Chapter 11 #2
I read through it again and again, trying to glean some hidden meaning between the words.
I’d thought of Stephen often enough that it surprised me.
He had been a bigger part of my life than I realized; I was too caught up in the maelstrom of Tyler to see it.
I found myself wondering how things might have turned out for us if I hadn’t fucked it all up.
But I couldn’t imagine that after some time had passed without me, Stephen felt anything other than relief.
I sat in the empty room for a while, twenty or thirty minutes, staring at the phone.
Cassie had this trick for whenever I got overwhelmed by a decision.
This had started happening when I was seven or eight, intense fits of worry bursting within me.
I would panic about insignificant matters—which shirt to wear, what ice cream to choose from the endless array of bins.
“Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” Cassie would say.
“Now open.” Her face hovering above mine, placid and unmoving, she would ask, “Now what do you want?”
I hadn’t thought of this in years and yet the memory arrived intact and immediate, as if it had been waiting for me. I shut my eyes and inhaled. I could almost feel Cassie’s hand on my shoulder. I took another breath and opened my eyes. I picked up my phone and typed out my reply:
Yes, I’d like that. It’s nice to hear from you. This weekend?
We arranged to meet at a café downtown. In this semester of exile, I’d had virtually no interactions with anyone other than my students.
And those conversations were easy to navigate, drawing from scripts determined by distinct roles and the clear boundaries of our relationships (or at least, roles made distinct and boundaries reclarified by my transgressions).
I was worried I’d forgotten how to conduct myself in a different kind of conversation and I fretted about what Stephen wanted to discuss—if he would berate me or beg me to take him back.
I thought the first option most likely. Anything he could say, I deserved, and perhaps letting him have at me would release me from some of my guilt.
I arrived early. I didn’t want to face the awkward negotiations of seeing one another for the first time while ordering drinks or considering where to sit.
(“What’s the difference again between a cappuccino and a latte?
” “I fucking hate your guts.”) The café had just opened, in a long-empty space formerly housing a pizzeria.
The new owners hadn’t really renovated. They just painted the walls a muddy blue and hung a poster of the Eiffel Tower.
An attempt to transport us from Naples to Paris, I supposed.
I stationed myself on the small patio in front.
It was a warm enough day, at least for these hours of peak afternoon light.
I needed the feeling of space around me.
A few tables over sat two older women, in their seventies, maybe even eighties.
They were immediately recognizable as sisters, something in the line of their noses, handsome profiles of a different era.
They sipped frothy drinks from giant brightly colored mugs—one yellow, one red.
They cooed over a piece of cake, passing a fork back and forth.
I could make out the gist of the conversation.
An upcoming christening, someone’s grandchild, not theirs.
I wondered if they’d outlasted husbands or if it had always been just the two of them.
Stephen arrived, wearing this shirt that always looked great on him and a new jacket.
(I still had the one he’d left at my apartment; I’d hung it neatly in a closet, thinking he might want it back someday.) I stood.
We passed awkward greetings back and forth, arms at our sides.
I asked if the table was okay or he’d rather be inside; he said outside was fine.
He asked if I needed anything else to drink; I said I was fine.
He left to order and I sat back down. Across from me, the women laughed and one said, “Well, I guess I don’t pick my church based on how good-looking the pastor is. ”
Stephen was gone a while. Maybe he changed his mind and slipped out the back. I pictured him wrestling with a high window in the restroom, pulling his body up and through, anything to get away from me. I kept checking my phone. Finally, he returned.
“Sorry that took forever. I think they’re still getting the hang of things.”
“I should have picked somewhere else.”
“No, this is great,” he said. “It’s warmed up today. It’s nice to be outside.”
He had a small dark freckle on his cheek that, I am not sure if you’d asked me to describe him I would have known it was there, but now, it felt like—oh, there it is, the freckle. Stephen’s freckle. I asked how the semester was going.
