Compliments (16 page)

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When I was a kid, up until the age of twelve, I had a very strict bedtime routine. At nine-thirty each night, my mother would give me the
look
, which relayed to me in no uncertain terms that I was to immediately proceed to my bathroom, brush my teeth, change into my pajamas, and get into bed. The only problem was that, like my mother, I really, really liked the talk show that came on at ten. Even though I’ve since figured out my dad knew I was hiding at the top of the stairs, I still remember the anxiety the times my mom almost caught me. Butterflies on meth would consume me, and I’d jump up and bolt back to my room like I was fleeing the scene of a crime.

After many years of separation, the butterflies have found me again, fluttering just under my rib cage as I enter the Yang Building. Hawk begged me to wait until he was done teaching this morning, promising he’d come with me to grab some stuff from my office. I insisted I could handle it. It’s too late for regret, and I don’t think I could stomach coming back here again, so I decide to just get it over with.

Betsy’s vinaigrette stare sets me off kilter as I enter our shared office. At first I wonder what species of tree the stick up her ass is from.

“It was your turn to water the plants,” she says, pointing to the windowsill, “but you never came in yesterday. Didn’t we agree that we’d notify the other person if it was our day to water the plants but we had to be out?”

I’m not really in the mood for her attitude, but even I’m surprised by the crispness of my words. “I’m so sorry,” I say in a tone that makes it clear I’m not in the least, “but I won’t be in for a while. Therefore, you’re just going to have to take that over.”

To my surprise, her eyes fill with genuine concern. “Why, what happened?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t want to talk—”

“Betsy, I need to … Oh, Robin.”

I can’t tell which one of us is more surprised, but both Harrison and I turn to stone when we see each other. From the corner of my eye, I can see Betsy whipping her head between the two of us, trying to diagnose the shift in the air.

I should have listened to Hawk. I should have waited for him to come with me. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. Blood rushes into my extremities and I hear my pulse in my ears. I’m positive I’m going to die right where I stand. It’s only Harrison’s voice, breaking the silence, that brings me to understand I actually haven’t.

“Robin, maybe you and I can talk?” His eyes flash to Betsy. “Alone.”

I want to shake my head. I want to
thrash
my head, but I’m immobilized. I do know one thing, he’s lucky I can’t move. Behind a wall of halting disbelief, my subdued animal self is playing out scenarios, trying to decipher how I could inflict the most pain on him with the least effort.

Betsy looks at me. “Robin, do you want to be alone with him?”

I still can’t move, and my raspy voice breaks as I declare, “Never again.”

“You heard the girl,” she returns to Harrison.

Harrison refuses to yield. “It wouldn’t take a minute. Betsy, please, just give us a second to—”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen, Peter.” Betsy rises. Betsy
rises.
Not as in she gets up. I see the meek, antisocial officemate I’ve borderline loathed for a whole term come between me and Harrison. He tries to look around her, but like a mother cat protecting her kitten, she swivels whatever direction his head does, impeding him. Betsy plants all five fingers of her right hand into his chest and pushes him out of the door.

“She obviously doesn’t want to talk with you, so scram.”

“Excuse me?” His biting tone makes me wince. “Have you forgotten who I am, Miss Wade?”

She meets his jab snarl for snarl. “No, have
you
forgotten who
I
am?”

Harrison’s resolute sneer dissolves. He clears his throat, passes me one more glare, then leaves. Betsy closes the door behind him, locking it. I feel the breath I’ve been holding rush out, and just as quickly, my hungry lungs suck back a mouthful. I don’t have much time to recover, however. As soon as I’ve collapsed back into my seat, Betsy goes on the offensive.

“Are you sleeping with Harrison?”

I blink. “What?”

“Harrison? Are you sleeping with him?”

“Not that it’s any business of yours, but no.” I’m so appalled by her suggestion that the truth leaps from me without another thought. “He attacked me. At the conference over the weekend, he tricked me into coming into his hotel room, and he tried to …” The memory comes flooding back, and with the 20/20 of hindsight, even I can’t deny what went on. “I think he was trying to rape me.”

“Rape you?” Betsy’s body and tone shrink back. “Like, force himself on you?”

I roll my eyes. Even awkward Betsy Wade can’t be that dense. “Yeah, like force me. To have sex with him. Against my will.”

Remembering my task, I jump to my feet and search out my desk for the few things I’ll need with me at home to keep up my work.

Betsy digests the words, before finally barking out, more to herself than to me, “Bastard.”

I look up for a moment with real surprise. Betsy Wade, the sourpuss of the Manderson Math Department, is embracing righteous indignation on my behalf? I feel both like hugging her and telling her to check her temperature all at once. As it is, however, I stay focused on my task, grabbing a set of class notes from a drawer.

“So I won’t be in for a few weeks until some things get settled. I’ll be checking email and I’ll have my phone if you for some reason need to get ahold of me. Or you can always pass a message along to Hawk.”

“Hawk?” Her head tilts to the side. “Hawk Stephens?”

