Chapter 11
Paul resents having to teach Tuesday night.
He leaves his apartment reluctantly, but on the drive to New Jersey he reviews all the work he’s done for his Harper’s submission and realizes he’s close, and getting closer, to finding the essential twenty prints that will blow Marty’s mind.
He calls up some of his favorites, analyzing their strengths and wondering in which order he should arrange them.
He’s still caught up in this daydream when he steps through the classroom door.
Hearing the low buzz of conversation and seeing his students’ familiar, living faces wakes him from his art-induced stupor.
Rich and meaningfully layered as they are, Judith’s pictures are ultimately flat images, dead things.
Or are they signs, images of death? Each one a testament to and proof of Judith’s nullified existence?
His students, though limited, are living.
He needs the living tonight—though he didn’t know it until now—and throws himself wholeheartedly into a largely improvised lecture on portrait photography.
His students respond in kind: tuning in, leaning forward, taking notes.
The most visibly engaged among them are the three girls who sit in a row, dressed in tight turtlenecks or sweaters, miniskirts—god, those miniskirts!
—and brightly colored tights. They smile at him with highly glossed lips, and sometimes he smiles back, runs a hand through his hair, tugs at his beard, struts a little.
It adds vigor to an already vigorous talk, one he almost wishes would last forever.
He wants to get back to Judith’s photographs—and doesn’t want to at the same time.
He feels a chill now when he thinks of the pictures arranged on his table in all their gorgeous dead splendor.
It’s nothing like the dark, liquid gaze one of the three girls—the sexiest, Charlie—fixes on him now, sending sparks along his nerves.
It makes him wonder if it might be worth ignoring the school’s official policy on instructors commingling with students…
again. It’s been a while since he did, and it ended badly the last time.
Got messy. He doesn’t want or need messy right now, but the girl makes him ache for it all the same.
It’s like she’s read his mind. When class ends, she walks toward him, leaving her friends by the door.
Watching her, images bloom in Paul’s mind.
Of her on her knees before him, looking up.
Of her on his bed, spread-eagled and beckoning.
He imagines pushing his lips into the pillow of her plush red mouth and his temperature rises.
He tries to think again of Judith’s dead pictures to gain control, but the nubile girl before him conquers all. He clears his throat.
“Hi, Charlie,” he says, as neutrally as possible.
She gives him a small, knowing smile. “Professor, I—we—wanted to know if you knew how the investigation’s been going.”
Paul blinks at her, stupid with surprise. “What?”
“Into Judith Stanley’s death? We know you were close with her.
” Close with her. He thought she might ask about some point from his lecture, something that gave her an excuse to talk to him.
That’s what she and her friends usually did, clumping around him, throwing their scented hair over their shoulders, blushing prettily.
He certainly didn’t expect her to ask about the murder investigation—or to insinuate that he and Judith were “close.” He’s shocked to know that Charlie and her friends are thinking of Judith at all.
They must be drawn to the macabre drama of her death, the death of someone they “knew.” Who knows.
He can’t have her thinking—and saying—that he and Judith were close, though. He doesn’t need that floating around.
“We weren’t close,” he says firmly. “And I know nothing about the investigation, but I’m helping her family sort through her pictures now, for possible publication.” It gives him a thrill to say it out loud—especially when Charlie lights up.
“Oh,” she says. “That’s wonderful! I still think about that picture you showed us in class last semester. She and I were going to swap pictures sometime, before she—” Her voice wobbles and she looks away. Paul nearly laughs at the thought of this girl and Judith swapping pictures.
“Anyway, I’d love to see more of them. Who’s going to publish them?”
“Not sure yet,” Paul says, smiling tightly. He shouldn’t have mentioned it. It isn’t a sure thing, after all, and he resents her sudden eagerness. Leaning toward her, he says in a low voice: “If we could keep that between us, that would be great, Charlie. Please don’t share that with your friends.”
Paul expects her to reassure him, to say, Yes, Professor, of course. Instead, she gives him a long, measuring look.
“Are you still a suspect?” she asks. “I guess not, if the family’s asked you to help them.”
“No, I’m not,” he says, too loud. His voice echoes through the room.
He doesn’t appreciate her probing question or her sharp tone.
“I was never a serious suspect. That’s all the time I’ve got, Charlie.
Good night.” He has a sudden urge to grab and shake her, to startle the smugness right out of her.
He turns away to stop himself from touching her—in one way or another—and makes a show of packing his bags.
“See you, Professor,” she calls, already clicking up the stairs.
He hears the girls’ laughter echo down to him through the open door, and another wave of hot fury barrels through him.
It takes several minutes of breathing in the quiet room to let it go, expel it from his body like a toxin.
She’s just a silly young girl, he tells himself, and longs for those dead pictures now.