Dangerous To Love

by Toni Anderson, Barbara Freethy, Dee Davis, Leslie A. Kelly, Cynthia Eden, J. Kenner, Meli Raine, Gwen Hernandez, Pamela Clare, Rachel Grant

  It’s a decidedly wolfish look. I blush, matching my shirt. Eric? Eric always seemed interested, but…

  I was never interested back.

  “You want to catch a cup of coffee or tea before you go into the paperwork jungle and don’t emerge?” he asks. Eric’s voice is strong, but I can see he’s nervous.

  “Sure!” I chirp. It sounds a little too overeager. Great. I’ve turned into an excited chipmunk. How did I go from kissing Mark twelve hours ago to having coffee with Eric?

  The same way I got to Accounts Payable. One step at a time.

  Eric points to a tiny building with a hobbit-like door. I’m short, but I have to bend down. Eric’s not nearly as tall as Mark, but he’s still taller than me, so his shoulders slump as I follow him. The room is dark and I start to feel uneasy. Where the heck is he taking me?

  A huge cloud of dark-roasted coffee assaults my nose. Inhaling deeply, I smile as my eyes adjust. Ah. Something new on campus. Yates didn’t have this place when I was here. The coffee shop is tiny, with only eight tables and a short counter. Coffee, tea, and plastic-wrapped biscotti seems to be all they sell.

  “What’s your poison?” Eric asks as we walk to the counter, which is a huge slab of some kind of tree, polished and varnished to a high shine. Rings as thick as my thumb show through the wood. It is gorgeous.

  “Mocha latte with cinnamon,” I say as I dig through my pockets. My cash reserves are low, but I can manage the four dollar coffee. This one, at least. I can’t do this every day until the paychecks start rolling in.

  He holds out his hand in protest. “My treat.”

  That gives me pause. The Eric I knew from three years ago didn’t have two nickels to rub together. People don’t “treat” each other when they’re broke. They complain and borrow and lend, but they don’t do what he’s doing.

  Suddenly this feels like a date.

  And a part of me doesn’t mind.

  A million answers fight with each other to come out of my mouth, but as I smooth the hem of my shirt with nervous hands I look at him. “Thank you,” I say, as genuinely as I can. “I’ll buy the next time.”

  All he does is crook an eyebrow, but it tells me everything he’s thinking. I am not sure I’m thinking the same thoughts.

  But I might be thinking some of the same thoughts. My tongue is twisted and I don’t know what to say, so I start looking around the room.

  Student art covers the shabby brick walls. Half the mortar between the bricks has rubbed away. The sofas, if you can call them that, look like rejects from the student center. From, say, seventy years ago. Torn and stained, at least they’re a place to sit. At your own risk.

  A chess set, a game of Sorry! and Mastermind are scattered across a gouged coffee table. Eric gets our drinks and he nods toward a two-seater. We take it and settle in, my eyes still wandering.

  “What was this before it became a coffee shop?”

  “The vet school slaughterhouse.”

  That makes me choke. The steaming coffee-milk I tried to carefully sip goes shooting down my throat, some up my nose. It burns.

  Gasping, I stand. The cup tips. Eric saves it before I pour sixteen ounces of scalding liquid on us. The burning pain in my nose fades quickly, leaving the back of my throat raw.

  I feel like a fool.

  “You okay? Do you want cold water?” Eric sets my paper cup of hot latte down gingerly, his eyebrows knitted with concern.

  All I can do is nod.

  He rushes off and returns in seconds, a tiny juice glass full of water. I drink it greedily. It helps.

  “Thanks,” I rasp.

  “I didn’t know veterinary school slaughterhouses were so upsetting,” he jokes. But his eyes are still worried.

  “Caught me off-guard,” I croak. The air shifts, and all my nervousness goes away. This is just Eric. Sure, he’s a professor now, and I’m not his student. But there’s nothing there. He’s a nice guy, I’m a friendly person, and we’re just having a cup of coffee as colleagues.

  That reminds me. “Did Carol ever work with your department? Are there procedures I need to know about?”

