Chapter Four

Veronica

I felt distracted as I walked out of the building and across campus. I had gone to Professor Ford's office only to tell him that I wasn't going to be able to take the position that he offered me, feeling that that was more appropriate than just emailing him back to turn him down. Now I was strongly considering the possibility of taking him up on the offer, even if that did mean skirting around the policies of the University. What he was offering me would mean that I could drop the two basic courses that I was forcing into my schedule after years of procrastinating, freeing up a huge amount of time, fit in all my dance requirements, and still make the money that I needed. It was a very difficult offer to resist.

I was trying to convince myself that it was only professional interest that was making the offer so appealing. I didn't want to think about my attraction to Professor Ford or the fact that this would give me far more opportunities to think that way. This had to be nothing more than an academic and financially beneficial experience. But it was that tug along with the feeling that he was offering me something that might not be entirely ethical that had stopped me from immediately agreeing to it. He was handing me everything that I wanted, but I didn't want to risk his career or the future of mine because of the policy. I could hear my phone ringing and when I climbed into my car and tossed the phone into the cupholder I could see that it was Javi. I pressed the button to ignore the call, not wanting his input to confuse me anymore. I would talk to him about it when I had come to a conclusion for myself. Or when I was so hopelessly locked in indecision that I had no choice but to let him help me figure it out.

Before I even realized what was happening, I found myself driving through a neighborhood that was so familiar I could have navigated it with my eyes closed. Only a few miles away from campus it was the place where I had developed my love for the University and decided that there was nowhere else that I wanted to study. This was it, this was the place where I was going to pursue the dreams that had been in me since I was just a little child. Part of me knew that I should still be living here. I should never have left. Yet I had to. I needed to in order to invest myself fully in the experience of college.

At least that was what my grandmother had told me.

I stopped my car in front of her house and stared up at it. I got the same gnawing, empty feeling that I always did when I thought about it and the days that I had spent here. It was here, at this house, sitting on that porch in a swing that was once pristine and white but was now fading and blistering in the wind and sun that my grandmother told me that I needed to move out and find a place to live while I was in college. I had argued with her, telling her that I would be fine living in the house with her and commuting the short distance to classes. I could be there for her. I could take care of her. She refused, telling me that I needed to be away from my childhood in order to find my adulthood. I needed to learn what it was to be somewhere completely unfamiliar and have only myself to think about.

I often wondered if she already knew then.

I wondered if she knew that by the time that I was in my last year of college I would only have myself with no family to help me or to take care of me. I would have hoped that she would have told me, but at the same time, I understood why she would have wanted to keep it from me. She had been everything to me. She was all I had from the time that I was a small child and the incident that took the rest of my family from me. I had grown up in a world that was completely crafted by her and couldn't have imagined a time when she wouldn't be there to guide and protect me. She had been the only reason I had been able to come through what I had experienced and get to the place I was now. She wouldn't have wanted to put the fear of being alone in me.

So, she pushed me to learn what it was like to be alone. She encouraged me to step outside of the comfort that I had found and experience those first few steps still knowing that she was there. I know that she thought that that would make it easier. But as I sat here looking up at the house that I owned but that I hadn't stepped foot in in more than a year, I wondered if she was right.

Losing her had come as such a shock to me, even though she had known that it was coming. She gave me such a short time to ready myself, just two weeks to wrap my head around the fact that she wasn't going to be with me anymore. I still hadn't fully come to terms with it. That was part of why I still hadn't gone back into the house. I knew that she wasn't there. I had collected my inheritance and added it to the amount that she had put into my account before I moved to help me through. I had been there to face the friends and neighbors who came to pay their respects. I watched the faceless, nameless men as they lowered her into the grave. But my heart wouldn't accept it. I had refused to go back into the house, allowing a few close friends of hers to go in and clean out the kitchen and do the last of the laundry, finishing up those tasks that should have been my grandmother's. That should have been mine.

Part of me felt almost as though if I didn't go back inside, I wouldn't have to really face it. I could sit out here and look at the house and pretend that she was still in there. I could imagine that the grass was high just because the weather had been hot and she hadn't wanted to call the landscaper and make him miserable in the sun. I could pretend that there was mail in the box and Nana would come shuffling out of the house soon to collect it. I could pretend that the house was filled with the smell of pot roast and apple pie, and the sound of Wheel of Fortune or the same movie she had seen a thousand times before but liked to have on because it kept her company. As long as I didn't open that front door and step into the silence, I didn't have to accept that it was there.

I knew what Javi had said was true. This was the house that I owned and where I would likely live after school unless a company chose me and I had to move to another state. Even then, I couldn't imagine selling the house. At some point, I was going to live in it again, which meant that at some point I was going to have to go through it and replace what had essentially become a memorial to my grandmother's life with my own. I couldn't live in the protective bubble of the apartment with Javi forever. He had an incredible career and life ahead of him and I didn't want to be the thing that held him back. He deserved the freedom to explore everything that his brilliance and talent could offer him without me clinging to him and hoping that one day I would feel safe again.

I needed to be able to handle this on my own.

