Chapter 13
CHAPTER
I REACH THE SCHOOL’S exit doors and push them open, breathe in the crisp San Francisco night.
What now? I lean against the cool brick of the building and weigh my options.
I could get a job at a clothing boutique or a coffee shop.
But I may not win in mediation or court.
I need a career and security. A long time ago, I was a promising PhD candidate.
It’s the only skillset I have to build on.
Once my anxiety has gone from a blaring whoop-whoop to a low buzz, head down, fists clenched, I push open the doors, go back inside, and crash into a man’s chest.
“Whoa,” Luc says, hands at my waist to keep me from stumbling. “You just getting some air or was my welcome speech so bad that you’re leaving?”
His palms lightly press on my hips. I look up at the faint laugh lines around his eyes.
He’s still so good looking, and clearly successful.
While I’m a middle-aged woman with zero prospects, a daughter who doesn’t want to see me, living in a shitty rental apartment that I may soon not be able to afford.
A wave of shame hits and I step back. “I’m staying. ”
Luc gestures to a spot on the floor and we sit, lean against a bank of yellow metal lockers. “Why are you here?” he asks.
I wrap arms around my knees. “I need to update my skills.”
“Seriously? You could help teach this class.”
“You have much too high an opinion of my abilities.” I pivot.
“Your scar healed well.” After class a group of us went to Ruloff’s, the local pub.
I’d forgotten my bike lock, so Luc used his to lock both bikes together.
Following pizza and a few drinks we went to unlock them, go our respective ways, but Luc had left the key at home.
“It was your idea to attempt to ride home with the lock still on,” Luc reminds me.
“There wasn’t another option, and I thought you were coordinated,” I joke. We had about twenty inches between the bikes. He held the back of my seat, we mounted the bikes in tandem, made it a few blocks before Luc lagged and we tipped over. He hit his chin on the pavement.
“What happened?” Luc asks.
“You fell over.”
“No, I mean with you. Why’d you drop out? No one could believe it, with the Johnson nomination, the level of your work …”
It’s hard to meet his eyes. But I need his help. “I got pregnant, married Bruce—”
“The guy with the briefcase?”
He remembers. “That’s the one. We had a daughter, Circe.”
Luc smiles. “Is she named after the goddess?”
“Yes.” Bruce wanted to name her Ansley, but I insisted. Circe was an enchantress who could change her enemies into lions, pigs, wolves. I used to wish Mama J had named me Circe.
“Has it been a good life, so far?” Luc asks.
His eyes are so earnest. “Parts have. The early years of my marriage. Circe, especially. I’ve mostly spent my time raising our daughter and being a wife, supporting Bruce’s insurance company.
I did charity work, planned parties, gardened, and made jam.
” My cheeks heat up. I do sound like a 1950s housewife.
“I have twenty-one thousand followers on LivLoud who love my photos, recipes, and gardening tips.”
“Wow?” Luc says, wiggling his brows.
I laugh. He clearly has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Now you want to update your skills?”
“It’s a little more complicated.” This close, I notice how long his lashes are and the bow of his top lip.
This is beyond embarrassing, but I’m out of options.
“My soon-to-be ex traded me in for a younger model. I now need to work. Unlike Stan Honey, I’m not sure how to navigate this new world and have no idea where to begin. ”
Luc runs the tip of a finger along the length of his pale scar, and it sends an unexpected streamer of heat through my body. Get a grip. He’s a successful guy and you’re a grad school dropout whose husband cheated and who just fled his class.
“Have you ever heard of Boyd Varty?” Luc asks.
I shake my head.
“He’s a wildlife and literacy activist. Also, a public speaker.”
“Underachiever?”
Luc chuckles. “Boyd grew up on his family’s game reserve in South Africa.
As a boy, he learned how to track wild animals.
He says you’re never lost. That you’re just getting information that the place you are now and the way you’re going isn’t where you want to be.
Boyd calls that ‘the path of not here.’ ”
“That about sums up my current predicament.”
“Good.”
Luc shrugs one shoulder and it brushes mine, sending tiny ripples of electricity across my skin. “Good?”
“When you know that you’re on the path of not here, you can shift. But if you don’t recognize you’re on it, then it’s impossible to make a change, find happiness.”
“I don’t remember you being so philosophical,” I say.
He tips his head back against the locker, stares at the ceiling. “I wasn’t, back then. My eye was on launching a career and making money. Collecting expensive things.”
“What happened?” I ask, turning the tables.
Luc pauses. “Let’s just say that I realized it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. So, I’ve come back to doing the last thing that made me happy. Teaching. I’m in the process of figuring things out, too, and finding my joy. Where’s yours?”
All I can think about are all the paths I could’ve taken but didn’t, all the ways I’ve messed up my life, marriage, and Circe’s world. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
“Then we both have work to do.” Luc offers me his hand, pulls me to my feet.
Our bodies are inches apart. His blue eyes have flecks of silver in the irises and I feel the urge to move even closer. He’s just being nice. “There’s really a career playing computer games?” I ask to break our imagined connection.
Luc grins and that dimple appears again. “It’s a new world. Apparently there are furries in it.”
You’re not special, Mama J calls after me as I walk back to class beside Luc.
My icon, the woman in white, comes to mind. She claps her hands, encouraging me to ignore Mama J. To keep going and reinvent myself.
Don’t you remember what the gods do to anyone showing hubris?
Mama J demands. Arachne challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest and was turned into a spider; Sisyphus tried to cheat death and was condemned to push a boulder uphill for eternity; Niobe bragged about having fourteen children to the goddess Leto, who had only two.
Leto had all of Niobe’s children murdered. That bitch killed every one of ’em.
My body stiffens. Circe.
I’m trying to protect you, Mama J says.
Anger bites. That’s rich, coming from you. I follow Luc into the classroom.