chapter three
THE ROOM WAS PACKED. A buffet table had been set up with trays of crudités and cut fruit, a platter of cheese and crackers, and a pyramid of tea sandwiches. A red Fairfax banner hung on the wall, fringed in gold. I grabbed some grapes and one of the sandwiches as I walked in, less because I was hungry than to have something to do with my hands. I scanned the room as casually as I could. Where the hell was Larry?
Standing there awkwardly, I remembered how anxious I’d felt before meeting Adam for coffee that first time. I’d practically run back to my dorm room, located in an ancient Gothic tower all the way across campus. There, I spent an hour agonizing over what to wear, changing my clothes five times before settling on a black skirt and a cardigan. I even briefly contemplated blow-drying my hair straight, decided that was too obvious and try-hard, and ended up pulling it back in its usual ponytail. Once I got to the student center, I’d spent several minutes strategizing how best to situate myself, choosing a table in the corner of the coffee shop, a little out of the way but not so hidden that Adam wouldn’t see me. I’d even brought my Norton anthology with me so if Adam just wanted my notes or to be study partners for the midterm, I could act like of course I knew that was why he wanted to meet, no big deal, happy to help out anytime.
Now, though, I was armed with nothing but finger food. Slowly, I walked the periphery of the room, glancing at the various people sitting at the tables or standing in small groups conversing, plastic name badges pinned crookedly to their lapels. Larry wasn’t at the bar, which was jammed with people waiting for a beer or plastic cup of wine. I did, however, catch sight of Steve, who was already flushed from drinking and who waved excitedly when he saw me.
“Delightful to see you here!” he said, raising his plastic cup of red wine. “I always like seeing my junior colleagues at these events. Shows a commendable esprit de corps.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I said, smiling brightly.
“We should schedule a meeting next week to talk about your, er, your future here. I believe your employment contract expires in the spring?”
“It does—but as you know, I’d love to stay at Fairfax.” My voice sounded strained and overeager.
“Oh, and we’d love to have you,” Steve said. “But as you know, it all depends on your getting your book published. How’s that going, incidentally? You haven’t secured a book contract yet, have you?”
“Not yet,” I said, feeling my stomach sink. “But I’ve sent out some proposals, so I should hear something soon.”
“Well, my dear, bonam fortunam!” Steve said. “I’m glad you’re working on it. You should be just fine so long as you have a book contract by the new year. Any later than that, though, and I’m afraid my hands are tied.” He spied an opening at the bar. “Now please excuse me as I go refresh my libation.”
As I watched him amble away, I wondered what I’d do if I lost my job. Adjunct? Tutor the SATs? Go to law school, like my father had always wanted? Each option was more dispiriting than the last. For the millionth time, I wondered if I’d made a complete mess of my life. Here I was with zero job security and so much student debt that by my calculation I’d be sixty-two by the time my loans were paid off.
I finally caught sight of Larry in a knot of people, talking animatedly, a cup of white wine in each hand. He’d saved me a drink like he’d promised, thank God. I was heading over to him, calling out his name, when the crowd shifted slightly and I realized with a shock who Larry was talking to.
It was Adam, listening thoughtfully to Larry and nodding in agreement. I could feel myself go cold with excitement and anticipation. He was still lean and athletic, with a restless energy that kept him constantly in motion, his hands gesturing, then folded across his chest, then released again. His dark hair was cut shorter than I remembered, and it was turning silver at the temples, but his face—his face was the same. The dark brows, the brown eyes, the sharp profile. In his dark suit and silk tie, Adam looked like the lawyer he once was, someone who took clients out to lunch at the Four Seasons and had an office in a sleek skyscraper. He was someone I’d see in the airport and assume was off to broker a big deal or pass legislation or counsel governments. I couldn’t believe it. He looked presidential.
It was too late to hide. Larry had heard me calling his name and was motioning me over with a big smile. I could see him leaning toward Adam as if to say, “Here’s someone you must meet!” and Adam turning slightly to see who it was. I felt myself flush. I wasn’t ready yet. I stood there paralyzed as Adam half met my eye and gave me an imperceptible nod. Then he turned away.
Did he not recognize me? I thought. Was he ignoring me? Was he mad at me?
