Chapter Four
Bea
Bea allowed Rob and Louise to guide her to their car. She was more intoxicated than she’d intended to be, and grateful for the ride home. The satin lining of her dress slid on the leather of their back seat as she fumbled to fasten her seatbelt.
Louise was buckling Ada into her car seat next to Bea. “You need me to do you next?”
“Very funny.” Bea yanked the filmy layer of skirt that was getting in the way aside and slid the buckle home. “I have it.”
Rob got into the passenger seat, sliding it toward her knees. “Enough room back there?”
“I’m fine.” She’d only seen him have a couple of beers, but since Louise was breastfeeding and hadn’t been drinking at all, it made sense for her to drive. So sensible. Bea felt a surge of affection for her practical friends, which she drunkenly articulated as, “So responsible. So nice. You’re nice too, Rob.”
Louise twisted in her seat after she started the car, and said, in a voice Bea had heard her use on Ada earlier in the evening. “Okay honey, why don’t you just close your eyes and take a little nap?”
Bea stuck her tongue out.
The baby’s sleepy gurgles made Bea feel sleepy too, and the headlight-lit fences and fields flashing past the window made her queasy, so she closed her eyes.
Louise and Rob must have thought she was asleep, because Louise said, “Nice to catch up with Ben.”
“Yeah. He’s a good guy.”
“I didn’t get to talk to him much. How’s he doing?”
“Great. It’s a nice fit for him here. More stable than what he’d been doing in Chicago, but he still gets to do some creative things. He mentioned it’s been…interesting to see Bea around campus.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I think he’s still carrying a torch for her, after all these years.”
Bea’s eyes snapped open. Realizing Louise could probably see her in the rearview mirror, she closed them again and emitted a soft snore she hoped sounded convincing.
“Wow. That seems like him, though.” Louise sounded pensive. “Just a solid guy, doesn’t do things on whims.”
Solid my ass. It took all of Bea’s willpower to stay still and keep her eyes closed.
“Poor bastard. Obviously barking up the wrong tree,” Rob said.
Louise laughed. “Bea’s great, but she’s not exactly the forgiving type. I think Ben’s pretty much been dead to her since senior year.”
Damn right he had, and for good reason.
“That’s a shame.”
“It really is.”
Louise pulled up in front of Bea’s house and turned back to shake Bea’s knee. “Sweetie? You’re home.”
Bea thought she made a pretty good show of pretending to startle awake. She gathered her purse and shoes from the floorboards and made her way, barefoot, up her front walk. After she unlocked her door, she turned to wave at Louise and Rob. As they drove off, she heard Louise’s giggle trickling from the driver’s side window. For a moment, she longed for someone to laugh about a party with on the way home. She’d meant what she said earlier about being content on her own, wholeheartedly. What she sometimes missed was the platonic ideal of a partner. Pragmatically, she knew such a person didn’t exist for her, and the wrong fit would be much worse than being occasionally lonesome.
Herschel met her in the entryway, winding himself around her legs. She filled his dish with kibble before changing into an ancient Messiman t-shirt and the galaxy-print cotton pajama pants Heron had made for her last year. Bea knew she would sleep better if she let herself sober up a little before she tried to go to bed. Grabbing a can of sparkling water from the fridge, she padded out onto her porch and settled onto her cushion-covered swing, draping an afghan over her legs and pulling her feet up under herself to keep them warm.
She’d left the door ajar and a few minutes later, Herschel followed her out, springing up next to her before placing first one front paw, then the second, onto her belly, leaning in for a few thorough kneads before he climbed the rest of the way onto her lap and settled in, purring. Bea reached up to scratch the extra-soft fur behind his ears. “Hi pal,” she said, as he extended his nose to touch her chin.
As she waited for her head to clear, Bea stroked Herschel’s back, letting the rumble of his purrs relax her. A few leaves drifted from her maple onto the grass. Soon the nights would be too cold to be out here without bundling up, but for now the chill in the air was a pleasant balm for the flush from whisky, wine, dancing, and social unease. Bea knew she came off as outspoken and confident, but she could get carried away when she felt unsure of herself. She’d been on the defensive around Ben for so long she wasn’t sure she had a handle on the difference between offensive and defensive anymore. Come to think of it, he didn’t seem as game for trading barbs as he used to be. Oh lord, she probably owed him an apology, but it would be beyond awkward. She’d be nicer to him the next time she saw him. A little nicer—no need to go overboard.
