Unlovely (19 page)

Time for a different tack altogether. He
shook himself as if recovering from a reverie and grinned at her indulgently.

“You know what? I'm starting to think
that maybe it was a good thing that you called me today. It's good that we're
meeting like this. Let's just put this whole thing behind us, okay? Can we just
be friends? Or at least friendly?"

Claudia wiped her nose again with a
napkin. "I don't know."

Mark handed her another napkin from the
dispenser. "Look, Claudia, you've got to just chalk this up to experience.
Is it that you feel regret? Are you ashamed or something? You shouldn't be
ashamed. Girls give it away on this campus every day. Some of them must have
regrets. Do you really think all of those girls are sluts? You've got to take
it easy on yourself."

Mark looked at the girl across from him:
static making her hair fly everywhere, nose red and running, skin pale except
around her eyes and the tip of her nose. She was a mess. His conscience began
to prick again. Almost unthinkingly he had made himself a very big part of her
life. He had been her first, and for this girl that was probably a significant
thing. He might be her only.

Mark wondered if maybe he shouldn't try
to save this situation. Yes, he'd done something that was perhaps a little
irresponsible, but that could be repaired, couldn't it? It was only sex, for
Pete's sake. Girls give it up all the time, most of the time under much worse
circumstances.

He'd meant it when he said she was lucky
to have run across him and not someone who would just use her and toss her
away, or worse. She had the look that unscrupulous fraternity men go for when
they're having one of their contests. She could have been publicly humiliated.

Maybe he was meant to get involved with
Claudia; maybe fate had thrown them together so he could help her get through
this experience, this rite of passage. It would be of necessity a short
commitment, but being the kind of person he was, he knew he should do what he
could in whatever time he had. Yes. He would help her. He could give her experience
and perspective. He smiled at her engagingly.

"Look, I only have a few more weeks
here before I head off to Moscow, but I would like us to part as friends. Let's
start over. Let me buy you dinner."

"Really?" Claudia wondered
just how guilty this guy felt. "You want to buy me dinner?" She
sniffled again and squirmed against her coat. It might be interesting. On the
other hand, it might be excruciatingly awkward. "Thank you for the offer –
it's very nice of you and, frankly, kind of surprising – but before we decide
to spend any more time together, I need to make something perfectly clear. I
don't want you to think that since we had sex once, we're going to do it again.
I don't think that would be a good idea."

Mark lifted an eyebrow. "I think
that goes without saying, Claudia."

"Well, I think it needed to be
said."

"Okay."

They sat there for a few moments, almost
relaxed for the first time in hours, both relieved to have the confrontation
behind them.

"Okay, then," Mark said,
clapping his hands together. "What do you say to some dinner?"

"I guess I'd say yes," Claudia
answered with a shrug. She slid out from the booth and followed Mark over to
the service line. This was a weird and unexpected outcome, but the discussion
had certainly gone better than she'd anticipated. For some reason, he wanted to
be friends. That was the civilized thing to do, wasn't it? Go on to be friends?
Claudia didn't have much choice but to go along.

Claudia hadn't truly believed Mark would call again
after their dinner in the student union, but a couple of days later he invited
her to go with him and one of his office mates to hear a Polish chamber
orchestra perform at the university auditorium.

She had a very nice time, both at the
concert itself and afterward on the walk back to the dorm. To her pleasant
surprise, Mark wasn't just an ape, and was able to converse intelligently about
the music. Over the few weeks until Christmas break, Claudia and Mark met each
other five more times: they went to a coffee shop twice, to a movie once with
two other grad students, and finally, on the last day before Claudia went home
for Christmas break, Mark took her out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. He
was in high spirits that evening, about to bid goodbye to the university for at
least a semester. He spent most of the meal discussing his preparations for his
trip and relating stories he'd heard from other grad students about dormitory
life in the Soviet Union. Many of the stories involved cockroaches. At about
nine Mark drove Claudia to her residence and parked. He ran around to open
Claudia's door.

"Well, I guess this is it. I
probably won't see you again before I head off," he said as she stepped
out of the car. "I'll send you a card from the institute, if you'd
like."

"Yes, I'd like to hear from
you."

Mark paused to assess Claudia with
objective eyes. She had become something like a shelter puppy to him: endearing
but raggedy, requiring many, many months (or years) of patient training. He had
done what he could in the time allotted, but to what avail?

She certainly still looked awkward: her
coat sleeves didn't quite meet the top of her gloves and her slacks were about
half an inch too short. They had had a few pleasant conversations, and once or
twice she'd made him laugh with a witty observation, but Claudia needed a great
deal of observation and intensive work, not just occasional out-patient
treatment. He was no Henry Higgins and she was no Eliza Doolittle.
Oh
,well
. One does what one can.
Time to say goodbye and trust her to the fates.

"Take care of yourself, Claudia.
Don't forget me."

"Now, Mark," Claudia smiled,
"How could I forget you?"

That was almost charming, Mark thought.
Kind of flirtatious. Progress.

"True, true," Mark said,
kicking some ice into bits near the light post. "I guess I did leave a bit
of an impression, didn't I?"

Mark felt a combination of relief and
pride at this last goodbye with Claudia. They were parting on good terms after
a terrible beginning. She was a little happier and more secure than she'd been
when he'd found her, wasn't she? He'd been good for Claudia. That surely
out-weighed any damage he might have inadvertently done.

"Okay, well, I'd better get
going," he said, tossing his keys into the air, missing them on their
return and having to bend down to retrieve them from the slush.
"Geez." He laughed. "Well, goodbye. It's been interesting."

"Goodbye, Mark. Be safe."

