Winter Jacket (9 page)

"How was your semester?" she smiled, abruptly changing topics on me.

"Really good," I said, bobbing my head. "I lucked out and had a really good group of students."

"Oh, don't give them so much credit," she huffed with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It helps that you're a great teacher."

"Why can't you be my entire tenure committee?" I laughed.

She gave my shoulder
a squeeze. "You're going to be fine. Besides, you've got some time before you need to freak out about that."

“I'll try to keep that in mind."  I spotted another fa
miliar face in the dining room—the Chair of my Department, Bob Birken.  “Speaking of which,” I said to my mentor and friend, “there’s Bob.  I’d better go do some sucking up.”

“Just think, Elle, one more year
, and you’ll never have to kiss ass again.”

I grinned at Emily.  “That’s the dream, isn’t it?”  I excused myself from her presence and made my way through the student crowds in the direction of Bob.  When he spotted me and we made eye contact, he lifted his drink in salute.

"Thank you for hosting this event again, Elle."

Bob Birken was a heavyset man with a bald head and a full beard.  He was fond of argyle-printed sweaters and corduroy pants, and was just about the most talented poet I’d ever met.

"It's not a problem at all, Bob,” I said cordially. “I'm just glad that we can do this for our graduates every Spring."

Bob rocked on the soles of his dress shoes. "How are those revisions going?"
  He was referring to an academic journal article I was working on.  It had been accepted for publication with the caveat that I make a few edits.

“Really well.  Slow,” I admitted with a chuckle, “but well.”  I paused long enough to sip my red wine. "Once the semester is totally over and final grades are submitted, I'll be able to dedicate more
energy to the revisions.  Then it’s just a matter of time before the editorial board finds something else wrong with it."  Publishing in academia was a headache.  I much preferred the world of fiction, but I knew I needed to have a balance of both in my discipline.  At least until I secured tenure.  Then I could do whatever the hell I wanted.

“Oh, I know all-too-well how that is,” Bob nodded. “My latest book seems perpetually stuck in the copyedit stage.”

I was about to continue talking about my latest project with my colleague, when I spotted an unexpected face near the front entrance. My throat constricted and I was rendered speechless. What was
Hunter
doing here?

I stared a little harder, unblinking, making sure that my imagination wasn’t playing tricks on me.  But she was really there.  She was in my
house
.  But
why
? I continued to stare at the blonde who had, only a few days before, made an unexpected appearance in my dreams.

Sometimes the seniors brought friends or family members to the party, but I certainly
hadn't expected her to be here.  She was standing in a small group of students, some of whom I recognized. She wore a dark purple, spaghetti-strap camisole whose color looked even richer contrasted against the porcelain hue of her skin. It was the first time I’d seen her in a tank top (outside of my dreams), and the view certainly didn’t disappoint.  Her collarbone was well-defined protruding from pale, alabaster skin that led up to a long, graceful neck. Her hair was down, parted to one side, and it cascaded past her bare shoulders. Our eyes connected, and I immediately looked away, embarrassed that she'd caught me staring at her.

My hand went to the pocket of my dress where I kept my cell phone.
 I had an impulse to call Troian to come save me from my own party, but I knew she'd only tease me about my inability to have a conversation with attractive women. I had a PhD in English; you'd think words would come easily to me. But beautiful women who made unwavering eye contact were my kryptonite.

As I stood there, ignoring the party happening around me, I gave myself a pep talk. It would be rude to not at least acknowledge her presence.
I could go over there and say hi. I could handle that.

"Excuse me, Bob," I said as I started to separate myself from the conversation. "I've got to make the rounds.
I don't want to be a poor hostess." He apologized for monopolizing my time, and I flashed him a reassuring smile. I didn't bother telling him there was someone else at the party monopolizing my attention.

I breathed in deeply, summoning my courage, and began to walk in her direction.
Our eyes met again, and this time I didn't look away. A ghost of a smile played on her lips, and I felt my confidence bolster.

A hand at my elbow brought me to a stop. "Wonderful party, Dr. Graft."
It was my boss, Dean Krauss, the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. He wasn't my direct supervisor; that was Bob, Chair of the English Department. Dean Krauss was much higher up the food chain.

"Thank you, Dean." My heart hammered in my chest. I sincerely hoped he hadn't witnessed me eyeballing up
a student. "And please call me Elle."  I glanced once in Hunter’s direction and I swear I saw her look at me sympathetically and with a little bit of disappointment that I'd been sidelined by the Dean.

"You have a lovely home, Elle," he continued, casting his gaze around the open-floor plan.
I loved the openness of the first floor. It was what had originally attracted me to the house. "Have you lived here long?"

"About two years," I told him. When I'd first been hired, I rented an apartment.
I hadn't wanted to rush into a major commitment like buying a house in case the school didn't work out.

"Your Tenure Review is coming up soon, isn't it?"

I made a humming noise. "Soon,” I confirmed. "Next Fall.”

When the doorbell rang again, indicating I had more guests, I had an excuse to wiggle away from Dean Kraus.
“I should probably get that.”

The man nodded. "Well, keep up the good work. I hear good things."

I hustled away from the Dean and welcomed more students into my home.  When I closed the door, I looked in the direction where Hunter had previously been standing. I saw the same group of students in that corner of the living room, but she was no longer with them. I frowned, realizing she'd probably come and gone and that I'd missed my opportunity to talk with her one last time. The semester had ended and as a nursing student I doubted she'd have any reason or time in her schedule to take another English class. There was always the possibility of randomly running into her on campus at the library or cafeteria, but I knew that most of the pre-professional disciplines had their students interning off-campus during their senior year.

