by Noir, Roxie
4. If I find myself in a social situation in which I must talk to him because to do otherwise would be impolite, I will talk casually about: the weather. The loveliness of the ballroom in which this event is held every year. The deliciousness of the cheese platter. What kind of salad dressing he likes.
But really, he won’t be there, and leaves me free to not make an ass of myself in front of Dr. Rossi.
“Here,” says Harper, holding out a small, slim packet as I grab my purse, ready to leave.
Despite myself, I blush.
“Caleb’s not going to be there, for crying out loud,” I say, ignoring the offered condom. “And I told you, we shut it down as soon as realized that he was —”
They’re all looking at me like I’ve started speaking in tongues, and I stop speaking mid-sentence.
“If you don’t want a Shout wipe, don’t take the Shout wipe,” Harper says, one eyebrow raised. “You don’t have to get weird about it.”
I look at the thing she’s offering me. It’s not even square. It looks nothing like a condom.
It’s possible that I’m feeling a little high-strung right now.
I clear my throat, grab it, and shove it into my purse.
“Thanks,” I tell my three grinning friends.
* * *
The banquet takes place in Randolph Hall, right in the center of campus. Even though it’s the second-oldest building on campus, it’s been beautifully maintained and renovated every so often, and it’s got a certain old-Virginia charm that’s hard to put into words.
When you stand in front of it, you feel like if you turned around, you’d see horse-drawn carriages on cobblestone streets, ladies in long dresses and men in suits, gas lamps lighting the dark.
It’s brick, four stories high, a colonnade on each side, the copper roof now a dull pale green. Each window has a single candle in it, as if it’s waiting to welcome us.
Just in case, I check behind myself. There are no cobblestones, just a few guys wearing shorts and playing frisbee.
Inside Randolph Hall looks just as old-world as the outside: wooden floors with wide planks, ceilings with intricate plaster molding around the light fixtures, lamps in walls sconces, the whole nine yards.
Aside from the ballroom, this floor is a series of small salons, each set up with arm chairs and tables, bookshelves, a fireplace. Originally this building was the center of student life at VSU, where undergraduates could come and discuss their intellectual ideas with one another, back when there were three hundred of them.
“Everyone has a cheese plate,” Harper mutters to me as we make out way through the network of rooms. “How?”
“I imagine there are appetizers somewhere,” I tell her.
“But where?” she asks as a skinny guy in a badly-fitting suit walks past holding a small plate filled with cheese, crackers, and grapes.
“In the foyer,” I tell her, as we walk single-file through a doorway. “It’s always in the foyer. Every year. Cool your tits.”
“My tits are an excellent temperature,” she says, reaching up like she’s going to pat them.
At the last second, she touches the neckline of her dress instead.
“Good save,” I say.
“I’m a demure, sophisticated lady who would never grab my boobs in public without thinking first,” Harper says. “Oh! There it is.”
With that last statement, she grabs my arm, and I can’t blame her. The cheese table is a thing of wonder, just like it is every year: there are cubes and chunks and wheels surrounded by crackers and grapes, some artfully spilled and some neatly stacked.
The cheeses are stacked on multi-level plates, interspersed with other bite-size snacks. Some cheese plates also contain charcuterie, and I even grab a minuscule pickle from one, hoping it’s not merely decorative.
I also get some grapes, but they’re mostly for show because in front of all these professors and colleagues, I’d like to seem like the sort of person who looks at four metric tons of cheese and chooses fruit.
I snack. I even eat the grapes, though admittedly I eat them last. I chat with some other students about the best non-library study spot on campus (it’s in the basement of the Economics building), and inform a few freshmen about the best sandwich place on Main Street (it’s called Shorty’s).
Just as I’m about to grab more cheese, I catch sight of a short, serious, gray-haired Latina who’s practically barreling toward me.
I forget the cheese and stand up a little bit straighter.
“Thalia,” Dr. Castellano says. “I was hoping I’d find you here. Could I have a word?”
* * *
As I follow her, I automatically catalog all the things that this could possibly be about. I just saw Dr. Castellano a few hours ago, and everything seemed fine then.
Did I screw up the bibliography that she asked me to put together for her paper?
Are the page numbers wrong? Did I spell a name wrong?
Maybe she doesn’t like the sources I found.
My brain is still whirling as I follow her outside to the colonnade and she finally turns, her back to one stark white column, slowly going blue in the evening light.
She looks at me, her mouth a grim line.
“Is this about the bibliography?” I blurt out, but she just shakes her head.
“Nathaniel was expelled this afternoon,” she says, her face grave.
I just stare at her, trying to process this news.
“Johnston?” I finally ask.
“Yes,” she confirms.
“Nathaniel Johnston was expelled,” I say, putting it all together in one sentence.
I have to be getting something wrong here. There must be some other Nathaniel that she’s talking about besides the guy on my work-study project with me.
Nathaniel is… nice? Quiet? Responsible?
Whatever he is, he’s not the kind of person who gets expelled from college.
