by Linda Seed
“You can do that?” Sofia perked up.
Benny shrugged. “I can ask around at the college, see if anyone knows.”
This was what sisters were for. They comforted you when you were freaking out over a man—then they stalked him so you wouldn’t have to.
11
As a marine biologist, Benny frequently did research at the college, but she wasn’t on the faculty. Still, she knew a number of people in the science department, and they knew people in the math department, who knew people in the English department.
By the next day—the day of Sofia’s date with Patrick—she was ready to offer her report.
“You weren’t wrong about him mostly dating eggheads.” Benny came into the kitchen around noon, plunked her messenger bag on the table, then plopped down into a chair next to where Sofia was sitting with a cup of tea.
“Uh oh,” Sofia said.
“I talked to Will Bachman in the science department, and he didn’t know anything, but he’s friends with a guy over in math named Ramon Alba, who pals around with Patrick.” Benny looked pleased with herself, maybe even a little smug. “Ramon says Patrick dated another English professor before this and a novelist before that.”
“Oh. A novelist. Well, that’s not so impressive,” Sofia tried.
“She was shortlisted for the Pulitzer,” Benny said.
“Oh … God.” Sofia was starting to feel sick. It was worse than she’d imagined. Sure, he was attracted to her now. But what happened when he realized she didn’t have the intellectual heft of his previous girlfriends? What would she do then?
“Look, Sof. You don’t have any reason to feel insecure about other women. You’re much hotter than either one of them.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“Google,” Benny said. “And anyway, maybe he’s tired of dating women who make him feel like he’s on Jeopardy every time they go out to dinner. Minus the cash prizes, obviously.”
“I want to see them,” Sofia said. She got up, went into her room, and came back with her laptop. She opened it and turned it toward Benny. “Show me.”
While Benny tapped the keys, Sofia imagined what she might see. Mousy women, she hoped—the kind with thick glasses and limp, colorless hair. The kind who never had a date during high school because they were too busy dissecting the themes in Of Mice and Men.
It didn’t work out quite that way. The English professor looked attractive if somewhat plain. But the author—long, glossy, chestnut-colored hair. Big, blue eyes. And a smile that looked both intelligent and a little bit mischievous.
Sofia almost wanted to date the woman herself.
“Look at her,” Sofia said miserably.
“That’s her author photo,” Benny pointed out. “You know those are always professionally done, with a stylist and Photoshop. She probably doesn’t even look like that. And even if she does, you’re still hotter.”
Maybe. Sofia knew, objectively, that she was an attractive woman. But looks weren’t everything. What if he wanted to be challenged intellectually? What if he wanted someone who was his equal professionally?
“You must really be into him if you’re this worried about it,” Benny remarked.
“No,” Sofia said, more out of reflex than honesty. “No, no. I’m just … I want to know what I’m up against.”
“I’ve met the guy—he’s not exactly a ladies’ man,” Benny said. “He ought to worry about what he’s up against.”
Patrick was worried about that very thing, and that was why he woke up that morning feeling like he’d been hit by a runaway cargo van.
When he’d tried to get out of bed, his muscles had protested so much that he’d wondered if this was how someone felt after a bar fight. He’d never been in a bar fight, but it seemed plausible that the aftereffects might be similar to this. But only if various implements such as baseball bats and wooden chairs had been used as weapons.
He’d taken a couple of ibuprofen and a hot shower, and that had helped somewhat. But now, in the middle of his teaching day, all such measures of relief had worn off, and he cursed himself for his failure to follow not-Chad’s warnings about starting slowly.
Live and learn.
“Dr. Connelly? Are you okay?” A young woman in the front row had been looking at him with concern as he’d lectured about Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and now, as he paused and winced in pain, she finally spoke up.
* * *
“I’m fine, thank you,” he said. “I was just”—he struggled to come up with an explanation that would make him seem less pathetic than he was—“playing tennis earlier, and I pulled a muscle.”
It seemed to him that anyone—even a perfectly fit person—might hurt himself playing tennis, while only a complete novice would be stupid enough to disable himself lifting weights. He didn’t like to lie, but one did have to save face.
“Now, back to the themes of the play. Is revenge the same thing as justice?” He looked to the class for responses. “Anyone?”
The lie fell apart when the young woman from the front row came to up to him after class to ask about his interest in tennis.
“I love tennis,” she told him, looking blond and perky, the ponytail on the back of her head bobbing hopefully. “We should play sometime.”
Sitting behind his desk at the front of the class, he’d opened his mouth to make some excuse—some line about lack of time or the inappropriateness of him spending his free time with a student—when he simply deflated. “I didn’t hurt myself playing tennis,” he admitted.
“You didn’t?”
He gave her a wry grin. “No. I joined a gym. I must have … pushed it a little too hard.”
“Ooh.” She winced. “You should get a personal trainer.”