Louise and Rob clearly had no idea what they were talking about. Ben wasn’t carrying a torch for her. They were simply two people who didn’t like each other very much, doing their best to work together. Right? And sure, there had been a time when they were students when she’d thought—even hoped—Ben might be interested in her as more than a study partner, but that was more than fifteen years ago. The idea that anything could, should, or would happen between them now was simply bananas. Bonkers. The two of them together now, what, canoodling on the quad? Lunching together in the campus cafe between classes? Ben cuddling here on this cozy porch swing with her? Completely out of the question.
Bea didn’t realize she was nodding off until Herschel jumped down and chirped at her from the open front door. “Right, pal. Time for bed.” She followed him inside.
Heron
The Librotory took up half of the fourth floor of the newly renovated Messiman library. Two glass walls carved out an office for Ben in one corner. The classroom and work area for students had tables and a workspace with cases of letterpress type and an old-fashioned printing press. Ben did his repair and restoration work in a section of the room that was only separated from the rest of the lab by an open wall of shelves, where books in various stages of rehabilitation could reside until they were ready to return to the stacks.
There were plenty of gaps between shelved books where a person could see and hear what was going on in the big room while remaining concealed. In fact, early in the semester, Heron and Charlie had been startled by Ben’s throat-clearing emergence from this space, which they’d presumed to be empty. Charlie had booked three hours of printing time for them on Thursday at a time when Ben’s calendar was blocked off for repairing bindings. He’d be back there. And if their acting skills were up to snuff, he’d believe Heron and Charlie didn’t know he was listening to them.
Heron slipped her sandals off and tiptoed into the room, ducking down to confirm the presence of denim-clad legs and black Converse, visible between some old atlases on the shelf dividing the repair area from the classroom. She backed out of the room and gave Charlie a thumbs up.
Striding into the lab, Charlie, in what Heron liked to think of as his practicing-for-the-courtroom voice, said, “But that doesn’t make any sense at all. Your cousin has been extremely vocal about her feelings.”
“True.” She followed him in. “But that’s precisely my point. Don’t you think it’s a little strange that she talks about Ben so much, if she truly can’t stand him?”
“Hmm,” Charlie stroked his chin. “The lady doth protest too much?” Gilding the lily. With her back to the repair shelves, Heron rolled her eyes at Charlie to let him know he was going overboard. He continued, “Well, if it’s true, poor Beatrice. It seems pretty obvious to me Ben thinks she’s a bitch.”
Heron flinched at the language, but from the repair room behind her, she heard a small, indignant huff.
She made a “keep going” motion and Charlie said, “Last week, when I mentioned you were having lunch with Bea, he said he was surprised you two were related because you’re so pleasant. And when he talks about his old friends from school, he never, ever mentions her.”
“Oh, that’s awful, because Bea talks about him so much, he must be on her mind constantly. She wouldn’t let him live rent-free in her head like that if she didn’t have some feelings for him.”
There was a clatter from behind the repair shelves. As if, perhaps, someone had knocked over a jar of tools. It was too loud to pretend they hadn’t heard it. Heron widened her eyes at Charlie in mock surprise. “What on earth was that?”
“This building is haunted, haven’t you heard? Maybe the ghosts are upset about the renovation.”
Heron grinned at Charlie’s quick thinking.
He elaborated. “Two students were planning to elope, but she ran off with someone else instead, and he came up here, to expire from a broken heart amongst the peer-reviewed journals.”
He looked so cute and silly, with his put-upon expression of melancholy, Heron couldn’t resist kissing him. They melted together, and as the heat built Charlie boosted her onto the typesetting counter.
He was running a hand up her leg when Heron remembered they weren’t actually alone. She grabbed his wrist and said, “Babe, we’d better get to work, right?” She caught his eyes and then cut hers over to the repair area.
Charlie ran a hand through his hair and adjusted his khaki shorts, clearing his throat. “Right you are, my sweet little future wife. Grab the paper and I’ll start mixing ink.”
“Future wife! Aw.” She started gathering supplies.
Their assignment had been to print postcards with a quotation in a typeface chosen to compliment the text. In the cases of old type, Heron found a font with elegant sans-serif simplicity. The upper case containing the capital letters was missing entirely, so she had chosen two stanzas of an E.E. Cummings poem. Heron was drawn to it for the spareness of the language, the way it spoke about how she felt for Charlie, eager anticipation of folding their lives together. Charlie only cared that it wasn’t too many lines to render in the painstaking typesetting process, packing each letter in with slivers of metal until they were tight enough to withstand the pressure of the press.
