But it’s not all her fault. It’s one of the reasons Sam and I connect. Why we understand each other more than most people. We both grew up in a family member’s shadow. Someone who got all the time and attention. It’s not my brother’s fault. Well, it wasn’t at the time. He was pursuing a dream and using his God-given talent. But we all sacrificed for his dream. And he became used to that, spoiled to where he just thought that’s how life works.
I drift off to sleep trying not to dwell on Perella family drama. Lord knows there’s no point in giving it attention when it’s not staring me in the face, because sooner or later it will be.
Chapter 2
I rush out the front door dropping my keys not once, but twice as I try to juggle my coffee tumbler, my laptop, my lecture notes and mascara wand, knowing I’ll never find a parking space now that I’m ten minutes late. Anyone who has worked at a college or gone to one knows there are certain windows when you can find a parking space. Any time before 7:45 in the morning or after 5:00 at night and you’re golden. All the rest of the times, forget it!
I throw everything into my back seat except the essentials, coffee and mascara, and climb into the front seat to glance at the clock. 7:52 a.m. I live three minutes from campus so if I drive just a few miles over the speed limit I might have a chance at finding a spot outside of my building. Just as I’m putting the car into reverse my phone rings ending the one thing I enjoy about my commute to work. The music. There are only two people who would be calling me this time of day and I have no desire to speak to either of them. Unfortunately, it’s the worse of the two.
“John, I’m running late. Can I talk to you later?”
“You’re not at work yet?”
“No, like I said I’m running late.”
He sighs. “Now I know where Sam gets it. Speaking of, she won’t return my calls. What’s going on with her now?”
“She never returns your phone calls. Why do you act surprised?”
“Because I purposefully didn’t deposit her allowance this month until she told me how her classes were going.”
I groan. I’m not sure if it’s because of the red light that forces me to stop or my brother going back on his word yet again to give Sam some space.
“What? I can’t even ask what her grades are? I am the one paying for her school.”
For the love. My brother always feels the need to bring up his money and how he throws it around. We would all be living on the streets if it wasn’t for him because apparently none of us are capable of fending for ourselves.
I slowly inch through the parking lot scanning for a space as I hear my brother droning on and on about how irresponsible Sam is and how she should be grateful for everything he’s given her. He has given her everything. Except his time and attention.
I hit the gas when I see one lonely spot at the end of the last row and release the breath I was holding when a POS comes around the corner, cuts me off and pulls into the space. I slam on my breaks and stare dumbfounded as the clown car releases not one, not two, not three but seven students who were piled into it. The driver and the last person to get out look behind them and snicker. I have the urge to flip them off.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes John, I’m listening.” I pull out of the parking lot and make my way to the overflow lot seven blocks from campus. My brother barely stops to take a breath in the five minutes it takes for me to park.
Switching from Bluetooth to speaker I load up everything I need for the day and make my way onto campus. I silently curse college kids and three-inch heels as I zig zag around other procrastinators trying to make their 8:00 a.m. class. But they’re not the ones teaching it so I wish they would get out of my way.
My phone is leaning on my shoulder as I carry my coffee. I had to pick one and coffee won over mascara. Sorry brown eyes, it wasn’t your day.
“So, I expect that to be the case, Poppy.”
Hearing my name pulls me back to the other crisis I’m trying to avoid. After all of this time, I know how to appease my brother. “I know, John.” I don’t. I wasn’t listening. “I’ll have her call you and you can discuss it with her. I have to go.” I hang up with him and type out a text to Sam one-handed.
Call your father. Won’t get allowance until you do. Wants update on grades.
I finally land in my scheduled lecture hall and sit my things down before taking a deep breath. A hundred pair of zombie eyes stare at me like they’re in a torture chamber. Except there is one student who is bright-eyed and ready to go this morning. She sits in the front row on the edge of her seat and smiles at me. I wish Sam could be more like this girl. Or interested in something besides boys and partying. The girl raises her hand and I walk around the lecture podium before pointing at her. “Yes?” At least someone has been reading the material and is coming to class prepared.
“It looks like you split coffee down your dress.”
My eyes shift downward, and the entire lecture hall suddenly rolls with laughter. Funny how they’re all awake and paying attention now.
I force myself to smile and say “thank you” before walking behind the lecture podium and starting class.
Chapter 3
After an eleven-hour day I’m looking forward to going home and taking a long hot bath with Kenny G. I hate that I teach a class until 7:00 p.m., but as a new professor, I knew I would get the worst schedule. As the last student leaves the lecture hall, I place my laptop in my bag and glance down at my phone. A text from Sam reads:
I don’t have any grades yet, what am I supposed to tell him?
