Covalent Bonds

by Trysh Thompson

  “My apartment is just a ten-minute stroll away. Seven if you walk fast.” His voice was deep, his eyes burning. “Four minutes if I take your hand right now and we just run there.”

  Eliza felt ashamed that Stella had seen them, that maybe she thought Eliza was the type to do something so foolish. That she was silly and young and not cut out for academia.

  “I can’t.”

  “Was it the verbs?”

  “This is not me.” If only she were older, or he were younger and not so tenured. Or not so sure of his opinions and insistent hers were wrong.

  “What isn’t you?”

  She squeezed on her boots, zipping them halfway, intending to walk home quickly enough so no one would notice. “Making out with a professor. In his office. When the ink has barely dried on my contract. It doesn’t look good.”

  “You’re a professor, too. You’re an adult woman.”

  “I like you, Dr. Narang, I do, but—”

  “What?”

  “I can’t.”

  She left him on the floor of his office, still kneeling, a disoriented look on his face.

  By the following week, the Monday before Thanksgiving, they hadn’t spoken—not in the halls, not by cake or verse or sentence diagram.

  She saw him across the quad that cloudy Monday, but she’d abruptly turned around on the sidewalk, pretending she had something pressing on the other side of campus.

  Eliza didn’t know how to make things right. How could she possibly say, I like you, maybe even a lot, but I’m scared that if we were together, in a year I might slowly lose myself?

  Maybe he’d fight her on it, use her feelings as a logical stepping stone to prove his assertions, whatever they may be. That she should come home with him, at least, maybe more. He wouldn’t be able to understand what it was like to be young and female and a professor just starting out, trying to keep her career and voice burning bright enough.

  She secretly hoped that they could just regress to the way they’d been, with their teasing notes and jibes to one another. Their playful back-and-forth scrawled in messages or spoken at campus events, their rapport always keeping at least several feet between them.

  Because she was also afraid that if she met with him behind closed doors to talk about what had happened, she wouldn’t be able to resist kissing or touching him. Not after she knew what that felt like, how warm and strong he could feel under her fingers.

  She missed him. She hadn’t realized how much she’d looked forward to his little notes and gifts, his teasing words as they walked by each other. How it had made her look forward to each day, to the possible surprise it might contain.

  On Tuesday there was a visiting poet on campus, the last in the fall reading series. Neil Scott, who’d won awards with his disjointed yet powerful verses. Eliza hadn’t met him, but she had wanted to for quite some time. He was only a few years older than she was, and had definitely created a literary ripple in his short career.

  He was reading from his collection during one of her poetry classes, so she had her students attend the reading instead of class. They seemed barely able to focus with the holiday coming up, anyway. Not that Eliza could judge.

  She felt relief that the change of venue meant she wouldn’t pass Kunal in the hall like she usually did on Tuesdays. But when she entered the room, she found him there at the reading, front row as usual. He must’ve sent his students there, too. The room was already two-thirds full.

  He glanced at her as she entered and she looked away, the air having left her lungs. She felt a stab of guilt as she admitted that she was probably, at the very least, wounding his pride. She had to find a way to fix it.

  Stifling a sigh, Eliza took a seat next to her student Kevin, the one who’d been developing so much in her course. Kevin radiated excitement, his knee bobbing up and down, a flush on what could be seen of his face under his overgrown brown hair. He’d told Eliza that Neil Scott’s poetry had blown him away, had dismantled and rearranged the entire definition of poetry for him.

  The reading started. Kevin seemed almost paralyzed in his rapt attention of Neil Scott, who was a captivating reader as well as poet, but Eliza’s attention drifted over to Kunal.

  His entire body seemed tense, his back too straight.

  Maybe she could talk to him after the reading, exchange a pleasant word or two to put this behind them. For a man who always seemed so easy and relaxed, he looked extremely uncomfortable to be in the same room with her.

  He never looked back at her, either.

