CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, I sat in the empty chair across from my professor’s desk. I’d woken up to an e-mail from her confirming I could drop by her office before my first class of the day. I’d only achieved a few more hours of sleep after my abrupt awakening and was feeling the fatigue.
“Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice,” I said.
“It’s no problem,” my professor said. “I figured it was pretty urgent since you sent the e-mail at 2:00 a.m.”
I’d taken several courses with Professor Nancy Bills. She was chair of the nursing program and my academic advisor. Late each semester we would meet to pick out my courses for the following semester to make sure I was on track to graduate on time. I’d never met with her so early in the semester though.
There was no sense tiptoeing around the issue. “I need to drop English 111.”
Professor Bills leaned forward, looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”
I’m attracted to the professor. I can’t pay attention in her class, and it’s going to ruin my G.P.A. I started having sex dreams about her. I masturbated a few hours ago with her in mind. Oh, and I’m probably a lesbian.
“I don’t think it’s a good fit for me right now.”
She knit her eyebrows together. “Why not? You’re not overloading; you’ve got just as many courses as you’ve had in previous semesters.”
“A&P is going to be a lot of work this semester,” I tried to explain. In the absence of sleep, I’d prepared a litany of excuses as to why I could no longer take Professor Graft’s course. “I’ll need the extra time to focus on doing well in that.”
“It’s not unusual for students to be worried about A&P, Hunter. But you’ve never gotten anything lower than a B. You’ve always put in the work. I think you’re going to do fine.”
As much as I appreciated the supportive pept-alk, I wanted even more for Professor Bills to take my complaint at face value and withdraw me from the class.
“I just don’t think I can do this class,” I pled. “I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
Please don’t make me tell you the truth.
Professor Bills steepled her fingers in thought. “I want you to give it another week,” she decided. “We still have some time before the add/drop deadline. If your schedule hasn’t gotten better by then, come see me, and we’ll get the drop paperwork started.”
I could have protested; I could have yelled and thrown a tantrum—this was my life and my course schedule and my parents were paying a lot of money for me to go here. But instead I bit down on my lower lip and nodded.
“By the way,” she caught me as I stood to leave, “have you narrowed down your nursing specialty yet?”
I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “No. Not yet.”
“Keep thinking about it and let me know when you do. I’d like to get started on finding you an appropriate internship for next year.”
“I will,” I promised.
I dragged my feet out of my advisor’s campus office. I would give it a week like she suggested, but I knew nothing was going to change. I wasn’t going to magically stop being attracted to Professor Graft, and I sensed that wouldn’t be the last time she starred in one of my dreams.
Realistically, my desire to drop the class would cause more problems than if I stayed enrolled. I could retake it with a different professor over the summer, but then my parents would have to pay more, and I personally didn’t have that kind of money to foot the bill. I could overload my senior year, but that would still mean more tuition money and a super stressed-out year when I needed to be focusing on my internship at the hospital.
When my dad had gotten a new job before my senior year of high school, the mantra that summer had been Adjust. There would be no complaining that I’d have to go to a new school where I knew no one. Everyone had been affected, and we’d all had to make changes. That was just the way life worked. I would have to approach this class and my attraction to Professor Graft in the same way. Stiff upper lip, Hunter. It was time to adjust.
+ + +
I left Professor Bills’ office in the life science building and traveled the short distance across campus to get to the humanities building. When I arrived at the writing seminar, the desks had been reconfigured into small groupings around the room. We all knew what that meant: dreaded group work. I actually didn’t mind working in small groups. I felt more comfortable sharing my ideas and contributing in the smaller setting where not everyone’s eyes were on me. I didn’t have to rehearse the words in my head as religiously as I did in the big group.
Professor Graft was in her usual friendly, but serious mood at the start of class as she gave us instructions and we got settled into our small groups. We were to look over each other’s latest rough drafts and provide feedback on what worked well and what required revision.
As class wore on, I tried to focus on the rough draft in front of me, but instead, I was keenly aware of Professor Graft’s traveling presence around the room as she periodically checked on each group’s progress. I wanted to be helpful during the peer review process, but she was making it hard to concentrate. It had snowed the previous night, yet she still wore a skirt with heels—this time a light grey pencil skirt with a tucked-in blue blouse. The shirt opened modestly in the front, but revealed enough of her collarbone to make my imagination form less innocent thoughts.
Whenever she walked by our group, I couldn’t help stealing a glance in her direction. Her well-defined calves were partially hidden behind dark grey nylons. The skirt hugged her slender curves and accentuated her already slim waist. The effect formed an area of invitation around her midsection, like invisible arrows pointing to hips that begged to be held.
Some of my other teachers—particularly men—wore jeans to class, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing Professor Graft in pants. And I would have noticed if she had. Even though my attention had improved since the first day of class, I still took note of each outfit. She must have had a massive closet in her home because she never seemed to wear the same clothes twice.