Sent two hours ago. I rub my eye with the palm of my hand and decide to take a Perella break for the night. My brother and niece can surely manage one night without me having to referee their relationship. I put my head down as I’m closing out my message and run into something solid. The jolt causes me to drop my phone. Leaning down to pick it up, I see two black boots standing in front of me. Stance wide and firm on the ground parallel to a janitor cart. The smell of lemon antiseptic overwhelms my senses.
“Your class ended ten minutes ago.” His voice is rough and unforgiving.
My body creeps upright, and I stare trying to force my mouth closed. Hello Mr. Clean. His dark hair reminds me of a young Elvis while his dark eyes are hard and distant. The angle of his jaw almost primal and it stirs something in me that I don’t want to acknowledge. “I um… I’m sorry. Several of my students had questions.”
“Don’t care. This is the third time you’ve caused me to start cleaning this hall late.”
Shifting my eyes away, I push a stray lock of my sable hair behind my ear. I swallow a painful lump in my throat before apologizing again. “I am sorry, but this class can be difficult for computer science students. We’re discussing data sets and arrays. More specifically balanced trees and how those impact indexed access and permit inserting or deleting elements in O time.”
“I know what arrays are. I also know how balanced trees impact indexed access. What I don’t know is why you seem to be the only professor around here who can’t end her class on time.”
My focus never drifts to his eyes. Instead it’s on his body. Rigid and defensive. Almost as if he’s walking around with a flagpole up his butt. I try to ignore the critical tone of his voice while shifting my feet. “It’s hard to anticipate all the questions my students will have.”
“Maybe it’s a reflection of your teaching.”
My chest stings with the unwelcome criticism. It’s bad enough I’m doubting my current choice of a profession. I don’t need a stranger helping me along. But I refuse to dignify him with a response. He’s a janitor. What does he know about higher education? I take a wide birth around him, hiking my bag higher on my shoulder and head out the door.
Chapter 4
I sprinkle bath salts with one hand while taking a refreshing sip of white zin in the other. The lights are out and the flicker of candlelight dances on the walls and ceiling. Kenny G is kee
ping me company and making all the right moves to get me into the mood to relax and pretend the world outside of these four walls doesn’t exist. I even picked up a new romance novel I’ve been wanting to read but haven’t had a chance.
I slip into the hot water welcoming the warmth as it surrounds my body. I then rub bubbles up and down my arms so that the moisture in them can start to do their magic. I close my eyes and sink further down allowing the water and lavender to take me away when my phone vibrates against the tub. I open one eye seeing if I can tell who it is. I can’t so I ignore it. It vibrates again. And again. Finally, I lean down and dry my hands off and pick up my phone.
He says he won’t deposit my money until I tell him my grades.
Another text
I don’t have any grades!
Another text
Hello!?!?
She’s just like her father and has the patience of a gnat. They’re so much alike and yet they can’t get along to save their lives. I hoped it would improve as they both got older. Yet, once he retired from professional baseball, he moved into sports broadcasting where he’s now the highest-rated sportscaster in the country. His good looks and bachelor status doesn’t hurt him. Neither does the fact he’s been a single dad raising his daughter “alone” since he was nineteen years old. What the articles and stories fail to mention is that he was never around and that I’m the one that raised Sam. I had his money after he got drafted, which made things easier, but not easy enough since I was only twelve when she was born.
Before Sam and I moved here, I was working on tenure at the Saint Louis Institute of Technology and was seeing someone. We weren’t in love, but we were on our way. Then I got the phone call Sam was arrested for not only possession of marijuana but also distribution. She claimed it was a misunderstanding and a part of me wanted to believe her. She may be smart, but she lacks something in the common sense department.
I decide to at least finish my bath and go back to sipping my wine. I take a few deep breaths and place my feet over the jets hoping to ease the stress out of my body. When that doesn’t work, I pick up my book and try to get lost in another world. But that doesn’t work either. Giving up, I finally get out of the tub.
I quickly slather lotion over my body and clean up my mess before cocooning myself in flannel pajamas. Once I have nothing else to do, I turn off DND and pull up my messages. Sam has texted me six more times!
Be honest and tell him you don’t have any official grades because it’s not midterms yet. Give him an idea of where your grades are. You do have an idea of where your grades are, right?
After all the hoopla she never texts me back. I then realize she’s out for the night and probably can’t hear her phone. And now that the conversation isn’t conducive to her schedule, it will return to the back burner to be picked up when it is convenient for her.
I roll over and adjust my pillow. The sheets feel like ice against my body as I lay here alone, in a rented house that still doesn’t feel like home. In a job and career I'm no longer confident in. With no friends and now no boyfriend, all because Sam’s actions led us here.
As I close my eyes to find sleep, I remind myself that her future is more important than my current happiness. This will be a small sacrifice to make if she can finally find her footing and get on the straight and narrow.
And then my phone rings.