Larry was still motioning to me wildly, tipping his head toward the cup of wine in his hand. I had no choice. I had to say hello to Adam. My stomach clenched, and my throat felt tight. Go, I ordered myself. Go and get it over with. At least it’ll be quick.
“Anne!” Larry cried, handing me the glass of wine and giving me a quick peck on the cheek. “Are your ears burning? I was just talking about you. This is President Adam Martinez. But the two of you already know each other, from what I gather.”
“Yes,” Adam said, shaking my hand. His palm was warm, his grip strong. As he let go, I could still feel the imprint of his hand in mine. “We went to undergraduate together.”
He was being so formal. As if we were just passing acquaintances.
“Welcome to Fairfax,” I said. “I hope you’ve settled in well.”
“It’s beautiful here,” Adam said.
Polite. He was being too polite. We weren’t friends or former lovers. We were professional associates. Even on our first date so many years ago, he’d been open and warm from the start, our casual coffee date quickly turning into dinner and so much more.
Now, though, Adam was tight-lipped, offering nothing, barely even making eye contact with me. Ten years was a long time, both of us had changed, and apparently he wanted to make that clear to me.
“It’s really a nice little college town,” I ventured lamely. “I mean, it must feel like a huge difference from Houston.”
“It does,” Adam said. He took a sip from his glass of water.
“You must be exhausted, meeting all these new people,” I tried again.
“It is busy,” he said, nodding.
“Adam! Here you are!” Tiffany Allen interrupted. The director of the Office of Development, Tiffany was a tall, bubbly blonde who grew up in Newport Beach and used to play volleyball at USC. She was a fund-raising machine, always throwing mixers for young alums and charming large donations out of the old. I sometimes saw her driving around campus in her white convertible, with its USC and Fairfax decals and her sorority letters on her license plate frame.
A group of women hovered behind Tiffany, waiting for an introduction. Adam turned to them and shook their hands, expressing his pleasure at meeting Danielle from the VP’s office, Rhonda from the registrar, Celia from student affairs. They’d worked at the college for years, these older women in their sensible separates and pumps, quietly keeping the campus running from behind the scenes. I saw how they looked at Adam with delighted eyes, seeing in him someone who could bring excitement to this sleepy college town, someone who was easy on the eyes, someone who they wouldn’t mind attending meetings with. I stepped back as Tiffany took Adam’s arm and elbowed me aside, guiding Adam across the room.
“Looks like he needs to make the rounds,” Larry said.
“Yeah,” I said, taking a big gulp of my wine.
Larry was happily tipsy, taking me by the arm and whispering excitedly in my ear.
“He’s divine,” Larry said. “You know these admin types, they’re usually so stiff and bureaucratic, but this guy—you can tell he’s got principles. He really seems to get this place. He believes in the humanities! He believes in the life of the mind! I mean, after our last president, that moron, Adam’s just a breath of fresh air! So you have to fill me in. What was he like in college? Give me the dirt!”
“Um, he was great,” I said. “I really don’t have any dirt. He was a nice guy, really good student.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell Larry the truth—not yet, at least. I was still reeling from Adam’s frosty reaction to me.
“He’s certainly popular with the ladies,” Larry said, glancing over at the knot of women surrounding Adam.
I nodded. Adam had always had that effect on people. When we’d first started dating, I could tell people were looking at us, wondering how someone as charismatic and good-looking as Adam could be with someone as regular as me. Adam had laughed when I told him this, told me I was beautiful and that, if anything, the situation was reversed. In his eyes, I had the perfect heart-shaped face, the clearest brown eyes, the softest skin and hair. When we were alone, he would cup my face in his hands and brush his lips across my face, and in those moments, I believed him, believed that he found me attractive and desirable. But when we were around others or when I was alone, I only saw my stubborn, curly hair, the smattering of freckles on my nose and cheeks, the zit on my forehead that refused to go away.
“Yeah,” I said to Larry, keeping my voice unemotional. “He was like that in college, too.”
“Boo. That’s too bad. I don’t like it when people are too perfect. What is it with this guy? He’s got the fancy degrees, the high-powered CV, and he’s good-looking, too! I mean, why do some people get all the cookies? I want some cookies, too!”