She was far more than clothes and legs though; she executed a no-nonsense confidence from the front of the room. When she paced the length of the classroom during a lecture, she moved with a practiced grace made even more impressive since she nearly always wore high heels. She tried to make jokes layered within her composition instruction, but they nearly always fell flat. It wasn’t that she lacked a sense of humor, but my classmates only listened with partial attention, always focused on something else on their laptop screen or the cell phones they didn’t hide well in their laps. With me, however, she always had a rapt audience.
I found myself wondering about my teacher and her personal life in a way that had never struck me before with other professors. Did she like her job? Had she always wanted to teach five-paragraph essay structure to college students? Did she have many friends? A girlfriend, maybe even a wife and kids? What did she do at the end of the school day? How did she spend her spare time? What made her laugh? What turned her on?
Despite my study session dream, the latter question surprised me. I passed it off on the fact that I’d never known a gay person before—not that I actually knew Professor Graft. I saw her four times a week from 9:00 a.m. to 9:50 a.m., yet she never revealed any personal information about herself. Some instructors, particularly those in the nursing program with whom I’d become friendly over the years, often shared things like weekend plans or if they were married or had kids; Professor Graft remained an enigma. She wasn’t cold or distant though—just the opposite. She welcomed us every Monday through Thursday morning with a warm smile and upbeat demeanor.
Through my winter jacket, I felt a hand touch the back of my arm. “How’s everyone doing here?”
Professor Graft leaned over our collection of desks to check in on our group’s progress. Her hand dropped away from my tricep, but a phantom touch remained, like an invisible heaviness across the back of my arm. Her scent—warm vanilla—invaded my nostrils, making it hard to think of anything else but how good she smelled. Cookies. Fresh baked cookies straight out of the oven. And I had skipped breakfast.
Dina, a sophomore biology major, spoke for our group. “We’re doing good.”
“That’s good to hear. Let me know if you have any questions.” Professor Graft flashed a quick smile before moving on to the next group.
I should have gone back to focusing on the peer review exercise. Instead, I watched her interaction with other students with growing envy. My gaze focused on her hand gripping the back of a student’s chair as she gave them feedback. Everyone seemed to have a strong rapport with her, while I struggled to just be noticed. Why wasn’t I ever quicker with a response?
I thought about my dream. Would I ever be bold enough to ask her for additional help? She would stand behind me, leaning to read the typed words on the page. Her hair would unintentionally brush my cheek. She would turn to say something and our faces would be suddenly close, unintentional again, but so close I would need only lean towards her for our lips to touch. Just an experimental brush knowing that it could never be, but wanting it just the same. What would it be like to kiss a girl? What would it be like if that girl was Professor Graft?
My classmates stirred around me, gathering their papers and books. I silently cursed; I’d done it again. I’d let myself be sucked down the rabbit hole.
I slowly stood from my chair and began packing up my backpack. If I took my time, maybe we’d have the classroom alone again. But rather than scatter to their next classes, my classmates crowded around her to ask last minute questions about our first paper. I wanted to stay and have her notice me, but I had no reason to. I couldn’t even fabricate a question on the spot, and I had another class to hustle along to.
+ + +
I’d propped my empty suitcase in front of my closed bedroom door again, and my earbuds were plugged into my laptop’s headphone jack. I opened up a browser window and exhaled.
“Here we go.”
I clicked on the search box and typed in the two words that had been at the forefront of my thoughts recently: lesbian sex.
I hit enter and waited for the next page to load.
“Sweet Jesus,” I blasphemized.
Lesbian videos, lesbian sex photos, red hot lesbian sex, XXX lesbians, girl-on-girl sex, free lesbian sex, lesbian sex positions, HD lesbian porn, naughty lesbians.
I slammed my laptop shut and hopped away from my bedroom desk.
I began to pace the length of the room. Reading lesbian romance fiction was one thing; I could almost pass it off as academic. Taking an online quiz satisfied a curiosity. But actively looking up lesbian pornography? It felt like leaping off a cliff—a point of no return. But how else was I going to learn about these things? I couldn’t steal all the books in the library.
I returned to my desk chair and shook out my hands. I tilted my head from one side to the other and cracked my neck. “Suck it up, Dyson.” I tried to pump myself up. “They’re only pictures.”
I reopened my laptop and put my earbuds back in. My fingers hovered over the touchpad. Deciding which of the first few links to click on felt like playing gay Russian roulette. I randomly chose one of the many free lesbian movie hyperlinks.
I scanned through the various categories of films listed on the landing page and paused at one. I blinked, surprised at my discovery. There was an entire genre on this?
I clicked on one title whose screenshots looked promising.
