Page 9 of Given Our History

With nothing else on my plate this morning, I resolve to finish organizing. I kneel on the floor, my floral-print skirt billowing around me, and sort through the boxes one by one. Try as I might to stay busy, there’s a prickling at the back of my neck, feather-light. I know, on a conscious level, that there’s no one sitting at the other desk watching me. But I keep checking over my shoulder anyway, like I’m expecting him to materialize, quick and quiet as a cat. He’s somewhere on campus, even if he’s not here in the room with me.

About halfway through the boxes, I reach onto the desk to take another sip of my coffee while I work, but I’m met with only ice. What time is it? I’m trying to pace my caffeine intake because too much coffee gives me the jitters, but it’s already almost eleven, and there’s a Keurig machine in the faculty break room calling my name. I clamber to my feet and smooth my long skirt over my knees before grabbing the thermos and heading out.

The uneasy feeling creeps back over me as I wander the halls, certain I’m going to bump into him around any corner. This feels like a game of hide-and-seek back at sleepaway camp—peering between the dense branches of a Virginia pine, fingertips tacky with sap, heart pumping because you know there might be a face peering back at you. Maybe I’m worrying for nothing. Maybe he called in sick today, on his very first day, and maybe he’s already fallen out of Julien’s good graces, and they’ll be sending him back to Carnegie Mellon posthaste.

Not that I wish any ill on Teddy. I really don’t. I hope he’s healthy and I hope he has a long, successful career. It would just be a lot simpler if said career was somewhere far away from me. It’s a lot easier to accept the reality that our friendship is dead and buried when I don’t have to worry about bumping into him at the water cooler.

Speaking of.

I tense in the doorway of the break room, sucking in a surprised breath. Surprised, but not that surprised, because I knew this was going to happen at some point today—I just wasn’t prepared for it to happen now.

Standing in front of the Keurig is a tall man in well-pressed slacks and a rumpled button-up shirt—meticulous enough to own starch and an ironing board but just distracted enough to toss on the wrong shirt on the way out the door. There’s no pod in the Keurig, just hot water trickling out. He tears open the paper wrapping on a tea bag, dunking it in the plain white coffee mug.

Before I manage to say anything, to react at all, he turns to leave, mug in hand, and his dark brown gaze locks with mine. There’s a flicker of surprise, but not outright shock, so he must’ve already known that I worked here. “Clara,” he says, setting the mug on the counter.

Why is he setting his mug down? It’s not like we’re going in for a hug—we’re not on hugging terms, and he seems to realize it a second late, his hand doubling back for the tea.

“I was just coming for a refill on my coffee,” I say in a small voice, hoping to give us both an out from this uncomfortable encounter. He shakes his head, faintly, like he can’t believe he’s seeing me again after all these years—like he’s seeing a ghost.

The feeling’s mutual. Well, sort of. So much about him is exactly the same as I remember, but there are things that are different, too, like the way his biceps strain against the seams of his rumpled shirt. And he’s changed his glasses. They’re tortoiseshell now, and rounder than they used to be, which complements his strong jaw and angular Greek nose. I wonder whether Mindy helped him pick these new ones, whether this was what she thought looked best on him. If so, I hate that she’s right.

“How have you—” he starts to ask, right at the same time as I blurt, “We were supposed to be sharing an office.”

His brows pinch together—half confused, half wary. “What?”

“I didn’t know if you knew and asked them to move you somewhere else,” I say. “Julien asked me if I was okay with sharing my office with a visiting professor. I had no idea—” I break off, shaking my head. “I agreed before he told me your name. So if you want to ask them to switch, it’s really—” If I could string a full sentence together without my thoughts getting all jumbled, that would be great. Teddy leans a hip against the counter and takes a sip of his tea, waiting for me to finish. Even after all these years, he seems to remember that I need silence to organize my thoughts—no filling in the blanks or trying to finish the sentence for me. “I won’t be offended,” I say finally.

He lowers his mug. “I don’t have a problem with sharing. I don’t see myself spending that much time in the office, anyway.”

I relax my shoulders a little. I hadn’t been entirely conscious of hunching them, but I guess I was. It’s so strange, seeing him again like this, but at least I know he’s not blindsided by my being here. After that painful run-in in Baltimore, I expected this would be more awkward. But that was quite a while ago. Maybe, for him, it’s all ancient history.

I move toward the Keurig and he steps out of my way. He watches as I stick my thermos under the ice dispenser on the fridge.

“Did you just get here?” I ask, for the sake of filling the silence.

“I drove down from Pittsburgh yesterday.”

Not what I meant, though now I’m sort of curious what his living situation is. Whether he left Mindy behind or brought her along. “I meant ‘here’ as in campus,” I clarify, popping a cartridge of breakfast blend into the coffee maker and pressing a button to start it brewing.

“No, I, um—” He clears his throat. “I’m teaching a class in the mornings, Monday and Wednesday. American Colonial History to 1763.”

Right. He’s here as a visiting scholar, which means he has to teach. I remember the day he told me he was majoring in history—he said he wanted to research, not teach, because he didn’t think he had the people skills for it. But we all end up teaching in the end. I wanted to, but for so many of my colleagues and classmates over the years, it’s been more out of necessity. The research is their real passion.

Back then, I never gave much thought to what Teddy would actually be like as a professor. He’s younger than any of the male professors I’ve had. And—I can’t lie to myself—more attractive, too. The kind of hot that used to get the chili pepper rating on Rate My Professors, before they realized that allowing students to score professors on their attractiveness was wildly inappropriate.

Teddy raises his eyebrows and nods at the Keurig. “Your cup—”

I glance over my shoulder about half a second before my thermos overfills—I must’ve pressed the button for a tall cup, too distracted to account for the ice. Frantic, I snatch the thermos out from under the dispenser. A stream of coffee splatters the drip tray, spackling the laminate counter. “Son of a biscuit,” I mutter, ripping a handful of paper towels from the roll and wadding them into a ball to soak up the coffee.

Teddy watches me with an unreadable expression, brow slightly furrowed. Probably thinking about what a disaster I am. I’ve always been a little all over the place. Driven, yes, but disorganized in my personal life.

“Since when are you afraid to cuss?” he asks.

I suck a bit of hot coffee that splattered the side of my thumb, the skin beneath seared an angry red. “Since I started teaching.”

“College, though, not kindergarten. Plenty of professors say whatever they like.”

“Tenured professors,” I correct him. My hand still stinging, I collect the sopping paper towels and press the pedal on the trash can to throw them away. “Which I’m not yet.” I wet a paper towel in the sink to wipe down the sides of my thermos—I’m dawdling because I don’t know how to wrap up this encounter without it seeming like I’m brushing him off. I screw the cap back on my thermos. “I should be heading back to the office.”