  His face changes, and then goes back to neutral quickly. I’ve said something to upset him, but I don’t know what. And then he says, “I wouldn’t know. I’m an assistant professor, so I don’t deal with administrative affairs.” His eyes glance over mine, like he’s making a show of being polite.

  The air has chilled quite fast between us.

  I try to change the subject, waving my hand. “No big deal. I’m sure your department admin can tell me. So how did you become a big professor?” I ask, leaning forward to reach for my coffee.

  “You need training wheels for that?” he jokes, eyeing my hand warily.

  I know he’s kidding, but there’s a needle in his words. “It’ll be fine. Besides, if I dump it in your lap, plastic surgery can do wonders for burns these days.”

  His turn to choke, but the look he gives me isn’t one of shared laughter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You’ve changed,” he says, looking down at the table, his fingers tracing a long, carved “C” in the wood.

  He is pissed, and trying to hide it. A plume of fear spreads through me. The tiny room closes in. All my confidence disappears. A cloud of shame hovers over me. Everything that felt just right now is terribly wrong. Who do I think I am, joking and feeling good? Like I have a right to think I am like everyone else.

  “I have?”

  “Huh,” he says, then takes an angry gulp of coffee. “Let’s talk about something other than scorching my balls, Carrie.” My name sounds like he’s spitting it, and he won’t look at me.

  I don’t know what to say. All I can process is my pounding heart and the bare-naked feeling I have. Like my skin is turned inside out and everyone is staring at me. It’s the same feeling I had after Dad’s arrest whenever I set foot on campus, or went to the grocery store. People knew something was wrong with me. They just knew.

  Eric makes me feel this way right now.

  “How about your job? Working out fine with Dean Landau?” At the sound of my boss’s name, I blink, my trance ended. Shame floats away slowly, reluctantly, but I can will it to leave.

  It does. Barely.

  “Fine,” I answer in a measured tone.

  “No problems?” He eyes me with a skeptical glance.

  “It’s only day two. Ask again in a few months.”

  That gets a more genuine laugh. Whatever storm I’ve triggered in him seems to be passing. “Claudia was livid when they took you instead of her,” he says with a fake casual tone.

  My ears perk up. Is he sharing gossip, or fishing for information?

  “I kind of guessed.” Another gulp of my cooler coffee feels like a bit of me is restored. “She wasn’t happy to see me yesterday,” I add.

  “She was up there?” His eyes light up. Reading his signals is giving me a headache. I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. Am I getting this wrong? He seems to be attracted to me, but then he shuts down in anger. And now he’s looking at me like I’m Claudia’s BFF who can put in a good word for him.

  Middle school. I’m in the grown-up version of middle school. Great.

  I nod and drink more. The cinnamon feels comforting. The sense of shameful unreality lingers on my skin like dried sweat. I pretend to look at my phone. I pretend I have a pressing message.

  “I have to go!” I exclaim. “The dean needs me to get his lunch. He’s working through.” Please believe the lie.

  Eric’s laugh is bitter, but he stands with me. “He has you fetching his lunch?” Shaking his head, it’s clear Eric disapproves. The cloud of weirdness lurks, ready to shadow me.

  We duck to leave the tiny little coffee hovel, the sunshine so bright it leaves me feeling cleansed. All the strangeness back there is gone, and Eric’s walking with confidence, smiling at me like he hadn’t just been terse.

  Confusion settles in my bones. I just want to go bac
k at my desk, even if The Claw is there. At least I know where I stand with her. Knowing someone hates you is somehow easier than not knowing what Eric is feeling toward me.

  “Just be careful in there,” Eric cautions. A landscaping crew is busy fixing dried-out, brown patches of grass. They carefully cut out the dead spots and drop in a piece of bright green, lush sod. One week until the students move in. They have to make the campus look good for the parents. By mid-September the dead patches will be back. The hundreds of thousands of flowers planted all over campus will be dead.

  No one will care about appearances again until Homecoming.

  “In where?” I ask as we reach the Human Resources office. His stride slows and we stand before the glass doors, our reflections clear in the sunlight.

  “Dean’s office. You don’t want to be on Claudia’s bad side,” he explains.