The movie opened in a classroom that better resembled a high school, not a college classroom. The “student” wore her hair in twin pigtails, probably to make her appear younger than her co-star, but they were probably the same age.
The woman playing the role of the professor was relatively attractive, but it was clear she was only playing a role. There was nothing wholesome or authentic about her performance. Even I could tell that her breasts were fake and her fingernails were too long. Her white blouse was unbuttoned too much with her black bra clearly visible underneath. She wore too much lipstick and eyeliner.
The plot—if one could even call it that—was predictable. The so-called student was failing the class and promised her teacher she’d do “anything” to get a passing grade. Apparently “anything” meant kneeling and eating out her professor who proceeded to demean the student with explicit language.
There was little about the movie that I found appealing, and despite the graphic images on my computer, my mind wandered elsewhere. I wondered if Professor Graft ever watched pornography. I wondered what she thought was sexy. For not the first time, I wondered what turned her on.
My hand traveled beneath the elastic waistband of my pajama bottoms and rested innocently on top of my pelvic bone. I thought about Professor Graft and her routine of sitting on top of the desk at the front of the classroom. I thought about standing before her and slowly, deliberately, unbuttoning each button on her blouse, and tugging free the tails of her shirt from her pencil skirt.
I tried to imagine the surprise on her beautiful face as I exposed the lacy bra she wore beneath her top, or the panic of looking towards the closed classroom door. Anyone could walk in. I pictured the way she might bite her lower lip as I inched her skirt up her hips and bunched the material around her waist.
I would drop to my knees before her, one hand on either thigh and taste her for the very first time. I shut my eyes and tried to imagine the look of concentration on her face as I pushed her towards orgasm. I wanted to hear the husky rasp of her saying my name over and over again.
God, she was sexy; my imagination was better than anything the Hollywood movie machine could mass produce. I bit back a quiet moan as my fingers began to wander, and I pushed my underwear to the side.
A tiny jingle echoed in my ears, somehow trumping the groans and fake orgasms of the two women in the video. The sound had me yanking my hand out of the front of my pants.
A message window from Colette popped up in the background: What’s up?
I could have ignored her, but I felt compelled to respond. Nothing much.
More homework? she asked.
I’m doing research. It wasn’t a total lie.
For what class?
English.
The chimes of Colette’s instant messaging competed for attention over the heavy breathing of the student splayed out on her teacher’s desk.
Why do you have to take English? she posed. Don’t you speak it just fine?
It’s a writing course, I explained.
That’s ridiculous. Let me talk to your professor. I’ll tell him how good your English is. Never any typos.
It’s a she.
Even the innocent pronoun correction felt like an admission of guilt.
I paused the video and minimized the browser window to give Colette my undivided attention.
Don’t you sleep? I challenged. It’s like 2:00 am your time.
I work best under pressure. I’m at my most creative when I’ve got a major project due in a few hours.
I could never do that, I marveled. I’m already studying for a test I won’t take for another year.
You’re joking.
I wish I was. But it’s my licensure test, and I can’t be a registered nurse unless I pass it. Even when I get my bachelor’s degree, I can’t actually work until I pass the test. And my college’s nursing program has a 100-percent pass rate for first-time test takers. I don’t want to be the first person in the history of the department to fail.
That’s too much pressure, Hunter. I don’t know how you do it.
I don’t date, and I don’t go to parties—that’s how.
I thought all American college students were supposed to do keg stands and join a fraternity.
I thought all French people drank wine and wore berets, I countered.
That’s true. You should come to school here for a semester. We can drink all the wine and wear all the berets.
I can’t. The nursing program is too prescribed. You can’t go abroad if you want to graduate in four years. And if I want my parents to keep paying my tuition, I’ve got to graduate on time.
Speaking of graduating on time, I should probably get back to this drawing.
Probably a good idea. Nite.
Nite, she returned.
With Colette offline, I was free to return to my previous activity. I pulled up the window again, but I’d lost interest in the tacky, cliché
video. I didn’t want chalkboards or Grade Point Average-enhancing sex scenarios. I wanted something real. I just didn’t know the first thing about trying to get it.
Chapter SEVEN
“Hold up. Just one minute, please.” Professor Brick called our attention as our weekly lab session came to an end. We paused in packing up our backpacks just long enough to hear the rest of her announcements.
“I’m holding a NCLEX study session next week in the library for anyone who’s interested,” she stated. “We’ll go over the test’s format and what you can expect.”
She traveled around the classroom, placing a sheet of paper in front of each student.
“Also, your bedside manner practicum results are back. You’ll see your overall grade at the top of the paper, followed by general comments from your resident. If you have questions about your score, come see me.”
She set a piece of paper in front of me, face down, so I couldn’t see my score.
My stomach churned uncomfortably. My session at Evergreen Landings had been far from ideal. I couldn’t make out my grade through the back of the thick paper stock, but I sensed it wouldn’t be good.