  After the reading ended, there was time for the audience to speak a little with Neil and have him sign one of his collections. Eschewing the chair at the table with his poetry books, the writer sat perched on the edge, enthusiastically greeting the students and professors.

  Eliza turned to Kevin. “Do you want to meet him?”

  Kevin’s eyes had barely left Neil Scott the entire time he’d been in the room. “I just… I don’t…”

  She smiled. “Come on. You can tell him he dismantled and rearranged poetry for you.”

  Reluctantly, Kevin followed her to the small crowd around Neil.

  Eliza was grateful for Kevin, as he forced her to relax as she passed Kunal, who was talking to another faculty member.

  She made herself catch his eye. “Dr. Narang.”

  “Dr. Stein.” He gave her a brief nod, his deep voice warm but professional.

  Trying to keep her courage buoyed, for Kevin at least, she walked up to Neil Scott and introduced herself.

  “That reading was really dynamic,” she said as she shook his hand. “I would love for you to meet Kevin Sutton, one of the best students in my poetry classes.”

  Kevin blushed at the praise, and Neil Scott’s attention turned to him. “Nice to meet you, Kevin. Considered one of the best students by Eliza Stein herself? That is a compliment.”

  Kevin smiled, but mostly looked on the verge of vomiting. “Hi, it’s, um, great to meet you,” he stammered.

  “Likewise,” Neil said, affable and encouraging.

  “It’s like you, um…” Kevin stared at the floor, and in that short moment Eliza stole a glance at Neil and gave him a quick smile.

  He returned her smile—and then over his shoulder Eliza caught sight of Kunal. He was only a few feet away and staring at her, his brow furrowed. He swallowed as he watched her.

  Kevin looked up and spoke to Neil. “Your collection… It’s like you took all of poetry, and you threw it out and started from scratch, and now I can’t even, like, use that word, because what you’re doing is not even that, it’s so much more, I don’t even know if you realize.”

  Neil looked startled at Kevin’s statement, and then quickly elated at such heavy praise. “Thank you. That’s… wow.”

  Feeling awkward because Kunal was still watching her, Eliza spoke. “Neil, have you met Dr. Kunal Narang?”

  She gestured to the grammarian, and he stepped up stiffly to join their little circle.

  “Dr. Narang teaches grammar here at the university.”

  “Oh, great, grammar. One of my favorite things.” Cordially, Neil reached out a hand to shake Kunal’s.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Dr. Narang said in his deep voice, friendly as usual, but when their palms met, Eliza saw Neil wince, like Kunal had shook his hand too hard.

  Neil drew him hand back, flexing his fingers. “So, grammar… That’s great you teach that here at the university level. That’s definitely something that’s important for all writers, especially poets.” He glanced back at Kevin and nodded his head sagely.

  “You think so?” Dr. Narang said. “I’m afraid your opinion is not shared by all poets. In fact, Dr. Stein here thinks that poets should have nothing to do with grammar. That trying to look at the structure of a poem would take away from its beauty, and studying it would deprive students of honing their intuition.”

  Neil laughed. “Is that so, Dr. Stein?”

  Eliza’s eyes flicked to Kunal befor
e turning to Neil. “Yes. And Dr. Narang has been trying to force his opinion on me ever since I started here. By any means necessary.”

  She meant it as a joke, and Neil and Kevin laughed, but Kunal’s eyes narrowed, and she realized too late what she’d implied.

  “You’ll have to excuse Dr. Stein,” Kunal said, his voice flinty. “She hasn’t been a professor long. She doesn’t yet realize the importance for our students to study the language she already feels she’s mastered.”

  Eliza quickly inhaled, surprised that he’d sensed where she was most vulnerable, and shocked that he’d poked her there.

  She glared back at him. “Of course, Dr. Narang knows all. His knowledge of grammar is surpassed only by his arrogance.”

