Small Blessings (19 page)

Dust motes danced before Rose in the sunshine. Thoughts, reasons, explanations, understanding danced with them, tantalizingly ungraspable. No bells went off inside her head. Nothing announced:
That's it! I've figured it all out, and all is now well!!

“Oh, get a grip,” Rose muttered disgustedly. Her mother had always said the best way to solve a problem was not to think about it but to wait for revelation. Mavis was a strong believer in patience being rewarded by revelation.

Like mother, like daughter?

Rose folded her hands neatly in her lap, just as Mavis had taught her to do as a child when they were invited to an intimidating dinner at some academic's house.
I'm all right,
she told herself sternly.
I'm here because I want to learn more about Shakespeare, and this is the place to do it.

The other students were wandering in now, chattering, giggling, dragging their feet. Rose looked out a window at the bright day and felt something uncomfortably close to unquiet desperation. Surely it would be easier to sit here after it got cold, easier when it rained, easier once she simply got used to it.

Susan Mason, resplendent in her role as chair of the Book Store Faculty/Student/Community Co-Curricular Program Committee, came in with an impossible load of books strapped to her back. The chair next to Rose was empty, and Susan plopped down in it. They
were
buddies, after all. “Did you
get
this play?” she whispered.

Rose looked at her blankly. What a question! Had anyone ever gotten
Othello
? She had seen four different productions of it. The best of them had thundered down upon her like a storm wave breaking off the point at Cape Hatteras. But was that the same as getting it? “I think so,” she whispered back. “Pretty much, anyway.”

Susan's hair was bundled up on the top of her head in a way that was quite carelessly attractive. The sunlight turned it into a frizzy red-gold halo. “Me, too. I didn't expect to, but I did. Maybe we should start a play-reading group in the Book Store, you think?”

“I think that's a terrific idea.”

At that moment, Professor Putnam strode briskly into the room. Was she, Rose wondered, the only person at this college lacking in sass today? “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said, reaching the podium and depositing his briefcase beside it. “Shall we begin?” The entire class snapped to attention. Everyone knew Professor Putnam's wife had been killed in a car wreck exactly one week ago today. Everyone also knew that he now had a son staying with him, a mysterious six-year-old.

“Did you notice,” Professor Putnam began with great energy, bordering on charisma, “that we have quite a Shakespearean change of pace this week? What did you think of the play that is arguably Shakespeare's greatest offering,
Othello, the Moor of Venice
?”

This man,
Rose thought,
is such a different animal in the classroom. He takes stage like a good actor.
Beside her, Susan Mason's hand shot up, and she strained forward like a leashed cocker spaniel who only wants to please. Later, when Rose tried to think about what happened next, it seemed as much of a disconnect as if a cabal of wizard troublemakers had pointed their wands directly at her and done their damnedest. Anxiety crashed down on her like a falling building, like Chicken Little's falling sky, like that devastating production of
Othello.
Rose's heart pounded and her breathing shrank to short, shallow gasps. The floor underneath her rocked and rolled like a room-sized Tilt-A-Whirl. She grabbed the seat of her chair hard with both hands and held on, sure that if she released her grip one bit she would begin whipping around the room the way the doomed girl at the beginning of
Jaws
had been whipped around the ocean.

Professor Putnam began commenting animatedly on Susan Mason's surprisingly erudite response to his question. Rose forced herself to stare directly at his starched white shirt, which looked at least a decade old. As she watched with a pounding heart, Professor Putnam grasped the podium with both his large, square hands, leaned slightly forward, and spoke directly to her.
He knows what his wife knew,
she thought, drowning in panic.
He knows everything about me. Things I don't even know. Things I don't
want
to know.

With that, Rose bolted. She got up from her chair and fled, leaving book, notebook, and purse behind. Once out of the room, she didn't stop running until she reached the bathroom at the end of the hall. She threw herself against the door and hurtled inside.

