Reading Her Heart

by Ashlynn Kenzie

  "Phone," he said to start things off.

  "But I'm not going to use it. I promise," she said, sweeping it off the table where she had automatically placed it and holding it protectively in her lap.

  "Hand it over, Miss Carlisle. Think of it as my helping you deal with temptation. I dislike having study sessions interrupted by calls, incoming or outgoing. I imagine your friends will have things they just can't wait to tell you, but I'm going to put them on a very quiet hold for the next couple of hours. So give it here. I'll return it when we're through. I'll even help you figure out who might have called, if you need me to."

  "I can do that myself," she said with a huff, but she gave him the piece of equipment.

  "You probably can. I think your generation can manage any technical device with your eyes closed, while the rest of us fumble around like we're blind half the time." Then he could have bitten his tongue. "Bad choice of words. Forgive me, please."

  She seemed unfazed, however. "It's okay, Mr. Benjamin. I'm getting used to that word. But it's not going to describe me much longer." Her chin came up at that and her shoulders went back.

  "I'm quite certain it won't. You're going to be fine." He made his little speech while quietly searching her record of calls and carefully eliminating those between the two of them. No need for anyone else to be privy to their communication, and he had no idea who might stumble across their conversations, innocently or not, while Andee was incapacitated.

  His task complete, Nick put on his professor hat and settled himself to quiz his student, who was giving off non-verbal cues that she might be amenable to his efforts, on the material he had left in her keeping.

  "What character stood out to you in the first scene?" he asked.

  Andee straightened a little in her seat, clearly surprised by the question. "I didn't know you were going to ask me stuff like that. I just thought you'd do little trick questions to make sure I was listening. And I was," she said hastily. "I even played it again before I went to sleep last night."

  "No trick questions. And I'm very pleased you put in some effort. You know, this doesn't have to be burdensome for you. I want you to get absorbed in the play, to look forward to exploring it. Listen, here's an idea. Put yourself in the audience, the very first audience to see Shakespeare's newest play. And it's your lucky day. You're a member of the aristocracy, and you have a real seat in the theater. No standing around the stage with the common folk for you."

  His chair squeaked as he bent down to fumble in his laptop carrying case. Here. I've even bought you a treat from the orange sellers."

  He reached for her hand and placed the fruit in the curve of the palm she automatically opened. He was rewarded with a smile of genuine delight that overcame her reserve for a moment.

  "You really did. I can smell it. I haven't had an orange in ages."

  "Yes, I thought that might be the case. Here, let me fix it for you. Do you prefer to suck the juice out of the hole first and then eat the fruit, or shall I just split it open and let you have at it? Please don't ask me to peel it for you. Such a messy job."

  "Oh, no. That would spoil it all. So, could you make me smiley faces?"

  "Smiley faces?"

  "You know. Cut it in two from top to bottom and then cut each piece into three or four little segments. So it looks like grins."

  "Of course I know. I'm just surprised smiley face oranges are still popular. Why, they're older than I am." He had tried for a light touch, but then grimaced slightly at his own reference to age. It wasn't as though he were ancient or anything, he thought rather defensively as he stood up abruptly and began searching her small food prep area for a knife and cutting board.

  "The drawer next to the stove," she said, confident of his mission. "My mom used to fix them for me. Every morning for breakfast."

  "Then I'm sure she'll be happy to know you're starting your day off right once again."

  "She's dead."

  He paused, his hand just gripping the knife, and closed his eyes over a tight grimace, resting his forehead against the upper cabinet door for a moment while he tried to figure out what to do next. His first impulse, to gather her suddenly hunched little figure into his arms, had to be soundly rejected, he knew.

  "I'm sorry," he said finally, standing straight and reaching to rest a warm hand on her shoulder instead.

  Her head tilted toward the touch before she righted herself quickly. "It's okay. It was a while ago." But her voice told another story entirely.

  He squeezed the fragile bones beneath his fingers gently and then turned back to prepare the orange according to her specifications. By the time he put the fruit in front of her, she was firmly in control of her emotions again.

  "I'll probably be a little sloppy with this," she warned.

  "Don't worry. No one's grading you on table manners right now, just your grasp of the material. So, tell me, what character stood out for you?"

  She took a long moment, sucking the juice from the first orange section and then stripping the flesh away from the peel with sharp little white teeth.

  "Horatio, of course. Except the ghost will probably haunt me over that."

  He laughed. "You may be right. Unless you can convince the late king he deserves to be upstaged by a flesh and blood character at this point. Why Horatio?"

  "He's… mature. He might convince me there really was a ghost, just because he seems like the kind of strong personality who wouldn't be all superstitious and stuff."

  "Sound reasoning, Miss Carlisle. I think that may have been Shakespeare's goal. To use Horatio to give validity to the ghostly sighting. Any questions? Now's the time to ask before we go on."

  "No. No, I'm ready for the next scene. Go ahead." There was the tiniest pause while she busied herself ripping at the next orange section. Then, "Please," she said, around a mouthful of the juicy fruit.

  Nick was smiling as he turned the page and moved the recorder just a little closer to the two of them. This might work, after all, he thought.