Meghan cursed beside me. “That sneaky old woman.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My patient gave me a B. I smiled and nodded and listened to her talk the entire time, and all I got was a B.”
“What’s your feedback say?” I asked.
“My student nurse was very nice,” she read aloud. “She’s a lovely girl with a kind smile. She shouldn’t slouch so much.” Meghan shook her piece of paper. “She graded my posture!”
“Talk to Professor Brick,” I suggested. “Maybe she’ll bump your grade up.”
“Doubt it.” Meghan peered over at my desk where my grade remained turned over. “What’d you get?”
“I’m afraid to look,” I admitted.
“Just get it over with. Like taking off a Band-Aid.”
I took a breath and flipped the sheet of paper over. I gaped in disbelief at the letter grade at the top of the page.
“You asshole,” Meghan scowled. “I thought you said your woman didn’t like you.”
“She didn’t,” I insisted. “It’s got to be a mistake.”
Meghan snorted. “Leave it to you to get an A by mistake.”
+ + +
At the end of the school day, I drove first to a florist and then to the senior care center at Evergreen Landings. Thankfully, the woman at the reception desk recognized me and allowed me entrance even though I wasn’t a family member of any of the residents.
I found Mrs. Grange in her rocking chair, staring out the window. If not for a different color dress, I might have thought she hadn’t moved since my previous visit. I wondered if she’d recognize me in regular clothes.
I knocked on the open door to announce my presence. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Grange.”
She looked at me, face impassive. “Back again? That school of yours is really putting you through the ringer.”
“No,” I said. “I came on my own.”
“Why? Didn’t get enough punishment the first time?”
I took a few steps into the room. “I wanted to ask why you gave me an A.”
“Because you earned it.”
I shook my head. “But I didn’t do anything. My performance was terrible.”
She raked a shaking hand through her tight white curls. “You put up with a bitter, old woman. You showed kindness and warmth and patience when I gave you none.”
I didn’t know quite what to say. “I-I brought you flowers.” I held the small bouquet in front of me. “I noticed last time that the ones in your vase had served their purpose.”
“Served their purpose.” She laughed. “I’ll have to remember that one.” Her voice raised in pitch. “Did you hear about Ellen? Died in the middle of the night. It seems she’d served her purpose.”
The woman was as cantankerous as before, and I began to second-guess my decision to visit her again.
“I’ll just put these in water and let you be.”
She was miraculously silent while I emptied the rotting flowers from the vase atop her dresser. I resisted the urge to gag at the slimy stems and shriveled flower petals. I couldn’t imagine why she’d kept them for so long or why the nursing home staff hadn’t thrown them away earlier.
Mrs. Grange answered my silent question: “My son bought me those. He didn’t actually bring them; he had them delivered. I told myself I’d hold onto them until he came to visit, but then they turned into a reminder of those ungrateful kids.”
I paused before dumping the decaying bouquet in the garbage can. “Did you want to keep them?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “No. Now they’re just depressing.”
I spent some time arranging the flowers I’d brought in the clear glass vase.
“That vase was my mother’s,” she said. “She used to have fresh flowers on the dinner table every day.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Every day? Did you grow up on a flower farm?”
She laughed. “No. But my parents had some acreage of prairie land on the west side of the state. She would charge my older sister and me with picking wild flowers for the table.”
“Were you and your sister close?”
“By necessity. We were the only kids for miles, so we were each other’s first and only friends.”
“What about the kids at school?” I asked.
“You forget this was rural Minnesota in the 1930s. We didn’t go to much school. It got in the way of farming.”
I shook my head. “I can’t even imagine what that would have been like.”
Mrs. Grange set her hands on her lap. “Why don’t you grab that chair from the hallway, and we have a real visit?”
A smile crept onto my lips. “I’d like that, Mrs. Grange.”
“First of all, the name is Henrietta Grange. Rhymes with strange. But you can call me, Heni.”
“You let me mispronounce your name this whole time?” I exclaimed. No wonder she’d been so grumpy.
“I gave you a hard time about your name,” she reminded me. “Figured it wouldn’t be right if I corrected you on mine.”
I jerked my thumb toward the hallway. “Can I get you anything while I’m out there, Mrs. Grange?”
“Heni,” she corrected.
“Heni,” I smiled.
I grabbed the same ugly chair from the hallway and returned to the room. I set it down close to her rocking chair as I’d done once before.
“You said you grew up on the other side of the state,” I started. “How did you get over here?”
Heni leaned back in her chair and smiled. “It was 1945. The Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor, and everyone was swept up in the romance of the war. War is terrible, of course,” she noted, “but there was something about that time—Glenn Miller’s music on the radio, all of those young men in their sharp-looking uniforms, the excitement of the city. I’d grown up on my family’s farm, but as soon as the war broke out, I knew I had to get to the city. If I couldn’t go abroad and fight, I still wanted to help the war effort in some way. I lied about my age. I was only seventeen and working at the USO canteen in St. Paul. The men would come in for dinner, dessert, and some entertainment. That’s where I met Frank.”
