Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Savannah
The next day after class, I approach the professor, paper in hand. “I figured you might want to chat,” Dr. Ghorbani says.
I shift uneasily, conscious of my classmates behind me, some of whom are packing up their things, some of whom are lingering. Eavesdropping, maybe? Either way, the base of my neck starts to go red. “I just wanted to let you know I have to miss class next week. I’m going out of town.”
Dr. Ghorbani folds her arms disapprovingly. “Are you sure that’s a wise decision, given your recent struggles?”
No. I’m not at all sure of anything about this. But I said yes to Brayden, arranged for a cat sitter for Baby—a pet care service with flawless ratings. I give Dr. Ghorbani a tight smile. “It’s for my husband’s work.”
She purses her lips. “Is he aware of how prestigious this program is?”
He barely knew what bioinformatics was and he still paid my tuition. I nod.
“Look, Savannah, I think you have what it takes to be successful in this program,” she says, and my heart swells even if I can sense a but coming. “But sometimes our success in life doesn’t come from our capacity, but our ability to prioritize. And I sense your priorities are…elsewhere.”
My eyes prick with tears. I won’t cry. My father liked to say that the person who shows emotion in the negotiation is the one who loses the deal.
Well, he’d lost anyway. I steady my chin.
My head gives a horrible throb. Fuck, not now.
“I was hoping I could have the opportunity to revise and resubmit this paper and a slight extension on our next assignment to allow for my travel schedule.”
Dr. Ghorbani considers me for a moment. “You can have the first. But not the second.”
I will not stomp my foot in frustration. I will not pitch a princess fit about any of this. I will simply…take care of everything I need to take care of. “Understood.”
I turn around so she can’t see me scrunch my face in frustration.
At least by now, the class has cleared out.
All but Forrest, who’s sitting and tapping something on his computer.
It’s possible he didn’t overhear any of that.
He looks up and gives me a sympathetic look.
It’s possible that he did. “Katia and I are gonna do a coding session in the library soon,” he says.
“I can’t, I—” I catch myself. Prioritize.
I have a schedule done in neat bullet points in a notebook—my What would Victoria do?
list from this morning as if putting everything in green sparkly pen would make it easier to accomplish.
Lexi wants my opinion on a baby shower gift.
Barb wants me to come to church with her for an afternoon service.
No doubt to let me know that gluttony—or what she perceives as gluttony—is a sin. What about adultery?
But fuck it. I wanted this. I’m gonna have to work for it, no matter what. And maybe this isn’t someone rescuing me, but someone helping me.
“You know what?” I say to Forrest. “Coding session sounds great. Do you need coffee? I’ll buy the first round.”
Thirty minutes later, I’m in a study room at the library with Forrest and Katia. Coding session might have been overstating it, because mostly Katia is just drinking coffee and complaining about Dr. Ghorbani being an incurable hardass.
“It’s not just me?” I blurt.
Katia, who has a pink Hello Kitty laptop cover and a pink Hello Kitty pen and pink Hello Kitty hair and who mentioned having been in the Air Force at some point, laughs. “Nah, she’s like that to everyone except for Forrest.”
Forrest whistles innocently.
It occurs to me that I must have done the same thing to Victoria when we had all our classes together: passed easily and tried not to be a jerk about it. “Oh, thank god,” I say and Katia laughs.
“She shouldn’t be giving you a hard time about your husband or whatever,” Forrest interjects. “Not that I was listening.”
I laugh. “Uh-huh, sure you weren’t.”
“People need to work—especially in this economy.” Forrest takes a long sip of coffee. He’d ordered the largest size they had with two extra shots of espresso. I get the sense he’s struggling with the workload too, just differently. “What does your husband do?” he asks.
“He, uh—” I adjust my ring. Somehow the yellow diamond feels much larger than it did a second ago, especially with Forrest and Katia being so sympathetic. I get the faint urge to apologize. Whatever stress I’m under, theirs is clearly worse. “He plays for the Peaches.”
Forrest takes another gulp of coffee as if trying to bury his surprise. Katia takes a much shorter route. “He what?”
“Yeah, uh, Brayden Forsyth. The right fielder.”
“Oh, just the right fielder.” Forrest is rubbing his face with his hand and laughing a little hysterically, while Katia has abandoned coding in favor of googling Brayden. “He’s handsome.”
For some reason, I’m flushing. “Yeah.” I try to say it in the tone of, Obviously, I think my husband is handsome.
“Who’s that?” Katia turns the screen.
“Asher. Adler, I mean. He’s the centerfielder.” When he’s not trying to steal me from Brayden.
“Well, he’s beautiful. Is he single? Can he be single?”
