Aefle & Giesla

by Libby Malin

  She put her arm through his, and they walked.

  “Just pretty?” he managed to squeak out, not looking at her. “That’s all you can say about one of the greatest pieces of Western music -- pretty?”

  She walked faster. “Okay. More than pretty. Bee-you-tee-ful. Did I pass, Doctor Charlemagne?”

  “This wasn’t a test, you know.” Why couldn’t she just let it go -- the defensiveness, the wariness. Did everything have to be a class struggle? “I just wanted to share something beautiful with you,” he said through gritted teeth. “I thought once you were exposed to it, you’d like it.”

  “Once I was exposed to it? Yeah, back there in Oyster Point, the only opry we know is what comes from Nashville. Hell, Tom. I’m not a caveman. I knew of this opera. I even knew who wrote it, and I’m fond of the big aria, Un Bel Di. I liked it. I really liked it,” she responded. “But, God have mercy, I didn’t need all that schooling you were pouring on. Sheesh, it was embarrassing. People around us must have thought I just fell off the turnip truck the way you were going on. You made me feel stupid. And then I got to wondering if you thought this was going to open up new worlds or something. Like my world’s not good enough.”

  He had thought that -- maybe just a little.

  “I thought,” he responded at length, “that maybe you’d find it as moving as I did. I wanted to share that. That’s all.”

  They found the car and he held the door for her. During the silent ride to her hotel, he thought about what he’d wanted her to feel. She’d sarcastically said it had changed her life. That had stung. It had changed Tom’s life in a way.

  As an academic overachiever in Oyster Point, he’d been lonely, with only a few teachers taking time to cultivate his interests and a father who was working double shifts sometimes to provide for him and Megan. Smart kids didn’t get a lot of attention in his school. If they did, it was usually in the form of extra work, which some teachers seemed to think was the best approach to gifted students. One of the better teachers, though, had been Mrs. Swanson, who’d taken the time to talk to him, to try to move his grasp of knowledge to an understanding of it. Mrs. Swanson had given him two tickets to a touring opera company performing at nearby St. Mary’s College. He hadn’t known a thing about opera and he’d almost not gone, until he was able to convince Megan, who could drive, to take him.

  The opera had been Butterfly and it had changed his life. It had opened his eyes to a world of complex beauty. It had lifted him out of the mundane. It had made him realize that there were people like him, people who were intellectually gifted and used those talents to create beautiful things. Or, looking around the audience, there were people who appreciated beautiful things, things that lifted the spirit out of itself, beyond the ordinary. It had made him feel less alone.

  He’d practiced harder at the piano after that, thinking perhaps he’d become a composer like Puccini. Even when he gave up that dream, he never forgot that night when he realized that somewhere beyond Oyster Point, there were people who valued higher learning, higher art.

  So, yes, he’d been hoping that the opera might have the same effect on DeeDee, raising her out of the pettiness of Oyster Point, giving her a window on his own world. It had been something of an invitation, and he felt rebuffed that she’d not responded to it in the way he’d hoped she would.

  All right, then explain that to her, he told himself. And he tried in a bumbling way, as he drove, to tell her of the first time he’d gone to see Butterfly and what it had meant.

  “I’m sorry I made fun of you.” Her words were a sweet whisper, erasing the hurt that had cut him. Maybe next time they could go to a concert together, and he’d drop the “schooling” and she’d drop the chip on her shoulder.

  She lapsed into silence until they were near the harbor and her hotel.

  Then, in a soft voice, she said, “You know why you were picked on back then, Tommy?” She used the name so affectionately that, although it surprised him to hear it, it didn’t bother him. “It wasn’t because you were brainy or special, honey.”

  “Honey” was even better, taking him back to their brief affair.

  “It was because you always gave the impression you really liked being different. You really liked being smarter. It was like… like a jock who’s always flexing his muscles or strutting his stuff. You made people feel like you thought you were better than everybody else. It was like… you painted a target on yourself. And then you acted all shocked when you found darts there. You’re older and wiser now. You get it.”

  He knew she meant this as a consolation, but it only frustrated him.

  “But I didn’t feel that way! I didn’t think I was better than everybody else!”

  “Then why didn’t you join things? Why didn’t you help pick the music for the fall dance, things like that? I remember asking you to get involved in that our senior year.”

  “Music for the fall dance? I didn’t like that music!” That was when he’d discovered opera.

  “Tom, did you really not like it? Or you didn’t want to like it because it would mean you were no better than the rest of us?”

  His lips pursed, he felt his face redden. This evening had been a disappointment, to say the least. He’d wanted consolation, comfort, warmth. He’d looked forward to being with her, and now she’d ruined it with her… her what?

  He pulled up to the lobby drive and turned to her. Her eyes shone with the warmth he’d craved. She dragged her fingers along his cheek in sympathy. “I like you, Tom, whether you like opera or not,” she said. She leaned over the console and kissed him, her perfume making his irritation evaporate.

  As he watched her enter the hotel, he realized what she’d ruined the evening with. She’d ruined it with her truth.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THREE CRISES confronted Thomas when he awoke Saturday morning.