  They had both started saying things similar to what they’d said a dozen times that semester. Yet unlike the teasing tone they usually had with each other, something in their words had shifted. Turned mean. The chemistry between them had been building to a simmer these past several months, but they’d turned the heat up too high and now they were scorching and blistering each other.

  Neil laughed again, either ignorant of the tension or bravely paving his way over it. “Well, Dr. Narang, you’re a forty-something trying to preserve grammar and here’s a twenty-something who wants to do away with it. I think we can all see the writing on the wall. What’s your opinion, Kevin?”

  Whatever Kevin thought, it was interrupted by Kunal’s quick response. His voice was cold—and he was looking only at her. “Oh, I think I can see the writing on the wall.”

  Eliza was livid as she walked briskly back to her office.

  How dare he act that way toward her? At a university event—in front of a visiting writer, in front of a student?

  She should never have let him touch her arm. Should never have written him that haiku. Or let him buy her cake. Or ever been behind a closed door with him.

  She shut her office door sharply—then, the door catching on her pea coat, she swore, angrily shoved the coat away, and slammed it. She hoped he felt it, down the hall where his own office was. She hoped it knocked some sense into him.

  A minute later, a soft rap came at the door.

  Her heart started racing. Maybe he’d come to have it out with her where they could talk more plainly. Maybe he was apologizing. She hoped so; she certainly deserved an apology. Several of them. Either way, she wasn’t going to take it easy on him, she was going to tell him just what she thought of him cutting her down like that, and there was no way in hell she’d be letting him run his hands up her thighs or kiss her or—

  Swearing again, she quickly opened the door with shaking fingers.

  It was Stella.

  “Hi, Eliza.”

  “Hi.” She dropped the doorknob, defeated with relief and disappointment.

  “I saw you at Neil Scott’s reading, but didn’t have a chance to say hello. You left so quickly. He’s quite the reader, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Eliza had been trying to avoid Stella too these past couple days, embarrassed at what she’d witnessed. And a little worried she’d told another professor, that word had gotten out.

  “Can I come in?” Stella asked.

  “Sure.”

  Stella closed the door softly behind her, and they sat down on the comfortable couch in Eliza’s office.

  “Stella, what you saw the other night…”

  “It was fine.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I just want you to know: that’s not going to happen again. I mean, nothing happened, but it’s something that shouldn’t have happened, and it won’t happen again.”

  Stella tilted her head. “That’s a shame.”

  Eliza’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  “You know, I’ve known Kunal a long time, Eliza. More than a decade. It’s hard to believe, but we’ve both been here that long.” She paused to smile at her. “He’s a good man. And he obviously likes you. And that’s not something I’ve seen, since—well, since his divorce seven years ago.”

  “He hasn’t done this with anyone else?” She was embarrassed at how quick she’d responded, how eager she was to know if she was special and not just one in a long line of young, grammatically-challenged poets.

  “I’m not sure what ‘this’ refers to, but, no, I haven’t known him to date anyone in that time. Certainly no one he looks at the way he looks at you.”

  “Oh.”

  “All I saw the other night—which I shouldn’t have seen, but it’s my fault; I’m boundary-impaired—was a man who looked happier than I’ve seen him in a long time, and a woman following her heart.” She grinned suddenly. “Or, well, maybe a body part lower down, but you catch my drift.”

  Eliza swallowed, and when her voice came, it was wavering. “We messed it up.”

  Stella arched an eyebrow. “Well, then, revise it.”

  Eliza couldn’t sleep that night. She watched the pattern of the streetlights on her bedroom wall, listened to the hum of the occasional car slowly driving down the street. Wondered where Kunal’s apartment was in relation to hers. Three blocks away, two? Or maybe even closer.

  She lifted her hand up and wiggled her fingers, making shadows skitter on the wall. Modifiers, isn’t that what he’d called them? Every last thumb and finger an adjective. She could think of many adjectives now—confused, depressed, unsure. Lonely, shy. She moved each finger in response and the adjectives elongated their dark shapes across her bedroom ceiling.