“I’m afraid that’s right,” she says.
“What?” I sputter. “Why? How? He’s got all the citations on the neurolinguistics paper, if I have to redo those it’ll take me weeks —”
I stop talking, because I realize I’m missing the point.
“The committee made its decision this afternoon,” she says. “Ethical misconduct.”
“Ethical misconduct,” I echo, still trying to wrap my brain around it. “Plagiarism? Was he taking money to write papers?”
That, at least, makes a little bit of sense. Writing papers for money is big business and college students always need money, even the ones on full scholarship.
I’ve been offered money to write a paper. I know Harper and Victoria have been, too.
But Dr. Castellano shakes her head.
“I’m afraid it was behavioral,” she says, lips still tight. “I’m not at liberty to discuss much more, but I wanted you to hear it from me, rather than the rumor mill, since the two of you worked together.”
I have no idea what behavioral misconduct even means in the context of getting expelled from college, and I really can’t imagine quiet, respectful, polite Nathaniel participating in any such thing.
He was a nice guy. Smiled at puns. Showed me a picture of his parents’ dog once. Seemed to drink mostly tea.
“Thank you,” I finally manage to say. “I appreciate the heads up.”
She sighs, then nods.
“I’m sorry to tell you like this, right before you meet Dr. Rossi,” she says. “Please understand that this sort of extreme punishment is quite rare in the Scholars program. In fact, to be honest I can’t think of another case quite like this one where…”
As she’s talking, there’s a slow trickle of people walking past us and into the building. Most look like students. Some I recognize, some I don’t, and I’m nodding absentmindedly and I’m trying to figure out what the hell Nathaniel did.
Behavioral. What does that even mean? Did he get into a bar fight? Threaten someone?
Doing drugs? Deal
ing drugs? Does that count as behavioral, or —
Someone walks around the corner, and instantly, my attention shifts. Before I can even see who it is, my attention shifts. It’s like on some subconscious, cellular level, I already know.
It’s Caleb, of course. Dr. Loveless. Whatever I’m supposed to call him.
In a dark gray suit with a skinny black tie. Glasses. Hair tamed, face clean-shaven, suit well-tailored. Even though I’ve had two weeks to get used to seeing him, I am unprepared.
My heart speeds up. I blush. I do my damnedest not to smile, but by the time he’s walking past us, I’ve failed at that.
He smiles back, nods once. I nod back. That’s all.
Then he’s gone, into the building, and Dr. Castellano is reaching out and patting me on the shoulder.
“In short, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” she says with an encouraging smile. “Now, let’s go back inside so I can introduce you to Dr. Rossi.”
Chapter Eleven
Caleb
I turn to the young man seated next to me at the banquet, because now that dinner’s over, it’s time to attempt a conversation again.
“What sort of creative writing will you be focusing on?” I ask.
“Fiction,” he says.
I wait another moment, just in case he’d like to put some effort into the conversation.
He wouldn’t.
“What authors do you particularly admire?” I ask.
This is making me feel like a nagging aunt at Thanksgiving — what are you majoring in? What are you going to do with that? Can you get a job with a mathematics major? What about econ, there’s always business.
The young man — I think his name is Aidan, but I can’t even remember any more — shrugs.
“Denis Johnson,” he says. “Raymond Carver. Richard Ford.”
“What have they written?” I ask, because they all sound medium-familiar, like I’ve read them and forgotten the name.
“Short stories mostly,” he says, and then goes quiet and blank again.
“Anything I might have read?”
He shrugs, which seems to be his only body language.
“Probably not,” he says.
It’s like talking to a rock, but an uninteresting rock. This is at least my third attempt tonight to lure him into conversation, and it’s also my third failure.
Behind me, a table breaks into laughter. Without turning, I can’t tell which one, but I focus in sharply on the fork in my hand, on the floral bouquet in front of me, and I banish the thought that I can hear Thalia’s laughter.
Suddenly, that’s all I can take.
“Excuse me,” I say, and stand, pushing my chair away from the table. The undergrads on either side of me look up at me briefly, then nod, go back to what they were doing: on one side, talking about fancy airplane travel; on the other, an apparently deep contemplation of the basket of dinner rolls.
Then I look over at Thalia’s table. I don’t mean to do it. I don’t even want to do it, I just do. She’s facing toward me but intently listening to the man next to her, a middle-aged white guy with glasses and graying hair. She’s hanging onto every word he says, nodding along, smiling.
Jealousy pins me like an arrow out of the blue. It’s a surprise. It blows the breath from my lungs for a moment with unexpected tightness, and I look away before I can make it worse.
As soon as I exit the ballroom, I take a deep breath. The air out here, in the foyer, is already cooler, and I feel like I can breathe again. I make my way through the other rooms in the building, all small chambers that look like something out of the year 1750, until I find one that’s empty, the lights off.
