7. A Visceral Reaction
SEVEN
A Visceral Reaction
SHANNON
Despite her near-certainty that he dropped the class, Shannon arrived at the American Literature seminar hall early to take her usual seat, just in case Caleb was back and she looked desperate or even friendly if she sat behind him again. She clicked her nails on the cheap formica of the folding desktop before setting up her tablet and keyboard on the tiny surface.
The sight of him entering the hall scowling and limping knocked the wind from her lungs. All tenderness wiped from his gaze and softness gone from his cheeks, that must be the grumpy face Missy knew and loved once. She followed him with her eyes as he chose a seat in the front row.
He didn’t look up.
The air cast on his left ankle explained the absences and the pain etched on his brow. Seated at a safe distance, she watched the turn of his head and the tilt of his chin like she had the days before she knew his name, and fought to keep her frustration at bay. In profile, his frown and unkempt stubble aged him, and an unwanted spark of empathy flickered in her chest.
Caleb kept his shoulders square as the professor droned on and the students around him slouched. When he undid the rubber band in his hair and scraped it all back into a tighter knot above the starched collar of his button-down shirt, Shannon’s fingers twitched to tangle themselves in it again. To take her mind off her maddening desire to ask to carry his backpack and help him to his next class, she browsed on her phone for a pair of pink-lined motorcycle boots with a pretty painted design of roses and jasmine circling the black leather, and sent the link to Missy.
“This place smells like heaven,” Shannon said, closing her eyes and inhaling the warmth of the shop. “Books and chocolate. I’m never leaving.”
“You say that every time,” Elouise said.
“And you never disagree.”
“Yet we always leave.”
“Allow me my delusions.”
After a quick game of rock-paper-scissors to choose whether they would shop or snack first, Elouise pumped her fist and dragged Shannon to the cafe.
“What’s on the shopping list?” Elouise asked, spreading cream cheese on her bagel. “Didn’t we just do this a few weeks ago at the start of the semester?”
“We did.” Shannon frowned at her phone and scrolled through her emails. “I don’t know what’s on the list yet. The professor was supposed to send out the writing group assignments right after class, but I haven’t gotten anything yet.”
“Just a list of books? They should have given you that weeks ago.”
“No, he’s splitting us into groups of ten people, and each group has a timeframe in American literature where we can choose our own books. We read and write about our own stuff, then the group has to consult or something on the others in the same timeframe so we can compare, contrast, all that.” Shannon cracked a cookie in half and dunked it in her hot cocoa, narrowly avoiding a splash onto her chunky gray cable-knit sweater. “I love this setup. How many required classes let you choose your own books? I was ready for American Lit to be a Mark Twain-era drag.”
Elouise shook a finger at her. “It still might be. You haven’t gotten your era yet.”
“We got to submit requests, and Philip Roth’s career spanned decades,” Shannon said, gesturing broadly. “But give me anything in the second half of the twentieth century, and I’m good.”
She refreshed her inbox and screwed up her mouth as she scrolled through a message, then dropped her phone on the table.
“Nineteenth century?” Elouise guessed.
“Worse.”
“Late eighteenth?”
“Worse.”
“Most of twentieth is okay, so what?—”
“Nineteen-fifties through the nineteen-seventies, with Caleb Fields.” Shannon poked her phone as if it were a rabid thing and might bite her. “Oh my God, he wanted Salinger. Maybe I can switch. I think there are two groups for each time period. Or maybe the nineteen-eighties and nineties have a spot.”
“I thought he dropped the class,” Elouise said between bites of bagel. “Your professor probably just made the lists in advance.”
Shannon’s cheeks flamed. “He was back today. He sat down front because he’s got some sort of cast on his ankle. I guess that’s why he was out.”
“You really knocked him off his feet.”
“Elle.”
“I refuse to apologize for that,” Elouise said, laughing as she stirred her tea. “Look, I’ll stop giving you shit about the boy if you stop giving the boy shit. So you’re romantically and morally incompatible. So what? You have a class with him, you’ll do your papers, and you’ll both move on with your lives.”
“I will lose it at him if we have to work together,” Shannon said, certain such a reaction would be as much a result of her own frustration about her own feelings as it would be from reading his precious little thoughts about Holden and Phoebe Caulfield. “And because this professor seems to see into my brain and hate me, he’s made it mandatory that we meet in person and not do this all on the class app, even though that’s what the app is for. It just keeps getting worse. Watch me end up with his paper to read. He is a sick, horrible, godawful person, and I will lose it.”
“You certainly will not. You will get a grip and stop acting like a spoiled child who can’t get her way. This class is required, so take it. Stay in the group you’re in, or you’ll end up reading James Fenimore Cooper. ”
As an English major, Elouise knew how to wield particular threats. Shannon grimaced.