“I’ve got one. He warned me.” He should have ended it there. But for some reason—maybe it was how fresh and young she looked, how open, how innocent and guileless—he told her the truth. “It was stupid. I was trying to impress a woman.”
“Oh.” Her face fell, and he realized for the first time that her offer to be his tennis partner had been more than that. Had Ramon been right? Were his students flirting with him? How had he failed to notice?
“Anyway, thank you for your concern.” He put on his professor voice again. “I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine.”
She shoved her books into her backpack, zipped it up, and started to go. At the last moment, she turned back to him.
“For what it’s worth, you don’t have to try so hard,” she said.
“Pardon me?”
She shrugged. “You just don’t, that’s all. If she doesn’t get it, then that’s her problem.”
He blinked a couple of times, as though he’d just emerged into bright sun. “If she doesn’t … get what?”
She smiled in a way that made him think of high school cheerleaders and Ivory soap. “You really don’t know, do you?”
And before she could explain to him what it was he didn’t know, she shouldered her backpack and left him alone with his insecurity and his sore muscles.
Later that afternoon, well before she was set to meet Patrick, Sofia went to her mother’s library and breathed in the scent of the books—a smell that always reminded her of Carmela.
Sofia’s mother would have loved Patrick, she was sure of it. For just a moment, Sofia opened the box filled with her grief over her parents and let a little bit of the pain seep out. She wanted her mother to meet him, but that would never happen. She wanted to ask her mother’s advice about love—about this giddy feeling that she’d met someone important—but she couldn’t do that.
Sofia felt the sorrow of it like a soul-deep ache, and then she put the pain away again.
The first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird was sitting on the shelf in front of her. Sofia took it down and wondered whether she should read it. The book was valuable, and she didn’t want anything to happen to it, so she carefully replaced it on the shelf.
She did think she
should try reading one of the classics, though, to get some insight into Patrick’s interests. She selected another book: Ulysses by James Joyce. She sat in one of her mother’s comfortable leather club chairs and began to read.
An hour later, it was only by sheer will that she didn’t hurl the book across the room. What in the world was happening here? Was this book even in English?
Martina came into the room at just about the time Sofia thought her brain might start leaking out her ears.
“What are you reading?” Martina was holding a book of her own—one she’d apparently finished—and she put it back on a shelf.
“Who the hell knows?” Sofia snapped. “I don’t know what this is! I don’t know why anyone would subject themselves to … this!” She held up the book as Exhibit A.
“Ulysses? Oh, Sofia, no.” She said it as though she’d found Sofia shooting heroin and was shocked that it had come to this.
“I want to be interesting! I want to be able to talk about the things he enjoys. But I don’t know if it’s worth it.” She plunked the book down on the table next to the chair, defeated.
Martina sat down beside her in the club chair’s twin. “Look. Just be yourself. He already likes you. He likes you. He doesn’t expect you to suddenly become someone else.”
“I guess.” Her shoulders fell, and she didn’t meet Martina’s eyes.
“I’ve never seen you this worried about a guy before,” Martina said. “You’re usually so … casual.”
Sofia usually approached dating as though it were merely fun, something to pass the time. But her instincts told her this one mattered. She wasn’t sure why; she didn’t know him well enough yet to base the feeling on anything rational, anything logical. Instead, she was basing it on her gut.
Her gut told her something important was happening in her life, and that it had everything to do with Patrick.
But he was an accomplished author, a professor, an academic who’d been showered with honors and accolades. What was she?
She was a kayak tour guide.
“I should have gone to college,” she told her sister. “I should have gone to … I don’t know … law school.”
“Do you want to go to law school?” Martina asked.
“No! Why would I want to go to law school?!”
Martina composed her face into an image of serenity and patted Sofia on the knee. “Sof, I love you, but you’re losing your mind.”
12
They’d decided to go to a movie at the multiplex in San Luis Obispo. They hadn’t settled on what to see yet, so they discussed their options on the drive down.
Sofia wanted to see the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe flick, but she was afraid if she said so, he’d be even more certain that she was lowbrow and not smart enough for him.
Instead, she suggested the most highbrow, intellectually challenging movie she could think of—a film by a French director about a group of middle-aged friends coming to terms with their mortality. Or something. She’d heard that it was full of symbolism and meaning, so it seemed perfect.
“Oh. Really? Okay,” Patrick said when she offered her suggestion. He hesitated a little when he said it. Sofia imagined that he’d hesitated because he was surprised that someone like her would want to see a movie like that. Which she didn’t, if she were being honest. But him thinking she didn’t offended her, so she stayed firm.
“Sure. The critics say it’s brilliant and incisive. But if you want to see something else …”
“No, no. That’s fine.”
They found a spot in a parking structure across the street from the theater, bought their tickets, and got settled into their seats with popcorn and a soda for him, and a bottle of water for her. She’d wanted popcorn and a soda, too, but it didn’t go with the image she was trying to project, so she’d refused his offer and had settled for the water.