  First, Megan phoned to tell him she’d had an early call from Gentle Seas. Winny Bewley Rockingham, the administrator, had given their dad a “first warning.” If he didn’t control his temper, he was going to be kicked out within the month.

  “I’m going to sue her!” Megan fumed. “I know this is related to the suit against you. She’s doing her brother’s bidding.”

  “What did Dad do?” Tom asked, running a hand over his bristly jaw and yawning.

  “He knocked a medicine tray out of an aide’s hands, that’s all.”

  “That’s kind of big,” Tom said, imagining the scene.

  “If you ask me, he had good reason to throw the meds away. I think they’re pushing drugs in him to keep him docile. I have a call into his doctor about it. The last few times I talked to Dad, he sounded drowsy and out of it, not like himself. When’d you talk to him last?”

  Tom was ashamed to admit he’d not spoken with his father since he’d left Oyster Point the week before.

  “I think we need to get him out of there,” Megan continued. “But I don’t know what to do with him. Can you look into places here in Baltimore?”

  “He’d never agree to that.”

  “He’d like it better than living on the street.”

  “All right. But I’m really busy now.”

  “That reminds me -- I think you’re getting a little too close to DeeDee right now. If you want to restart something with her, wait until this suit is over. Stay away from her for the time being, okay? I’m trying to prove she didn’t leave the wedding for you personally. And that little stunt you pulled with the paper-ripping? That was just dumb, Tom. That was a great offer, and she might have considered it if you hadn’t decided to choose that moment to play hero.”

  “Play” hero? As if he was incapable of really being one?

  Before she hung up, Megan suggested they’d both need to make a trip to Oyster Point soon to evaluate their father in person.

  After getting off the phone with his sister, Tom made coffee and checked his email. There, good news was followed by bad and unsettling news.

  The good n
ews -- a St. Mary’s professor was happy to provide a letter of support for Thomas’s tenure process. He wrote warmly of Tom’s work, admitting to following his Aefle research avidly. “So often, I find the ‘big picture’ of history is found in these smaller stories, the macro is informed by the micro, so to speak. I’d be honored to write my thoughts in support of your tenure application and will do so within the week. I noticed from your biography that you hail from these parts. Feel free to drop in on me any time you’re in the area.”

  That relief was followed in short order by worry when Tom opened an email from Beewater with no message but a link to the student newspaper. The intrepid “reportress” had written her story about Tom’s hijinks in record time, and the paper’s last edition of the academic year, just released online and soon to follow in print, included it.

  With growing unease, Tom read the article, noting that the reporter’s “Oyster Point source who prefers to remain anonymous” could only have been Buck or his lawyer. She knew too many insider details for it to be anyone else. She even included a reference to his schooldays nickname, Timid Tommy. He couldn’t escape it! Was no place sacred?

  Cursing, he went on to an email from Gloria. Gloria had misplaced her invitation to Beewater’s spring interdepartmental soirée, an exclusive party at his home. Did Tom know the time it started? She didn’t want to ask Beewater. That, Tom could understand. She was likely to get a scolding from him on paying attention to his missives, and a lecture on how important it was to retain the written copies of correspondence -- his invites were always professionally printed -- as artifacts of history.

  But what bothered Tom was that he’d not received an invitation at all. He would have remembered it. He’d actually been waiting for it. He would have circled the date in red on his calendar. One didn’t miss Beewater’s parties. Not if one was seeking tenure in his department.

  It was possible, of course, that Beewater or his secretary had simply mistakenly left his name off the list. But it was just as possible that Tom had been deliberately excluded, a preamble to the more devastating exclusion of not winning tenure.

  Things were worse than he’d originally thought. Why on earth had Tom trusted the man to be fair? He was a pompous windbag who enjoyed campus gossip, sometimes providing its fuel.

  He wrote back to Gloria, confessing to losing his invite as well and asking her to give him the info when she got it.

  By the time he’d finished his morning coffee, she’d responded. She’d already procured the info from a colleague. The party was that evening at seven!

  He’d hoped to take DeeDee out again. Now he’d have to go to a stuffy academic get-together just to show Beewater he was still in the game.

  After he washed and shaved, he called DeeDee. Her sleepy voice warmed him, making him want to see her and play, no matter how many worries confronted him. He couldn’t stop himself from telling her of his troubles with his father, the article, and the party.

  And to his surprise, she made him feel better on all counts.

  “First, Buck’s sister is a first-class jackass nobody in town likes,” she said, after hearing of his father’s travails. “But you better get your dad checked out because I’ve heard of more than one family complaining of overmedicating at Gentle Seas.

  “Second, don’t worry about that stupid newspaper. Did you ever read the Oyster Point High Bugle? No, I didn’t think so. Nobody really reads them, trust me. The students will be using it to clean up their party upchucks, and the faculty probably don’t give a shit.”

  He smiled at her language. She was mostly right, though. The campus was virtually empty now, before graduation and the summer session began.

  “As to your faculty thing, hey -- it could be fun. Let’s go together.”