“Yeah, I’m kind of … He’s my boyfriend. Actually, I’m going to be staying out at his house for a while. He can stop by later and get anything I’ve forgotten. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t ask him to do anything unless it was necessary. I’ve already asked him for so much.”

“And is he good to you, Hawk?”

I’m blown away by her hopeful expression. “He is. Really good. Well, hopefully I’ll see you next term, Betsy. Take care.”

“Wait.”

I pause at the door.

“Hawk is still going to be working as the janitor, though?”

“For now. Still got to make ends meet.”

She nods once. “Okay, good. Take care, Robin. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

22°

There’s one thing that’s certain: Hawk Stephens looks dead sexy fine in a suit.

“We have to go out dancing sometime soon.” I work at his tie, making sure it’s both perfectly knotted, and visually symmetrical.

It’s a math geek thing.

“Or go out to eat some place fancy,” I offer when he scrunches up his face in disgust. “Or you could try selling used cars. My point is you have to dress like this more often.”

He takes a moment to consider himself in the mirror before turning to me and brushing his lips against mine. “Maybe I can just make a habit of punching wayward faculty in the face so I can be put on academic suspension and have hearings every quarter. Will that work for you?”

“I have a few in mind. I’ll make a list.”

I roll up on my toes and kiss him back, but deeper, like I’m challenging him to call my bluff. The way I move my lips over his—caressing, teasing—starts to affect him, inspiring thoughts of activities we don’t have time for right now. The moment his hands come to rest on my arms, right above the elbows, and he tries to push me against the nearest wall, I pull back. He hisses as I swipe the framed certificate from atop his dresser.

“Or maybe you should just get this PhD thing over with. You clearly have a calling to be the member of someone’s faculty.”

As if to stamp a seal on that fact, news came shortly after our meeting in the chair’s office that Hawk had been named the Teacher of the Quarter for the Outreach Program, an honor made all the more touching by the fact that his students nominated him for the prize.

Of course, the award won’t at all hurt his image in front of the review board. Part of me wishes I could be in the hearing with him, instead of waiting for him in the lobby. Another part of me suspects that if I saw Harrison again anytime soon, I probably wouldn’t be able to shut off my mouth. Or resist use him for sparring practice.

Hawk checks his tie one last time, just to be certain I didn’t dislocate it while I was exploring the angles of his lips. “When I do have my PhD, I’ll dress like this every day and make everyone call me Dr. Stephens.”

“Even me?” I tease, wrapping my arms around him from behind and staring at our reflections in the mirror.

“Especially you, so you don’t ever forget I’ve become more than just a janitor.”

“You always were more than just a janitor.” He turns around and his eyes fall to my lips. I encircle my hands behind his neck, pulling myself up to him, and before I kiss him say, “You’re more than ‘just’ anything to me.”

The unfamiliar building on campus near the football stadium, Chaucer Hall, looks more like a corporate headquarters than an academic facility. Its marble-floored lobby is enclosed by glass walls. A starched-collar receptionist sits behind a reception desk just beyond the entry.

“Can I help you?” she asks, looking up from a stack of papers.

“I’m Hawk Stephens. I have a hearing in Conference Room B at eleven.”

She pulls up a calendar on her computer and runs a finger over the screen. “Ah, yes. They’re running a little behind. If you’d like, you can wait with the others here for that appointment just around the corner.”

I feel my stomach clench, but Hawk’s hand finds mine and squeezes reassuringly. “I don’t think waiting with Prof. Harrison is a good idea.”

“It’s not Harrison,” Hawk assures me.

I look at him with questioning eyes, but it’s the receptionist who responds.

“I thought she said her name was Blake, but I understand. You could also—”

“Did you say Blake?” Hawk’s hands palm the edge of the raised counter. “She’s here? We talked, but I never expected she’d actually show up.”

He must have been just loud enough. A moment later, a leggy brunette with looks the price of diamonds rounds the corner, all smiles. “Did I hear someone say my name?”

“Fi!”

I know I have no right to be jealous. I know I have no
cause
to be jealous. But right now, as Hawk picks up this woman and spins her, there’s a huge gap between what I know and what I feel. Sophia Blake is a Barbie doll made flesh, with the exception of her chestnut hair. She’s easily got two inches and innumerable curves on me, with her body comprised entirely of soft arcs as opposed to my hard angles.

Hawk pulls away and reaches back for me blindly. I step into the crook of his arm in less than half a nanosecond.

“Fi, this is my girlfriend, Robin.”

“The one you told me about on the phone,” she replies as she stretches her hand out my way. “Very nice to meet you, Robin.”

“Nice to meet you?” It comes out as more of a question. “On the phone?” The misunderstanding must be evident on my face when I turn to Hawk, as words rush out of him unbidden.

“I hope you don’t mind, Robin, but I gave Fi the thumbnail version of what happened with you and Harrison. I thought if she knew and was willing to come today …”

Sophia’s brow grows heavy with purpose. “Robin, I’m so sorry. If I had listened to Prof. Ferris and Hawk last year,” she says, “maybe he never would have had a chance to get to you. Knowing what he tried with you, though, convinced me I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.”

