Ethan

I find myself thinking again and again: Where did William McDonough go and who is this imposter? Then I feel bad for liking it. Maybe even being responsible for it. Oh, the freshmen are still terrified of him, but when I sit in on his junior class, I'm amazed to see them actually enjoying it. Moreover, I'm astonished to see him enjoying it. He never seemed to enjoy anything but watching his students jump at a frown or a scowl.

Becky catches me after class.

“Did he start Prozac or something?”

“No,” I say, glancing around to see if William is in earshot.

“Weed?” she says, more softly.

“No!” I say. “Well, at least none that he shares. I can't imagine Will…McDonough even knows what weed is.”

She stares at me and jabs my arm.

“Don't tell me you're on a first name basis with him.”

Damn me to hell, I'm blushing! It creeps up my face, an unwanted heat.

“No, no, of course not. He's still Doctor or Professor. He'd probably crawl down my throat and lay eggs in my chest if I called him by his first name.”

Becky snorts.

“Frankly,” I go on, “I'm surprised he hasn't just formally changed his name to Doctor, to save us all the time.”

Becky giggles.

Stop overselling it, Ethan.

“You're going on the trip, right?”

“Yeah. I have to run. I need to pick up some stuff for McDonough.” I try not to sound like I'm carefully saying his name to avoid thoughtlessly using his first name. Becky peels off to join her friends, and I jog down the stairs and over to the library.

Jennifer, at the circulation desk, waves as I pass. I wave back and look busy to avoid conversation. I feel like I'm going to let something slip if I don't.

Ten minutes later, when I'm hunting in the stacks for Declension in the American Colonies: The Preaching of Cotton Mather, Jennifer finds me. She seems to appear from behind the book as I lower it from the shelf.

“Hey you,” she says in her library voice, a kind of loud whisper.

“Hey,” I say. “Little busy—”

“I hear a lot of weird things around campus,” she says, following me.

“Yeah? Such as?”

“Oh, you know.”

“Like aliens weird? Or our one frat's rush week weird?”

She snickers. “Like McDonough thawing weird. People are rumoring that he returned to his own planet and the human he replaced is back in his old job.”

“Ha,” I say nervously. “That's cute.”

“Yeah, anyone who knows him like we do knows he was never human. What's the secret? Dish, you know the guy. You're practically his pet.”

I almost drop my books.

“Sorry, jeeze. Touchy much?” Jennifer says, pushing the books back into my arms.

“It's a little weird being called his pet,” I say.

“Oh, is he chipper now because he takes it all out on you?”

Her eyes widen, and she looks at me for a second before lunging closer to really whisper.

“Oh my God, he hasn't gone all Fifty Shades on you, has he? Blink twice if you need rescue.”

“No!” I snap, too loudly.

Jennifer smirks as she presses a finger to her lips for silence.

I roll my eyes.

“Nothing is going on. He took his wedding band off? I guess his divorce was finalized. Maybe he got some pussy.”

She laughs. “Well, he probably does draw them in. Chicks love the mysterious aloof guy. It's a weakness. Better than smearing yourself in ice cream and chai lattés. Remember that if you ever come over to the dark side.”

“I'm comfortable where I am, thanks,” I drawl, inwardly flushed with relief that she isn’t pushing me any further. Yet.

She stalks off, laughing to herself.

God, if she and Becky get together they might figure it out. My hands are shaking. I still have to drop by her desk to check out the books!

Thankfully, when I get there a student I don't know is manning the circulation desk. Jennifer's shift must have ended. I take care of it and head back to McDonough's office. William's office. I can't even keep it straight in my head anymore.

Well, I am bad at keeping things straight. Har har har.

He gave me a key. I step in and leave the books on his desk, slip back out, and lock the door. Almost. I stop first to glance around and sniff the air. It smells like it ever did—like the powder the cleaning crews use on the carpet, to be exact, but imagining his smell is as powerful as the real thing.

Rushing out, I try to think. I have a lot to do: Plan a floor meeting, a paper I have to work on, seminar stuff. It all jumbles up in my mind as I rush back to my dorm. The meeting is tonight, so I'll tackle that first.

I can't get him out of my head.

I keep thinking about this trip. In New York, with him. Will there be any time to get away? I guess I'll find out, since Becky has to submit an itinerary by Friday.

No relationship I've ever been in has ever carried this kind of euphoric buzz with it. All my troubles, the papers and assignments and seminars and RA meetings and my bartending job, it all just seems easy. The weight I carry is still there, but it's not bending my back anymore. It doesn't feel like my knees will pop from the exertion or I'm waiting for my spine to collapse in on itself. I feel liberated in a way I haven't in a long, long time. Maybe ever.

Maybe it's puppy love or just the newness of it, but I don't want it to stop. It's an effort not to float around, grinning like an idiot at everything I see, trying to talk to birds like a freaking Disney princess.

When I get back to my dorm, even the daunting pile of work isn't so bad. I lean back, throw on some electronic instrumental music, and groove through the transportation revolution of the latter eighteenth century. My mind is on fire, new circuits forming every time my eyes touch a word. I used to dread reading like this.