One of the best things about this particular theater was that it offered plush reclining seats that put the filmgoer in a nearly horizontal position. It was like watching TV in a Barcalounger at home, except that the screen was huge and the sound was as loud as a jumbo jet during takeoff.
Usually, Sofia was delighted by the seats, but now, with the characters on the screen having endless metaphor-filled conversations in beige rooms while listening to dour music and looking depressed, she found that she could hardly keep her eyes open. That, combined with the comfort of the seats, had her fully out—probably snoring and drooling—before the movie was half over.
Patrick became aware that Sofia was sleeping sometime before the main character’s suicide attempt but after the dinner party scene in which everyone talked about the books they were reading but were really talking about death.
Death seemed pretty inviting at the moment, if it meant he wouldn’t have to sit through the rest of this movie.
He was puzzled by Sofia’s suggestion that they see it, but he’d wanted to make her happy. Now here he was, with a bad movie in front of him and a sleeping date beside him. He’d have welcomed finding Sofia sleeping beside him under other circumstances, but as it was, he simply felt disappointment that their date seemed to be a bust.
These seats really were comfortable, though.
His muscles were sore and tired, and the film was dull and impenetrable, and Sofia was making soft sleeping noises. Before he knew it, he was asleep, too.
Sofia woke to the sound of a male, teenage voice speaking to her.
“Ma’am?”
There was some sort of light in her eyes, and she was groggy and disoriented as she slowly opened them.
The reality of the situation dawned on her slowly: the movie theater. The boring film. The comfortable seats. Patrick.
Oh, my God.
She bolted upright in her seat, her face heated with embarrassment. She and Patrick both put their reclining seats into their upright positions, gathered their things—her purse, his empty popcorn and soda containers—and left the theater, which was now empty except for the employee who’d awakened them.
“I … ah … must have dozed off.” He was blushing.
“I guess so.” She made no mention of the fact that she had, too. If he’d been too out of it to notice, then she certainly wasn’t going to point it out to him.
“I’m sorry. Sofia, that was—”
“Let’s just let it go, okay?” She walked a little faster, wanting to get out of here and away from this whole ill-fated situation.
He hurried to keep up, tossing his trash into a bin and lengthening his stride to keep up with her.
“Sofia? Are you angry with me?”
“Of course not. Don’t be stupid.” But she was angry, and everything about her body language said so as she went out the front door and into the plaza beyond.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and followed her. “Do you want to get something to eat?” It was about eight p.m. and they hadn’t had dinner, so it was a reasonable question. Still, Sofia reacted as though he’d suggested bungee jumping.
“Why? Why would we do that, Patrick? What’s the point?” She whirled around to face him.
“The point? Uh … hunger, I suppose.”
“Well … you do what you want. I’m going to the car.” She headed across the street to the parking garage, Patrick hurrying after her.
He had every right to react to her anger with anger of his own. She knew that. If someone had treated her like this, she’d have made him sorry for it. And yet he said nothing as they went to the car. He simply followed her, unlocked the car, and held the door open for her as she got in.
He was calm as they exited the parking garage and headed north toward Cambria. And that—the calm—made her realize she was acting like a fool.
“It’s just … that movie! I mean, if you want to talk about sex, talk about sex! Don’t pretend you’re talking about ripe peaches! For God’s sake!” It wasn’t an explanation for her behavior—not really—but it was a start.
“I thought you wanted to see tha
t movie,” Patrick said.
“I only said I wanted to see it because I thought you wanted to see it.”
He shot her a glance as he drove. “I wanted to see the Marvel movie.”
Somehow, that was the last straw. “You … I … You what? Well, that’s just freaking perfect.”
“If we’re going to fight, I need to pull over.” He drove into a convenience store parking lot, found a spot, and turned off the car. “Sofia, could you please tell me what’s going on?”
She considered her options: Pretend it all was somehow his fault? Claim that some outside factor, like a stomach bug, was causing her behavior? Tell the truth?
She remembered something her mother used to say: Whatever’s wrong, Sofia, lying about it will just make it worse.
“I wanted to see the Marvel movie. But I didn’t want to say that, because you’re so brilliant, and I didn’t want you to think I’m not as smart as you are. So I said I wanted to see the other movie, because it’s the kind of thing your other girlfriends probably liked. But it was so boring! And I fell asleep. And falling asleep is the worst thing you could possibly do on a date—unless it’s after great sex—so now I’ve ruined everything. And I felt awful about ruining everything, so I took it out on you and acted like a raging bitch to deflect. All right? That’s what’s going on.”
That was a lot for Patrick to digest, especially since his brain had gotten stuck on the words great sex. The phrase had set a mental picture in motion, and he had to push that aside before he could proceed.
When he could answer coherently, he began ticking off points one by one.
“First, I do think you’re smart. Second, your choice of movie wouldn’t have changed my mind about that. Third, things don’t have to be ruined. And fourth, what did you mean about my other girlfriends? What other girlfriends?”