“Larry, you’ve got plenty of cookies on your own,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I mean, give me a break, you’re a tenured professor with a PhD from Harvard. What more could you want?”
“Oh, a personal life, maybe. Or some more hair would be nice,” Larry said, pretending to pout. “I just want more cookies.”
I started laughing, and Larry joined in. When we finally caught our breath, Larry paused to take off his glasses and clean them with his handkerchief.
“But seriously, Anne,” he said, putting his glasses back on. “Why is he still single? There must be a reason.”
“He’s single?” I gulped. “How did you find out?”
“I just asked him.”
“Larry!” I yelled, whacking his arm. “That’s so tacky!”
“Anne, honey, calm down. I don’t like being physically assaulted,” Larry said, rubbing his arm ruefully. “I did it discreetly. And obliquely.”
“How?”
“I told him that our local public schools were excellent and that if he had kids, they would thrive here. Clever, yes?”
“And what did he say?”
“He said, ‘Oh, I don’t have kids. I’m not married.’ ”
So he was single. I felt a prick of hope inside. Maybe we could rekindle things? Maybe he could forgive me and we could start over? If we could just spend some time together and I could explain myself, explain how stupid I’d been, how sorry—
Larry yawned. “It’s really too bad you two didn’t know each other better,” he said. “I was hoping that seeing you might help jog his memory, but when I first waved you over, he had no idea who you were. ‘That’s Anne?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have known her.’ ”
I wouldn’t have known her. My heart sickened. Of course. How dumb I was to think there might be something still there. He might not be married, but for all I knew, he probably had a serious girlfriend, maybe even a fiancée. It had been more than ten years, after all. Of course he’d moved on.
And I’d moved on, too. After our breakup, I’d dated plenty of other guys—a fellow grad student in my program, a musician in a terrible rock band, even Larry’s brother, Curtis. None of the relationships had worked out, but it wasn’t as if I’d been sitting around, waiting for Adam. I’d grown up, become a different person. I wasn’t that girl anymore—he’d said so himself. If Larry hadn’t pointed me out to him, he would’ve had no idea who I was. I was just another face in an endless sea of academics and administrators.
The only problem was that Adam still looked exactly the same—better, even. The years had made him more attractive. He looked worldly and sophisticated, secure in himself, accomplished. Even the traces of gray in his hair just made him look more distinguished. I felt a tug of longing and shame. Adam might not have recognized me, but I—I definitely recognized him.
“Hey, Larry, I think I’m going to head home,” I heard myself say. “I have a ton of grading to do.”
“Good luck,” Larry said, giving me a sympathetic look. “Set an egg timer. And have a double scotch. It will fortify you.” He kissed me on the cheek and headed back to the bar.
I walked home in the late-afternoon sun, down the tree-lined streets of Fairfax with its rows of charming cottages and meticulous hedges and lawns, past the president’s mansion, a turn-of-the-century Craftsman covered with red cedar shingles, and around the corner to my apartment, the top floor of a three-story Victorian. “The Garret,” Larry called it whenever he visited.
The place reminded me of my undergraduate dorm room, a tiny single on the top floor of a Gothic dormitory, with diamond-shaped window panes oxidized green around the edges and tendrils of ivy that crawled in through the gaps in the stone. I remembered how Adam could always pinpoint my window from across the quad. “See?” Adam had said. “That’s your room over there, to the right. The window that’s dark.” Sure enough, there was a row of windows lit up like a string of Christmas lights, with one light missing. My room. “That’s how I know you’re not there,” Adam said. “That you’re here, with me.”
I sighed. My apartment now was dark, but no one was around to notice if I was home or not. No one except Jellyby, who was waiting for me by the front door, mewling for her dinner. I ran my hand over her back and down her plume-like tail, then walked to the kitchen, where I scooped out some dry food and watched her eat. I poured myself a glass of wine from a half-empty bottle and sat on my couch, watching the sun go down.
On a whim, I stood up and walked to my bookcases, packed floor to ceiling with novels and reference books and journals, the tools of my trade. I cast my eyes on a far corner of one bookcase, running my fingers along the dusty spines until I found what I was looking for, a slim, well-worn Penguin Classic with its distinctive black binding.
