Waiting for a Girl Like You (20 page)

He was waiting inside the door at the bottom of the stairs. “You left me for him.”

“No, not really.” Alex rubbed her forehead. Her breath hitched. Not now. No tears. If he had any respect for her at all, it would be gone with the first tear. “I never wanted you to know.”

“What happened to Shakespeare?”

She blinked.

“No legacy so rich as honesty.”

And she’d accused him of intellectual inferiority? She’d told him that quote once, days ago. “Marc, I’m sorry. Let me explain.”

He folded his arms.

Alex sat down on the steps before her legs gave out. The truth. She owed him that. Then he could walk away hating her for the right reasons. “I… Roger and I—”

“You’re having an affair with your married professor.”

If he knew, why was he making her tell? “Was. Was having. Past tense. I have been trying to get away from him for years, but he kept convincing me to stay. Until last March. I told him it was over at spring break.”

“So what are you doing here?” His arms flexed in his black T-shirt.

“It’s complicated.”

“Use small words that an idiot like me will understand.”

She was as bad as Roger. “I’m sorry about that. I never should have insulted you that way.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” He unfolded his arms and sat down beside her. “Alex, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”

Alex rubbed her face and turned her eyes to the ceiling before threatening tears could escape. A good-sized cat was climbing around on her lungs after using her stomach as a litter box. “Can we go somewhere private so I can explain?”

Marc picked his cuticles in silence for some short eternity, but the rectangle of sunlight on the floor in front of the door didn’t move so it couldn’t have been more than a minute. “I still love you, Alex. I was pretty pissed off this morning when I worked it all out, but even I’m bright enough to know I wouldn’t have spent the night in a hotel room tacking index cards to the wall trying to figure this out if I didn’t love you.”

Alex sobbed and curled over her knees.

He started rubbing soothing circles on her back. “I’m going to assume from this that the feeling is mutual.”

She nodded without lifting her head. Her face felt scalded. “I just never wanted you to know. I know how you feel about people who cheat on their spouses, and I knew if you found out I was the instigator who led a man away from his wife, that you would hate me.”

His hand on her back stilled. “You what?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen that way. I just looked up to him, and I wanted him to like me. He was so smart, and I thought he was handsome. I just thought—I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t think I was making him fall in love with me.” Alex swallowed, trying to loosen her throat so her voice wouldn’t sound like air escaping a balloon. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be doing this here. Someone might see.”

“I don’t care if you don’t.” He resumed his slow circles.

“But if someone sees us they might—”

“Tell my wife? I’m short one of those right now. You must be confusing me with your last boyfriend.” Marc stood. “Alex, stand up.”

She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees, praying for a hole to open up and swallow the entire building.

“Alex.” He crouched in front of her. “Darling, we can’t do anything here. You wanted to talk in private so let’s go someplace private to talk. Alex.”

She tried to suck in a breath through her nose, but the way she was crunched up, she failed. Then Marc had her by the shoulders and was pulling her up. She wrapped her arms around him as he cradled her to his chest.

“Your dorm is close. Let’s go there.” He stroked her hair.

“I have to talk to the dean and get him to let me withdraw that thesis. I’ll tell him it was my fault. That’ll end this faster and with less of a cloud over the department.”

“What thesis?”

“Roger submitted a thesis I didn’t write under my name. I have to figure out how to withdraw it without getting anyone but me in trouble.”

“Why are you taking the blame for something Roger did?”

“Penance.”

Marc pressed his lips into a thin line and drew a deep breath before speaking again. “Is that what you want to do?”

“I have to.”

“You should stop at the bathroom and wash your face first.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, I think in this case I might be experientially superior to you.”

“Are you going to keep bringing that up?”

“Hopefully for the rest of our lives.”

* * * *

Alex left him outside the bathroom while she washed and prepared herself for meeting the dean. Her knees felt like she’d just walked away unscathed from a forty-car pileup, but her stomach wasn’t so sure she hadn’t caused it and still expected to be jailed for manslaughter. Somehow, she had to make the dean understand that she couldn’t defend Melanie’s thesis without letting him know it was Melanie’s thesis. Unless she walked in and told him the truth. That had gone over so well with Diana after all. No, best to withdraw the thesis without the cloud of outright theft and faculty impropriety.

