by Linda Keir
“It’s cool,” he finally said.
It didn’t sound all that cool.
“How about next weekend or the weekend after?”
“Next weekend is the English Department’s faculty retreat. Not sure about the weekend after.” He sighed.
“I miss you,” I said.
“You too, babe,” he said. “Catch you when you get back.”
The evening surprise ended up being tickets to Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Thankfully it was Twelfth Night and not Romeo and Juliet. After the show, over dessert and coffee at Gordon, Simon started in again.
“Who is he?”
“Who is who?”
“Your new boyfriend.”
Simon Bloom is nothing if not perceptive.
“I don’t have a new boyfriend,” I said, trying to keep my expression as neutral as possible.
“There’s always someone else in these situations.”
“Just because you work in Hollywood doesn’t mean—”
“Andi,” my father said, grasping my hand. “You don’t really expect me to believe you were waiting for a call from your teacher, do you?”
Thankfully Simon Bloom isn’t quite as perceptive as he could be.
Tuesday, November 12, 1996
I had only two hours to spend with Dallas before Georgina and Tommy would return from making out in the back row at the movie theater in town and wonder why I wasn’t in my dorm room. Dallas, however, was rubbing my feet with his left hand and scribbling on a legal pad with the other.
“Why are you always working when I’m around?” I asked.
“Because being around you inspires me,” Dallas said.
“Be inspired after I leave,” I said.
“I thought you’d be impressed watching a poet at work.”
“Not when I want the poet to pay attention to me.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a laugh. “But try to think about it as though you’re posing.”
“Like for a painting?”
“I’m writing this about you.”
“Your literary model has questions,” I said.
“Ask away,” he said, working his way up my calf.
“Why did you start going by Dallas?”
“It’s my middle name. I was born there, and my parents lacked imagination. My dad was also a David, and I didn’t want to be a Junior.”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be forty.”
“When?”
“February.”
“February what?”
“Tenth.”
“So you’re an Aquarius?”
“Don’t tell me you put any stock in that particular bullshit.”
“I don’t, but . . .”
“But you’re beautiful,” he said, unbuttoning the top two buttons of my shirt and pulling it aside to lightly lick my collarbone.
“Clever as a crow / With raven hair / And bones like a bird’s / She keeps her wings out of sight / Only opening them at night.”
I don’t know how other people react to having famous poets write and recite poems about them, but it gave me a full-body shiver, even though he said, “It’s a little rough. And I’ll have to get rid of the rhyme.”
I could never describe Dallas as beautiful. If I was going to write a poem about male beauty, it would have to be about Ian—the sun-bleached streaks in his hair, his cobalt-blue eyes and smooth features, like he was sculpted. Dallas was gray at the temples, had a furrow between his eyebrows, and the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. Sexy, I thought, as he slid his hand under my bra and lightly circled my nipple with his finger. Fucking sexy was what he was.
“You told Georgina there’s no Mrs. Dallas Walker.”
“There isn’t,” he said. “Not currently.”
He couldn’t possibly mean that he was eyeing the future. It just wasn’t his way. “So you were married?”
“Until it didn’t work anymore.”
“You don’t have kids, do you?”
“Never a goal of mine.”
“What was your wife’s name?”
“Susan.”
“Did you love her?”
“I love every woman I’ve ever gotten involved with.”
Including me?
He made me shiver again when he stretched out and pressed the weight of his body against me.
Kissing me again.
“I want to make love to you,” he whispered.
Heat traveled through me like I’d never, ever felt.
“I do—”
He put his finger to my lips. “No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?” I said, momentarily startled, having never ever been turned down by a boy . . . which is where I stopped myself. Hadn’t I abruptly left the world of boys?
“Not yet,” he said.
“When?” I asked.
“When the timing is absolutely, positively right.”
“Which will be?”
“You won’t need to ask. We’ll both just know.”
Wednesday, November 13, 1996
“My thesis is that William Blake’s poetry is fundamentally about romance,” Georgina said, leaning back on her bed, with pen and paper in her lap.
“He was definitely a pioneer of romantic poetry in English literature,” I said, looking up from my desktop computer. “Which I think means he was one of the first to employ symbols and imagery, not that he necessarily wrote about romance.”
“Dallas was certainly going on about the sexual imagery in ‘The Garden of Love.’”
“True,” I said, even though I knew it was code to let me know he was thinking about our currently snow-covered rendezvous spot out by the lake and wishing we could meet up there. “I probably wouldn’t write my whole essay on it, though.”
“What are you writing about?”
“Blake’s protest of the Industrial Revolution in England.”
Georgina had a moony look on her face. “I’m sure you’ll get an A, like always, but I’m all about romance these days.”
“Really?” I said, tossing a pillow at her. “Hadn’t noticed.”
“I can’t believe I ever thought it was Dallas and his passion for poetry that was getting me all worked up in class when it was really Tommy I was into.”
“Love is a mystery,” I said, happy that I didn’t have to worry about Georgina and her relentless flirtation with Dallas anymore.