It's kind of a thing if you want to be a history student. My advisor did her dissertation on one family's furniture selection. Being a historian is like being a physicist or an inventor: It's hard, because all the good stuff has been done already. Sometimes I question my sanity, but I know what I want—a job like William's. Do the publish or perish thing for a while until I'm past it, find a teaching post, get my tenure, settle down.

Silly childish fantasies start rolling through my head. We could apply for positions at or near the same institutions, live together, travel together. With the two of us, I bet we could afford it. With my, err, cash flow problems, even New York feels exotic. Grad school might send me overseas depending on where I choose to concentrate my academic interest, but I want to travel for the sake of it. The whole backpacking across Europe thing was never an option for me; I don't have any backup and my savings are so meager that I'd be desperate when I got back.

For the first time I feel like I'm looking into a future, not a howling blank void where I don't know what happens and I live from one crisis to another. The clouds are finally rolling back out.

Every sunny day has one patch of thunderheads, though. My phone bings, and after a while I check it. It's a Facebook prompt. From my oldest brother, Lucas.

I stare at my phone in abject disbelief.

I was young when Lucas left—Mom was still around then, and we still had the house. He was a couple of weeks from turning eighteen and there was some argument, I don't even remember about what, and a few days later he was leaving. Then he was gone, and he wasn't a part of our lives anymore.

So when I see a friend request from him, my eyes nearly roll out of my head. I mark my place in my textbook with a Taco Bell receipt and walk all the way out of the building to sit down and hit accept. He's still got the little red dot saying he's online.

Once I accept I can access his profile. He's posted a few pictures, but he clearly isn't a social media maven. The newest picture is him crowded together with a younger guy, about my age, the two of them wearing sunglasses, shirtless, and hip deep in a hotel pool under a sky so blue it hurts. Must have been taken by someone else. Actually, I can see the someone else's toenails, painted turquoise, photobombing the bottom of the frame. A girlfriend?

No, Lucas is marked “In a Relationship” with the guy tagged in the photo.

Ain't that the cat's pajamas. The guy is named Matt. When I send a request, he friends me, too.

A message pops up from Lucas: Can I call you?

I message him back with my number.

Sitting on the curb outside the dorm, I hold the phone in my hand, nervously waiting for it to vibrate. When I was a kid, Lucas was a superhero to me…until he left. That was sort of the beginning of the end. He didn't know Mom was sick, none of us did. I'm not sure she did then, but she must have suspected.

I'm about to go in when the phone buzzes in my hand, and I bring it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Ethan?” a tremulous voice says.

I recognize my brother's voice, though he's raspier and more baritone now than ever, and he sounds on the verge of an emotional explosion.

“Yeah,” I say gently, “It's me.”

He's quiet for a minute.

“You're the only one that would talk to me.”

I sit there for a while. “Nobody else, huh?”

“Well,” he says, “They've ignored my requests.”

“Maybe they didn't see them,” I say. “Everybody's busy.”

“I heard about the house and…and everything.” He chokes up a little.

Part of me, a big part, resents him. A flare of anger turns in my stomach, like I swallowed a hot coal and it wants to come back up. I rub at my chest, feeling a tightness there as emotions I'd managed to compartmentalize and control come boiling back.

“You there?”

“Yeah,” I croak. “I'm here.”

“I'm glad you answered me,” he says. “I know I have a lot to answer for, but at least this is a start.”

“Yeah, but family's family. I have a lot going on, but I'll see if I can reach out to the others for you. Where are you, anyway?”

“Las Vegas. I'm with this guy, things are moving fast.”

A smile curls my lips. “Yeah, I know that feeling.”

“You do?” he says, surprised.

“Yeah, I do,” I say. “I want to catch up, I really do, but I'm busy. I have a lot going on. You know you can just message me.”

“Okay,” he says. “I'll let you go, then. I have to run anyway. I'll be in touch. I was hoping…” he hesitates. “I was hoping I could see some of you again.”

“Maybe we can all pop down to Aiden and Larissa's bakery when it opens,” I say.

He laughs. “Yeah, maybe. They're really doing it?”

“Last I heard. Larissa is…she's still her,” I say.

“I read you loud and clear, little buddy. Talk to you.”

“Yeah, bye.”

He hangs up and I stare at my phone for a while as if it just sprouted three heads and started singing Wagnerian opera in the style of a barbershop quartet. My brother, calling me. Will miracles never cease? Makes me wonder what prompted that. The boyfriend? Maybe.

“This all feels too easy,” I say. “Something's got to give.”

When I head back inside, I run into the girl from William's class. The one that's crushing on him.

“Hey there,” I say to her, letting my chipper mood leak out like sugar from a punctured bag.

“Hi,” she says.

“Are you okay? This building doesn't have co-ed floors.”

“I know,” she says, cheerily, watching me. “I'm just…the microwave on our floor broke.”

“Ah, well, go ahead, just give me a shout if anyone bothers you. I'm down the hall here in the RA room, 112. 'K?”

“Okay,” she says.

I stop at my door and look back. She doesn't have anything with her to warm up. What the hell does she need a microwave for?

Rolling my shoulders, I step back inside. The effects of the railroad on western expansion await.