Chapter 14
The first termended last week and the second term, a six-week one, started yesterday. I have Emma in one of my lectures again; this time it’s Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship.
After our conversation about what brings her to the program, I had hoped that I could feel more of a mentorship role toward her, but if she were in my office, I wouldn’t trust myself not to get on my knees and taste her again. I brace myself with every knock on my door, worried it’s going to be her, and it never is.
I tell myself that it’s not disappointment I feel. I don’t form a relationship with most students, just the ones that seem eager for mentorship and seek me out. If she doesn’t want that sort of a relationship, that’s her choice.
I am grateful, though, that Eva is gone most nights and takes Oliver with her. She’s mentioned in passing that she’s staying with her new boyfriend, so while Emma doesn’t visit my office in reality, in my head, she does, and I can satisfy myself without the dog next door barking at me.
I’m late leaving the university on Tuesday, and it’s already pitch black out. The days are getting shorter and more comfortable, but we haven’t had any of the autumn rain in over a week and the trees are still green. It’s still early in November, and soon the leaves will turn brown and plummet to the ground.
Emma was out of town last weekend with her friends, which I know because I held the door open for her while she left the building with her bags as she rushed out late for the airport. Often, when I pass her door, I have a moment where I wonder what she’s doing. Is she studying? Is it for my course?
Today, though, when I reach the top of the stairs, there’s a young woman leaning against my apartment door looking down at her phone. “Bell!” I greet my former stepdaughter. “What are you doing here?”
She straightens when I reach her, putting her phone back in her purse, and I bend to buss her cheek. Abelie is almost a head shorter than me, with long dark hair, doe eyes, and a strong nose. “I was in the neighborhood. I messaged you but knew you would be back from work soon.”
“Ah, I must not have checked my phone. Sorry, butterfly.” I unlock my door and usher her in, flipping the lights on in the dark apartment.
Abelie’s mother was my second wife, and though I was only her stepfather for about two and a half years, we stayed close. Her father passed away when she was young, and I married her mother when Abelie was ten. We barely made it through the terrible teenage years, and there were some dicey moments where she tried to use me against my ex-wife, but she quickly discovered that she could not play me that way. Then, she grew to respect it. Now she’s at university herself, on the other side of the city, but I still see her about once a month or so, when courses are in session.
“How was your trip to the country?” I ask, putting my messenger bag down on the dining table. There’s a soft thump-thump-thump as Zola runs to greet her favorite person—no, not me, who feeds her and cuddles her every night, but my twenty-year-old surrogate daughter.
Bell obligingly turns to the loft stairs and sits on the bottom step. Zola raises her chin, and Bell obediently scratches. “It was lovely. Thank you for letting me use your place.”
I have a house in Castel Gandolfo, a small village in The Castelli Romani, that I use during the summer when I don’t have lectures and the university’s students are off on internships. Bell asked if she could use it last weekend with a friend—I suspect of the romantic variety, but she hasn’t volunteered.
We talk a bit about the state of the place—while she was there, I asked her to check on the maintenance and upkeep that one of the local townsmen handles for me—and as we talk, we pour glasses of wine and step out onto my balcony. It faces the street since I have a corner apartment, and I have a small table and two chairs out there with potted plants that Zola likes to destroy.
“What brings you to my part of town, anyway?”
“There are some American foreign exchange students in our architecture program, and they wanted to go see the Vatican, so I came with them to act as a translator to make it easier. We were going to have dinner out, too, but they decided they were too tired.” She shrugs. “So, I came to see you.”
It’s only a half-hour walk to Vatican City from here, a fact my university boasts about. I don’t care too much about the Vatican, but I’m glad it brings Bell to see me.
“Can I smoke?” She holds up a pack of cigarettes, and I grimace.
“You didn’t smoke inside my house, did you?”
“Of course not.”
She kicks her feet up onto the big, glazed pot that houses a fern and lights her cigarette. Zola joins us, and I groan internally when she launches herself up into the big pot and paws at the dirt. She won’t use it as a litter box, but she will roll around in it, and I’ll have to brush her afterward.
I point at my cat, whose ear flicks. “We have to keep an eye on her. She’s been escaping lately.”
Bell leans forward and pitches her voice higher. “Such a good kitty. Why are you escaping? Don’t like your new house? You still have an entire room to yourself.”
I snort and cross my arms. My apartment has one bedroom, but it also has a small loft above the kitchen that has become a dedicated Zola room. She had her own room in the previous apartment, too, the only difference being this one doesn’t have a door. A fact that doesn’t matter to a cat.
Bell gives Zola one last scratch before she sits back, too.
“You enjoyed the house,” I say, changing the subject from my spoiled cat who might rather live with Bell. “Did your friend?”
I’m curious who she deems important enough to take on a romantic weekend. It’s nothing nosy.
Bell snorts, though, looking at me out of the side of her eye. “Are you going dad on me?”
I raise my hands. “You don’t have to tell me anything, but I want to know what’s going on in your life.” I’ve always been in some gray area between father figure and friend. I love her like a daughter, but the dynamic isn’t quite the same.