“I don’t even want to be around Caleb. He’s an amoral asshole and his smug, pretty face pisses me off.”
“You’re trying to hate him as a defense mechanism, and you’re not fooling me.” Elouise leaned across the tiny table and flicked the side of Shannon’s head. “Look, do what you have to do to get over the crush and the magical sexy night. But college is supposed to help you become an adult, not regress you back to middle school.”
Shannon took a breath to speak, then let her shoulders slump. “Is that how I sound?”
“Yes. It’s how you sound.” Elouise scraped the accumulated crumbs on the table onto a saucer and nodded for Shannon to pick up her drink. “Come on. Let’s flip some pages. You get your fifties-through-seventies and some other treat since your daddy gave you the store card. And when you feel a little better, you will explain to me how you’ll mind those perfect manners you were raised with. You said Caleb was very considerate, too, before everything blew up. Just be decent.”
“I can be decent.”
“Of course you can. Small group work like that is cool. It’s a good way to meet people in these huge classes, and you’ll have eight other people to talk to.” Elouise paused for another sip of lukewarm tea as she browsed and squinted at the shelf labels. “Here’s your Roth. How did you get into him, anyway? That’s not high school reading material.”
“That’s why I searched it out in the first place,” Shannon said, finally laughing. “I wasn’t supposed to have those ‘dirty books’ like Portnoy’s Complaint , so of course I was so intrigued I had to have them. I prefer his more contemporary stuff like American Pastoral , but I figured this would be a good chance to look at the earlier books. I love how my parents indulge my book habit, but it’s a good thing my dad doesn’t get itemized receipts.”
She set down her paper cup, plucked a copy of The Great American Novel , and scanned several pages. She set it aside to begin a pile, then grabbed Zuckerman Unbound and checked the copyright page. “Rats,” she said. “Nineteen eighty-one.” After a brief consideration, she stacked it on the other book anyway.
“Get The Ghostwriter ,” Elouise said. “That’s the first of his Nathan Zuckerman books.”
“What would I do without you, Elle?” Shannon asked, suddenly wistful as she bumped her head on her friend’s shoulder.
“You’d pout a lot and make juvenile decisions,” Elouise said. “And without you, I’d be bored out of my mind.” She searched another shelf close by and held up a copy of an old favorite.
“Who left high school without reading The Catcher in the Rye , anyway?” Shannon mused, taking the book from her friend. “He probably just wants to rehash an old paper.”
“Maybe he liked it so much he’ll pick Franny and Zooey ,” Elouise said. “Did you ever think about giving the boy the benefit of the doubt?”
“I guess not. But the connection was obviously not real if I misjudged him so badly.”
“Accept that you and Caleb will not be together,” Elouise ordered, lightly stamping her foot to make her point. “Accept that there will be other people in that group who are liars and do things that repulse you, and you just don’t know it.”
“I have a visceral reaction when I see him,” Shannon said, her voice beginning to tremble. “I did today in class. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t help it, and I hate it.”
As soon as she said the words, the memory hit her like a fist. The source of the visceral reaction had nothing to do with the class with Caleb or the party where she met him, and everything to do with the day Hayden had her pinned against the wall in the tunnel at the stadium. He was disgustingly sweaty and fresh off the field from a win, and, as usual, starving to get his hands on her and celebrate the rush of his victory. No one’s watching , he murmured to quiet her protests. I’m so fucking high right now, Shan. I need you or I’ll lose my mind. This is what sideline passes are for. Bring me back down to earth.
Everyone’s watching, she said, and he cut her off with another kiss as his hands roved her breasts beneath her jacket. Hayden, we’ll go somewhere else, just cut it out .
She looked up before her ardent boyfriend pulled away, and she saw him. Number forty-seven, still nearly anonymous in his helmet, squeezing a water bottle through his face mask. All she could see were his eyes, locked on hers for the briefest of moments, and in their hazel depths, curiosity and—maybe she imagined it—a little pity for her obvious discomfort.
By the time Hayden stepped back, smoldering with annoyance, number forty-seven was lost in the crowd of his teammates.
“Shannon?”
Elouise jolted her back to attention, and Shannon grabbed a shelf to steady her wobbling legs. That embarrassing scene would be Caleb’s first memory of her, of course. Not some romantic garbage about stormy eyes in class. The helpless priss in the tunnel that day was Hayden’s girlfriend, and he knew who that was now. That she had ever let Hayden use her like that still sickened her with humiliation.
“I hate him,” she said, and didn’t know who she meant.
“Save your hate for Hayden,” Elouise said, answering the question Shannon hadn’t asked. “He’s the only one who really deserves it.”
“But Caleb?—”
“Can read whatever he likes. He is not our problem.”