The bathroom was empty, thank goodness. Rose flung open the small window and leaned back against the wall beside it, spread-eagled, her arms and hands, the backs of her calves, the small of her back all pressed against the cool tiles. She took deep, shuddering breaths and waited. Waiting was something she was practiced in, something she did well. Once again, she had the fleeting sensation that she'd done nothing but wait her whole life. Gradually her heart slowed and her breathing became regular and easy again.

This is ridiculous,
she thought,
but still, this
is.
What the hell am I going to do about it?

Her mother had been a barrel racer in high school. Mavis had loved the thrill of competing, but she hadn't been very good at staying on a horse. Her best barrel-racing quality, she'd always said, was that she bounced, just the way Rose's grandmother had bounced when Rose's grandfather had run off with That Floozy the year Mavis was in fifth grade. Rose had grown up knowing she came from a line of resilient women. Mistakes and failures were okay. Accepting defeat was another matter.

There was no question of going back into that classroom. Even considering doing this made Rose feel like she might throw up or slide down the wall in a dead faint.

So what
could
she consider?

The goal here was to listen to what Professor Putnam had to say about
Othello.
Surely she could do that from
outside
the door? Rose tried visualizing this—she would creep back down the hall, sit on the floor outside the door with her back against the wall. No one inside would be able to see her, but she should be able to hear everything.

The visualization went just fine. The images brought on no palpitations, no dizziness, no symptoms of freak-out at all. Well, all right, then.

*   *   *

Was it Rose's imagination, or was Professor Putnam's Shakespearean fire burning particularly hot today? Last week's class had certainly been interesting, but nothing like today's. Today, Professor Putnam spoke passionately about
Othello,
skillfully energizing his flock of students to
think
about the complexities of both plot and language. Of course, he had a reputation for being a “fun” teacher, whatever that meant, and she wasn't taking notes and maybe that made a difference, but her fellow students inside the room did seem much less restless than last week. It wasn't just Susan Mason who asked questions, and there was less whispering, less fretful movement and scraping of chairs. Toward the end of class, some students got jittery, and when Professor Putnam finished there was the usual immediate stampede out the door, which forced Rose to scramble to her feet to avoid being trampled. She stood quietly to one side, and no one paid any attention to her until Susan Mason's giant backpack shifted suddenly and sent her through the doorway at such an extreme angle that Rose had to put her arms up in order to stop a collision.

“Oh, hi,” Susan said, obviously surprised to see her. “I thought you'd gotten sick or something.”

“No,” Rose said. “Not really. I just needed to come out here for a while.”

Susan was struggling to rebalance herself. “Your stuff's still in there,” she said. “You want me to get it?”

“No, I'll get it. I guess I should speak to Professor Putnam. You know, apologize for bolting. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden I just couldn't be in there anymore.”

Susan straightened up.
“
You couldn't? Wow! That's, like, so
strange
. You okay?”

Rose had started to really like Susan Mason. A lot of the other students were too contrived for real liking. “I'm okay,” she said firmly.

“Well then, I better get going. I told a friend I'd meet her at the library right after class.”

“Sure thing,” Rose said. “See you.”

“See you.”

Susan trudged off down the hall, the tentative beginnings of what? Of an
attitude
? hovering around her like an aura. Rose smiled as students from other classes drifted by her, heading for exits. They walked in clumps, talking either to one another or on their phones. Most had also plugged in earbuds, as though silence were somehow dangerous.

As this was Thursday and the rest of the afternoon was reserved for labs, there would not be another class gathering in the seminar room. Rose had half hoped Professor Putnam would leave with the stampede so she wouldn't be able to speak to him privately, but no such luck. She peeked in the door and there he was at the far end of the seminar table, stuffing papers into a battered old briefcase that had too much in it already. His head was down and there was still time for her to slink away, wait him out in the bathroom, then come back and collect her stuff. She would talk to him tomorrow, maybe at the Book Store, which would be neutral ground and much less stressful …
Damn!
Now it was too late. Professor Putnam had looked up and seen her peering out around the door frame. She had lost her chance to enter the room with any dignity, along with her chance to run away.

