Winter Jacket (12 page)

“I don’t know.” She ran her thumbnail in a groove on the bar.  “I’d meet some tall, dark stranger.  She’d sweep me off my feet with her swagger, confidence, and whiskey mouth.”  She looked up, embarrassed.  “I think I’ve been reading too many romance novels.” She fiddled with an unoccupied drink coaster.

"
Hunter,” I said hesitantly. “I don't hide my sexuality at school –the other professors in my Department know – but I don't openly broadcast it." I gave her a wary glance. "So I'd appreciate if you didn't run home and post on Facebook about seeing me here."

"Oh! I wouldn't!" she insisted. Her grey-blue eyes were wide. "I mean, I don't even have a Facebook page, but even if I did I'd respect your privacy."

"You really don't have Facebook? I thought students these days weren't allowed to be in college without one.” I was only partially kidding.

"I never really got into social networking," she shrugged. "I guess I don't see the point.
I don't have a smart phone or an iPod either."

I sat up a little straighter on my stool. "Wow. It's like you're an alien."

She smiled pensively. "I guess I'm a little old-fashioned."

I stared at my hands, surrounding my half-filled beer glass. "Tell me about love on your planet," I murmured.

"Sorry?"

My eyes snapped back into focus. "
It's from a movie.  
Barbarella
?"

Her face scrunched up.

"Jane Fonda in a fur bikini?"

Hunter
’s pale eyebrows rose comically on her forehead.

I shook my head. "I'm really dating myself with these references, huh?"

She looked away suddenly. "You're barely older than me." Her voice sounded thin and far away, and I had to strain to hear her.

I brought my pint glass to my lips. "If
barely
means a decade, then sure," I winked. I wasn’t sure where the sassiness had come from, but I was pretty sure the beer was to blame.

"Do you, um, want another beer?"
Hunter stuttered out.  It was as if she'd read my mind. "I could buy you one." She reached for her wallet and fumbled with the clasp.

Something about the offer endeared her to me even more.
I put my hand over the top of my pint glass. "Thank you for the offer, but I should stop after this one." I offered her a small smile. "I've got papers to mark up tomorrow, and I can't be productive if I've got a hangover."

She nodded and put her wallet back out of sight.

"Speaking of age, are you even old enough to be here?" I asked.  I tried to keep my tone light, like I wasn’t policing her life.

Her expressive mouth tilted upside down. "Close enough. I'll be 21 in a few months."

I bit the tip of my tongue. The second beer was starting to get to my head and a teasing comment had wandered into my mouth. Even though she was no longer my student, I still felt the need to be somewhat professional in her presence.

"How did you know?"

"Know what?" I asked.

"That you were gay."

"Oh, uh.” I fumbled momentarily. “Honestly, I was a late bloomer. I didn't know what gay was until college. And then I made up for lost time."

Her pale skin flushed, visible even in the darkened bar.
I knew I was probably hedging on inappropriate, but this second beer was definitely starting to loosen my tongue.

"It was actually movies that made me realize I was gay,” I continued. “I would find myself still thinking about the lead actress and not the male protagonist
long after the movie had ended.”
I licked my lips. “What about you?""

Her grey-blue
eyes momentarily widened as if she hadn’t expected me to ask the same questions of her. "I, uh, I guess I'm still just trying to figure it all out still.  Maybe I'm bisexual, maybe I'm lesbian.”

"Are you attracted to men?"

Her features scrunched adorably like she was thinking really hard. "Objectively I can appreciate when men are attractive. But I can't really see myself ever having sex with one."

So many questions popped into my head.
Was she a virgin? Had she ever had a boyfriend before? Had she ever kissed a girl? I tried to play it cool. She was a shiny gold star. I went for the question that seemed the safest. "So no boyfriends?"

She shrugged delicately. "Not really. A few short-lived relationships, but nothing ever serious. Most guys I knew in high school were jerks.
I endured one too many sucking jokes."

"Sucking jokes?" I echoed, not getting the reference and dreading the response.

She smiled a little sadly. "My last name's Dyson."

"O-oh," I said, suddenly getting the reference.
Her story made me want to scoop her up and protect her from the immature bullies in her past. But I stayed glued to the bar stool instead.

"So now you've got to tell me a story about yourself so I
don't feel like I've been over-sharing." She laughed at herself and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Well..." An assortment of stories sprung to mind, and I mentally waded through the too-intimate-for-Peggy's tales in search of the perfect anecdote. Bu
t it never came. “So you liked
The Bell Jar
?” I asked instead.

“Is Esther gay for Doreen?”

I wasn’t expecting that. “She, um, what do
you
think?”             

Hunter
looked momentarily thoughtful. "I think she's following what's comfortable and familiar with Buddy, but she doesn't love him. She sees something unconventional and wild about Janice. It's that lifestyle that she falls in love with."

I smiled. "Tell me again why you didn't talk more in class?"

She turned her face, and I heard her laugh. "I had my reasons."

I tried not to dwell on her vague response for too long. "
I’d love to pick your brain more about Plath.” I chewed on my lower lip. "But you should go back to your friends; I feel like I'm holding you back."

"I make it a rule never to be where I don't want to be." There was an unmistakable intensity that flickered behind her eyes. It faded when she shook her head. "Unless I'm sitting through one of Professor Witlan's lectures."

Doug Witlan was a biology professor who had the unfortunate luck of teaching the giant generalized biology lecture. "You have my sympathies. I haven't had to deal with him, but I've heard he's pretty monotone."