  My rippling laughter pours out, loud and pealing like a bell. I can’t help it. Great whoops of giggles continue. It takes me three minutes to calm down. I have to wipe tears from the corners of my eyes. Mascara comes off on my knuckles.

  “Claudia’s…bad…side,” I gasp. “Little late for that. She’s hated me since elementary school.”

  Eric frowns. “That’s right. I forgot you’re a townie.” He shrugs. “Well, then, you know more about her than me.” That makes him scowl deeper, then squint at me, holding his hand like a military salute. He’s shielding the sun from his eyes.

  The look he gives me has new respect in it. I still have no idea what this guy is thinking or feeling. He is so different from Mark, who just tells you, upfront. Like it or not.

  “I’ll just try to stay away from her claws,” I whisper, leaning toward him.

  He startles, then laughs. But it’s a slow, halting chuckle, one that makes my skin crawl.

  “Have fun with your HR paperwork,” he says, now very distracted. As he walks away he doesn’t acknowledge my wave. I don’t know what to think.

  But being on Claudia’s bad side? Been there, done that, have the emotional scars to prove it.

  My time at HR is brief and fabulous. The benefits specialist, Debbie Hansen, is my new best friend. Yes, I can take classes this semester. I pay a fifty dollar fee per course, so my checkbook comes out and two hundred dollars later, I’m a full time student again, as long as I rush my paper to the Registrar’s office and enroll.

  My phone tells me it’s long past time to check in and get the dean his lunch, so I go back to the office, happy again. All I need now is to find four classes that don’t clash with work and that fit into my graduation needs.

  Simple. Do-able. Achievable. Zippidy-do-da. Things are finally going my way.

  The weirdness with Eric is washing off, replaced by a flash of Mark’s kisses last night. I am instantly transported back to his hands on my ribcage, the warm scent of cedar and masculinity, how his breath hitched when my own tongue met his tease for tease, search for search.

  The heat inside me simmers nice and low, ever present. I imagine my hands in his silky hair. His lips on my earlobe. His promise to come back and talk.

  Talk.

  Right.

  My step quickens and I practically run up the stairs, bouncing with a happiness even Eric’s moods can’t ruin. The custodians are stripping the waxed linoleum floors and my normal path is obstructed. That rush to get everything nice and clean for the parents means staff are inconvenienced. I don’t care.

  A staircase I wouldn’t normally use is free, so I climb up. It’s an old, pinched little set of rickety stairs, like an afterthought. When I was a student here someone told me it was for servants to the university president when his offices were in this building. That seems unlikely. I think the stairs were probably for workmen to get downstairs to the basement furnaces easily, or up to the roof.

  I stop and look up. The stairs do go all the way to the roof. I can see the padlocked door, two stories up.

  It reminds me of my new little home. Except the padlock is intact on this door.

  The stairs get me to my floor and as I’m walking to the office, I hear muffled voices.

  “We need to start charging for coffee, Sean,” says a woman’s voice. Older, like a smoker’s, with a barely held-back cough. “The graduate students are drinking it by the gallon and not putting in the suggested donation.”

  “Effie, if we just bought one of those Keurig machines we could make people pay. They’d have to slide seventy-five cents in and we wouldn’t have this problem,” a male voice answers. I’m two doors down from my office. Academic Advising. Effie must be Effie Cummings, the department coordinator who is older than my (dead) grandmothers.

  She makes a grunt of disgust as I walk by. “Buy something new. Why is that everyone’s answer? People don’t act the way they should and that means we buy something new? No! Of course not, Sean! We make them change their ways.”

  Their voices fade out as I roll my eyes. Seems easier to just buy a Keurig. Heck, I’d pay seventy-five cents for an easy cup of vanilla caramel coffee two doors away. Hmmm. Maybe I should mention that to Sean. Must be Sean Hofstadtler, my former academic adviser.

  Actually, now he’s my academic adviser again, I realize. My hand still holds my enrollment papers.

  A zing of glee shoots through me. I can’t wait to tell Amy I’ll be a full-time student again. Coming home is working out. My future is on track.

  And tonight, Mark might visit me again. Whatever comes next, I know it’s going to be just fine.

