by Noir, Roxie
And then, so quietly I barely hear him: “I’m sorry.”
“I am, too,” I whisper, and then I wait.
I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Something else, some grain of hope. Call me when you graduate, maybe.
But he doesn’t. Right now, he’s probably wishing that he could go back in time and delete yesterday, delete me as anything but one of eighteen students in a calculus class.
So I nod once, gather my wits, and leave the classroom.
* * *
I swear to god they’re mocking me.
The moment I open my bedroom door, there they are: brightly colored and vibrant in the late afternoon sunlight. Each one tall, proud, and thick, and a reminder I don’t fucking want right now.
“Margaret!” I shout, practically throwing my bag to the floor. “Your dicks are on my desk! Again!”
“Sorry!” she calls, her voice echoing across the small apartment. “Don’t worry, they’re the social media dicks.”
“Yeah, they’d goddamn better be!” I shout back, and now I hear the creak of a desk chair, some rustling.
“Sorry,” she says again, and two seconds later she comes through my bedroom door. “Your room has the best lighting at magic hour and I was doing some stuff for the store’s Instagram —”
“Could you please not leave a bunch of dildos on my desk?” I snap. “It doesn’t feel like a lot to ask. No giant blue dicks on my desk. Too much?”
“Okay, okay,” she says, scooping all four into her arms in one swoop, holding three against her body and the biggest one, which is purple and quite frankly alarming, in her right hand. “I swear, they’re brand new.”
“I don’t care if they’re brand new or a dick you found excavating King Tut,” I say. “I don’t want them on my desk. I don’t need them in my room.”
I grab my messenger bag off the floor, dump it on my twin bed, wrest my laptop out of it and put it on the scarred wooden desk. Margaret’s still standing there, holding a bunch of dildos, watching me.
“What?” I ask, the word coming out about five times bitchier than I mean it to.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I pull my desk chair out and sit, staring at my unopened laptop.
It’s been a shitty afternoon, but getting unceremoniously dumped by your calculus professor will do that to you, I guess. I’m angry and hurt and upset, and I don’t even have anyone to be angry at.
At Caleb? What else was he supposed to do? At myself, for not screening him properly last night?
No, I’m just angry / hurt / upset / everything at the universe in general, and it’s really unsatisfying.
“Thalia,” she says again. “What’s wrong?”
For a moment, I don’t even know if I should tell her the truth. Can we get in trouble for accidentally going on a date?
Fuck it, I think.
“You know the guy from last night?”
She tosses the dildos onto my bed and sits beside them, facing me, cross-legged, eyes narrowed.
“Did something already happen?” she asks, astonished.
Last night, when they got home from the bars at one in the morning, I was still awake and may have waxed rhapsodic about my date. I may have waxed a lot.
“Yeah,” I say, resting my forehead on one hand. “He’s my calculus professor.”
Total silence. After long enough, I turn and look over at Margaret.
She’s staring at me in surprise, her mouth a little O.
“That guy is a professor?” she finally says. “Professor. Not a TA or a grad student or something.”
“Pro-fucking-fessor,” I say, a word that I’m not sure makes sense, as I open my laptop.
“And he took an undergrad out? That’s shady,” she says, and now she sounds concerned. “And a serious ethics violation —”
I turn in my chair, holding up the laptop that I’ve opened to the VSU Mathematics Faculty page. She leans in, reading.
“His current research specialty is Diplodean Number Regression Theory and he’s hiked all three major long-distance trails in the US. Someday, he hopes to complete the Great Himalayan Trail,” she reads, then looks at me. “And he dates students —”
“I didn’t tell him I was a student,” I say. “He didn’t tell me he was a professor, I didn’t mention that I was an undergrad, I just thought he was someone who lived in town and had probably graduated a year or two ago.”
“You never asked what he did? He never asked you?”
Margaret sounds suspicious.
“No,” I say, putting my laptop back on the desk and plugging it in.
