Chapter Two
Helene
“Here you go, Ms. Hess. That should be the final version—at least for the moment.”
“Thanks,” I said distractedly as I stared at my cell phone in my hand. When I glanced up and took the sheet of paper from the woman behind the desk, she smiled at me. “Oh, and it’s just Helene,” I added as I returned her smile.
“Very well, Helene. Glad to have you back this semester.”
“Thanks,” I said, again struggling to concentrate on anything but the phone in my hand.
I stumbled out of Schiavo Hall where the administrative offices of Penn State Hazleton were housed and headed toward the Evelyn Graham Academic Center, ignoring the feet that passed me on the sidewalk as my heels clicked against the concrete. I stared down at my hand, scrolling through email after email. When my phone rang, I jumped.
“This is Helene,” my voiced rushed out even as my finger still brushed across the screen.
“Hello, Helene. This is Ava from the University of Pennsylvania. I have Doctor Briggs on the line. Do you have a moment to speak with her?”
“Yes, yes. Of course,” I said hastily, still walking briskly and blindly toward the Academic Center.
“Helene,” came Dr. Briggs always serene and graceful voice. “I’m so glad I finally reached you.”
“Yes, I am too.” My voice was bordering on shrill. “Thank you for calling me back—”
“I’m not going to waste any time. If you want to go justice, then go justice. It’s been done to death, and it can be seen as cliché and safe. As your dissertation director, it’s my job to be frank, and that’s as frank as it gets. That said, I truly think if someone can pull some perspective out of this topic, it’s you. I want you to stick with your instincts on this. I really do.”
I fought against the sudden loss of wind from my sails for a moment. “Okay,” I said, my tone mildly deflated. Done to death, cliché, safe? None of those were inspiring words.
“I just sent you some suggestions on your thesis that I think you’ll find very useful. When you have a moment, review them and then get back in touch with me. I know you’ve already done a fair amount of work on this, but I will caution you, you need a narrow direction. Justice is broad, and a broad scope dissertation can kill your chances with the committee. You’re an advanced doctoral student, Helene. That comes with high expectations.”
“Yes. Yes, I will definitely narrow it down. Thank you so much, Dr.—”
“Very good, dear. I must go, but we’ll talk soon. Make sure you review Crito. It’s fundamental, I know, but you must start with your basics and build from there.”
“Yes, yes… Of course I will.”
“We’ll talk soon.” And then the line clicked dead even as I opened my mouth to thank her once more.
“Okay,” I said under my breath. “That was… Well…” I looked around, wondering for a moment where I was, and when I glanced in front of me, it was the physical education building I was looking at. “Shit,” I muttered. I’d missed my turn.
By the time I made it to the Academic Center, I was five minutes late, and when I pushed through the door into the lecture hall, every eyeball in every head turned to stare at me.
I cleared my throat as I walked toward the front of the room, and the eyes followed my every move. They roved, and I could feel them walking and crawling over my skin, judging, appraising. I ignored it, feeling my cheeks flush but refusing to react to my nerves.
“Good evening, class,” I said as I finally stepped up to the large desk that sat in the center of the vast room with its tall ceilings and cavernous echo. “I’m Helene Hess, and this is Philosophy 101. I’m an assistant professor here at Penn State Hazleton. I’m in the process of finishing up my dissertation for my Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania—”
“Ivy League…” a young man sitting near the front said. “Impressive.”
I stared at him for a moment. “Is it?” I asked blandly. “As I was saying, I’ll be your instructor for this course. We will be meeting every Wednesday evening from five to eight in this lecture hall.”
I spent the next thirty minutes reviewing the syllabus, and every time I mentioned an assignment or a test, the group of thirty or so supposed adults broke out into a chorus of groans. And when I mentioned the term paper that students would be required to write, you’d have thought I’d sentenced them to a life of hard labor.
Nearly half of the class was missing their textbooks, because apparently knowing what the text would be a month prior wasn’t long enough for anyone to actually find the textbook … at the campus bookstore that would literally find the book for them if they cared to ask. The majority of students who did have their books were the adults—the real adults. There were always plenty of those in an evening class, and I’d decided they were literally the only thing that could save my faith in collegiate education.
“I heard the bookstore was out of a lot of textbooks,” the same young male student who was impressed with my Ivy League education said as he lounged back in his chair as though it were a recliner.
“Is that so?” I asked, not the least bit amused. “And are they out of this textbook?” I asked, holding my copy up.
He shrugged.
“Amazon?” I asked. “Barnes & Noble, eBay … to name a few. All good examples of places you can actually buy a book.”
The number of shrugs that were returned to that comment was countless.
