Chapter 36 #2
After Patrick and Elaine leave, Henry and I sit on my front steps. The first episode of Blood Oath was about what we expected. Brad Pitt looked the part, ruggedly handsome as he drove back roads too fast in his sleek Bentley.
But as Ms. Fernsby predicted, his Welsh accent stank. The chase scenes were fun and well edited, with Cardiff as a stunning
coastal backdrop. But my thoughts kept drifting.
“Everything okay?” Henry asks.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve just seemed a million miles away this evening.”
My street is never as beautiful as it is at this time of year. Little bats flit around the streetlights; star jasmine spills
thickly over front yard picket fences, swelling in these last breaths of summer.
“Some nights Philip just feels more in my thoughts than others.”
Henry puts his hand on my knee.
“I know. Me too. Sometimes I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
I put my hand over his. “I haven’t told anyone this. But Philip and I talked once about how we would live if something happened
to one of us.”
“And how were you going to live?”
“With happiness and purpose,” I say, before I kiss him.
After a few seconds, I pull away.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Let’s take dancing lessons together. Soon.”
He puts his palm gently on my cheek. “Anytime you want to, Lizzie.”
Two Months Later
I walk through the narrow, windowless halls of the administration building, and my brain hurts as I wonder why I would be
called to Dean MacGregor’s office the day before fall break. It seems far past the time when he would pressure me to retroactively
pass Brad for the spring Jane Austen seminar. From what I’ve heard, Brad has other problems. According to Patrick, he’s skipped
at least a third of his poetry classes this semester; he streaked across the field at the last football game and was caught
pouring soap into the campus fountain. Then there was a vaping incident in the campus bell tower.
I find Dean MacGregor sitting in his sprawling office, framed photographs of his wife, Annie, and Brad on his desk. He has
lists of this academic year’s dwindling donors in front of him as well as budgets for every academic department spread out
on his desk. I see an X over Gender Studies, so I assume that department might be on the chopping block come spring.
“Hullo, Dr. Wells!” he exclaims cheerfully, hurriedly collecting the papers and sliding them into a binder. His iPhone lies
face up on the desk, my Instagram account open to a photo of me sipping champagne with Bella Patel at a red-carpet event.
Dean MacGregor blushes and quickly flips the phone over.
Maybe this is about me missing the last faculty meeting due to my televised interview with the cast on a morning news show
in New York City.
“I just took a call from a prospective student wanting to come here to take your classes. You’re quite a feather in our cap.”
I smile, still confused. “So I suppose that means you’re not firing me.”
“Definitely not. But I am required to set up a meeting to respond to a formal complaint.”
“I’m sorry?” Sure, I’ve slacked on some of my duties due to book and movie buzz, but I certainly haven’t lost my shit in class
(so far!) this year.
As if on cue, Bill Rhodes bursts into the office, glasses slipping down his nose, face red. He waves his phone like a gleaming
trophy.
Smiling smugly, he sits in the chair next to me, just across from Dean MacGregor.
“As I said in my formal complaint, Dr. Wells has behaved unbecomingly during her leave and does not represent the values of Willoughby College. The evidence I hold here in my hand warrants her
immediate dismissal.”
“What the hell, Bill?” I say.
Then I see a paused video on his phone.
Oh.
Why didn’t I think of that? Yes, of course I’ll be fired. Although there’s nothing specific in my contract, I’m pretty sure
baring one’s undies on a burlesque stage is not permissible as a Willoughby faculty member.
“Watch this! Just watch it!” Bill demands, thrusting the phone in Dean MacGregor’s face.
Heat rushes to my face as I see myself dancing on grainy video in the flouncy costume. I’m belting out “Circus” and strutting
about with the twirling ribbon. August lifts me into the air, and even now, I flush remembering the high of that moment, how
I felt wonderful and confident and on top of the world.
“I really don’t think we need to keep watching . . .” I mumble, not keen at all on Bill Rhodes and the dean seeing my silvery bra.
“We certainly do, Dr. Wells,” Bill snaps.
“Bill . . .” Dean MacGregor warns. “I’m not watching any more of this . . .”
But Bill keeps the phone screen shoved in both our faces, and there it is—me ripping off the costume, baring myself to the
crowd. Strangely, I’m not ashamed. I did it. It was liberating.
“Do you see? She’s been playing the prim-and-proper grieving widow, dressing head to toe in black, but this is what she’s been up to while she’s been away!”
Dean MacGregor leans back in his chair and sighs loudly. “Come on, Bill, are you really one to cast the first stone? I had
the xeroxed letter from 1987 in my mailbox detailing a fantasy between you and Dr. Caldwell involving togas and grapes.”