It’s blessedly, blessedly quiet, and I sink into a chair in front of the window. This window is candle-free, and through it I can see the backyard of this building, walled in by five-foot-high brick walls, wrought iron benches stationed along brick paths. A strange thing to be in the middle of a college campus, but when a building is this old, no one wants to change it.
Outside, the moon is a sliver. I can’t see the stars over the light of the street lamps, but I imagine them all the same, the constellations that my mom taught us all by heart.
I wonder, not for the first time, if I should be outside with them and not inside with antiques, oriental rugs, and sophomores who own yachts. I wonder if I’m cut out for wearing suits to events and hobnobbing when all I really want to do is go hiking and think about prime numbers.
I think, again, about Thalia looking at another man, smiling, nodding. I wonder if I should be teaching at all, if seeing a student taking an academic interest in another professor — I’d bet a thousand dollars that’s who he is — is going to turn me green with jealousy.
I’ve walked away from everything before, literally, but I think it was easier when I was twenty years old. I have more to walk away from now.
Besides, you can’t walk away from yourself.
I’m still looking outside, naming the invisible constellations to myself when I hear the slightest of creaks behind me.
Before I even turn, I know who it is. I know it in my bones.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here,” Thalia says.
I should say I’m sorry or you’re right or even we shouldn’t be in here together, but I don’t.
“You gonna report me?” I ask.
She laughs.
Chapter Twelve
Thalia
I didn’t think he’d be alone. I didn’t think he’d be in the dark, staring out a window, tie loosened and sleeves rolled up, looking slightly disheveled and somehow even more attractive than before.
“You look like you’re about to howl,” I say, because Caleb makes my mouth function without my brain, and I bite my lips together, close my eyes.
“The moon isn’t full,” he says, as I walk over to where he’s sitting, take the chair next to his, half turned toward his, half-turned to the window. “It’s waning. I’ve got at least two weeks before I transform, according to my math.”
“I suppose your math is trustworthy,” I say, leaning back.
The chair’s upholstered in velvet, the frame wooden. It’s not particularly comfortable, but it’ll do.
“It had better be,” he says. “If I can’t even add up the days of a lunar month, what chance do I have of proving Glessmacher’s theorem?”
“That one’s wrong,” I say. “There, I saved you all that work. You’re welcome.”
In the other chair, Caleb laughs and the sound works itself into my chest, unwinding the knot that had taken up residence there.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice low, the lilt of his accent there even in those two words. “Doubtless, you’ve just saved me years.”
“Glad I could help,” I tease, and then we both go quiet again, looking out the window together.
I shouldn’t have followed him. I know that. I know nothing can come of this, I know nothing should come of this, and I know that I’m just torturing myself by following after him like a lost puppy.
But I’m not sorry. Not yet. I might be, sooner rather than later, but not yet.
“Do you think werewolves ever get the urge to howl at the moon while they’re human?” I ask. “Just a little yip, while they’re driving home at night and the moon’s a sliver, like this?”
“Werewolves don’t exist,” he points out, and I sigh.
“I’m not asking whether werewolves exist,” I tell him. “I’m asking whether they want to howl at the moon even when they’re human.”
“So, to clarify, I’m supposed to know the innermost desires of a creature that doesn’t exist?” he asks, his voice low, teasing.
“You don’t have to know,” I say. “You can guess.”
He props one ankle on the opposite knee, his elbow resting on the arm of the chair, his hand in the air by his face as he regards me carefully, slowly, then glances back out the window, at the moon.
“Of course they do,” he finally says.
“Of course?” I ask. “That’s a lot of certainty for a creature that doesn’t exist.”
“Well, they’re human, right?”
“Sort of.”
“Then of course.”
He pauses, and I feel rather than see his gaze slide from the window to me. In my lap I press my palms together, like that can fight off the heat I feel.
I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have.
But now we’re here and we’re talking about the moon, and I can already tell that in a few hours I’ll be alone in my bed, remembering the way he looked at me.
“You’ve howled at the moon, haven’t you?” he asks, and now he’s looking over at me, a grin on his face.
“Never,” I say.
“Come on, Thalia,” he says, his voice even lower, a cajoling note there, like he already knows the answer and wants me to say it. “Not even once?”
I start to laugh.
“I swear I haven’t,” I tell him. “Why on earth would I howl at the moon?”
“Because it’s the moon and it’s right there,” he says. “You’ve never looked up at night and been struck by that wild, primal urge to howl?”
I’m breathless, wordless for a moment, because I can’t help but imagine him outdoors, shirtless, howling at the moon, and I can’t help but want to hear more about his wild, primal urges.
“You have,” I finally say.
“I can’t believe you haven’t,” he says.
“My urges are civilized,” I say, looking back through the window, at the sliver of moon hanging low in the sky.
There’s a long, long pause, and I have the chance to really mull over what I just said and wish I’d said something else instead.
“Are they?” he says at last, and I don’t have an answer, because he’s right and they’re not. They’re wild and primal as anything and it’s all I can do here, now, to take another deep breath and press my hand into the velvet of an antique chair and remind myself where I am, what I’m doing.