“Oh God, Martha. Are you all right?” William asked, and I was touched by the caring in his voice and by the sound of him speaking my name.
He invited me to one of his classes, but I had a class of my own at the same time, so I left mine a little early and stood outside his door. The inside of the classroom was dark—the lights were off, and he had a slide up on a screen, an Edward Weston nude. He was talking about the work, his voice different than the one I’d become accustomed to on the phone—not its sound, but its tone, more goading. The students’ replies were soft and tentative, as if they were a little afraid of him. Did I know the man in the room at all? Before the class let out I left. I worried about his calling me that night. How would I react? But when he did call, he was the same as always, and I relaxed.
By then our talking had become spotted with whispered intimations—things taking on a double meaning, the equivalent of him pressing his thigh against mine under a dinner-party table.
“Anne is right,” he said. “You’d be a perfect subject.”
It had been a Wednesday evening, two weeks after we’d met.
“Do you even remember what I look like?” I stood in front of the mirror by the door and looked at myself talking on the phone as if I were someone I didn’t know. Had he overheard Anne mention wanting to paint me? Or had he spoken to her about me?
“You had a few buttons undone on your blouse,” he said.
“Could you see anything?”
“Do you want to know if I was looking?”
“Obviously you were looking.” I was not at all bothered by his looking.
He told me after classes that day he’d gone out for a walk, and had crossed a brook, and had found that the stones at the bottom were the same color as my eyes.
“I could be wrong,” he said. “It was such a brief meeting.”
He said we should have the predicted coffee somewhere, or lunch, if I wanted. But I was imagining something else. The old rules didn’t seem to apply to us—all that holding out interminably, waiting for something to be proven. I had no reason to dicker with my body. I’d done that enough with boys at home—pushing them away after a kiss good night, expecting more from them—a dinner date, an afternoon watching old movies, a gift or two—before I gave more. I wasn’t sure why I’d behaved the way I had, why I’d refused them all. Even poor Charles Wu. I was determined to overcome my hesitation. William was, after all, a professor who found me interesting, and I had heard yearning in his voice. I invited him to come to my apartment. There was an awful halting silence, the kind that is so long you worry the other person has been disconnected. But then his voice sounded in agreement, and I forgot completely about what his indecision might have been.
During all of this Del had refused to return to the manor. Our mother called and lectured me about keeping Del in my apartment. She bought an airline ticket for Del to go back. “We worked hard to get her in that place. Your father pulled strings,” she said. “She’s going to lose her spot. And then where will she be? A homeless person.”
Our mother, in that big empty house. I wondered if both Del and I were banned from returning home—if we could even view the old house as home anymore.
A week after the party at Anne’s, I had talked to Del about going back. It was a Saturday, and we walked through the slush from my apartment to the bakery, and we went inside for éclairs and coffee.
“Don’t you miss your boyfriend?” I asked her. We’d taken a round café table in the corner by the window, and Del flipped through the newspaper someone had left behind.
“No,” she said. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”
I thought about the Firebird guy, Randy, but decided not to mention him. I didn’t know if Del had continued to see him. Often when I left for class she’d be asleep, and when I returned the apartment was empty, and she’d be gone for hours. If I questioned her she only half-answered, and William would call, and I’d get distracted. I hoped she hadn’t been visiting Sybil Townsend in the encampment. I’d made it clear that she shouldn’t go back there, that it wasn’t the best thing for her. Some days I’d get out of class and she’d be waiting for me on campus.
“Surprise!” she’d say. Her roots had begun to grow out—her true blond showing through, and she often looked out of place in her faded purple parka. Students passing her would eye her, though Del never seemed to notice or care.
“We need to get you a new coat,” I said.
That day in the bakery she had on a dark green wool duffle coat she claimed one of her Milton friends had given her. “You remember Alice, right?”
She tore sugar packets and dumped the crystals into her coffee. The shop window steamed up behind her, the people beyond it on the sidewalk blurred shapes trundling past.
“How do you get to Milton?” I asked her.
“The bus?” she said. She raised the large mug up toward her face. “Or someone picks me up.”