They’d already set their type, but it still took more than an hour to run the postcards through the hulking printing press, adjusting the ink colors and amount of pressure as they went. The final cards bore the lines of poetry in rose-colored ink, with letters indented just enough to feel pleasant when she ran her finger over the poem.
Ben kept a tub of the kind of scrubbing soap used by auto mechanics at the workspace sink, saying it was the only thing that really worked to remove the oily printer’s ink. Washing her hands with the pine-scented grit, Heron watched the ink run pink on the porcelain. As she dried them, she glanced at Ben’s corner of the room. Through the space between an old set of encyclopedias and a stack of journals, she could see slices of sneakers and knees. Ben, stuck back there this whole time, was sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Heron dismissed a flash of guilt. This was going to be worth it, and it was for his own good. If the conversation Ben overheard hadn’t seemed consequential to him, surely he would have come out of hiding? She grinned at Charlie, cocking her head toward the repair room. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and they rushed for the stairwell, stifling their laughter until the door whooshed closed behind them.
Bea
The lecture on supernovas was one of Bea’s favorites. Explosions impress students; that is a truth universally acknowledged by science educators across disciplines (well, okay, maybe not biologists). Bea started with what holds a star together—gravity and fuel—then moved into the instability occurring when those things start to wane. She always concluded her lecture with images of a supernova in Messier 82 from 2014, then turned the lights off in the classroom for the grand finale.
“You should look at this the same way you would regard an artist’s rendering of anatomy,” she said. “It looks like some of our still photographic images, but this is entirely a simulation.” She pressed play and watched the students’ mildly impressed faces at the mirror-image mushroom clouds give way to awe as the explosions shot across the screen.
“Next week we’ll talk about the aftermath. Black holes. Cosmic rays. The reading is on the syllabus! And your night sky observations will be due as usual, so if you haven’t signed up for telescope time, see me after class.”
Bea flicked the lights back on and as her eyes adjusted to the fluorescents again, she noticed Ben sitting in the back row of the auditorium. With his cap, jeans and t-shirt, it hadn’t been hard to mistake him for a student at a distance, and she rolled her eyes. They were both too old to be dressing like teenagers. Ben didn’t ever seem to face any consequences for his sophomoric wardrobe, but Bea certainly would if she came to work wearing some of the more whimsical things that caught her eye when she shopped with her friend Sarah.
She’d have to see what Ben wanted, but Layla, one of her students, was standing in front of her. Students come first.
“Dr. Hayes?”
The poor kid seemed so nervous. This was an entry-level class, and she got a lot of first year students who were still getting their feet under them, but every once in a while, there was one who tugged her heartstrings more than most. That was Layla this year. She’d chosen a seat in the front row and wore crisp shirts buttoned and tucked neatly into her jeans, while the other students were sloppy in their hoodies and pajama bottoms. Her round glasses took up half of her face and gave her an owlish air.
“Hi Layla, what’s up?”
“I need to talk to you about observation time. The slots only go from eight to midnight, then the lab assistants lock up the roof? And they’re only on weekdays?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Well, I work weeknights until eleven. I deliver pizzas.”
Behind Layla’s glasses, Bea could see dark circles pressed into the pale skin under her eyes. It sounded like she was running herself ragged, but hands-on time with the telescopes was crucial to the curriculum. No matter how engaging her lectures were, they were no substitute for students seeing the stars and planets themselves, giving them a first-hand perspective on Earth’s place in the universe.
Layla’s voice wavered as she continued. “And I’ve been trying to get up to the roof right after work, but all the telescopes are taken and by the time I get one I don’t have time to complete the observation. Is there any way I can get a different assignment? Or if I can have a key to the roof so I can go up there later—I promise I’ll be super responsible. Otherwise, I think I might have to drop this class.”
Bea felt a deep pang of sympathy. Messiman was replete with well-off students who didn’t need jobs at all, and many others were able to get work-study gigs designed to accommodate class and study schedules. Bea herself counted her blessings constantly that the only job she’d needed to pay for her books and extras was babysitting Heron, which had hardly seemed like work at all and certainly hadn’t interfered with any of her labs.