This was my second semester teaching an evening course at Penn State Hazleton, the first being the summer semester directly preceding this one. And I’d TA’d during my years of graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. There was one thing I’d determined over those many semesters and countless students… Freshman … strike that, undergraduates in general were no more mature than the average high schooler. Less so by all accounts thanks to the fact the one source of discipline—parents—was no longer a going concern in their lives.
A masculine looking hand rose from near the back of the room, and as I took a deep breath, tempering my irritation, I pointed toward the student. “Yes, you in the back. And please tell me you haven’t also failed to show up to my class prepared.”
The student’s hand dropped, and I started to roll my eyes, but then the hand rose again, clasping the textbook in his hand.
I smiled.
“Can you stand, please?” The problem with large lecture halls without leveled seating was they didn’t offer the same convenient eye line. I missed that about the University of Pennsylvania. Penn State Hazleton was a smaller satellite school located in Hazleton, Pennsylvania that was part of Penn State University. It was a good school, small, but adequate. It did, however, lack some of the conveniences I was used to at my larger, and frankly, more prestigious university.
The man stood, and as he did, every head in the room craned around to see him.
“How are you, Hell?” he asked.
A shudder ran through my body, traveling from one nerve ending to another as I gaped at him, and when my breath left me in a rush it was audible.
Students craned their necks to see who this man was that had just thrown me off track so effectively. It was utterly silent in the hall, and that silence became so deafeningly obvious that students started to fidget and clear their throats.
“Please don’t call me that,” I managed to finally get out on a breath as it escaped my lungs.
He looked back at me calmly, a subtle smirk pulling up his lip.
I was panicking. I was also pulsing with warmth, and as the blush crept back into my cheeks again, I failed completely at tempering my reaction to it. My hand moved to my cheek, feeling the burn, and when I realized what I’d done, I dropped my hand so fast I could literally see multiple eyes bulging as they focused on me.
“Is it true Nietzsche caught syphilis from a prostitute and lost his mind?” he asked, holding his textbook in both hands now.
I just stared, failing to react in any way much less respond.
“Well, did he?” he asked again. He studied me seriously, but his lips still pulled up in a small smile.
I cleared my throat. “There’s some … debate … about—”
“Did he literally fuck himself insane and then die?” he asked more bluntly. When he bit into his lower lip, it was almost a sheepish expression, and his eyes flit to the floor for a moment before returning to me.
The reaction from the class was a combination of things. Men chuckled quietly if they had any sort of decorum, some laughed loudly, slapping their legs and buckling over with amusement. Some women, namely those who were mature enough to find such behavior appalling, gasped and covered their mouths. And then there were the younger women who giggled and blushed even as they batted their eyes at him. Why wouldn’t they bat their eyes? He was good looking. Always had been, and his mouth was filthy. There was nothing new about that either.
I finally coughed, glancing away for a moment as I regrouped. I grabbed the attendance sheet I’d just picked up from admissions shortly ago. “If you brought your book, show me when I call your name.” I called off names, noting the students who’d brought their books. When I was finally finished taking attendance, I crossed my arms. “If you failed to bring your textbook this week, I want a two-thousand word paper over Marcus Aurelius on my desk by next week,” I said. “You’ll find an entire section in chapter one related to him, and I expect you to find two additional sources of information as well—one of which must be considered scholarly. If you decide to show up unprepared, I’ll see to it you’re kept busy outside of my class.”
There was a communal groan as that registered with the slackers.
“Everyone is expected to have read the first two chapters by class next week as well. We’ll be discussing the human condition and empiricism. And yes, there will be a quiz. Class is dismissed,” I said abruptly.
The room erupted in chatter as students stood and moved down the rows of desks toward the exit. I was glared at multiple times—mainly by the students without textbooks. I was smiled at a few times too—by the students who were getting out exceptionally early without the added two thousand word paper. And the cocky boy who didn’t know how to purchase a textbook actually had the gall to wink at me. I stifled an eye roll as I forced my attention to move down to the desktop.
The room eventually quieted—all that is but the sound of lone footsteps on the hard concrete floor of the room. I didn’t need to look up to see who it was that had hung back.
“I see you’re going for the teacher of the year award,” he said. “You’re quite brutal.”
I looked up. “Kane.” I said his name and nothing more, but it was too breathy, too quiet.
“Hell.” He walked toward me slowly, his face sly and mischievous. He’d always had that countenance to him—as though nothing, not life, not nightmares, not boogiemen, nor monsters could rattle him. I’d loved that about him once. Of course it wasn’t true, and he was just as vulnerable to monsters as I was.