“I can’t complain,” he said. “Classes have been fun. And actually, I got some good news last week.”
“What’s that?”
“That big grant I applied for? It came through.”
“Stephen, that’s amazing. If I’m remembering right, it was for a lot of money?”
He smiled. “You’re remembering right. I almost feel guilty. It’s going to buy me out of all my teaching next year.”
“I think you’ll get over it.”
“And how’s your semester? And the book?”
I said it was going well and explained what I was working on that week.
I mentioned the editor and the press; Stephen said it sounded great.
I asked about his plans for spring break.
We had one more week of classes, and then Sawyer shut down completely.
Admin made it mandatory that students leave, even staff got the week off.
Stephen said he’d go visit his brother in Connecticut; I said I’d stay behind and work on the book.
(Though I wouldn’t even go to campus, just the thought that everyone else would be gone felt like a comfort.) We discussed the movie theater closing down, the college’s fund-raising for the Health Sciences school.
And then I started to wonder—is this it?
When Stephen said he wanted to talk, did he mean just talk?
The conversation went on long enough that the sisters finished their cake and left.
Finally, Stephen shifted in his chair and I could sense the turn coming as he made it.
“Listen, there is something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Okay, sure,” I said, bracing myself—here it comes. “But first—I just—I really am sorry for everything. I know I was a complete fucking asshole—”
He cut me off. “It’s okay. It’s in the past. I wanted to talk about some stuff going around campus.”
“Oh. Okay. What kind of stuff?”
He paused, perhaps turning the words over, seeking the right way to begin. “There’s some rumors circulating. About you.”
“What about me?”
“I feel weird bringing this up. I’m not trying to accuse you of anything.”
“Come on, Stephen. What are people saying?”
“Stories about socializing with students. Spending time together off campus. Parties.”
There it was, laid out before me: an account of my own foolishness. My heart raced, fists clenched under the table. And this was just the start.
“That’s absurd.”
I don’t know if he expected me to say more, because he didn’t reply. I sat there, defiant in the silence. Finally, he spoke again.
“Mark, I don’t need to know what’s been going on. And, frankly, I don’t want to know.” He blinked, the slightest flicker. “But I thought you should be aware. You know this sort of thing can end a career. Especially for us.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I just want you to be careful.”
“Well, I appreciate your concern, but there’s nothing going on. So there’s nothing I need to be careful about.”
Stephen opened his mouth as if to say something else, then changed his mind. “Alright. I’m glad to hear that.”
“Was that all?”
“Yes, I guess that’s it.”
“Okay. Great. I guess we’re done then.”
Stephen had parked in the direction of my apartment.
We walked without speaking. It was taking all my energy to push down a rising tide of panic.
Each step felt like a weight had been bound to my ankle.
We arrived at his car and stood there, neither making a move.
A raft of clouds passed across the sun, casting shadows gray then gone.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“It’s fine, Mark.”
“I appreciate you looking out for me. There’s nothing to worry about, you just caught me off guard. And it’s good to see you. I don’t want us to end on a bad note.” I could hear how stupid that sounded. “I guess, on another bad note.”
Stephen laughed, soft and gentle, like the good man he was.
“I’m glad to see you, too. At the risk of mucking things up, can I say something else?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know what went on between you and Safie exactly, but I wish you would fix it. She could really use some support right now, with everything going on.”
“The tenure stuff?” I had been wondering about it, but I’d cut myself off so completely from Sawyer, I had no way of finding out.
“Well, that. And then this student complaint.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You haven’t heard anything?” I shook my head.
“A student from last semester filed a formal complaint against her. I don’t think it has any teeth, but you know how schools are about these things.
They set some whole process in motion at any peep of bias.
Trying to protect themselves from a lawsuit. ”
“Bias?”
He grimaced. “A student claims Safie is unfair in her treatment of white students. White, heterosexual, female students, in particular.”
“You’re fucking kidding.”
“I wish I were,” he said. “You should call her.”