He held out his arms to give her a hug,
and she walked into them. They pulled apart, and on an impulse, Claudia offered
him her mouth for a kiss. To her surprise, he kissed her – not a peck, not a
long kiss – but something in between.

"See you, Claudia." He walked
back around the car, then winked at her over the top as he was climbing in.
"You're a good kisser."

"Yeah, you too," Claudia responded,
a little too late. She doubted he'd heard her.

Claudia watched Mark drive away, and
then turned toward her dormitory. This whole situation had been very strange.
She needed to go up to her room and think about it for a long while.

"Do you feel ready to talk about your
relationships with men yet?"

Claudia sighed. She'd known she would
have to talk about it some time.

She looked around a moment before
answering, trying to gain her bearings. She didn't like unfamiliar places, and
this was the first session Dr. Phillips had held with her in here. The room was
cloyingly decorated and obviously meant to mimic a cozy living room: the
overstuffed couch upon which she was seated, the indirect lighting from the
table lamps, the easy chair where Dr. Phillips sat holding a cup of something
(tea? liquor?), a rocking chair, quilts, no visible file cabinets, no copy of
the Physician's Desk Reference. This was a place where families got together in
the evening to play board games or talk about their day. The only thing that
betrayed the room's true purpose was the emergency intercom button on the wall.
That button reminded Claudia that she was crazy, that she couldn't be trusted
to have a simple conversation without possibly being a danger to herself or others.

"Okay. What do you want to
know?"

"Well," Dr. Phillips said.
"Men. Do you like men?" Dr. Philips was good at adjusting her method
to fit her patients. With Claudia she was straight-forward and direct.

"Some of them, not all of
them," Claudia answered. Stupid question. "But then I'm not wild
about most women, either. What do you want me to say?"

"I just want you to be
honest," Dr. Phillips answered patiently, in the tone one would use with a
recalcitrant child.

"All right. Honest it is,"
Claudia said. She was required to attend individual therapy with Dr. Phillips.
She didn't have to make it easy. "The problem, as I see it, is not so much
whether I like men, but whether they like me."

"That's an interesting observation.
Why would you say that?"

Claudia sighed with exasperation.
Rehashing your story all the time was wearying. "If you've looked over my
chart at all, you already have the rough outlines."

Dr. Phillips nodded. "Yes, I know
you've had some confusing relations with men. Of course I've looked through
your chart."

"So?"

"So, I think it would benefit you
to review the circumstances of those events here. Then you might understand why
the confusion occurred. Don't you agree it would be of use to you?"

Claudia made no effort to hide her
irritation, shaking her head and exhaling audibly with disgust. "No, I
don't think it would be useful at all."

Dr. Phillips looked perplexed. Claudia
wondered if she really was perplexed, or if the ability to assume various
facial expressions on cue was another one of the doctor's specialties. Perhaps
she'd been certified in it.

"Why is that, Claudia? Why don't
you think it could help?"

"I don't think I've been wrong in
my approach to relationships. The problem has been in the attitude and behavior
of these men, not in my own behavior. How could understanding their motivations
really help me?"

"Well, I think knowledge –"

"Why should I even want to
understand them? Whatever revelations I experience here won't change them one
whit. The only benefit that I can see from discussing these things
ad
nauseum
is to finally pound it into my head that I
should just give up any hope for a relationship with a man. We could accomplish
that by just repeating, 'give up' several hundred times a day. We don't have to
dredge up history to do that."

Dr. Phillips nodded, skillfully
manipulating her facial muscles and making her eyes light with understanding.
"So, if I heard you correctly, you believe that the fault lies with the
men you've known."

"Yes, that is what I believe."

"Is it possible that you're
mistaken? Not completely mistaken – almost certainly the men do bear some
responsibility – but is it possible you might have some part in misinterpreting
situations?"

"I have no idea what you mean, Dr.
Phillips."

Claudia finished packing her suitcases for the next
day's trip home, all the while absorbed in rehashing the events of the last
several weeks.

The sex with Mark had been one thing.
That had meant nothing to either of them. Well, maybe it had meant
something
,
but the circumstances were strange, it was hard to put any true value on it.
The kiss, on the other hand – that last kiss was something else altogether.
That was spontaneous. He could have kissed her cheek or not kissed her at all,
but he kissed her on the mouth. And it wasn't the kind of kiss you'd give your
cousin. It was a real kiss. But was it passionate? It was dry, not a deep kiss.
But it had lasted a while.

Claudia began to wonder if Mark might
have actually become attracted to her. It seemed like he had. Maybe. They'd had
some fun together. At the coffee shop they'd engaged in real conversations.
There had been some witty back-and-forth. It wouldn't be that odd, would it?
She was young and fairly attractive, smart and interesting. Why wouldn't he fall
for her?

But then again, at the student union
he'd said she wasn't his type. So, the kiss probably meant nothing.

However, he was pretty upset when he'd
said that. They'd argued. Maybe he'd said it out of guilt and defensiveness,
trying to hurt her with whatever weapons he had in his arsenal. And even if she
really wasn't his type, that didn't mean he didn't like her now, right? Men
fall for women who aren't their type all the time.

But there hadn't been anything physical
at all when they'd gone out: no hand-holding or long make-out sessions.

But still, there was that kiss. It was
confusing.

Maybe he hadn't wanted to try anything,
because she'd put the kibosh on any more sex that first time he'd offered to
buy her dinner. Maybe he didn't want to make a move until he was sure he could
make a get-away if it fell through. Plus, he said she was a good kisser. You
wouldn't say that to someone you thought of as just a friend, would you? That
was definitely a flirtatious thing to say.