My first impulse is to refuse. Tonight I need to dig in to these essays; they promise to be excruciatingly bad, and the longer I put off grading them, the longer the task will hover over me like a gray, rain-fat cloud. More than that, though—I want to be alone with my thoughts. With my memories of Jonah, all of them, from the savage way he took me last night to the dark promises implied in today’s e-mail.
But no. I’ve never been one of those women who cancels the rest of her life the first minute a guy comes onto the scene. This is no time to start. If Kip asked me to drop in at a bar we like on the average night, I’d probably go.
So, after a couple hours’ worth of grading, I take myself off to Sigmund’s.
Like pretty much everywhere else in Austin, the bar’s atmosphere is casual with a side of wacky. Various graffiti artists were invited inside to tag the walls in brilliant Technicolor, and the tabletops have campy old advertisements from the sixties and seventies under the glass. I slide onto a bar stool at a table where the Breck Girl grins up at me from between her shellacked waves of golden hair.
Kip strides in only moments later, a brilliantly colored scarf around his neck. “You made it. And looking gorgeous too.”
“Thanks.” I tilt my head so Kip can give me a kiss on the cheek. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
He touches the scarf at his throat. “This old thing? Glad you like. Aren’t you glad the weather’s finally turning chilly? At last we can layer and accessorize our outfits, as God intended.”
In Austin, “chilly weather” means temperatures in the low sixties. Jackets and scarves emerge from the backs of closets to show up on the street once again. I smile at him and say, “I think you said something about buying the first drink?”
“Name your poison.”
“Corona with lime. And thanks.”
I needed something like this, I think. Some time to kick back with a friend and think about something besides my extremely unconventional sex life. Which is why it’s so startling when Kip returns with our drinks, puts mine in front of me, and says, “Let’s talk Professor Jonah Marks.”
Although I don’t do an actual spit-take with my beer, I come close. “Excuse me?”
“Sources report that you were apparently emotional and beside yourself in front of the campus Starbucks the other day—and Mr. Marks seemed to take pointed interest in this. As if, perhaps, he was the reason for your upset.”
“He wasn’t.” Maybe Kip will let it lie there, but I doubt it. I try distraction. “What do you mean, sources? Do you own the baristas too?”
“Nothing happens on this campus that I don’t hear about sooner or later. My eye sees all.”
I groan. “You’re like Sauron in Lord of the Rings.”
“Except with less powerful bling. Now, fess up, darling.”
“There’s nothing to confess,” I lie, then switch to the truth. “I’m not dating Jonah.”
“Still merely considering it?” Kip nods, as if he expected this answer. From his Lisa Frank messenger bag he pulls a manila folder. “Good thing I took the liberty of preparing this dossier.”
“A dossier? Kip, this is epic overkill.”
“You don’t get to be Sauron of UT Austin by half-assing it.” He pushes the folder toward me, covering the Breck Girl’s vapid smiling face. “Behold the many secrets of Jonah Marks.”
Secrets? What does Kip mean?
No. Jonah and I have to trust each other. He hasn’t broken his word or pried into my life. I won’t pry into his. “I don’t know how you dig up dirt, but I’m not interested in going through anybody’s private information.”
Kip scoffs, “This is hardly private. Almost all of this comes from CNN. A bit of Wikipedia too.”
“. . . why would Jonah be on CNN?” Did he appear as an expert on earthquakes, maybe? But Kip wouldn’t bother showing me anything like that.
“It’s not so much the man himself as his family. I suppose you hadn’t realized Jonah Marks is of the Chicago Markses.” When I look at Kip blankly, he adds, “The ones who own Redgrave House?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Do you not even glance at tabloids when you’re in the supermarket line? Never mind. I’ll give you the swift overview.” Kip rifles through the papers he printed out for me before presenting one that pictures a Victorian house nestled amid high-rises. Yet it doesn’t look out of place; the house possesses a kind of dark glamour and power evident even from this badly reproduced photo. Stone tile covers the outside, and the large door is flanked by enormous statues a story high, which have been carved as if they were struggling under the weight of the enormous arch between them.
“National Registry of Historic Places,” Kip says. “Site of some of the juiciest stories in Chicago history, thanks to the wild and varied history of the Marks family. And our good professor’s childhood home.”