*
THE BOOK HAD BEEN a gift from Adam my senior year.
Our relationship had begun slowly at first, over coffees and dinners, talking about class and about the books we were reading and the papers we were writing. Over the summer, between my freshman and sophomore years, Adam returned to Los Angeles to work construction, and I returned to Florida to help my father run credit checks and field tenant complaints. Out of boredom and loneliness, we wrote each other long letters, mine filled with gripes about my father and sister, his filled with descriptions of his coworkers and high school friends. He usually signed his letter “abrazos,” but sometime that summer, it changed to “besos.” When we returned to school in the fall, he came straight to my dorm room from the airport, his luggage in hand. When I answered the door, he was standing there trying to catch his breath, unshaven, his hair longer than I remembered. I reached out to give him a hug, but he grabbed my hands and pulled me closer. I felt myself stop breathing. Adam was looking at me so intensely that I nervously dropped my eyes. “Anne,” he said, and I looked up, my whole face aflame. The next minute, he was kissing me full on the lips, softly at first, then with growing passion. I felt the scratchiness of his stubble and the warmth of his lips and I went limp with joy.
Over the next few years, we became serious about charting our future together. Back then, both of us were planning to go to graduate school, me in English, him in education. While studying together in the campus library one evening, Adam asked me to find a reference book for him while he put more money on his copy card. I took the stairs down two flights and wandered into the deserted stacks, breathing in the cool basement smell of old books. The motion-sensor lights switched on row by row as I scanned the catalogue numbers. At the correct row, I skimmed the book spines for the number Adam had jotted down for me on a slip of paper, my eye eventually coming to rest on a paperback book that looked curiously out of place among all the drab green and brown library-bound hardcovers. The book had no identification number, but it was in the spot where the book Adam wanted should have been. Pulling it out, I saw that it was a pristine copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, my favorite novel, which I’d recently lost on the train to New York. I looked up, and Adam stepped out from behind a neighboring stack, smiling broadly.
“You replaced my book!” I said, holding it to my chest.
“Open it,” he said.
I did and found a slim silk bag tucked between the pages.
“What’s this?” I asked, tugging at its strings. A delicate pink-and-gold cameo ring fell into my palm.
Adam came over to me and closed his hands over mine.
“Annie,” he said, “will you marry me?”
I looked at him, my heart painfully thumping in my chest.
“Aren’t we too young?” I asked.
“I’m twenty-six, Annie. I’m ready to get my life started. And I want it to be with you. I know it’s not a diamond—I can replace it with something nicer, once I pay off my student loans—”
“No! Don’t you dare! It’s—it’s perfect.”
Adam took the ring from my hand and dropped to one knee on the linoleum floor of the library, surrounded by a thousand silent books.
“I love you, Annie,” he said, looking up at me. “Will you marry me?”
I felt myself overwhelmed with emotion. He loved me as much as I loved him—more, even, if that were possible.
“Yes,” I said, my eyes filling as Adam slipped the ring on my finger. He stood and swept me up against the book stacks, knocking a few books onto the ground. A little while later, we crept out of the library, guiltily glancing at each other and stifling our laughter as a reference librarian looked at us, eyebrows raised, as we scurried past the circulation desk and into the cool autumn night.
*
THE BOOK WAS NOW yellowed with age and soft from use. I flipped to the title page. Persuasion, by Jane Austen. Written underneath in pen was the note:
For Annie,
I have loved none but you.
Besos,
A
Staring at the familiar handwriting, the slanted capital letters scrawled across the page, I felt a surge of bleak certainty. Adam had once cared for me. He had loved me enough to write dozens of letters, to give me books, to want to marry me one day. And it was my fault that I’d turned him away. I’d listened to others instead of trusting myself, and in the process, I’d hurt him badly. So badly that it was no wonder he wanted nothing more to do with me. I was a traitor, weak-willed, and so, so naive. I didn’t deserve him.
I threw the book to the ground, where it landed facedown, pages ruffled, prostrate. I stared at it for a few seconds. Then, feeling guilty—it wasn’t the book’s fault, after all—I picked it up, dusted it off, and mutely shoved it back into my bookcase.