, trying not to drool on the blonde’s app. “I have to agree, she is an attractive candidate.”

  Diana was beside herself. She couldn’t support Rob too strongly for fear of arousing suspicion, though maybe that was just paranoia. Yet both Phil and Gloria would rather die than give an inch to the other.

  “Well, what about Dawn Moriyama?” ventured another committee member.

  Jesus. The Japanese-American candidate, a distant third on paper, and she’d stumbled badly in the interview. But once they got into ethnic-diversity territory, Diana’s ship would have sailed.

  Phil looked at Gloria. Gloria looked at Phil. They both shrugged. Why not?

  With that, Diana stood, collecting her papers. “We should sleep on this,” she insisted, slapping down her department chair’s prerogative like a trump card. “I think we’ve lost our way.”

  Everyone groaned but agreed to one more meeting.

  *

  “He has so much to lose, if he doesn’t play it right,” said Amber.

  The church lady shook her head so hard Diana thought she might cross the aisle, grab Amber, and shake her, too.

  Now it sounded as if Amber were involved with a married man. A beautiful young thing like her, a whole world of gorgeous young single boys to choose from?

  “You think she’s the vengeful type?” Chloe wondered.

  She.

  The wife.

  *

  “Do you think it’s possible,” Diana had said to Gloria, taking her arm as they crossed the quad after the committee meeting, “that your attitude toward Phil is clouding your judgment? Just a tad?”

  Gloria had stiffened, pulled her arm free, and turned to Diana with a blank stare. “No,” she said flatly. “I don’t.”

  “Now, Gloria…”

  “Don’t you Now, Gloria me. I just don’t happen to think Rob is the best candidate.”

  “You know Moriyama’s not going to make the cut. Do you really want that young hottie lusting after your classes?”

  Gloria recoiled, then struck. “Don’t talk to me about young hotties, Diana. Not when you’re throwing all your weight behind your own.”

  Just like that. Gut-shot, Diana reeled. Her skin stung with a thousand pricks of adrenaline. Her world tilted, whirled.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she finally managed.

  “I think you do,” said Gloria with a wintry smile. “Just so you know, I’ve not discussed your…indiscretion…with anyone else.”

  So clever, Gloria, hoarding her intelligence like gold until it would bring the greatest yield.

  “I’ll give you Rob. You’ll give me the classes I want in perpetuity. And the editorship of the journal.”

  “Gloria, even if there were reason to…“

  Gloria’s smile was cruel. She had the goods, and she knew it.

  “I can’t guarantee…”

  “I’m sure you’ll work it out.” With that, Gloria gave Diana her back and strode away. Then she paused, turned. “Pleasure grows ever more expensive, don’t you know, Diana, as time moves along.”

  *

  Blackmail. That’s what it was. Blackmail, plain and simple. After she picked up her car should she drive to the NOPD district office on Magazine and report Gloria? Or did blackmail fall under Vice, housed on South Broad?

  Right. Diana could just hear herself explaining the situation to a cop up to his ears in murder, home invasion, tourist muggings, drugs, child abuse, and the thousand and one other felonies perpetrated in New Orleans every day. The city was a sewer of crime.

  No. Gloria had her. There were no two ways around it. Diana had been furious and sick with disbelief.

  Though now that she’d this streetcar ride to collect herself a bit, to reflect, and to taste once more through the mouth of memory the many pleasures of her sweetheart, she’d realized her id would allow no other choice: If this were the price of keeping Rob, so be it.

  But she still needed to frame her response to Gloria. Generous but cool, that was the ticket. Agreeable, yet firm. God forbid that Gloria think she now had carte blanche.

  Maybe what she ought to do, after she picked up Picayune, her much-loved little brown Mercedes 280L roadster, was turn up her tape of Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary” and take the causeway to her favorite dive in Abita Springs. Soothe herself with an oyster po’boy and a couple of beers. Yes, the long drive across the lake always cleared her head.

  The streetcar rattled on. Diana could see the freeway overpass up ahead, beyond it Lee Circle where a statue of General Robert E. Lee stood upon a tall pillar, facing north, so he’d never have his back to his enemies. She wasn’t far now from her stop.

  Rob wasn’t coming over till much later this evening. Nineish, he’d said. Then she could give him the good news, minus the complicating details. With Gloria’s vote, his job was in the bag. They’d crack open a bottle of c
hampagne, celebrate. Maybe play one of their favorite games. Strangers assigned to a sleeping car on the Sunset Limited to Los Angeles? Or…wait. Rob had suggested something earlier on the phone. Still rattled by Gloria, she couldn’t remember what….

  *

  “Vengeful? Well, I never thought so, particularly, but when we were brainstorming in class today, I totally changed my mind.”

  “Yeah,” Chloe agreed. “That story she told about how, a long time ago, somebody wronged her, and she fantasized about burning his house down? But then, like she said, everyone has revenge fantasies. The real question is whether people act on them or not.”

  “I know,” said Amber. “But just the way she said it, Burn his house down, it gave me shivers.”

  *

  Wait a minute. Diana was about to pull the signal cord, gathering her things. The girls were talking about Amber’s married boyfriend, Amber did say he was married, didn’t she, and now they were talking about her class? Her story assignment? Her?

  “He’s been so careful,” Amber continued. “And it’s really brilliant, the way that whole pitiful charade she’s insisted on, his being her secret boyfriend, has played right into his plan. But once he has the job, well, anyway, by Christmas of next year, he can dump her. And then we can go public. My momma is crazy about him, you know. She thinks he’s the spit and image of Harry Connick, Jr.”

  “And your dad likes Rob, too, right?”

  “Oh yeah, he…”

  *

  Diana didn’t hear Amber’s reply as she stumbled blindly through the rear exit door and fell out into the rain.

  Her feet had barely hit the wet grass of the neutral ground when her stomach heaved and she spewed hot yellow vomit.

  “Oh my God!” someone cried.

  “Ma’am? Can I help you?” another asked.

  But Diana waved them away. Please don’t. Don’t look at me. Don’t touch me. Don’t pity me. Don’t.

  She didn’t remember much between that spinning moment and stepping out of a taxi at her own doorstep. She must have hailed the cab, must have realized she couldn’t drive, her ears ringing, her eyes blind to this world.