“Your husband?” I guessed.
“Mhmm,” She turned to the side table and picked up a sepia-colored framed photograph. “We were married for sixty-five years. He passed a few years ago.”
She handed me the picture. A serious-looking man in a soldier’s uniform stared at the camera. His dark hair was slicked back. He had a slightly indented chin and dark, serious eyes.
“Handsome,” I remarked before handing the photo back.
Heni stared at the photo for a moment before returning it to its original location. “I thought he was just about the most handsome man I’d ever seen—with the exception of Cary Grant, of course.”
“Of course,” I murmured, not really knowing to whom she was referring.
“Frank was very persistent. He came to the canteen, night after night. He always ordered the same thing—black coffee, a piece of blueberry pie, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. And every night he asked if he could walk me home. And every night I said no.”
“You said no? Why?”
“I had to,” she insisted. “The USO was very strict in its rules for us girls. That’s what they called us back then—girls. We were to serve the men food, we were to provide light conversation, but that was it. They didn’t want the soldiers taking advantage of us.”
“But you eventually got married,” I pointed out. “What gave?”
“Do you have a young man in your life?” she asked.
I shook my head hard.
“A girl can only follow the rules for so long. Even the nicest girls, like yourself. You’re young, but you’ll know what I mean one day.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “So what happened?”
“Well, I made him a blueberry pie all for himself. It was my mother’s recipe—homemade crust, even a lattice top. When he came in that night, I plopped the whole pie in front of him. I told him I wasn’t some Good Time Charlotte. I wasn’t khaki wacky.”
“Khaki wacky?” I laughed.
“Boy crazy. I was a good girl, I told him. And if he wanted to be with me, he’d have to commit to the whole pie, not just one slice at a time.”
“Wow.” I was in open awe of her spunk and tenacity. I could never image such a grand gesture coming from myself. “And what did he say?”
“He asked for a fork.”
“Oh my God.” I laughed and clapped my hands together. “Did he eat the entire pie?”
Heni smiled, looking pleased with herself and my reaction. “He sat there all evening and, bite by bite, he ate the whole pie. We were married two days later.”
I shook my head, impressed. “That must have been some pie,” I remarked.
“Remind me the next time you visit, and I’ll give you the recipe.”
I couldn’t help my chuckle. “You want me to come again?”
“No, you want to come again,” she corrected me. “That blueberry pie is the real deal. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, you know.”
I’d heard the adage many times before. My mom had once told me she thought my dad had married her for her pot roast. At the time I’d thought she’d been kidding, but now I wasn’t so sure.
But if the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, how did you win a woman’s heart?
+ + +
I stood in front of the open refrigerator door. Ham or turkey? Mustard or mayonnaise? White or wheat? Cheddar or swiss? I couldn’t decide, so I grabbed everything.
“Someone’s hungry.”
Sara watched me from the narrow entrance of our shared galley kitchen. It was more like a closet than a proper kitchen. When I’d first walked through the apartment with my parents when I was looking for a place to rent, my mom had lamented how insufficient the kitchen space was. I’d had to point out to her I wasn’t planning on making Thanksgiving dinner in my apartment. Despite its small size, it had turned out to be suitable for our needs, especially since I typically ate lunch on campus and my cooking skills were largely limited to pancakes and French toast.
I focused on the task before me rather than the judgmental appraisal of my roommate. “What makes you say that?”
“You’ve got half of the refrigerator’s contents out on the kitchen counter.”
“Are you calling me fat?” I tried to joke.
Sara snorted. “Hardly. Just making conversation. I feel like I haven’t seen you all semester.”
“I’ve been around.”
“I know. That one’s on me,” she sighed. “I’ve been so ready to graduate early that I forgot to stop and actually have fun in college.”
I put down the butter knife and cheese slices to pay better attention to my roommate. These one-on-one moments when she let down her guard were becoming more and more rare. “There’s still time,” I insisted.
She frowned and shook her head. “That ship has sailed. But really, what’s with all the food?” she pressed again.
“Just planning ahead,” I lied. “Meal prep for the rest of the week.”
Sara hummed and my paranoia returned. I was sure she could see right through me. I was sure she knew the truth. But what were the chances of her knowing I was making lunch for my teacher?
+ + +
The door was open to Professor Graft’s office. I didn’t hear any voices, so I tentatively poked my head inside, knowing she might still be meeting with another student. I didn’t know how she did it—one conference after another, like an assembly line of students in and out of her office for the entire day. Whenever we met I knew I was probably her twentieth meeting of the day, yet she was always upbeat and focused.