“My dad always told me sympathy is good, but no one’s ever responsible for the black eye except the person who threw the punch.”

Just at that moment, the receptionist comes around the corner. “You can report to the conference room now, Mr. Stephens. Ms. Blake, they’d like you to wait out here until they’re ready. I’ll come get you as soon as they call for you.”

Hawk bites his bottom lip and blows out a stream of air. “Well, I guess this is it.”

Sophia leans in and hugs him. Again, I internally lecture and remind myself of the very satisfying evening we spent together the night before. When he releases her, he turns to me and pulls me into his arms, giving me a kiss that feels like something out of a Hollywood movie. For a second I wonder if there’s a director only he can hear, coaching him through every twitch of lip and caress.

“Wow.” I pull away more than a little breathless and wound up. “What was that for?”

“A reminder,” Hawk says. “A reminder that even if I come out of this room with my matriculation revoked, I still love you.”

“And even if you don’t, I’m still going to call you Dr. Stephens.”

He pecks one more kiss on my cheek, nods at Sophia, and is gone.

Sophia and I seat ourselves on Manderson-colored, leather couches of dark red and white. Our awkward silence diverts when another woman with long, black hair, a designer suit, and cheekbones that could cut glass enters are part of the lobby. She looks at me and gives a crooked half-smile. A feathery sense of recognition tickles my memory, but I can’t place her. I wonder if I should say hello and see if her voice sparks recollection, but the possibility evaporates when she pulls out a set of ear buds. Closing herself off from the world, she becomes a part of the surroundings as approachable as the abstract sculpture on the table before us.

Instead, I turn my attention back to Sophia. She compliments my shoes, I say something nice about her purse, but outside of that, we both know what the other wants to ask. I gulp, and decide to be the braver person.

“Just how much did Hawk tell you when he called?”

Sophia occupies herself with flicking a piece of lint off her skirt. “He said Harrison attacked you, but you fought him off.”

I nod. “It was only because I know some martial arts and only because he was a little tipsy. Did he ever … I’m sorry. I guess what happened between you two is really none of my business.”

Her hand slides over mine, and I feel the energy between us shift. Amber eyes, full of remorse, become apologetic. “Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me that if I hadn’t done what I did, this might have never happened to you. But the truth is, I thought that was a boundary he’d never cross. Harrison never forced me to do anything. He was a master of coercing me to do what he wanted and making me feel guilty about refusing the few times I tried. Of course, at the time, I didn’t understand that.”

“I know the type,” I say softly. She’s either too wrapped up in her own narrative, or doesn’t hear me, because she continues.

“I don’t know how, but somehow, when he looked at me, he understood I was the type of woman who’d go for those kind of tactics. I’m in counseling now; I understand what he did to me was in some ways almost as bad as if he had forced me. He made me internalize his deception. I’m so sorry it took Hawk getting suspended to see just how far off course I was.”

“Why did you leave then? Why didn’t you stay and expose him?”

Her shoulders bob. “I couldn’t. I aced his class and had a paper or two accepted that he helped me with. I was scared people would say I’d only achieved what I did because every lunch time, I was giving him hummers in his office.”

I cough my surprise at her admission, and it takes me a few moments to recover. “So where did you go?”

“Prof. Ferris had a friend at Cornell. The plans were worked out very secretly, and they agreed to accept me as a mid-term transfer. I lost a semester of my work, but better than losing everything, don’t you think?”

“Of course.”

The receptionist again peeks her head around the corner. “They’re asking for you now. Please go right in. Third door on the right down the hall.”

Sophia slides up to the edge of the couch. “Guess that means me.”

“Actually, they’re asking for you both.”

I pass Sophia a questioning look, but she seems just as perplexed as I am. I turn back to the receptionist. “I know Fi was supposed to be called in, but I thought they decided discussing my case wasn’t appropriate for this hearing?”

The receptionist shrugs. “I’m sorry, miss, I’m not familiar with the details. I just know that the head of the hearing committee asked me to get the two of you and an Elizabeth Wade from the lobby.”

“Elizabeth Wade?”

“Yes?”

Hearing the voice of the woman as she pulls out her earphones completes the circuit trying to fire in my brain.

“Oh, my goodness, Betsy?” A quick survey of her frumpy-to-fab metamorphosis doesn’t help to clear the surprise from my face. “Is that really you?”

“Looks like your boyfriend isn’t the only one who cleans up nicely, huh?” she says. “Amazing the power of purple labels and a bit of concealer and mascara, isn’t it?”

“But you ...” I feel like someone’s punched me in the stomach when I connect the dots. “Oh, my God. Betsy, Harrison and you …”

She doesn’t answer directly. Instead she follows the receptionist as we all head toward the conference room.

“Betsy Wade’s become a glamazon?” Sophia leans in and whispers in my ear. “Now I’ve seen everything.”