“Tommy wants to do IT,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“You know I won’t,” I said.
“He’s a virgin,” she said. “Which is also a secret.”
It was no secret that Georgina had done IT over the summer with a guy who worked at the boat dock in Michigan, and had hooked up with Connor Cotton on and off all of junior year.
“I want it to be special our first time.” She blushed. “I mean, for Tommy.”
“That’s sweet,” I said.
“How did you know when the timing was right?”
I couldn’t very well tell her the timing had felt right to me from the first time Dallas and I kissed, that he was the one insisting we wait, and that I was blown away by the intensity of my desire pretty much 24-7.
“When it’s love it just feels so different,” I said instead. That was definitely true with Ian, but with Dallas I felt much more me than I’d ever thought possible.
“Is that why you guys waited?”
I could only nod.
“Interesting,” she said. “I mean, Ian was so into you.”
I felt sad that I couldn’t share who I was really thinking about.
“He’s still totally into you,” she said, misreading the expression on my face. “From what I hear, girls are coming out of the woodwork to try and . . . I mean, I hear Sylvie is talking about joining Cue Sports Society. How desperate is that?”
“He’s free to do whatever he wants to do,” I said.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“No,” I said, which was
really all I could say. I hate the idea of Ian being with anyone other than me, and I feel like a complete asshole for even thinking it. I also wish he didn’t hate me so much, because I miss our friendship. “But we’re not together right now, so . . .”
I can’t imagine him getting together with Sylvie anyway.
“I really don’t get why you split up in the first place. I mean, come on, Andi, he’s perfect!”
“We’re on a break,” I said, the same thing I’d been telling everybody.
“I hope you guys get over whatever it is. You belong together. Forever.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I know how much fun we’d have double-dating,” she said.
Picturing me and Dallas on a date with Georgina and Tommy made me laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny about that?” asked Georgina.
“Nothing,” I told her. “Nothing at all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Andi spotted Georgina’s white Range Rover as her friend parallel parked across the street from Blooming Books. The ability to anticipate an unexpected visitor was one of the many advantages of having a storefront location.
Andi’s publishing company produced high-end coffee-table books and several well-received general-nonfiction titles highlighting the art, architecture, and culture of St. Louis and the surrounding area. With a little luck and another year in the black, thanks in part to her Central West End office-cum-store where St. Louisans could stop in to browse and buy, she would expand her business model to more cities in flyover country. She’d even considered the idea of adding a fiction imprint focusing on Midwestern writers.
It was financially risky, but her brief career as an assistant editor at a New York publishing house during Ian’s ill-suited stint on Wall Street had given her an understanding of the pitfalls and potential rewards. Getting pregnant with Cassidy had cut short what could have been a satisfying career, but starting her own publishing concern had proven to be even more fulfilling. She no longer dreamed of writing the Great American Novel, but she hadn’t ruled out the idea that she might publish it.
“I couldn’t wait a minute longer,” Georgina said over the jangle of the door. “Did it come yet?”
Andi couldn’t say her visit was a total surprise—she had told Georgina the official proof of Lovely Ladue was coming in today. With a gorgeous photo of Georgina’s sprawling plantation-style mansion gracing the cover, Andi knew her friend would want to be the first to see it. She just thought Georgina would have waited for a text letting her know it had actually been delivered.
“UPS doesn’t usually come before one,” she said.
“Perfect,” Georgina said, reaching into a brown paper bag. “I brought corned beef sandwiches.”
“I shouldn’t,” Andi said as Georgina unwrapped her favorite sandwich in the city and handed it over along with a black cherry soda. “This is pure evil.”
“Speaking of which,” she said as Andi took a delicious first bite, “everyone is abuzz about the death of our old friend the poet.”
Given that Georgina had undoubtedly pulled out the alumni roster and texted, called, or emailed everyone she could find who’d attended Glenlake with them, this conversation was inevitable. In fact, Andi was surprised Georgina hadn’t led with the gossip that was the true purpose of her early arrival.
“What are they saying?” Andi asked, both needing and not wanting to know.
“Everyone seems to have a different theory of who they think killed him.”
Despite the perfectly spiced and incredibly moist corned beef, Andi’s throat felt so dry she had to take a sip of soda to help her swallow. “Even though all signs point to him killing himself?”
“But if it was a murder, the killer is undoubtedly someone we knew,” she said with far too much enthusiasm. “It could be a faculty member with a secret vendetta or a student who had a serious bone to pick.”
“I swear, you sound like one of the kids in Cassidy’s journalism class.”
“Like a certain Liz Wright, who called from Glenlake, asking if I wouldn’t mind giving her a few minutes of my time to speak about a teacher I once had named David Dallas Walker?”
“What did you tell her?” Andi asked, dread tightening her throat even further.
“That I would much prefer to be contacted by my goddaughter, Cassidy Copeland.”
Andi shook her head. “You didn’t.”