  As I walk through the threshold to my office, something green catches my eye, inside the dean’s office. His door is ajar, and I see long, black hair. Claudia. Damn.

  Ignoring her, I step behind my desk. A sticky note on my monitor reads:

  Gone to lunch with the vice chancellor. No need for take-out after all. Please deliver expense reports to anthropology for grant project due today.

  The note is in the dean’s messy scrawl, which I’ve managed to learn to read in two days. Whew! My being delayed doesn’t cause problems for my boss and his lunch. Everything’s working out for me today on so many levels.

  Whatever Claudia’s doing in her dad’s office isn’t my business, though I arch an eyebrow and wonder. Trying not to look, I busy myself with some emails that came in while I was out. One of them asks for a list of students nominated for a history department prize. I can’t find it in the computer’s hard drive, so I stand up. Taking a deep breath, I realize I have to search the filing cabinet near the dean’s door.

  Ah, well. Claudia can’t hurt me, right? Worst case she makes a dig. I can handle digs today. Bring it on, Claw.

  As I cross the room I don’t look, but I can’t turn off my peripheral vision. She’s wearing a long, silky green dress with black heels taller than a small dog. Her arms reach up around a man’s neck, his head bent down. Her neck moves and she’s kissing him. Hard, with tongue, hips grinding into his.

  She makes sounds that are meant to be shared in intimate places. I made those kinds of sounds last night in my trailer. I should know. The memory makes my cheeks burn, my belly tighten. But at least I don’t make out with men in public like that.

  I turn away in shock. In her father’s office. Where people can find her. This is a new low, even for The Claw. As I slowly open the filing cabinet drawer, the sound startles the two. They pull apart.

  Two pairs of familiar eyes lock on me as I bend over the long array of files, trying not to stare. One pair is Claudia’s.

  The other is Mark’s.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I am going to puke. I literally clap my hand over my mouth and turn away. I walk as fast as I can without running. Some part of me hears Claudia snort, then laugh. I break into a run, slamming through the Women’s Room door and bolting the lock in the single-seat room.

  I can feel Mark behind that door.

  Or can I? Maybe I imagine it. A creeping cold fills my veins. My heart slaps against my ribs like it’s dying. It is. It shouldn’t. I should know better, r
ight? I sit on the toilet and let the tears fill my eyes. My throat tightens. My skin turns hot. I start to breathe hard. I sit down on the toilet and run my palms over and over my slacks. I tug at the hem of my red cotton shirt. As I look down I see my teardrops mottling the deep red cloth.

  I don’t have any right to be hiding in the bathroom, crying over Mark and Claudia, but here I am.

  I can’t even text Amy for support. My phone is in my purse. At the desk Mark is kissing Claudia in front of.

  The cold wall feels strong against my palm. My mouth fills with a salty taste. My tears are flowing down my cheeks and over my lips. What is Mark doing? I know what Claudia’s doing. That evil grin tells me everything. She knew Mark and I were an item years ago. It must give her great pleasure to see me in pain.

  Pain.

  Why am I so tortured by watching that kiss? I have no claim on Mark. We’re not dating. He isn’t my boyfriend. The tiny bathroom feels like a cocoon. A safe place to hide. My mind races as I sniff and fresh tears cover my cheeks. I’m crying for what I thought I had. I’m crying for the confusion Mark puts in me.

  I’m crying because I am embarrassed I ever thought I could restart my life here.

  And I’m crying because it sucks to kiss a guy and find him kissing someone else the next day.

  Red fury fills me. I imagine Claudia’s face and the rage turns to a blinding hot flame. She’s so…ugh. Why does she enjoy watching other people suffer? What kind of person finds pleasure in that? A sadist. A sociopath. A crazy person who doesn’t deserve to spend time with real human beings with genuine feelings and tender hearts.

  Maybe that’s my problem. I’m too tender. Too soft.

  Too human.

  I look at the door, wondering what to do next. I can’t hide in here until the end of the day. The dean will be back soon and I have those expense reports to do for the anthropology project. If I don’t do them, I’ll look bad. I’m already on thin ice with this job. The paycheck is too important. Being this close to the source of my dad’s problems is too critical. I can’t clear his name if I can’t gather information.