"Just imagine sitting through an 8am lecture with the man and everyone around you is either sleeping or texting."

"You know, when I was a student, we didn't have all that technology. We took notes on paper. And when professors lectured, they talked the entire time without visuals or PowerPoint or interactive classrooms."

"Do you have a hang-
up about your age?"

I scrunched my eyebrows. "No," I said, a little taken aback by her forward tone. "Why?"

She shrugged. "It just seems like your mission tonight is to point out how much older you are than me."

I busied myself by drinking down the rest of my beer. I couldn't tell her that thos
e comments were for my benefit – that my subconscious was reminding me to keep it professional. She was a student, and even though I wasn't her teacher anymore, I still needed to conduct myself appropriately.  Even if we were sitting together at a gay bar. "Oh? I hadn't noticed I was doing that."

"Is this making you uncomfortable?"

Yes.
"No. Why would it?" Lies. Lies. Lies. I hoped my poker face was in place.

"I'm sure you weren't expecting spending the evening with an ex-student."

I knew what she meant, but the way she had phrased it made me flush. My overly active imagination immediately went to an inappropriate place. "I didn't expect it," I answered honestly. "But that doesn't mean I'm not having fun."

She bit her lower lip and looked away; my stomach flip-flopped like I was free-falling.

"Another beer, Elle?" I looked away from Hunter to the bartender, Leah.

I looked back to
Hunter. She stared back at me, unflinching. I'd already turned her down, not letting her buy me a drink with the excuse that I had grading.

"I suppose
those papers can wait another day," I heard myself say.

Leah gave me a knowing smirk before turning away to retrieve my third beer.

I cleared my throat. "Can I get you anything?" I didn't look at Hunter, but there couldn't have been anyone else I was talking to. The bar area was still sparsely populated and we were practically alone. I knew she couldn't legally have alcohol, and I wasn't condoning under-aged drinking or about to put Peggy's liquor license in jeopardy, but she'd offered to buy me a drink earlier. It felt like the polite thing to do.

"No, no. I can handle getting a soda on my own. But thank you for the offer."

"Are you always so polite?" I asked.

"Would you rather I be rude?"

I didn’t have a ready answer for her. Leah returned with my drink.  “Something for you, sweetie?” Leah asked.  It always annoyed me when bartenders used pet names to talk to girls.  It annoyed me when men did it, and now it annoyed me when Leah did it to Hunter.

"Can I get a diet cola?"
Hunter asked. "Whatever you've got is fine."

Leah pulled out the gun and filled a pint glass.

"How much?"

Leah pushed the glass across the bar. "It's on the house, hun," she said with a quick wink.

Hunter visibly reddened and looked down at her hands while mumbling her gratitude.

I felt myself getting unreasonably jealous.
Leah never gave out free drinks, not even soda. She was notoriously stingy among the bar staff. I suddenly felt like I was in competition with Leah for Hunter's attention.

I didn't know what to talk about with her.
I stared at the beer at the bottom of my pint as if the answer was swimming around in my glass. I hardly had game around beautiful women in the first place. I notoriously tripped all over myself, verbally and literally. I could always fall back on school talk and be the boring professor.

But the larger issue shouldn'
t have been what to talk about – it should have been why did I feel compelled to compete? It's not like I had any designs on seducing this girl. Sure, she'd played a starring role in most of my fantasies for the past year, but Hunter had been right about me – I was hung-up on the age difference.

And it wasn't as if Leah was a bad person from whom
Hunter needed to be protected.  And she wasn’t that unattractive either. I took another look at the long-time bartender.  She was a tall woman and tonight wore jeans, a studded belt, and a white tank top. Her bleached blonde hair was boyishly short and slightly spiked into a faux hawk. Her white tank top offset two impressive tattoo sleeves covering thinly muscled arms. She had a surprisingly feminine voice for such a hard exterior.  If Leah wanted to make a play on Hunter, I knew it was best if I just stepped aside.              

"Wow.
It's getting late," I said, making a big show of checking the time on my cell phone.

I started to stand up until
Hunter’s hand came down to rest on top of mine. "You're leaving?" Those large grey-blue eyes bore into mine. "You've got a full beer. Isn't that breaking some kind of code?" I was highly aware that her hand had not moved away from mine. Her palm felt dry and warm.

"I know, but I probably should get going."

"If you leave, I'll have to go back to pretending to have fun with my friends."

"And you'd rather pretend to have fun with me?"

She smiled and nodded.

I might not have been an expert about these kinds of t
hings, but I was pretty sure Hunter was flirting with me. And I was pretty sure I was flirting back.

We moved our conversation to one of the small tables t
hat lined the perimeter of the bar.  I reasoned it wasn’t for the intimacy the private tables afforded; it just was more practical.  Further away from the dance floor, we wouldn’t have to shout to hear each other.  But I still found myself leaning in closer as the night progressed.

My mouth had betrayed me enough that evening, so I nursed my third beer the rest of the night. We talked about a variety of things
– school mostly, but I felt like I was talking with a friend, not an undergrad. I shared with her my anxieties about my upcoming tenure review and she talked about her own career uncertainties. Her internship was going well, but she wasn’t sure yet what kind of nurse she wanted to be.  We even discussed
The Bell Jar
again, and at some point in the conversation, I didn't know if we were still talking about the book anymore.

Before long, Leah was announcing Last Call and turning on the overhead lights.
I hated Last Call; everyone scatters like cockroaches under the harsh, unflattering lights.