“Don’t drop the class,” she smiled, then lowered her voice to say, “no one else has asked any smart questions about white dwarfs.” Bea winked, and Layla broke into a giggle. “I’ll tell you what, you said you don’t work Saturdays?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Oh geez, please don’t call me ma’am, it makes me feel like a difficult customer at the supermarket.”
Layla laughed again.
“So here is what we’re going to do. If you’re willing to give up a little of your Saturday night, I can give up some of mine. I’ll meet you here at eight on Saturdays. Sound okay?”
“Oh, that’s perfect Dr. Hayes! Thank you so much! You won’t regret it!” Layla shrugged into her enormous backpack and bounced out of the auditorium.
Ben said from his perch at the back of the room, “That was kind of you.”
“What, no jokes about how spending Saturdays with a student is going to cut into my hot dates with my cat?”
“No.” Ben stood and descended the steps, stopping when they were eye to eye. “Not many of the faculty members here would give up part of their weekends for a student like that. I don’t know why you think I would joke about it.”
Bea felt heat rise into her cheeks, and the impulse to back away. He was close enough for her to smell, once again, the evergreen of his…what was it? Soap? Cologne? The aftermath of cavorting with a forest sprite? Unfortunately, Bea had leaned against the table she used to arrange handouts and receive student assignments. There wasn’t enough space between him and it for her to make moving away look casual. She had no choice but to hold her ground, doing her best to look anywhere but into his eyes, but he caught her glance and held it for a second. She felt a zing up the backs of her legs and was glad to have the table for support after all. Ben seemed to relent and backed up, perching on the edge of one of the desks in the front row.
“I came to speak with you about this interdisciplinary ed contingent thing,” he said. “Since we’ll be working on it together, should we sit down to spitball some ideas? I don’t want to show up at the panel underprepared and I bet you don’t, either.”
She didn’t. She’d jotted down a few ideas, but she’d been reluctant to reach out to Ben about discussing them after things had been so tense between them at the reunion. Something flashed through the back of her mind, Rob’s voice saying, “carrying a torch,” but she dismissed it now in the light of day as hastily as she had that night. Things had always been uncomfortable between her and Ben and always would. They were oil and water. But she was a professional and so was he, ratty t-shirts notwithstanding. Surely, they could set aside their past and their differences to work together for the betterment of the college. And for the sake of her tenure.
“That would be good, actually,” she said with what she hoped came off as a cordial smile, “but I have a faculty meeting in”—she glanced at the clock—“twenty minutes. Can we set up a time to sit down next week?”
“Sure. Wednesday?”
“Wednesday’s fine. I’m free midday.”
“Great. Do you want to grab lunch, then? Or would you rather meet in one of our offices to keep things strictly professional?”
She rolled her eyes. “I can go to lunch.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up here. Now I’m going to go see if they still have the good Twix in your vending machine.” He spun on one sneaker-clad heel, eliciting a squeak from the linoleum, and exited into the science building hallway.
After he was through the door, Bea chuckled. She’d been to the vending machine this morning in search of pretzels and noted the slot formerly occupied by Peanut Butter Twix had been full of granola bars. Not even a good kind—apple-cinnamon flavored. The mental image of Ben’s disappointment almost got her over the chagrin of yet another awkward interaction.
Heron
“I have a surprise.”
Heron’s dad carried an unlabeled bottle and three of the glasses they used for dry white wines out to the patio. It was likely to be the last warm weekend in October. Heron and Charlie had gone to the vineyard early to enjoy the sunny afternoon and begin planning the wedding. Heron arranged the glasses while her father uncorked the bottle and poured an inch of pale yellow wine into each.
“This pinot gris is from grapes harvested six years ago. That was a tough year for both of us, Bird, but when I tasted this, I knew it was special, so I put some of it away to age a little longer. It’ll be my first reserve vintage.”
Heron felt herself beginning to choke up. This was the most she’d heard her dad talk about the year her mom left in a long time. Guilt skulked around the edges of her consciousness, but she ignored it, focusing instead on how happy they all were now.
He continued, “I think it proves something about waiting out the bad times. There’s always a reward. I’m so proud of you, sweetie. And so happy to welcome you into the family, Charlie.” He raised his glass.
Heron and Charlie followed suit and they all clinked their glasses together, then drank. The wine was crisp and light, lemony with a hint of spice behind the tang.
“This is wonderful, Dad,” she said.