I found her alone in her office, but rather than grading a paper or reading a book, or even working at her desk computer, she was staring blankly at the center of her desk. Her blue eyes were unblinking, her eyebrows pinched in concentration, her mouth slightly tilted down at its edges. She looked exhausted.
I struck my knuckles lightly against her open door. “Professor Graft?”
Her eyes shifted from her desktop to the doorway. The exhaustion turned into a smile. “Hi,” she greeted. Her cheerful voice belied how upset she’d looked only seconds before. “How are you?”
She grabbed student papers from her desk and shoved them into the top drawer so the surface of her work station was entirely empty.
“I’m good,” I confirmed while she continued to shuffle papers around. “And you?”
I unzipped my jacket and hung it on the back of the empty chair opposite of her desk.
She didn’t immediately respond to my routine question. Instead, she stared at me with a peculiar look on her face. It made me wonder about why she’d looked so distressed when I’d arrived, but I wasn’t in a position to bring it up.
After a pregnant pause, she blinked once and replied. “Good, good. Busy,” she added, “but that’s to be expected with the semester coming to an end.”
“I don’t know how you grade so many papers,” I said. “I have a hard enough time completing a five-page paper.”
A small smile quirked on her lips. “Oh, don’t sell yourself short. You do very well writing five-page papers.”
The compliment was unexpected and had me ducking my head.
“Any plans for summer?” she continued in conversation.
“Not really. Just going back home to spend some time with my parents.”
It had been the same every summer, even though my parents continued to pay my rent over the summer months. I still had to find myself a summer job, but my parents typically didn’t hound me about getting one. As long as I kept my grades up, they typically let me be.
“Do they live close?” she asked.
“Yeah. Out in the suburbs. I thought about going to school farther away,” I said with a shrug, “but this is a good college, so why not?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. I had to go to school in a different state to get away from my family.”
I tucked my lower lip between my top and bottom row of teeth. We’d never had much of a sustained conversation before. Our earlier conference at the start of the semester had been efficient and to-the-point because I hadn’t been able to make small-talk or ask questions about her book. We’d talked about my rough draft, and I’d been in and out of her office in less than fifteen minutes. Now she was providing me with a window into her personal life, but I continued to struggle to do anything with it. The moment passed while I mentally spun my wheels.
“So, let’s talk about your rough draft,” she prompted.
“Okay,” I agreed.
I bent over to open my backpack and find my latest draft. The sandwich I’d made that morning was slightly crushed from the weight of textbooks in my bag. I frowned; blueberry pie it was not. It looked bloated from my indecision, piled high with multiple kinds of deli meat, cheese, and condiments. I stared at the good-intentioned lunch with trepidation. She might have been vegetarian or vegan or was allergic to gluten or lactose. And I still hadn’t come up with an excuse why I should offer her the sandwich.
I’d packed myself an extra lunch? I didn’t eat my lunch that day and didn’t want the sandwich to go to waste?
Of course there was always the truth—I thought she might be hungry after being cooped up in her office all day without a break. I appreciated how she took an entire day of her valuable time to meet with us, one-on-one. She didn’t have to, yet she did.
Professor Graft misinterpreted my delay. “Can’t find your paper?”
I came up for air, bringing my essay with me. I left the sandwich behind. “No, I’ve got it.”
We spent the remainder of our time together going over my assignment. Like my last meeting, I found myself distracted while Professor Graft provided feedback. But unlike the previous time when I could hardly breathe around her, the sad-looking sandwich in my half-zipped backpack—evidence of my obsessive puppy crush—tormented me.
I left my meeting with Professor Graft, furious with myself. The cellophane-wrapped sandwich rattled inside the trashcan on my way out of the building.
“Just great,” I muttered to myself.
I pressed my hand against the pass-through door that led out to the campus green. The day had started out cold, but with clear, blue skies, so I’d walked to school without thought of bringing along an umbrella. But the once blue sky was now grey, and dark clouds filled the once cloudless sky. The pavement was wet and small puddles had accumulated where the concrete had settled.
I shouldered my backpack and braced myself for a rainy march back to my apartment. I pulled my jacket around me like a shield despite knowing how little protection it would offer in the rain. It was intended to keep me warm on brisk winter mornings, not dry in a downpour. The hood of my jacket acted like blinders; I could only see what was directly in front of me.
I lived about a mile from campus, but in a steady rain it felt much longer. Normally I enjoyed the walk between campus and my apartment. It gave me time to think—time to mentally prepare for the day or time to unpack my brain once the school day was over. At least the rain distracted me from going over each minute detail from my paper conference with Professor Graft. I didn’t want to worry about what might be troubling her or why she’d looked so upset before the start of our meeting. I didn’t want to think about her anymore.