He’d changed in the eleven or so years since I’d last seen him. His eyes were as blue as ever, and his hair was the same sandy light brown color, but it was longer, pushed back and curling around the backs of his ears. He looked so much like the roguish carefree kid I knew before, though he was a little too rough around the edges to pull it off completely. He had facial hair now, and it was scruffy and thoughtless, but it made him look intimidating. His jeans were worn, but they fit impeccably—even if they looked aged to perfection. His work boots were just as broken in as his jeans, and the gray T-shirt he wore clung to chiseled muscles that had hardened over the years.
I took a deep breath, cramming my laptop and folders back into my briefcase. “Hell is not a name. It’s a place. A rather unpleasant place if I know my geography.”
He chuckled. “Yes. If I recall we both took the guided tour once.”
I didn’t have a clue how to respond to that. I stopped cramming my belongings into my bag and looked up at him. His brow flinched, and he looked away for a moment as his jaw tightened. Not even he, in all his laid-back coolness, could reference our past without some reaction. That was almost comforting.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice breathless again.
“Learning about philosophy,” he said simply.
“And what was that before,” I asked as I pointed to the back of the classroom where he’d come from. In truth, my insides were still fluttering with emotion I couldn’t begin to pin down, and I was rambling just to keep my mind moving.
“What? Isn’t Nietzsche’s sexually transmitted lunacy a valid topic for this class?”
I didn’t respond. I just stared at him.
“Fine,” he finally conceded. “Just getting your attention.”
“And you couldn’t have simply said hello?”
He smiled, studying me for a moment. “Hi,” he said quietly, his smile sincere and real. He rounded the desk toward me, and when he reached for the collar of my fitted suit jacket, he ran his fingers under the lapel. “You look so grown up,” he said as he studied the fabric and his thumb as it ran over the top of the material. When he looked at my eyes, his face was serious. “Do you feel grown up?”
I took a deep breath, an odd nostalgia that was both painful and intoxicating coursing through my veins. “I feel…” My eyes wandered. “…too old to be twenty-eight.”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said quietly. He sighed as he looked away for a moment, but his hand never left my lapel. “Me too.”
“Why are you in my class?” I watched him, waiting for his attention to return to me.
When it finally did, he was smirking again. “I happen to have Wednesday nights free, and as I said before, I want to learn a little something about philosophy.” He held his textbook up, and he finally released my jacket as he started flipping through the table of contents. “Lots of interesting stuff in here from the looks of it.” His voice sounded sarcastic, but his eyes studied the pages intently. “The nature of being, divine knowledge, love and hate…” He glanced at me for a moment before looking back down. “Justice…” he said with particular enunciation, and then he looked back at me, his eyebrows shooting up.
“My dissertation topic.” I offered nothing more.
He nodded slowly. “Of course it is.” He was quiet for a moment as he stared at me blankly. “I just wanted to see you. I’d heard you were back in town. I’ve only been back six months myself. My dad had a stroke, and…”
“I’d heard that. I’m sorry.”
He nodded again. “He’s in a nursing home now, and I’m trying to get his house ready to sell. It’s in pretty … rough shape. Not that it was ever the nicest house on the block,” he said quietly.
“Don’t recall your dad’s house being on a block.” Buried in the woods just outside of town was more accurate actually.
He smiled. “No.”
“I should … go.” But I didn’t make any move to leave, and he reached out once more. He didn’t touch my jacket this time though, and as I inhaled deeply, his finger met my skin just at the base of my neck where it hollowed in at the top of my sternum. He traced that finger down and over the pendent on my necklace, stopping just below it.
“How can one little thing destroy so much?” His voice was distant as he stared at the place his finger still touched.
I closed my eyes, letting it sink in. So much. So much more than I ever realized I had in me to destroy.
“It wasn’t such a little thing,” I whispered.
“No it wasn’t,” he agreed.
When his arms wrapped around me, I sank into his body, resting my cheek to his shoulder. I could hear his heart beating, slowly and evenly as we stood there, and I reached around his body, clasping at the backs of his shoulders as the tight muscles underneath tensed. I closed my eyes, remembering a time when being close to him felt good.
Until the day one … little … thing … destroyed it all. But that was just it. It wasn’t a little thing at all. It was the worst of things.
He released me on a heavy sigh. “It’s good to see you, Hell. I really am looking forward to your class. Perhaps you’ll let me read this dissertation of yours. Teach me a thing or two about justice.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. It wasn’t a light comment. It was exceptionally loaded with a past too heavy with secrets for either of us to ignore in the silence between us. He stared at me, his face expressionless, and I just felt slack as I looked back at him.
“Good night,” he finally said quietly, and then he turned and walked out of the room.