“What did you talk about?”
Magic and sea monsters and pickup artists and stars, I think.
“Other stuff. You want a transcript?”
“Were you talking?” she asks, both eyebrows lifted. “I thought you said Excalibur didn’t happen.”
Excalibur is what the four of us have named the possibly-mythical dick that finally takes my virginity, after the time that I referred to myself as a ‘reverse sword-in-the-stone situation’ during one late-night chat. It’s become both a running joke and a useful shorthand, and yes, I know that King Arthur took the sword out of the stone.
“Yes, we talked,” I say, looking away so she doesn’t see me blush. “Just not about that.”
She’s still watching me from my bed, concern all over her face.
“We already broke it off,” I say. “You’ll notice that I’m sitting here talking to you and not getting ready to go on another date.”
“It’s just that professors who date students —”
“He’s not a professor who dates students.”
“Q.E.D., he is,” she points out. “I’m just wondering if we should tell someone about this —”
“No!” I practically shout.
“ — In case it’s a pattern,” she finishes.
Suddenly, I’m a little uncertain.
Last night seemed special. It seemed like a bolt from the blue, totally genuine, but now I can’t help but wonder. Am I the first? He doesn’t routinely try to date undergrads, does he?
One accident is understandable, but a professor with a thing for undergrads is… worrisome.
“Look, it was one date,” I say, trying to sound reasonable. “All we did was make out, agree on a second date, and then call it off when I showed up in his class today.”
Margaret looks skeptical, and I can’t quite blame her because ‘professor who dates his undergraduate students’ does sound very, very bad.
“It’s over,” I say. “No harm, no foul, it’s already ended. Caput.”
She takes a deep breath, then lets it out, nodding.
“I’m sorry,” she says, then gives me a searching look. “You okay? You seemed really into him last night.”
I’m not okay. Actually, I’m crushed. Maybe even heartbroken, which is a stupid way to feel after a single date, but oh well. I guess I feel stupid.
“I’ll be fine,” I say.
“C’mere,” she says, holding out one hand.
I scrunch up my face at her.
“Come get physical affection, dammit,” she goes on, still holding out her hand. “It’ll lower your cortisol levels and give your brain a hit of dopamine, which you probably need.”
It’s impossible to argue with Margaret sometimes, so I go flop down on my bed, legs hanging off one side. She flops next to me.
“There’s a dildo poking into my spine,” I sigh.
“That’s not where it’s supposed to poke,” she teases.
I squirm, then finally pull out a long, thick, red, knobby length of silicone that looks more like modern art than a penis. Next to me, Margaret wriggles, then whacks my dildo with the ridiculously-sized purple one.
“On guard!” she says, and finally, I laugh.
Chapter Nine
Caleb
I look at myself in the mirror and sigh, scrutinizing the point of my tie where it crosses my belt. I stand up
straighter. I slouch. I loosen it ever so slightly, because this thing always feels like it’s strangling me.
In all positions, the point of the tie stays firmly within the boundaries set by my belt. By Jove, after five different tries, I think I’ve got it.
“ — is going to overflow if one of Mom’s church friends brings another lasagna, I swear,” Seth’s voice says from the foot of my bed, where my phone is on speaker.
“Is it Mom’s church friends or is it Eli?” I ask, still regarding myself in the mirror, hoping that I don’t look as ridiculous as I feel.
“Eli would never freeze a lasagna,” Seth says. “Are you kidding? ‘Freezing cheese breaks down the cellular walls and affects the melting point of blah blah blah,’ I can just hear him now.”
I grab my glasses from my nightstand and put them on, but even when I’m no longer slightly blurry, I can’t get over the notion that I look like some sort of corporate douchebag in a suit. It doesn’t matter that it’s dark gray and properly tailored, and it doesn’t matter that after several thousand tries, I finally got the tie right.