Forrest is looking too and there’s that whistle again—this one definitely less innocent.
I have no right to be jealous. Asher is single.
Nothing can happen between us again, and yet…
“I think he might be seeing someone actually,” I say.
“Now, um, any chance either of you could help me with my coding? I feel like I’m completely lost.”
An hour later, Forrest has looked through my paper and given me pointers that started as cramped notes in the margins and ended up as a half a page of feedback, all of which felt both obvious and like something I wouldn’t have been able to see without someone else pointing it out.
Katia and I have our laptops next to each other, coding, my phone face down on the table.
It buzzes—Lexi, and I tell her I’ll text her back.
Barb, and I tell her that I’ll be late to church.
Monster in Law: When will you be deigning to join us?
I resist the urge to type, How about never?
Me: Just as soon as I’m free.
Brayden texts, letting me know that there was a package delivered for me. I tell him to just put it inside the house—I didn’t order anything but maybe it’s a belated wedding gift. I don’t even know why he’s bothering to text at all.
Brayden: Got it
Brayden: Having fun at class?
I send him back a picture of the code on my screen, a bundle of half-considered garbage that I’m still in the process of fixing, but he doesn’t need to know that. Brayden responds a second later with a message that makes me stare at the screen for a solid minute, making sure I read it right.
Brayden: How did I end up with such a smart, beautiful wife?
…So, that’s new.
And I’m not sure how I should respond, so I just turn my phone down on the study-room table and hope Forrest and Katia don’t ask why I’m blushing.
I assumed church on a weekday would be the same as church on a Sunday morning, but when I arrive, the security officer staffing the door points me to a smaller auxiliary room.
Inside sit a dozen women, all variants of Barb: thin, perfectly coiffed and lipsticked, eyeing me like I should skip the pretense and proceed directly to the fiery inferno or wherever.
“Ladies,” Barb says, “you remember Savannah. She married my Brayden.”
As if Brayden was her property that she was temporarily leasing to me.
I switch mentally from enduring a dull sermon to entering a hostile negotiation.
At least this puts me on familiar ground.
I’ve watched my father go into rooms with men he hated, and who hated him, and come out with them believing that they were the best of friends—all while he plucked the best parts of their business away from them.
“It’s nice to see you all again.” I seat myself in the only open chair, directly across from Barb.
All the other women have Bibles with them.
I assumed that would be something the church provides, but each of theirs has its own patterned cover and personalized decorative bookmark.
Something about that makes me think of showing up to Dr. Ghorbani’s class on the first day not knowing I was supposed to do the reading.
But no, that’s already conceding defeat.
I fold my hands neatly on the table in front of me and stare Barb down.
“There should be a spare study Bible around here somewhere,” Barb says, “seeing as how you don’t have your own.”
The women around me murmur, some glancing toward my purse obviously filled with schoolbooks, none of which are the good book. I accept the worn study Bible, its gilt edges frayed, then turn to the chapter and verse the woman next to me has open.
“Savannah,” Barb says, “why don’t you read for the group starting with…” I brace myself. “Matthew 5:28.”
I scan the page. Read the passage aloud. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.”
“What do you think that means?” Barb asks me. A question. A trap.
My heart—my lustful, adulterous heart—starts beating faster.
Does Barb know? I wouldn’t put it past her to rig cameras in our house or pay off a neighbor to report on which cars come and go.
Had someone seen Asher come into our house that night, baseball bat in hand, then come out later, shirtless, and drive away in full view of a motion-activated streetlight?
I skim the verse again. I don’t think that much about religion, and if I did, it’d probably come out to any just God wants people to be nice to each other—all the stuff that comes earlier in Matthew about mercy and righteousness—and not whatever Barb is doing to me. What I might be doing to Brayden.
“Sometimes we hurt people as much with our intentions as our actions,” I say finally.
Barb gives me a sharp look. “Not that we as women have a responsibility to prevent men from straying from their God-given path?”
Oh. She thinks I’m leading her son—who I’m married to and not sleeping with—into a depravity filled with things like abandoned diets and exposed elbows and graduate degrees.
I think of Asher in the kitchen, who’d been equally ready to swing a baseball bat in my defense and help me shove wet towels in the laundry.
About Brayden who called me smart and beautiful and who seemed somehow proud I was earning a master’s.
I don’t know what path I’m on, but I know it’s one that takes me out of this suffocating little room with these suffocating ladies who’re more interested in seeming good than being it.
“I think people choose their own paths,” I say and ignore the disdain of the women around me.
“And that sometimes we have to trust what’s in our own hearts. ”
I just wish I knew what mine was telling me.