  Before him, she probably would’ve thought referring to body parts in grammatical terms was one of the least graceful things she could imagine. But now, if she was honest, she had trouble thinking of her fingers without thinking of modifiers, or remembering the way he said his mother told him present participles were where words danced.

  He taught grammar in so many ways, but the way he’d known to teach her was with her body, and she was blessed and cursed that the grammar still lived there, reminding her. Like the brace she’d worn as a teenager, it made sense of the disconnect she sometimes felt in her own skin, the way she needed to feel held there. She dropped her hands, hugged her arms around herself and thought, I’ll be all right, every limb in my body could be an independent clause.

  She bolted upright in bed then. Every limb a clause…

  It wasn’t that it was that beautiful, but the image tore through her, ripped her out of her confusion. Sparked something within her. She stole out of bed in her nightgown, tripped over her sheets, and ran to her computer.

  She started typing, and she didn’t stop for an hour. A poem—then two, then three—raced out of her. They held images of her body as parts of speech, the movement of her muscles as the dance of words. They were part awareness of her body, and part terms she’d gleaned from Kunal’s grammar textbook. And, in one verse, the memory of the way he’d parsed her body and made every inch come alive.

  It was brash and messy, and she’d need to revise it later, to slash and tighten and reword and edit. But it flowed out of her like blood from a wound, and like a revelation.

  It wasn’t the way she thought Kunal wanted her to diagram her verses to make her poetry stronger. But it wasn’t the way she had written before, either. It was something new. Something better.

  Four hours later, she finally closed the laptop and fell asleep, wired and full of joy. She’d only be able to sleep for two hours—before her morning class Wednesday, the last before Thanksgiving—but she’d rise with confidence for the first time in months.

  She was a poet. She wouldn’t disappear, not when she had this in her, snapping and crackling.

  And there was only one person she wanted to tell.

  After her class ended, she sprinted across campus, hoping to catch Kunal before the students arrived for his class in half an hour. To tell him that he’d inspired her, that she was sorry and that it wasn’t him, it was she who’d been too scared of losing herself. She knew then she wanted him more than ever.

  Skidding to a casual stroll as she entered the
building, she took a deep breath. Smoothed down her unkempt blonde waves. Stopped to collect herself as she reached the lecture doors.

  She pushed them in.

  And suddenly faced a room full of students.

  She inhaled quickly. “Oh—”

  The students all turned in unison to see who’d interrupted.

  “—I’m sorry.”

  Eliza almost turned to go. Then she saw Kunal at the front of the class staring at her.

  Smiling apologetically, she sank into an empty seat in the back row.

  Most of the students turned back around.

  Over his shoulder, the clock read ten-thirty. In her fatigue and excitement, she’d misjudged the time, and there she was, ready to confess her feelings in front of a room of college students.

  Kunal was still frozen, unable to tear his eyes from her face. He wore a white dress shirt, untucked as usual, and held a red dry erase marker in his hand. Behind him was an elaborate diagram of a sentence, the sentence in his frenetic penmanship scrawled in black and intersected by marks of red.

  His lips parted but no sound came out. No one spoke.

  Eliza was having trouble catching her breath.

  Kunal finally turned around, like he couldn’t remember where he was. Looked at the board. Looked back at her. Jiggled the marker in his hand. Shook himself.

  “Well, ladies and gentleman, we’re honored to be visited today by a distinguished member of the English faculty, poet Eliza Stein.”

  A few students glanced back at her again. Kunal stared at her another beat or two, his face difficult to read, before he began quickly erasing the marks on the board.

  “Since Dr. Stein is with us, it would be foolish for us not to use her as an example…”

  The board now completely erased, he began writing something else in red.

  Sunlight, simmering and shattered, born of—

  Eliza leaned forward. It was the first line of a poem from the middle of her second collection.

  He kept writing, quickly, nearly frantically, the twenty lines of the poem. Every word, every line break, just the way she wrote it.