From the hall, she could hear voices. The hair on the back of her neck turned to needles. Marc’s confident baritone countering Roger’s less confident tone. She threw herself out the door, landing right between them. Marc leaned on the wall to the left of the door with his arms folded, his mouth pulled into a sneer like he was looking at a wet garbage bag that had just broken on his clean kitchen floor. Roger, standing in the middle of the hall, was more rumpled and pudgy than usual, like a deflating balloon. His eyes were red as though he’d been crying.

“Marc. Roger.” Alex looked from one to the other, trying to rewind and clean up the audio of her memory so she could figure out what had been said before she came out, but her brain was not Memorex, and she lacked the advanced gadgetry they used in all of Finn’s police procedural shows. She would need to invest in an upgrade soon.

Roger pointed one stubby finger at her. “You will not get away with this.”

Alex blinked. She’d been under the assumption that she was in the middle of damage control. She had no clue what Roger thought and at the moment didn’t have the faculties to figure it out.

“Pardon?” Marc had plenty of wits to work with. He was still smirking. And she’d told him he was stupid.

“I will not allow it.”

“Sorry, buddy, but I think it’s been taken out of your hands.” Marc straightened. “You know how they say when God closes a door He opens a window? I’m Alex’s window, and I’m pretty sure I’m a skylight.”

Roger stared at Marc.

Marc turned to Alex. “Too flowery? I was talking to Suzi last night.”

Alex held up a finger. “Let’s address that in a minute. Roger, I’m withdrawing the thesis. That’s all.”

Roger ignored her. “If you go near my wife, I will ruin you.”

“What are you going to do? Get me kicked out of school? Your wife has a right to know, and trust me, if I
just
ruin you after this, you’ll be lucky.” Marc’s smirk had turned felonious. “I have friends with very long reaches and vindictive streaks. You have no idea.”

“Stop. Just stop,” Alex said.

Roger went pale. This time when he poked his finger at them it was shaking. “You stay away from me and my family. I’ll tell the police you threatened me.” Roger walked a few steps down the hall. Stopped. Turned back. “I’ll get a gun.” Then he ran out of the building.

“What’s he going to do? Shoot Tessa through the phone?”

“Who’s Tessa?”

“My lawyer. I’m not sure what we’re suing him for yet, but we’ll come up with something.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go take care of this thesis thing.”

“Do we have to tell Carla?”

“We do. Trust me, this is important.”

Suddenly, talking to the dean wasn’t so threatening. Alex led him to the bend in the L-shaped hall. The English department door was open, and a student secretary with a nose ring stood behind the counter sorting reading lists. “Can I help you?” She didn’t even look up.

“I need to see Dean Meyer for a minute. It’s urgent.” Audible at least. Intelligible even. Alex peered down the short, shadowy hall that led to the dean’s office.

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

The girl shook the papers at her. “Do you realize these frigging things have to be hung up to-fracking-day and they are in no order at all, and that rat bastard Jeremy called off with laryngitis, and Annabelle is just too good to work this week because this is the week all the grunt work has to be done.”

Marc leaned on the counter, turning up the wattage on his charm. “I’m not going to be doing anything while she’s in her meeting. Maybe I can help while I wait.”

The girl’s pout deepened. “We have to rip down all the old ones, but the stupid staple puller thinger is missing.”

“I can improvise. I’m good with my hands.” He spread one hand on the counter top and Alex experienced her first hot flash even though menopause had to be decades off yet. She could attest to how good he was with his hands as well as other parts of his body.

“Shit.” The girl put the papers down. “He’s in his office. I’ll see if he can see you.”

Alex placed her hands on his chest. She’d run away from this? How important were career and reputation when she had a hot man willing to stoop to fixing dishwashers and doing clerical work for her? “You aren’t planning on improvising with those good hands on her, are you?”

“I’ll save the special improvisation for you, but if I can get you the meeting you need by pulling a few staples, it’s worth it.” He kissed her, lingering for just a moment before leaning back to stare into her eyes. “Surely, you don’t think anyone could tear me away from you.”