I don’t belong in a suit. I belong in t-shirts and jeans, maybe fleece and flannel in the wintertime, whatever lets me get outdoors and move around. Suits are too restrictive. By the end of the night I’m going to feel like jumping out of my own skin.
Because I don’t like suits. That’s the only possible reason that attending the Madison Scholars beginning-of-year banquet might make me feel like I want to jump out of my own skin.
The single reason.
“I’ve been getting twice-daily updates from Daniel,” Seth is saying. “Usually he follows them up with a quick monologue about how they’re totally prepared for a newborn and how he’s feeling very calm, so…”
Seth and Daniel are two of my brothers who own a brewery together in our hometown, so of course Seth is well-informed about our future nephew.
“And Rusty?” I ask. “How are the nursery decorations going?”
Rusty is Daniel’s nine-year-old daughter, and as a way to include her in the arrival of a new brother, Daniel and his wife Charlie asked her to be in charge of nursery decorations.
It’s gone… interestingly.
“Well, they talked her out of the photorealistic Kraken for the wall over the crib,” he says. “And I believe they’re negotiating toward a friendly-looking octopus,” Seth says.
“Progress.”
“She tried to argue that since the baby’s living underwater right now, the Kraken would be a soothing kindred spirit,” Seth says.
“We’re sure she’s not somehow Eli’s daughter, not Daniel’s?” I ask, and he just snorts.
“How’s the job?” he asks. “What’s with the sighing and rustling? Hot date?”
“I have to go to a banquet for undergrads,” I say. “Suit required.”
Not just any undergrads, I think. Madison Scholars.
Like Thalia.
It’s been two weeks now. Six class sessions. Six hours of her sitting in the back of my classroom, taking the world’s most studious notes while I talk about calculating limits.
Two weeks of classes. Six hours of calculus instruction, and every time she walks into the classroom the world still tilts on its axis for a moment.
I hate it.
I hate lusting over a student. It makes me feel like I’m a dirty old pervert, like I’m one step away from hanging around cheerleader tryouts just to leer at undergrads in workout gear.
I hate that I can’t stop thinking about her this way, as the girl who told me about magic and then kissed me in the starlight, and not as a student.
I’m starting to hate myself.
Virginia State University has an undergraduate enrollment of 17,289 students, and 17,288 of them look like children to me. I’ve never been attracted to one before. Not my first year teaching, when I was a graduate student who was barely older than some of them; not any of the years afterward.
The thought’s never even occurred to me. They’re students.
17,288 of them, anyway.
For two weeks, I’ve been waiting for Thalia to make that switch. Every day I wake up and think, maybe today’s the day she finally looks like a student and nothing more.
“Undergrads get banquets these days?” Seth asks. “I just got credits for soggy chicken tenders at the dining hall. No wonder tuition keeps going up.”
“What do you know about college tuition?” I ask, giving up on looking at myself in the mirror and opening my sock drawer.
“Who do you think does Daniel’s tuition forecasting?” Seth laughs. “He’s only got nine more years before Rusty’s in college. You know how he likes to be prepared.”
“Is anyone ever really prepared for Rusty?” I ask, digging through a layer of hiking socks to find the ones that go with a suit.
“Well, no,” Seth admits. “Has anyone told you her latest thing?”
Finally, I grab a pair of black socks, a sudden pang of guilt working its way between my ribs. Between moving and the start of the school year, I haven’t visited home or seen any of my family in nearly a month.
“Computer hacking,” I guess. “She wants Eli to buy a whole pig so they can have a proper luau. She’s mastered alchemy and managed to turn lead into gold.”
Seth just laughs.
“Close,” he says. “Medieval siegecraft. Levi’s helping her build a model trebuchet.”
I’m not even a little bit surprised.
Chapter Ten
Thalia
“I should pull my hair back,” I say, frowning at myself in the mirror.
“Stop it,” says Victoria, leaning forward to check her teeth for lipstick.