“I got a paragraph-long explanation about how their teacher insists they maintain journalistic objectivity, meaning they assigned themselves to former students with whom they have no association.”
“Apparently, Cassidy didn’t get the message before she grilled Ian and me,” Andi told her.
“She must have gotten special permission or something,” said Georgina with a chuckle. “They’re interviewing everyone at Glenlake who had any association with Dallas. That teacher of theirs seems like the real deal.”
“Cassidy’s certainly in awe of him,” Andi said, the words heavier than she expected as they emerged from her mouth. Remembering her own infatuation with Dallas. Picturing Cassidy staying late after class.
“Since I know you’re wondering, I told Ms. Wright I was just kidding, and patiently endured her interrogation.”
“What did she ask you?”
“Lots of open-ended and slightly repetitive questions: What was Dallas Walker like as a teacher? How would you describe his teaching style? Would you say he was close to the other faculty members? To the students?”
“Not exactly Was it Professor Plum with the lead pipe in the library?” Andi said dryly, wanting to make sure her friend spilled absolutely everything she’d been questioned about or told.
“No, but the purpose of her line of questioning was fairly direct: finding out if I knew anyone who had reason to hate him or want him gone.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That most of the guys thought he was kind of a douche.”
“In those words?”
“When I added that all the girls thought he was sexy as hell, though, I could hear her scribbling furiously.”
“‘Girls’ primarily meaning you, Georgina,” Andi said. “That is, until you found true love with Tommy Harkins.”
“Who I actually spoke to yesterday.”
“You called him?”
“And then he friended me on Facebook,” she said.
“Sounds kind of dangerous,” Andi said. “He’s single and probably desperate.”
“You saw him,” she said. “Even if I wasn’t happily married, there’s no way I’d give him a second thought.”
“If you say so,” Andi said.
“It was all business. And you have to admit, he seems to be doing well for a guy who barely made it into his safety school. He thought we should start a Facebook group for the people who were in Dallas Walker’s class. We can share tidbits about the kids’ little investigation.”
“Little isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe kids who are up to their elbows in death.” Andi thought for a moment. “Any sign of Sylvie on Facebook?”
“Her last post was years ago, from Taos. At the time, she was living in an apartment, working part-time at a rock shop or ‘mineral gallery,’ and New Age as all get-out. Where that little lost soul is now, I cannot say.”
“I’m not sure we should be gossiping about the case on social media,” said Andi, wishing she hadn’t phrased it so primly.
“It’s all in fun.”
“Georgina!” Andi said. “Dallas was a person we knew, a teacher who mattered to us. How can you be so flippant about this?”
Midway through a bite, Georgina laughed, then coughed as some food went down the wrong pipe. She cleared her throat. “Dallas was an egomaniac of the highest order. He’d love knowing a whole class was looking into his death.”
“You may be right about that,” Andi admitted.
“I bet he’d also love the tension this whole business is creating b
etween the administration and Wayne Kelly.”
“What do you mean?”
“From what I hear, they’re worried about the school attracting any more unwanted media attention than they’ve already had.”
“I wish I knew whose bright idea it was to hire an award-winning investigative journalist to be writer in residence in the first place. Of course he ends up investigating the school itself.”
“They had no way of knowing,” Georgina said. “And, who knows, maybe those kids will come up with a logical answer about what actually happened to Dallas.”
“Hopefully,” Andi said weakly, grateful to see the UPS driver appear at the door with the box they’d both been waiting for.
As Georgina savored her first look at what would inevitably be her fifteen minutes of local fame, Andi couldn’t help but wonder how close she herself was to an entirely unwanted form of notoriety—and how lasting it would be.
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday, November 14, 1996
Cue Sports Society was just me and Mike. Jacob and Patrick were studying for exams and bailed. Playing pool sounded more fun than studying, so I talked Mike into coming, too. Dallas almost seemed surprised to see us when we walked into the student union. He was leaning back in a chair with his feet up on the pool table and reading a book.
“Just the two of you?” he asked.
Mike said yes and Dallas said, “Keep your coats on.”
We followed him outside to his car, and he drove us down to Chicago in like ten minutes. I swear we hit three g’s. Mike had a boner he loved it so much.
Dallas parked on this skeezy street and led us up to a second-story pool hall called Chris’s Billiards. I wondered if it was going to be a repeat of Kyle’s Kabin, but it didn’t seem like he knew anybody there, and they didn’t even serve beer.
“No bar, no pinball machines, no bowling alleys, just pool . . . nothing else,” said Dallas.
He said it like he was reciting a poem, but it sure didn’t sound like a poem. I must have looked at him funny, because he said, “That’s from The Hustler. A movie with Paul Newman. It was the one before The Color of Money.”
We mostly played cutthroat because it’s a three-player game, but pool is really better with two or four people. I won the first game on a lucky shot, but then Dallas started winning. I guess he wanted it more. To be honest, I kind of lost interest. I started trying to make the hardest shot on the table every time, bank shots and combination shots, and then even Mike started finishing ahead of me.