“I’m glad you think so, because I have more than enough to serve about two hundred guests, especially if we also serve a red. I’ve been talking to my bottler, and I think he’ll give me a deal on splits for favors. We can do a special label with your monogram and wedding date. What do you think?”
“It’s perfect, Dad. I love it. Thank you! Charlie, what do you think?”
“Well…the wine is delicious, Mr. Hunter—”
“Call me Len, son.”
“Len. The wine is very nice, but I’ve spoken to my parents, and they would like us to get married in their church. My mother says we can hold the reception at our country club.”
Heron set her glass down. She knew Charlie intended to talk to his family about the wedding date and location, but he hadn’t told her he’d already done it.
“Babe. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to. I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
Her dad looked hurt but recovered quickly. “I certainly know how to ship wine, if that’s what you both want to do.”
Heron glanced between her father and Charlie, both men expecting an answer from her. She could kick Charlie for putting her on the spot like this, but she needed to keep her annoyance in check. An open mind was important to the success of a relationship.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I hadn’t really thought about having it anywhere but here. Isn’t it traditional for the bride’s family to host the wedding?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, “but my parents want you to know, Len, they’re happy to cover all the costs. No Brewster has been married anywhere but our family church since 1856. My mother has her heart set on it.”
Heron had always pictured herself as a bride here in her family home, but weddings were about compromise, weren’t they? She didn’t want to start her marriage on the wrong foot with Charlie’s family.
“Well,” she said, “if it’s so important to them. I’m sure it will be lovely. Is that okay with you, Dad?”
“Whatever you want, sweetie. We could still have a reception here after graduation if you like.”
“Great.” Charlie gave them both his most dazzling smile. “I’ll call my mom tonight.”
Toni, who was attending to the last of the weekend’s visitors in the tasting room, had been put on the lookout for Bea’s car coming up the drive. She texted Heron, “She’s pulling in. Get ready.”
“Ooh, it’s time. Come on.”
Heron and Charlie had one more try at piquing Bea’s interest in Ben planned for tonight. They dashed through the vineyard, so they’d be next to Bea’s car when she parked, separated by two rows of cabernet grapes. Harvested late in the fall, the vines still provided a good amount of cover. In the space under the trellis, they could see Bea’s feet when she got out of her car.
“Oh, Charlie,” Heron said, matching her walking pace to Bea’s, “you must have misunderstood what Ben said. We all know he and Bea have never gotten along.”
“I’m not kidding, babe. Ben told me his biggest regret is hurting a girl’s feelings when he was my age. He said, ‘If I could go back and undo it, things would be different now.’ Who else could he be talking about?”
“Beats me.” Heron continued along the row, watching through the leaves. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the red and yellow plaid of Bea’s shirt keeping pace with them. They’d hooked her. “If he does mean Bea, he’ll be paying for it forever. I love her but she has no idea how to let go of things. Poor Ben.”
From the other side of the hedge, they heard a dismissive snort. Heron stifled a giggle.
Charlie held up a cautioning arm to slow Heron as they reached the end of the field. Bea went into the house, and they turned to do a loop around the next row before going in to dinner.
He laced his fingers through hers and said, “Do you think that did the trick?”
“I think we got the point across. What gave you the idea for the line about Ben regretting something? I mean, it was perfect, but how did you come up with it?”
The only thing that could breach the armor of one of Bea’s grudges was a sincere expression of regret. Heron knew that well, but she was surprised Charlie had picked up on it.
“I didn’t.” He squeezed her hand before dropping it to rake his hair back from his face. “Ben said it while we were going over SOD conduct standards. Jason sent out a…tasteless meme to the whole house with some first-year girls in it, and Ben got pretty mad. So far, he’s been laid back about stuff, but not this. He made us suspend Jason’s social event privileges for the rest of the semester.”
“Wow.” Heron felt a little of the tension between her shoulders release at this news. Jason tended to make her uncomfortable, although she could never pinpoint a specific thing he did to cause such a feeling. It was something about the way she caught him looking at her sometimes, an occasional innuendo or double-edged compliment. Even the ingratiating way he behaved around Charlie felt to her as if there was an agenda behind it. Heron wasn’t exactly happy to hear about the meme and hoped it never got back to the girls, but it was nice to have confirmation that this wasn’t all in her head.
Bea could be prickly, and she held grudges, but she didn’t get upset without reason. Heron hoped her cousin could forgive Ben, because it was sounding more and more like her hunch about the potential between them was spot on.