“Don’t call me Shirley.”

He kissed her forehead.

She took a deep breath, drawing strength from him. All of this was manageable. Get the thesis thing dealt with. Talk to Carla. Finish her own damn thesis. Go to Italy. Live happily ever after. “I love you.”

“I know.” He gave her a lopsided smile that made her heart lurch.

The secretary clomped down the hall. “Okay, he said he can give you a couple of minutes if it’s urgent, but he has a lot of shit to do today, too, so you can’t be in there long.”

Alex couldn’t fathom the word “shit” coming out of the Dean’s mouth, but the intent was clear. “I’ll be quick.”

As she left the outer office, Marc was leaning over the counter asking what the secretary needed help with first. The dean’s door was down a short unlit hallway. He sat behind his desk, studying the computer screen. A frown was set into his schnauzer-like features.

“Dr. Meyer?”

“Ah, Miss Perkins!” He stood, waving her toward the chairs in front of his desk. “How lovely to see you. Did you ever manage to find that book?”

Book? She’d had him for Major American Literature. They’d studied only Jewish writers. One of the books centered around the daughter of an obscure writer only remembered for a short story,
Street of Crocodiles
. “No, I didn’t, but I did find a film that referenced it. It was in a film festival of Post-Soviet Eastern European animation.”

“Brilliant. Is it on the YouTube? I would very much like to see it.”

“I’ll try to find it for you and send you the link.”

“Yes, good. Then Genesis can show me how to play it. Genesis is a lovely girl. You know her from the desk?”

Genesis, the overworked scowler. “We’ve met.”

“Very good. Now, what was it you needed to talk to me about?”

“It’s my master’s thesis.”

“Oh, yes! Congratulations. I knew even when you were an undergrad, someday you would be here on the faculty with us. I look forward to attending those boring parties with you. You will be a bright spot in the room. Dr. Wittier was saying to me just the other day, he also looks forward to it, but he didn’t understand why you would want him on your defense committee.”

Alex blinked at a sudden rush of tears. Looking forward to her being on staff? A bright spot in the room?

“My dear girl, what is it?” Dr. Meyer came around his desk and sat in the chair across from her, enveloping her hands in his. “Surely, you are not nervous or afraid to fail.”

At least the joke didn’t spring off her lips unbidden this time. He had that papery skin old people get, and his hands were dry on hers. Dr. Meyer had been the dean of the English department since she’d started here and she had to disappoint him. This was going to be a lot harder than she had anticipated, and this wasn’t the worst she had yet to face.

“I’m afraid…” Her voice graveled to a stop. If she couldn’t disappoint him, how in hell was she going to tell Carla she’d been sleeping with her husband for the last three years?

“But you will do well, my dear. You were always an insightful student, and a defense in this case is a formality.”

Crap. He thought she was just scared to do the defense. He wasn’t going to let her out of it unless she had a valid reason. Plagiarism was plenty valid, but the truth about this thesis was so incredible Alex wasn’t sure she believed it herself. She’d never even read the thesis submitted under her name. But if she spun the truth just right, taking all the blame on herself for the theft, it had to believable enough for him to cancel the defense. “I’m afraid I…plagiarized it.”

Dr. Meyer stiffened and drew a sharp breath. “Plagiarized? Are you sure? You are the only student studying Eliot at this university. Romantic poetry is not as in fashion as it once was. Your advisor is Dr. Delgado, yes? He is our resident Romantic expert.”

Resident Romantic expert? Right, from a certain point of view.

“How could you plagiarize from another student? You?”

This was conditioning for when she told Carla. If she could live through this, she might be strong enough to survive that. “You haven’t seen the thesis, have you? I changed my topic. Last Christmas when Melanie Finch killed herself, I was upset, and I changed my topic to Plath in honor of her. We were very close.” Alex needed to find out where Melanie was buried so she could leave flowers on the grave for all her lies.

“I didn’t know. You could have gone to the University Psychological Services for counseling instead of doing something so drastic as to change your thesis topic. Did your advisor approve it? I must speak to him about this.”