Why did I go to school in Minnesota? The question became a muttered chant as I slogged along in the rain. I could have gone to college just about anywhere—sunny Florida, picturesque California, tropical Hawaii—but the umbilical cord didn’t stretch that far. It had been hard enough convincing my parents—mostly my mom—that being a commuter student would have been a bad idea. Commuting daily to college from my parents’ house would have stifled what little social life I did have. I hadn’t been wildly popular in high school, especially when my dad’s job moved us to the suburbs and I’d had to change schools in the summer before my senior year of high school.
I hoped Brian learned from my mistake. I hoped he’d choose a college out-of-state if only to get away from my mom’s well-intentioned but smothering affection. He could do it. He was a boy. But there was something about me as a girl that my mom found it necessary to hold me close and clip my wings.
It wasn’t long into my walk before my jeans clung to the bottom of my legs where the bottom of my long jacket ended. My shoes were soaked through in no time, and my socks made a squishing noise with each step. It was only water though, more annoying than anything. Thinking about the hot shower I would take when I got home helped me trudge through the deluge.
I had just about made up my mind to submit to the weather and lay down in a mud puddle until summer when a car slowed and came to a stop at the intersection where I found myself. The car’s rapidly swiping wipers struggled to cut through the heavy rain. I expected the vehicle to keep moving, but the passenger-side window rolled down.
This is how I die, flashed in my head. As if the rain itself wasn’t torment enough, now I had a stalker. But before I could ditch my heavy backpack and run in the opposite direction, an unexpectedly familiar voice called to me through the open window.
“Hunter?”
I knew that voice.
“Can I give you a ride?”
My instinct was to decline. I didn’t want to be a bother. “I’m fine, thanks.”
No sooner had I declared those words when the rain instantly picked up.
“Get in,” Professor Graft ordered.
Her words had me hesitating only briefly. I tucked my head to my chin and jogged to the front passenger door. I lifted the handle, but the car door didn’t move. I tried a second time with similar result.
I heard the locks pop and tried the door handle a third time, this time with success. I practically pounced on the passenger side seat and released a long sigh once in the shelter of the dry car. I pulled back my drenched hood and ruffled my fingers through my ruined hair. So much for my meticulous flat-ironing. I could almost feel the hair near my temples immediately begin to curl.
I turned in my seat to regard my rescuer. We’d parted only minutes before. Gone was the troubled look from earlier, although in my soggy state and in her darkened car, I had a hard time pinpointing her current emotional state.
“Thank you, Professor Graft. I wasn’t expecting the rain; otherwise I would have brought an umbrella.”
I didn’t want her to think I was totally irresponsible and unprepared.
“Don’t worry about it,” she dismissed. “This weather has been ridiculous lately. It can’t decide if it wants to be winter or spring.”
I wanted to say something knowledge about weather patterns or climate change, but I had nothing to contribute.
“Where can I give you a ride to?” she asked.
Anywhere you want.
“My apartment. It’s on the corner of Marshall and Water.”
She nodded, and without comment, shifted the car out of park and began to drive.
The rhythmic swish of mechanized wipers and the patter of rain striking her car filled a forced silence. I had a hard enough time coming up with small-talk in her office, let alone being in her car. I considered turning on the radio to replace the silence, but I didn’t want to appear too forward.
Her car was predictably clean. She hadn’t had to shuffle around stacks of junk mail or fast food wrappers like everyone else I knew to make room for me in the front seat. Much like the walls of her office, the interior of her vehicle gave no hint of her personal life. No stickers, no hula girls attached to the dashboard, nothing hanging from her rearview mirror. It made me wonder how Meghan or anyone else could for sure assert that Professor Graft was gay. From what I’d observed, my professor was a closed book.
She drove responsibly, coming to a complete stop at intersections and staying beneath the speed limit in the residential areas. I wanted to believe she drove that way for my benefit, slowing down to prolong our time together, but that was only the product of my wishful imagination.
With her eyes solidly on the streets in front of her, I was able to steal long glances without her notice. She was beautiful. Elegant and put-together. Genuine. There was an approachability but also an untouchableness about her, like she worked so hard to keep up walls between herself and her students. Yet, one-on-one, those walls started to shake and crumble. I didn’t think myself particularly nosey, but I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to talk with her without those walls between us.
It only took a few minutes to reach my apartment. I lived in a three-story walkup. Rental properties were hard to come by in the city, so I hadn’t had many options when I’d been looking for off-campus housing. Professor Graft parked as close to my front door as she could without driving on the grass. The lights in my apartment were all ablaze, meaning Sara was home.
“Don’t most students live on campus?” she observed.
I nodded and self-consciously tucked a chunk of rain-wet hair behind my ear. I didn’t need another reminder that I wasn’t like most students.
“My parents are…” I frowned and carefully weighed my word choice. “Funny,” I decided. “I mean, they named me Hunter.”