The realization that I'd probably never see her again hit me, and suddenly I didn't feel like such a gracious hostess anymore.  It was late in the evening and I wanted my house back.
I wanted to trade my heels for slippers and my dress for pajama pants.  But instead of being rude and immediately shooing everyone out, I plastered on a fake smile and tried to fight through the rest of the evening.

+++++

Around nine o’clock, the party finally started to die down.  I was surprised that people had stayed for so long.  Normally students stayed for half an hour, ate the food and drank the free alcohol, and then left for some other pre-graduation party.  But for whatever reason, the crowds had lingered a little longer than usual tonight, well after the last celery stick and piece of cubed cheese had been consumed. 

When my house emptied, I looked at the mess in the kitchen and sighed.  I tossed some serving spoons into the kitchen sink.  I might not have had to set up for the party, but the clean up was far more arduous.

Before I could start to give my kitchen a thorough cleaning, I noticed a light on down the hallway, coming from the direction of my study.  I couldn’t remember leaving a light on in the back half of my house.  I’d planned on keeping that part of my house closed off to students and had kept the lights off to avoid encouraging too much exploration.  Curious, I wandered down the hallway.  By this time, I’d abandoned my high heels, and in my stocking feet, I padded soundlessly against the wood floor.

I couldn’t have been more surprised by what I found –
who
I found – bent over my desk in my personal office, rifling through a stack of graded student papers.  Hunter. 

I stood, unnoticed, in the doorway until I cleared my throat.

Hunter seemed to jump out of her skin at the sound.  She grabbed onto her shirt over the space where her heart resided. "You scared me!" she exclaimed.

My hand curled around the wooden threshold. 
Normally I'd feel guilty for startling someone so badly, but she'd wandered off to my home office and was digging through other students’ papers like it was the most natural thing in the world. I felt violated, like someone had read my diary.

Her grey-blue eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them. “I know this looks really bad.” The color had drained from her cheeks.  “But it’s not what it looks like.”

“What it looks like is you’re looking through the final papers for grades.” My tone was unexpectedly cold, but I was upset. I had opened my home to my students, but that didn't mean they were free to explore and rifle through my things.  “But that couldn’t be it because you picked up your paper,” I said, thinking out loud.  “You already know what your grade is.  Unless you’re stealing papers to sell to some student essay mill.”

Her eyes bulged and she dropped the papers as if they’d burned her. “No!” she exclaimed.  “I wasn’t, I—.”

Her panicked exclamation was interrupted when my new cat Sylvia, who had yet to warm up to me, jumped up on my desk with a grunt.

"
I hope you’ve had your tetanus shots," I said, leaning against the doorjamb. “She hates everyone."

Hunter
stroked her hand down the center of Sylvia's back and that damn little grey-fuzzed traitor actually arched her back. Hunter picked up the cat and sat down with her on my red couch.  Sylvia made a small half-circle with her body and kneaded her paws into Hunter’s thigh before settling down onto her lap.

"Are you the cat whisperer?" I asked, mouth surely agape. I'd never seen that devil-cat warm up to anyone. Hell, she barely tolerated me.
  I likened her to a refugee, still acclimating to her new environment.

"I like cats," she said simply.
She seemed to have recovered from the initial shock and looked entirely at ease sitting on my red couch with Sylvia curled up on her lap. She scratched the cantankerous creature between the ears, and I swear I could see the cat's eyes roll back in pleasure.

"So do you always just make yourself at home in your teachers' offices?" The memory of her taking off her jacket in my campus office months ago came to mind.
Maybe she did.

Hunter
looked suitably shamed, but she didn't stand up.  I didn't blame her; making sudden movements around my cat was generally a bad idea. 

"I'm not normally this nosey. I was petting your cat
out in the hallway and it wandered away. Then I heard some crashing noises later, so I followed the sounds to make sure the cat was okay.  When I came in here, your cat was on your desk, knocking things over.  I was just trying to pick up after her."

Sylvia had proven herself to be a housekeeping nightmare.  She jumped on surfaces on which she didn’t belong and knocked things onto the floor to make more room for herself.  I’d already found a pair of reading glasses in the bathroom garbage and my favorite grading pens were often rolling around on the floor in the office.

"Don't worry about Sylvia," I said, waving a dismissive hand. "She can take care of herself." I continued leaning against the doorjamb. I didn't really know what to do with myself, but this felt safe.

"As long as she stays away from gas ovens,"
Hunter grinned.

"My, my," I murmured approvingly, standing up straight. That she knew of Sylvia's namesake was a surprise, and I was impressed. "You've been holding back."

Maybe it was because of the semester's end and that grades were submitted, but I didn't feel so restricted anymore around her. And maybe it was the comfortable way my pet and Hunter were curled up with each other, but I didn't feel so upset and violated anymore.

"I haven't actually read anything by Sylvia Plath,"
Hunter said, suddenly a little shy. "I just really liked the movie about her life." Her eyes, which I now noticed were almost the identical blue-grey as my cat's, dropped demurely. If I had subconsciously picked out that bastard cat because it reminded me of Hunter, I was officially a lost cause.

"You haven't read Plath?" I declared, sufficiently horrified. I immediately crossed the length of the room and walked to one of my bookcases. I thumbed over the bindings of several titles.
Everything was alphabetical by author, of course.  I pulled out the thin novel from its place between Parker and Plato.
The Bell Jar
was one of my favorite books. The copy I now held had been well-loved over the years. The binding was creased and worn, the top corner of the paperback cover rounded, and the inner pages were the rich goldenrod color of mass-produced pulp that's sat too long in direct sunlight.