“Ewww . . .” I mutter. “Also, where did you find that video?”
“What do you mean, where did I find the video? You’re trying to divert from the fact that you were dancing about on a London
stage in your unmentionables.”
“It’s a legitimate question,” Dean MacGregor says, a twinkle in his eye. “How did you find the video—I can’t imagine it would
be on YouTube?”
“Fine, I stumbled upon it on a burlesque fetish site,” Bill says, face as red as a beet. “It could happen to anyone.”
There’s two seconds of awkward silence before Dean MacGregor and I explode in laughter. I’m laughing so hard, a tear slides
down my cheek. Never in a million years would I have expected a formal professional complaint to be made about me for burlesque
dancing. And never in a trillion years would I expect to be having this conversation in my semi-reputable place of employment.
“Oh, yes, naturally. We all stumble on those sites, Bill,” I say, wiping away the tear.
He stands, flustered, pointing his phone at the dean. “So you’re not going to do your job and fire her on the spot?”
“Considering the notorious love letters between you and Dr. Caldwell, how about we call it a day?” Dean MacGregor says.
Bill Rhodes aims the phone at me now. “This isn’t the end, Wells. You are not immune to termination or censure!”
After Bill Rhodes storms out, Dean MacGregor exhales loudly, a twinkle in his eye.
“Look, you’re not fired. If anything, we need more faculty like you, Lizzie.”
He gestures to the photo of his wife, Annie, hair windswept as she smiles widely from the seat in a pontoon fishing boat somewhere.
“Annie was just telling me the other day that we need to loosen up. She says we need to let our son fall on his feet for once.
She said we need to stop putting off our trip to Greece, that we should fly there next summer and ride scooters along the
shoreline.”
This day continues to surprise me in so many good ways.
I smile as I get up to leave. “You should go and have a marvelous time.”
From Blood Offspring:
Inspector Hall sighs as he watches Widow Warner walk out of his life, black skirt swinging, high heels clicking on the cobblestone
sidewalk. If it were in him to love consistently, he would have loved her and only her.
Evening haze spreads over the bay. Cardiff is quiet on this warm September evening.
He wishes it could all be different.
He wishes he could be different.
But this is his destiny—always chasing a strangler, a sociopath, or, as is often the case, a woman. It’s always the chase. He knows he was never meant for a quiet domestic life.
But bloody hell.
Penny was right. A woman would break him at some point. And the woman was Widow Warner.
Widow Warner is almost to the end of the street, and he fights the urge to go after her. She was the steeliest woman he’d
ever met, with her dead husband’s lock of hair tucked away in that little locket at the base of her lovely throat. He remembered
kissing that throat in the pub booth as she helped him decipher the Uni Slasher’s clues. What a woman! She’d helped him, and
she made him feel more intelligent, stronger, and like he should at least try to be a good dad to the son Penny gave him.
He misses how she made him feel.
Once she rounds the corner, out of his sight—his life—for good, he sighs, and turns around to walk home.
From The Catherine Saga:
Finally, it happened. A century after Nelly’s prediction, the Fae came for their due.
Cathy Earnshaw loved two men for decades. Linton had repented long ago of his arrogance, and Heathcliff’s passion never waned.
Between the three of them, they saved Great Britain over and over again from war and dark magic.
But then, one had to return to Penistone Crags. That was the price.
They’d fought endlessly over who would go. All were willing. But it was Heathcliff who gave himself, slipping away in the middle of the night to surrender, ensuring she and Linton could continue on together—happily ever after, as old tales promise.
Cathy often visits Penistone Crags at sunset, when wind and hazy light spill over the moors, the surrounding landscape shadowed.
She takes her time along the rocky path, careful not to twist her ankle. Linton waits near the warm hearth at home, and she
loves him dearly. She is happy. But her other soulmate stays here, eternally.
Cathy knows if her immortality comes to an end, neither heaven nor hell can keep her from this place. She’s dreamed over and
over again of dying and going to heaven with no peace. She feels only torment and loneliness there, and she weeps so loudly,
the angels fling her right back here.
She reaches the face of Penistone Crags. But now the stone hole has closed. She can no longer reach the fairy bed, the tucked-away
magical place she and Linton delighted in all those years ago. Now her Heathcliff is sealed within.
She sighs, pressing her cheek against the cold lichen-covered stone.
“Heathcliff,” she whispers. And she knows he’s just on the other side. The Fae thought they took him from her, but they didn’t really.
Their love was such that they were never really separate beings. Their hearts are still joined, and she knows he knows she’s
here.
“Heathcliff.”
* * * * *