I spied a ghost of a smile on her lips. “I didn’t want to ask.”
“Weird for a girl, right?”
“Not weird, per say, just unique.”
Unique. That was a word I’d never ascribed to myself.
“My parents wanted me to get more of a sense of independence when I came to college,” I explained, “so they insisted I get an apartment instead of living in the dorms.” I smiled at the hypocrisy. “But they also insist on paying my rent for me, so it’s not as though I’m actually independent of them.”
Professor Graft tapped a beat on the top of her steering wheel as we idled in front of my apartment. “It sounds like they have your best intentions in mind though.”
“Yeah, but shouldn’t I get to experience a kegger once in a while? Hide alcohol from the Resident Assistant on duty or something? Isn’t that all part of the college experience, too?”
She laughed at my statement, and I let the sound flow over me.
“You’re not missing much,” she assured me.
I wondered what her college experience had been like. Did she go to frat parties? Had she acted out? When had she known she was gay?
“I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it,” I mused.
I looked up at my apartment complex, not wanting to leave the coziness of Professor Graft’s car or the casualness of our conversation. Sitting in her running car with darkness and falling rain all around us, I could almost pretend we were at the conclusion of a date. Almost.
“Thank you for the ride,” I said before my imagination could go any further.
Her smile seemed to light up the darkened car. “Have a nice weekend.”
I flipped my hood over my head and, gritting my teeth to brace myself for the impending rain, I left the protection of her car. It was still only water, but I raced up the front walkway and only stopped when I reached the protective overhang above my apartment complex’s entryway.
My keys were in the front pocket of my jacket; my numb fingers fumbled for the right one.
“Come on, Dyson,” I muttered to myself. The combination of stiff fingers and stage fright had me more awkward than usual.
I finally worked the front door open. I spun around, not really expecting Professor Graft’s car to still be there, yet it was. Had she stayed there to make sure I hadn’t locked myself out of my own apartment building?
A kind of giddiness rushed over me, and I waved at the still-parked car. Between the golden glow of her headlights and the rapid movement of her wiper blades, I couldn’t really make out the driver more than a shadowed figure. I stayed with my hand in the air until the vehicle eventually reversed and the red taillights faded to darkness.
As I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I couldn’t help obsessing over the details of the car ride. The warmth of the vehicle. The sweet scent of her skin. The sound of her laugh. Our small interactions during class or paper conferences had been like drops of water to a starving plant—enough to survive on, but not enough to thrive. Like the weather outside, the car ride had been a monsoon.
Sara called to me when she heard me open and close the front door: “Hey, did you eat my eggs?”
The TV was on in the living room, but her voice came from the direction of the kitchen.
“You know I don’t eat eggs,” I yelled back.
“They were in here before and now they’re not.”
“Did you eat the last of them and forget?” I hollered, hanging up my wet jacket to dry.
“I think I would have remembered that,” she replied.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Sara seemed intent on ruining my good mood. “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t touch them.”
I heard the sound of glass jars clunking against each other. I could imagine Sara standing in front of the open refrigerator door, rummaging through all the leftovers and condiments. “Where are they, Hunter?”
“I don’t know, Sara!” I huffed back.
I escaped to the serenity of my bedroom and threw myself onto my bed in an overly dramatic fit. I lay in bed with my eyes closed and rubbed my temples. My roommate had a singular talent for souring my good moods with her bad attitude. I couldn’t count how many times one of her temper tantrums had ruined a sun-filled morning or a peaceful weekend afternoon.
Across the room, my open laptop invited my attention. As annoyed as I was, I had homework that wouldn’t wait. I hefted myself from my bed and plopped down in my desk chair. Moving my cursor across the screen also activated my instant message program. It didn’t take long for Colette to notice me.
Hey, she greeted.
Hey! I wrote back.
Wow. An exclamation point and everything. What’s the occasion?
I thought about my response and began to draft my reply.
My crush gave me a ride home from school. It was raining, and
My fingertips hovered above my keyboard. There was the problem of pronoun choice. I’d never told anyone before. I could hardly admit it to myself.
It was raining, and they saw me and gave me a ride home.
I sat tensely, waiting for her reply.
That was nice of them.
Colette’s repetition of the gender neutral pronoun was noticeable, but as a non-native English speaker she may not have noticed my word choice at all. I knew enough French to know their pronouns worked differently than ours.
Why am I only just now hearing about this paramour? she asked. I thought there were no secrets between us.
I chewed on my lower lip. No secrets. I wanted so badly to be done with the secrets and the denial of my sexuality, but I wasn’t there yet.
It’s just a silly crush. Nothing’s going to come of it.
I stared at my typed words with a frown.
Nothing’s going to come of it.
I had intended the statement to dismiss the topic so Colette wouldn’t pry, but they made me realize how true my words actually were.