  Chapter Four

  By Thursday, they were almost comfortable with each other, and Nick was delighted with her progress. Andee was still prickly and a little standoffish at times, but he told himself her attitude challenged him. She clearly had the intelligence to master the material, but it was equally plain that she had made little effort to do so on her own to that point. Yet now she was prepared for each day's lesson and had some interesting takes on the material, not to mention questions about the politics of Elizabethan England and Hamlet's Denmark that sometimes challenged him.

  She wanted to know, for instance, how those who had been close to the throne as Queen Elizabeth's advisors, reacted to the play about claiming a crown by fair means or foul. Many of them, she pointed out, would have dealt firsthand with a natural concern about the issue of inheritance as it affected a monarchy, since their virgin queen had precipitated something of a crisis in her kingdom over that very question.

  With a prayer of thanks for search engines, Nick tried to find an answer that would satisfy her curiosity, but those near the seat of power had apparently been as close-mouthed about the play from a political standpoint as possible. He could find no evidence it had been presented prior to Good Queen Bess' death, having only been completed a short time before she passed on. Once her young Scottish kinsman, James, took the throne, it was apparently neither politically expedient to discuss the issue nor wise to call attention to any matters of the crown that involved loss of life.

  During a snack break, they debated the question of Elizabeth's enthusiasm for the production she probably never even saw. Andee pondered what the good queen, the daughter of the lusty and bloody King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, would have thought of Shakespeare's effort if the play had been brought to the stage before her death. Was it possible, she wondered, that the queen had seen the script or heard gossip about it?

  Entering into the game of what-if, Nick deliberately advocated the anti-feminist point of view that the monarc
h would have been so infatuated with the popular writer, she would have accepted anything he wrote with slavish devotion. But Andee was having none of that and, to his surprise, gave him a forceful assessment of the queen's ability to subjugate personal interest of a romantic nature to affairs of the realm.

  The Buckley reader mentioned Robert Dudley, Elizabeth's greatest love and her master of horse, as proof that the queen was subject to passion that could have endangered her throne. Andee refused to acknowledge that the relationship had seriously affected any of the queen's political decisions. Then she brought Thomas Seymour into the discussion, again much to Nick's amazement. Somewhere along the way, clearly, the party girl had picked up on some historical information.

  He decided to follow her on the detour from Denmark's dark past and see just what Andee could contribute to a discussion of one of England's more glorious periods.

  "Why do you see Seymour influencing the queen? I mean, he died before she even came to the throne."

  "Well, she put herself in a sort of icky situation because of him, but I think that was more because she was so young. She was just fourteen when she got sent to live with him," she said, apparently warming to the subject and intent on expressing her point of view. "I think she learned from the uproar over that, and the fact that they cut off his head because they thought he was exerting too much influence over such a young girl. But I think all that kept her from letting her heart overrule her head after she got the crown on it."

  "Really? But wasn't he quite a bit older than Elizabeth?"

  She leaned toward him to emphasize her point and launched into one of her breathless explanations. "Yes, of course, but that was part of it. See, he was right there, because he finagled things around so he could control her, plus he was old enough to be her father, and after Henry VIII died and everything was in such a mess, she was sort of his ward and, you know, he took that role a little too seriously. He turned it not just to his political advantage but to his—well, his sexual advantage, too—and sometimes he'd sneak in her bedroom at night, and they'd end up with him tickling her and spanking her bottom and—"

  She broke off with a gulp and a stain of red swept across her face, both above and below the black patches.

  "Maybe not all that unusual. Back then, at least," Nick said calmly, though his own heartbeat had engaged in a quick little trot of surprise and sexual tension, not only at what she had said, but at her reaction to having said it.

  "M-maybe. Could I have a Diet Coke, please?" she said in a rush, ducking her head slightly.

  "I happen to have brought along a couple of bottles of apple juice. Nice and cool. I'll be happy to share," he said, smoothly.

  Her mouth twisted in a little moue that made clear her preference, but she shrugged and deigned to mutter, "Thank you," as he rustled in his canvas carryall and brought out the containers.

  *****

  She even managed to drain the bottle by the time he returned to the tragic prince's story and completed the reading for that day. Neither of them mentioned Elizabeth again.

  "You're doing very well, Miss Carlisle," he said as he picked up his well-thumbed copy of the play, his notes and his laptop, and put it all back in the bag. "In fact, I think you deserve a reward if you keep this up. I know the story's getting a little more complicated, but if you're as well prepared tomorrow as today, we might celebrate. But, of course, if you slip back into bad habits, we would have to deal with that as well."

  He uttered the last, he told himself, as a simple pedagogical warning that any committed educator might make, but he could not duck the truth forever. When the color rose in Andee's cheeks once again, he knew she had picked up on the implied threat in his statement and had recalled precisely how he was prone to deal with troublesome issues.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to apologize for teasing her, but she recovered quickly and gave him a spirited response. "You'd better make it worth my while, Mr. Benjamin. Apple juice just won't cut it tomorrow, if that's what you're thinking."