“I'm sorry I bolted,” Rose said, still hugging the door frame.

“Are you all right?” Professor Putnam immediately came toward her, lugging his loaded briefcase. He didn't look at all like a giant entity anymore. He looked like a nice man, deeply concerned about another person. What the hell had happened to her?

“Certainly I'm all right.” Rose saw herself pressed against the tiles in the bathroom. Abruptly the floor shifted under her feet, threatening to begin its Tilt-A-Whirl activities again. “That is, no, I'm not, actually.”

“Oh?”

Rose edged far enough into the room to grasp the back of a chair. The floor steadied itself. “I mean, I'm all right now, but I wasn't all right when I bolted.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Professor Putnam had stopped about six feet away from Rose and put his briefcase down on the floor. He was looking at her expectantly, this tall, almost-handsome man, who needed a haircut and did seem so kind. “I don't know,” she said.

“Really?”

“It had nothing to do with your lecture,” Rose added hurriedly. “I've always been a bolter. From classes, that is. It's always been hard for me to sit in a room and listen to lectures. I bolted from college entirely at the end of my sophomore year. I have no idea why—I can sit still and read for hours—but classrooms have always felt a bit confining.”

“I see.” Professor Putnam looked no less concerned and confused.

Rose blundered on. “I did come back today and listen to your lecture from just outside in the hall.” She gestured vaguely behind her toward the door. “I could hear everything perfectly.” Rose felt herself blushing—yes,
blushing
! She hadn't been exactly accurate when she'd linked her panicky feelings today with what had happened to her during her first attempt at college. The anxiety she'd experienced today in Professor Putnam's class was nothing like the fierce case of the fidgets she'd sometimes gotten in lectures during her two years at Rice. It was, she knew, somehow connected to Professor Putnam himself. “I enjoyed your class today very much,” she finished lamely.

“No kidding? You really liked my lecture?” His kind face lit up. “I'm glad to hear you say that. I enjoyed it myself today. I thought it was quite a good class.”

“Yes, it was. I could tell that from behind the door.” Rose smiled up at him and again felt that disturbing sensation of stillness.
But you're Marjory's guest …

He smiled back. “I'm going to take that as a high compliment. Agnes says she thinks you are a truthful person.”

“I hope I am. I was raised to be.”

“Agnes said you were raised in apartments over bars.”

“Over quite a few different bars. But that doesn't mean I wasn't taught to tell the truth.” The stillness was gone, replaced by a riot of peculiar feelings. Love, hate, fear, longing, joy, sorrow, lightness, heaviness—all of them tumbled around inside her. Rose had to resist a strong impulse to bolt again.

“So the problem isn't crowded places, I guess,” Professor Putnam said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The problem you have sitting in a classroom isn't because the room is crowded?”

“Oh, no. I like crowds. I've always loved to watch people when they don't realize I'm there. When I was a kid, I watched people all the time while my mother was working, and I made up the wildest stories about them. I still do, to some extent.”

“Me, too.” Professor Putnam's whole face soared upward when he grinned. “When I was a kid, I'd give every stranger I saw an exciting life.” Now he was laughing.
Really
laughing. “I hadn't thought about doing that in years. What an optimist I was back then! I thought when I grew up, I'd face all kinds of adventures. I had no idea how uneventful most days would be.” He shrugged. “I suppose I've led a very boring life. The biggest adventure I've ever had is Henry.”

Henry. That sweet, solemn little boy. Rose wasn't certain she was ready to ask Professor Putnam about Henry, about where he'd come from and why he'd shown up just now. Asking such things might trigger an exchange of truly personal information between them, not so much about their lives as about their hearts. “I'm almost never bored,” she said. Which was also quite true. She could not remember ever being really, truly bored. At least, not for very long.