I pulled away from the house and noticed that my phone in the cupholder was still ringing, buzzing against the plastic edges now that I had silenced it. Javi's name was glowing on the screen. I didn't want to start a conversation with him while I was driving, so I let it finish ringing. A few seconds later I heard the buzz that told me I had voicemails waiting. I accessed the box and the monotone woman I liked to imagine lived within my phone and kept all my communication organized told me that I had seven voicemails.

Three guesses who those are from.

Javi seemed to be in a particularly musical mood that day. Not that that was terribly much of a divergence from his usual mood, but I couldn't help but wonder what might have happened at the party the night before that had contributed to his singing.

"Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na," he sang, "hey, hey, hey, call me."

He worked his way back through the decades with each new message.

"Oh, Honey, do-do-do-do do-do, Oh, Sugar, Sugar, do-do-do-do do-do, give me aaa- aa call back," sang the second message.

Things went a little downhill from there.

"I just called --- to say – I lo – where the hell are you, bitch?"

Javi's sweet ballad voice disappeared into his best queen shriek by the end of the third message and all the following ones were just the sound of him slamming the phone into the table to make progressively louder sounds as if he was hanging up on me. He was ever the model of self-control and calmness.

"I don't think that's how that song is supposed to end," I said when I walked into the apartment ten minutes later.

"Which one?"

"Any of them, actually."

"Where have you been all afternoon?"

"I had an appointment," I said.

"What kind of appointment?"

He was standing in the kitchen staring into one of the cabinets. After a few seconds, he closed it and moved on to the next one, opening it and staring into it similarly. This wasn't unusual behavior for him. I'd learned over the time that I had lived with him that he frequently stood in the kitchen staring into the cabinets or refrigerator hoping that the food fairy would have visited and brought him something delicious. This most often happened when he had a craving that he couldn't quite put his finger on and he hoped that he would spontaneously see it and know what he wanted.

"I went to find out about those teaching assistant positions like you suggested."

"That's fantastic," he said. "Did you find anything?"

"Well…" I said.

"That doesn't sound completely confident. Were there no positions available?"

"Well, no. There weren't really many available, but on top of that, I found out that the positions are unpaid."

"Seriously?"

"Apparently it's tradition at the University for all TA positions to be strictly on a volunteer basis."

"I'm sorry. Are you looking for something else?"

"Not exactly. I got an offer for a position that does pay."

"How does that work?"

He moved over to the refrigerator and stared in, finally emerging with a jar of green olives.

"The professor apparently really wants my help. He offered to pay me personally and to arrange for me to get credits for the time so that I can drop some of my basic courses. That will save me a lot of time, which means that I'll be able to study more and I can pick up some extra workouts or choreography sessions if they come up. It's really a great opportunity that I should be taking without a second thought because it would be exactly what I've been looking for and would make this year so much better for me."

I realized that my words had gotten progressively faster as I spoke and I didn't know if that was because I was trying to force myself through the thought process or if I was trying to sneak the words past Javi so no matter what I decided to do he couldn't tell me that I hadn't told him. When I finished, I found him staring at me, an olive held between two fingers.

"That was a lovely conversation that you just had with yourself," he said. "Did it have any kind of conclusion attached to it?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"I don't know if I should take the position. The fact that the University doesn't offer paid positions makes me feel like I shouldn't accept him paying me."

"But he offered."

"Yes."

"So, what's the problem?"

"Isn't that sort of a moral gray area?"

His head cocked slightly as if he was contemplating what I had asked. Considering his usual mental address was a penthouse apartment at the corner of Anonymous Sex and Don't-Call-Me-I'll-Call-You overlooking Moral Gray Area Park, I wasn't sure he was really the person to be asking about potentially shady ethics.

"No," he said. "You didn't ask him for the position. You didn't ask that he pay you. You were willing to turn down what he offered you because of your need to be paid. He is giving you the opportunity to think about it and make your decision. He didn't tell you that you weren't allowed to say anything to anyone about it. The onus for maintaining the maintenance of the University's policies and ensuring the moral security of the arrangement is on him, not you."

I was mistaken.

"Really?"

"Absolutely. I highly doubt that he would offer something he knew would put either of you in jeopardy. I think that you need to snag that position."

"Maybe you're right."

"Which professor is it?"

"Jude Ford."

Javi let out a squeal that had the distinct potential of leading to avalanches.

"Jude Ford?" he asked, compensating for the ear-splitting sound by lowering his voice to a loud whisper.

"Yes," I said. "I took a class from him a couple of semesters ago. You remember."

"I most certainly remember. He is the sexiest thing that has ever walked across this campus. And I've heard that he is just as wealthy as he is gorgeous. So... exorbitant. But he never opens up to anyone. Ever. There is this whole mysterious vibe all around him." Javi waved his hand around in front of him as if giving me a visual aid of the mystery surrounding Professor Ford. "We're talking Batman here, Ronnie."

I thought about that for a moment.

I couldn't deny that he was sexy and exuded a power and strength that was almost palpable. Even when I tried to deny it I couldn't. What Javi had said made sense. Professor Ford wouldn't do something that was wrong or expressly against the rules just so that I would be his teaching assistant. Offer preferential treatment that he might not give someone else? Yes. Wrong? No.