  He laughed and patted her shoulder as he stood up. "I predict you'll come to appreciate my apple juice, but if you prefer, I can make it grape tomorrow. But that will just be a little bit of icing on the cake."

  "That cake better be chocolate then," she muttered and stood up gracefully, walking with a newly confident air to the door ahead of him.

  "I'll certainly keep your preferences in mind."

  Despite himself, he mused on precisely what those preferences might be all the way home.

  *****

  The sun was bright and the air already warm when Leila stopped by Friday on her way to class to dispense the necessary drops.

  "What do you want to wear today," she asked when that task was finished. "Jeans? Shorts? Which T-shirt?"

  "Neither," Andee said decisively. "My blue yoga pants, I think, and the white tank top with the little blue hearts that match. And do you have time to straighten my hair? I washed it myself," she said with no little pride, "and I didn't get the patches wet or anything, but I'm scared to handle the straightener."

  Leila glanced at her phone and decided she could probably manage the job with a minute or two to spare, but only if Andee could get her own breakfast. She said as much, somewhat doubtfully, since the degree of dependence exhibited by the girl with the patches was high, as long as she had someone around to complete tasks for her.

  To Leila's surprise, however, the patient reacted with a complete lack of concern. "Sure, no problem. Mr. Benjamin will probably be bringing me something anyway. He says I've been doing so well I deserve a surprise. I told him to make it chocolate, so it'll be fine. Just help me with my hair and lay my clothes out."

  Which is exactly what the tall, slim redhead did, managing to get the job done and slip out the door to class while Andee, her own locks falling in a softly shimmering curtain around her face, hummed her way into her clothes.

  By the time her newly developed sense of moments passing told her Mr. Benjamin should be arriving, Andee had finished off a can of Diet Coke and even scratched down some questions she hoped he would be able to read, since she wanted to be sure and ask about material she had reviewed the night before. She smiled to herself, skimming her hands down her body and feeling justifiably proud of her curves. She wondered if her tutor would notice.

  When he knocked, she made her way to the door, acutely aware of the pull of stretchy fabric across her round little bottom and wondering why she had never noticed it before. She couldn't wait to find out his surprise. Chocolate doughnuts, most likely. Or maybe cupcakes or even some melt-in-your-mouth Godiva squares of heaven.

  "Hi. What'd you get me?" she demanded as he stepped inside.

  Smiling, he lifted a small shopping bag and rattled it near her ear. "Something you'll like, I think."

  "Great. What is it? I'm starving."

  He glanced toward the kitchen area but saw no evidence of breakfast. "You haven't eaten?"

  "Well, of course not. You said you were bringing a surprise and I said make it chocolate. Why would I eat plain old Fruit Loops if I can have candy or cake or something?"

  "Why, indeed. But I think I'd better fix you something a little healthier for breakfast. Your treat is for a little later in the day, after we've finished your lesson. And it's not chocolate, I'm afraid. I thought you were kidding about that."

  He had already begun moving toward the table, so he missed the visual cues her suddenly slumped shoulders and down-turned mouth provided about her state of mind at that point. She moved much more slowly to follow him and reluctantly pulled her chair away from the table.

  "So what did you get then?"

  "Oh, you'll find out soon enough. Actually, that's the second part of the surprise, anyway."

  She heard him open the cooking implement drawer and rattle the assortment there. When she caught a whiff of orange, she knew what he was looking for. "The knife's in the dish drainer," she said in a voice with a slightly cranky edge to it. "And I want a Pop Tart
, too. A chocolate one," she said with emphasis.

  "Now really, Miss Carlisle—"

  "My house. My body. My rules. Fix me a Pop Tart. In fact, forget the orange and fix me two Pop Tarts. And a Diet Coke."

  "I thought we were clear about expectations, young lady. Your tone is unpleasant and your nutritional choices are disastrous. Furthermore, your friends may tolerate being ordered about, but I don't. If you insist on a breakfast of that type and you are inclined to be unpleasant about it, you may fix your own meal. While you're at it, you can adjust your attitude, because I won't tolerate the one you're exhibiting right now."

  Springing up from her chair, she gave the table a little shove of frustration and moved to stand next to him, rummaging in the overhead cabinet for the cardboard box of cardboard pastry she always stored on the second shelf.

  "You promised me chocolate," she muttered, slamming the box down on the counter.

  "I did no such thing."

  "You did. You said it would be the icing on the cake."

  "Chocolate was your own invention, and I believe you know I was speaking metaphorically when I mentioned frosting."

  "Whatever!"

  "Young lady—"

  "Oh, never mind. Just get out of my way. Please." The latter said with exaggerated courtesy. "I'm starving now, and I can't think about Hamlet until I eat."

  Nick decided a change of concentration was in order, before he gave in to the temptation to teach her manners by means of a sudden, sharp focus. Taking a deep breath, he stepped around her and prepared to take a seat as she crammed two Pop Tarts into the toaster and slammed down the lever.

  "I'm sorry you're disappointed about the chocolate, but maybe you'll forgive and forget when I tell you the real surprise. As soon as you finish eating, we're going to gather up all your materials and head out for the beach for our study session. It's a beautiful day and—"