“A bun wouldn’t look more dignified?” I ask. “Maybe a bun with a pencil through it, like, oh, I was so busy studying I didn’t see you there, that’s how studious I am.”
I’ve got on a black sheath dress that falls to the knee, black pumps, a royal blue cardigan, and right now I can’t tell if my outfit says smart, focused, and serious about scholarship or dowdy librarian.
I suspect I’m overthinking it.
“Thalia, you look extremely studious,” Victoria assures me again, adjusting the scarf in her hair. “As if you could quote me the whole DSM-IV.”
“It’s the DSM-V now,” I correct her.
“See?” she says. “Earrings or necklace?”
We’re in the bathroom of our apartment, both crowded in front of the only full-length mirror in the place. I study Victoria’s reflection in the mirror for a moment: she’s wearing a red dress with an asymmetrical neckline, her natural hair pulled back and wrapped with a patterned headscarf, along with her usual ten million bangles and bright red lipstick.
She’s an art major, so making things visually appealing is kind of her thing, but she still looks effortlessly amazing.
“Earrings,” I say. “The neckline is very dramatic all on its own, you don’t need a necklace.”
“I think you’re right,” she says. “God, I envy men. If they manage to show up wearing a suit jacket that’s not utterly ludicrous they get a pass. And if they’ve put a tie on without strangling themselves?”
“Right?” I sigh. “Has any man ever thought they’ll take me more seriously if I wear lipstick?”
“It’s not my impression that men worry about being taken seriously,” she says, half-turning, the backs of her thighs against the toilet tank as she checks out the back of her dress. “They just assume that they will be, and they’re usually right.”
There’s a knock on the bathroom door, and a moment later, it opens and Harper’s head pops through.
“Come on, we gotta go,” she says, giving us a quick once-over. “You both look very smart and or artistic and or accomplished and or sexy. Also, Margaret is going to have kittens if we make her wait much longer.”
“I’m not going to have kittens, I just don’t want to be late,” I hear Margaret say. “Is that so wrong, not wanting to be late?”
Harper gives us a look, then disappears. I give my hair one last finger-comb, then shake it out, open the door, and follow her, Victoria right behind me.
Tonight is the annual Madison Scholars banquet. Even though it’s my fourth time going, since I’m a senior, I haven’t been this anxious about it since I was an itty bitty freshman who was brand new to college and, quite frankly, thought I was in over my head.
Every year, VSU offers twenty-five Madison Scholarships to incoming freshmen. It’s a long, intense application process on top of the already-exhausting process of applying to college, but a Madison Scholarship is worth it.
Not only do you get a full ride plus a very small stipend for school-related expenses, you get access to special Honors classes. There are networking events with professors in your field, special mentorship opportunities, work-study programs, and on and on.
The banquet is one of those events — and three hours ago, I found out that one Dr. Stephen Rossi is going to be not only in attendance, but sitting at my table.
He is, of course, the leading researcher on the use of virtual reality in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, and he heads up the Virtual Lab at the Virginia Institute of Technology.
Naturally, he’ll be one of the people considering my graduate school application there in a few months. My advisor, Dr. Castellano, arranged for him to come to the banquet tonight almost entirely so I can meet and impress him.
For the first time in two weeks, I’ve stopped wondering whether Caleb will be at the banquet in favor of praying that I don’t spill soup on myself or accidentally mix up the frontal and parietal lobes in conversation.
However, in that two weeks of thinking about whether Caleb will be there or not, I’ve come to some conclusions and made some guidelines for myself.
1. He probably won’t be there. VSU has a billion faculty members. Most don’t go to this banquet; why would he?
2. If he is there, it doesn’t matter. Who cares? We’re not together. We’re not anything. There’s nothing between us and nothing to hide.
3. And if he’s there — which he probably won’t be — I’m not going to talk to him. I have no reason to talk to him. Why would I talk to him?