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“You know...” I tell her. “We do have work-study summer programs.”
“Eh,” she says. “You know, at the same time, I also fear that if I don’t go home for the summers, my relationship with him isn’t going to get any better. And without my mom around, I need to try and cherish the time I have left with my last parent. You know?”
“I definitely get that,” I say.
I hate that anything makes her sad. And I just want to make it all better.
Chapter Six
Caroline
The next afternoon, I have English Lit with Dr. Myers. I’m so groggy from my wild night of losing my virginity that I almost can hold my focus on the subject at hand. I think I might even have dozed off for a minute or two, because I find myself jumping at the sound of voices and chairs being scooted in under desks.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I struggle to get my things together while everyone else is already exiting the room.
“Long night?” Dr. Myers asks as she sits her ass down on the desk a row up from mine and folds her hands over her lap like she’s my new best friend.
The question makes me nervous and I immediately want to know what she could possibly know about last night. But how could she have? Unless she’d been watching Trenton— which he told me I should call him from now on when we aren’t at school— and I while we were outside and saw us leave together. It seems unlikely though. She was knee-deep in shots when I went downstairs to rush after him and we were in such a confined space on that tiny patio, I can’t imagine that there was any way she could have been watching. Then again, one could argue that through the large crowd of people, I could have easily missed her leering eyes casting themselves across a crowded way toward us.
As if she can see how uncomfortable I suddenly am, she then follows up by saying, “It just seemed like such a good night for you. I could only imagine you found some way to… celebrate.”
“Aha,” I let out. “I left the bar right after my poem. When I was tired.”
“I thought I noticed your absence, but then again, I was lips-deep in tequila and could have missed the second coming of the Nazarene.”
The more that Dr. Myers talks to me, the more and more peculiar I start to think she is. She’s always come off as so cranky and I can’t understand where her sudden intrigue with me is coming from.
“You know what else I noticed?” she asks, and I immediately know what she’s about to start going on about.
“Look, Dr. Myers, it isn’t what you think…”
“Oh, darling, don’t be a prude. It’s exactly what I think.”
That stops me cold in my place.
How much could she possibly know?
“My dear, you look petrified,” she says with a laugh as she pats her tense, bony hand on my shoulder. “You don’t need to look so alarmed.” She then uses her hand to try to stand me erect out of my hunched-over state. “It’s okay. Really. You don’t need to be embarrassed talking to me. We’re both grown women after all. We both like the attention of a nice, distinguished man.”
“But how do you, umm, know?”
“Oh, honey, nothing gets past these eyes. The good Lord did not bless me with this face and these perfect cheekbones just to have them support the sockets of two blinded eyes.”
Woooow, this is getting weird. Who knew Dr. Myers was such a narcissist? I mean, she’s right, though. She has one of the most strikingly beautiful faces of any woman I’ve ever met in my life. It makes it extremely difficult to tell her age. She could be as young as some of the seniors here, but her status and honorific say that she’s been around the block enough times to get a few degrees under her belt.
And what is she getting at exactly?
“But since we are both grown women, I hope it’s okay that I talk to you as one— as a friend, really, rather than as your professor.”
“Uhh, sure?” I shake my head and try to stuff the rest of my things into my bag. “Professor--”
“Doctor...” she corrects me.
Finally I feel my spine snap into place and I say, “I’m sorry, Dr. Myers, but why don’t you just go ahead and say what you need to say to me so that I can get going? My next class is all the way on the other side of campus.”
“Right,” she says, with a sort of stifled laugh. “Look, Caroline, you’re a bright girl. And your writing is absolutely exquisite. It would give some of the greats a run for their money. But I just, I don’t want to see you lose your stride if you were to get, well, distracted.”