Chapter 5
I glance at the clock and realize it’s the middle of the night. 2:45 am. I hear my phone ring again and swing my legs over the bed knowing it’s Sam.
“What’s wrong?”
She giggles and then she whisper yells into the phone, “I finally did it.”
I unplug my phone from the nightstand and make my way down the hall and into the coat closet. I already know this will require me to leave. “Did what exactly?”
“I broke into his office.”
I stop. “You what?” Who is she talking about? Did she say broke in?
She giggles again. “Sam Perella does not make empty promises!”
“Samantha, what are you talking about?” My voice shakes as I try to get my emotions under control.
“Don’t use my full name on me. Next you’ll be middle naming me.”
I don’t even bother putting my jacket on. I tuck it under my arm while grabbing my car keys and running out the front door. “Sam, where are you?”
“In your building.”
“My building? You mean the Computer Science building?”
“That’s the one.”
She’s slurring her words, so I assume she’s been drinking. I silently pray that’s all she’s been doing. “How did you even get in there?” I’m backing out of the driveway calculating in my head how fast I can get there.
“I left one of the windows unlocked in my three o’clock this afternoon so I could get back in.”
I hate how smart and stupid she is all at the same time.
“Sam, you said you broke into an office. Whose office?”
“Professor Dipshit’s.”
She laughs again and even though I want to wring her neck, I try to keep my cool so I can figure out where she is and how to get her out of another mess. “Who is that?”
“He’s the professor I’ve been sleeping with for the past two weeks. He dumped me and slept with one of my sorority sisters.”
Keeping my emotions under control just became a lot more difficult. I’m almost to campus and trying to process what she’s telling me. But at this point I just need to find her and get her out of there. “Whose office Sam?”
She sighs and even though I can’t see her, I know she’s rolling her eyes at me. “Professor Karff.”
“The department chair? That’s my boss!”
“Oops.” She says through her giggles that remind me of when she was five years old.
We registered Sam under her mother’s maiden name to give her a little more anonymity while starting a new school. Like me, people have always used her to get to her father. So, convincing her not to use our family name was not an issue. I also didn’t share with my new boss that my niece would attend this school. I haven’t been hiding it, but it’s never come up. There is no way Ken Karff knows Sam is my niece.
“Stay put!” I hang up knowing I can get there faster if I’m not on the phone. I also need a mental break from her so I don’t kill her when I see her. We haven’t even been here three months, and she’s already dug a hole so deep I may not be able to help her.
Chapter 6
I park in a 15-minute loading spot and fly up the front stairs two at a time. I scan my key card and hear the door click. Grabbing the handle, I rush over the threshold and don’t bother with the elevator. I make my way up the three flights of stairs and run through the door to see Professor Karff’s office at the end of the hallway. It’s dark but I can still detect the shards of glass on the floor reflected in the moonlight.
I run up to the door and spot Sam sitting in his chair with her legs propped up on his desk reading something. She looks at me, removes her legs and says, “Hey, you made it!” Like I walked in late to a party. I scramble over to her and rip the file out of her hand. “I was reading that!”
“Now you’re done. Let’s go.”
I pull her away and she rips her arm back. “I’m not leaving yet.”
“Have you lost your mind? Do you know what will happen if you get caught? If we get caught? Your father will kill me! You’re my responsibility.”
“You know you hate my father as much as I do.”
My neck cracks from whipping it back so fast. Almost as if she punched me in the face. “You think I hate your father?”
“No, I don’t think. I know!”
“Sam, this isn’t the time for Perella family drama. We need to get out of here before you get kicked out of school and I lose my job.”
She smiles while wiggling her eyebrows and says, “So much for keeping a low profile, huh?”
Before I respond I hear someone mutter,
“What the hell?”
I’ve never seen the look of fear on Sam’s face like I do right now. I motion for her to come over and we kneel behind the desk. We hold our breaths and I try to visualize a way out of this mess.
“Son of a bitch!” The voice is louder now and standing directly in the doorway. Sam looks at me and bulges her eyes out. I shake my head, silently telling her to be quiet and not to move. But in doing so I lose my balance and my knee gives out underneath. I suddenly feel a sharp pain and moan.
Sam moves closer and looks down at my leg. Even though it’s dark, I see the color drain from her face. I try to keep quiet and will the pain away as someone says, “I hear you. I know someone is in here.” That rough voice. It’s clearer now and I recognize it.
I know we’re not getting out of here without at least the janitor knowing so try to lie down trying to prevent myself from throwing up. The last time I felt this kind of pain I was seven years old. I was at my brother’s state championship game. I was playing along the chain-link fence when I went to stand up and sliced my hand below my index finger. I needed three stitches. Which I received after my brother’s home run won the game and the state championship.
The Loss Between Us Page 31