“Well, she had a great time.” Bell tells me about her new girlfriend, who she’s been seeing for three months now. “She’s beautiful. Like Mom.”
“Like you,” I correct.
My stepdaughter waves her hand, the one with the lit cigarette in it, causing the smoke to zigzag in the air. I don’t love her smoking, but her mother does it. She quit while we were together, but after we separated, she started up again, and it’s my greatest pain leftover from the divorce, which says a lot about my investment in our marriage. “Mom gets all the attention. Men like to pretend they think we are sisters.” She rolls her eyes.
The way she says attention draws my mind back to Emma saying she was getting unwanted attention from men around the neighborhood. “Bad attention?” I ask with a frown.
She shrugs. “Sometimes.”
My frown deepens, and I hum.
“Why do you ask?”
“My friend—well, my neighbor—she got harassed a couple of months ago. The guy called her and followed her.”
Bell frowns. “Calling, yes. Most of my friends have been catcalled. Usually, it’s harmless. Not to say that it’s okay,” she says. “But I have never felt troubled here.” She sighs. “There are bad people everywhere.”
I don’t enjoy thinking about Emma being in danger, so I change the subject back to Bell’s girlfriend. But a few minutes later, Bell sits up and looks around. “Where’s Zola?”
I curse, looking around. She’s not in the pot, though I can tell she was there thanks to the dirt on the balcony floor and the Zola-shaped indent.
Bell waves her cigarette, rising to her feet. “Go look inside. I’ll call for her.”
Turning, I step inside just as Bell shouts, “Zola!”
I get less than two meters in before a quizzical voice shouts back, “Santo?”
“Yes, do you have his cat?” Bell shouts back, but she’s speaking in Italian.
There’s a brief pause, and Emma yells back, “I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian, but I have Zola!”
“My neighbor,” I explain to Bell and then shout back in English, “I’m coming to get her.”
Amused, Bell snuffs out her cigarette in the potted plant and follows me into the hallway. Emma’s door opens just as we arrive, and Zola is in her arms again.
Lucky cat.
Emma lifts the cat up, and we make the transfer. “I am sorry,” I say. Fuck, why am I constantly having to apologize for my little escape artist? “We were out on the balcony, and I lost track of her.”
“It’s fine. But next time she shows up, I might keep her.”
She’s joking, I think. Before I can respond, Bell clears her throat, reminding me she’s here. “Ah. Bell, this is my neighbor, Emma. Emma, my stepdaughter, Abelie.”
The women shake hands and exchange small talk as I stroke Zola’s back like a Bond villain. She purrs.
I shift on my feet. I don’t know how to act around Emma outside the university without the professor-student facade between us. I wish I could make her smile and flush like I did the night I met her, but I’m frustrated enough as it is; there’s no need to torture myself, especially in front of Bell.
When Bell asks what brings Emma to Rome, Emma’s gaze finds mine. “Um. I’m a student?” Her voice goes high on the last syllable.
Bell braids her fingers together and sways toward Emma, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Are you a student at the university?”
“Well, uh, technically, yes.” A blush rises on Emma’s cheeks.
“Bell,” I reprimand.
“What?” She spreads her hands, the same innocent look on her face I saw, frequently, when she was a teen—the one that she uses when she knows exactly what she’s doing wrong. “It’s a great university. You must be smart to get in. How are you finding it? The first term is over, yes?”
Then I have to listen to Emma discuss her coursework with Bell and that gets them talking about Vincente. I should leave them to it and put Zola back in my apartment, but I look down and tell myself that Zola is comfortable and my unwillingness to leave has nothing to do with hearing about Emma’s life outside the university and everything to do with pampering my cat who merely tolerates me.
Finally, the conversation wraps up and we say goodbye. Bell and I troop back to my apartment.
The door shuts behind us, and Bell rounds on me.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You were tongue-tied. That makes no sense. Who was that man out in the hallway?”
“She’s my student.”
Bell raises an eyebrow. “You also gritted your teeth when I said that Vincente was cute. Might your feelings be more complicated than you know how to handle?” She grins.
“Not exactly,” I hedge. “I don’t know her very well.”
“Well, quit being weird. You should ask her out.”
Bell starts to gather her things, and I roll my eyes. “Yes, that will make it less weird. I could get fired.”
“Okay, then befriend her.” She puts her bag over her shoulder and pulls her loose hair out from underneath the strap. “You take things too seriously.”
I snort.
Bell kisses my cheek. “Call me next time you are on my side of town.”
“Love you,” I tell her, even though she annoys me with her insight.
“Love you too.”
Bell scratches Zola on the head and calls goodbye, shutting the door behind her.
I sit on the couch before turning and slowly lying down. Zola stands on my chest, all four and a half kilos of her focused on her four paws, which makes it feel like ten kilos hampering my breathing, but then she settles down again.
I stroke her back as she purrs. Will anyone else catch on that I am attracted to my student and that we’ve already had a near-miss of a fling? The purring rumbles, battling the anxiety in my chest that tells me becoming friends with Emma wouldn’t make the situation any better.