“Ladies buy their own nowadays, yeah?” he said, arching an eyebrow.
“But I like the brand you buy.” He lit her cigarette. “They taste better having been with you.” She stood up to peruse his bookshelves. “Besides, I shouldn’t really be smoking. If I buy a pack, I’ll just smoke them all.” She felt him observing her, detached and yet interested. Men were always interested. What had it brought her? she wondered. Her wasted ex-husband and other men who wanted to posses her beauty for varying lengths of time. Not that she’d have it any other way, of course. It was much easier to be pretty than not; she knew that.
“Have you actually read all these books?” she asked.
“Course,” he answered distractedly.
What did he see in those poems? Did he write any of his own? She didn’t want to ask. It’d be rude if he’d been published and she didn’t know. Perhaps he’d be embarrassed if he hadn’t written anything at all. “Important for being a professor?”
“Important for having a life.”
“Life of the mind,” she said, nodding.
He shrugged in assent.
She knelt down to look at a book on the low shelf. “What’s life for anyway, Selden? That’s what I keep wondering.”
“Life is for enjoying.” He laughed and reached to refresh her tea. But she didn’t laugh. “Right?”
She straightened up, eyes still on the bookcases. “Yes, but how?”
“Now, that is a serious question,” he replied, moving toward her. “In need of serious consideration.” He smiled, his tone light.
“I’ve already made so many mistakes,” she said, cutting him off.
He said nothing but reached for her waist. His hands fumbling there brought a rush of heat to her middle. He tugged at the ribbon, unclasping the pin and worrying the knot like a puzzle until he’d untied her sash. She remembered that as a boy he’d stolen the pink gingham ribbon out of her hair and teased her that her ponytail was as thick as a real pony’s. This upset her at the time; now she’d take it as a compliment. He was aware of her past; she knew that. He was aware of the things being said about her. He probably thought her a frivolous gold digger. He took her wrist and wrapped the ribbon around it several times, securing the whole thing with a tight knot, placing the pin in her hand.
“What’s that for?” She smiled, but she knew. Men had been marking her since grade school—from the boy who insisted she wear the stickers he gave her, to the college boyfriend who wrote his name in Sharpie on her thigh after each time they’d had sex, to her ex-husband, who’d wanted her wedding band tattooed on her finger, meshing his prep school background with his penchant for the seedy. Fortunately, she’d successfully resisted that last one.
“To remember,” Selden said. “That life is for enjoying.”
She smiled at that. “Shouldn’t it go on my finger for remembering?”
“You’ll wear it longer here,” he said, leaning close.
“I know I’ve made mistakes.” She turned back to the shelves, mumbling to herself. “I don’t want to make any more.”
“You won’t,” he said quietly, moving beside her. “I know it.”
He was close enough that she could smell the peppery tequila on his breath, could see the blond scruff next to his ear that he’d missed shaving. Her wrist started to pound where he’d tied the ribbon tightly, almost cutting off her circulation. She walked over to the table and picked up her teacup. “I should go.”
“Right,” he said, flustered, confused, she knew, by her sudden movements. “Course.”
She gathered her coat, her purse, looked at her phone while Selden busied himself with plates and cups. She felt the age difference between them then. An older man, a man her age, would have grabbed her, she thought. An older man wouldn’t have picked up on her subtle change of energy or would have ignored it, would have taken what he wanted. But Selden was perceptive, perhaps a bit shy around her. He paid attention. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
She gave her head a sharp shake.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. “You know there’s no one here who understands these sorts of things.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’d be surprised.”
She was out the door before he could say more, and she felt him watching her as she walked down the block to her car, blood pounding in her hand below the ribbon, the autumn leaves swirling at her heels.