  At first he cringed. When he’d mentioned the party to her, he’d not intended it as an invitation to a date. How could he wiggle out of that without making her feel bad? He could just imagine how Beewater and crew would take to straight-talking DeeDee. Yes, he’d looked forward to showing her off at some point, but only after he’d had a chance to, well, prepare her.

  “You’ve said they’re kind of stuffed shirts, right?” DeeDee continued, her voice filled with mischief. “Well, let’s unstuff them!”

  Now his smile broadened into a full-fledged grin. Forget “preparing” her. He wanted to introduce DeeDee as she was to his colleagues. He wanted to rub her in their faces.

  ***

  He did follow Megan's advice far enough to stay away from DeeDee for the day, though. She preferred to rest and shop, and he delved back into his little monk’s life, a source of ongoing comfort and excitement.

  His excitement grew, in fact, as he discovered poem after poem that Aefle had written to Gisela, verses it was unlikely she would even have been able to read. Had he read them aloud to her? When had they stolen moments to be together?

  They were short verses, all in Latin, nothing grandiloquent, in keeping with the times.

  Fair Gisela

  Whose blue eyes

  Deepen my love of the ocean

  Whose golden hair

  Puts gold to shame.

  On fire with the urge to share his latest discoveries, he spent both morning and afternoon absorbed in translations and in writing up what he’d found. The sooner he could reveal his work to the university, the better off he’d be. They’d never be able to deny him tenure. And, if they did, he’d be snatched up by another institution in a flash.

  That last thought brought him an unexpected twinge. Moving to a Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Cornell would certainly be a coup, and, oh, how he’d enjoy saying farewell to Beewater and his minions in such a case. But it would mean being even further away from DeeDee. Not only in miles, but in lifestyles, outlooks, goals. This saddened him, but he didn’t have long to analyze his discomfort. It was getting late.

  He stood and stretched, staring at the clock in the kitchen. It took a minute for the time to register. DeeDee would be arriving in a half hour!

  In a rush, he tidied the apartment as best he could, putting fresh water in the vases with flowers, straightening papers, washing the few dishes he’d used. Then he double-stepped it into the bathroom to wash, deciding to forgo a second shave so that he could sport a rugged five o’clock shadow. As he readied for DeeDee’s arrival, he wondered if he’d done the right thing letting her talk him into taking her. Maybe he shouldn’t be so cavalier with his tenure quest. “Fitting in” was part of it. Just because Beewater was a jackass didn’t mean he should be one, too.

  He gave his head a quick shake. That was the wrong way to consider this -- taking DeeDee to the party didn’t need to be a prank. He liked her. And part of liking her meant he should not be ashamed of her, regardless how she acted. He cringed thinking of the possibilities.

  No matter. He would man up and proudly escort her. His recent research -- that was his ace in the hole. The university would be embarrassed not to keep a scholar uncovering the Aefle story. Regardless of Tom’s personal life, Beewater would have to bend before the power of groundbreaking intellectual endeavor.

  Tom finished washing and stared at his meager wardrobe. It was a casual affair, but he knew from experience that Beewater sneered at the disheveled look of many of his colleagues. Well, at least at his parties. He cared less what they wore into the classroom, but when they stepped over his threshold, they better be wearing a decent shirt and trousers, if not a sport coat.

  The problem was that Tom’s sartorial selection was limited -- he hated shopping -- and what he owned that was appropriate needed a wash. He pulled out a crisp white shirt and was halfway finished buttoning it when his door buzzed.

  Tucking his shirt into his jeans, he hurried to answer it. When he opened the door, one word exploded in his mind:

  Va-va-va-voom.

  DeeDee wore a tight red dress that accentuated every curve on her body, its plunging neckline complemented by a short skirt. Her neck was adorned with a gold lavaliere neckl
ace that danced around her full cleavage, and her hair was swooped up in a mass of texture with seductive tendrils dangling around her perfectly made-up face and large hoop earrings. Her feet nestled in six-inch platform sandals.

  “Ta-da!” she said as his eyes popped out of his head viewing her. “I thought if we were going to have fun, we might as well give them something to talk about.”

  “Wow,” he murmured, ushering her in. “I’m… impressed.” He swallowed hard.

  “Found it this morning in some store downtown. I already owned the shoes and jewelry,” she said, twirling the necklace. “Although I hardly ever wear them.” She paused. “I guess I just thought...something would come up this weekend that I'd want them for.”

  “I… I feel underdressed.”

  She stepped back and scrutinized him. “Nonsense. You’re perfect.” She tugged at his shirt, pulling one part of the hem out. “There. That makes you look like the absent-minded professor. Might as well play the part, huh?” She also reached up and tousled his hair, her touch sending electric shocks down to his toes.

  “Do you have a jacket? Sorry I forgot to bring your sport coat back with me,” she said striding past him to look for herself in his bedroom. He followed and found her pulling a short-tailed tuxedo from his closet. “Here, wear this.” She took the jacket alone off the hanger and handed it to him. “It’s a great look.”

  He did as she instructed, feeling like a rebel. “Maybe I should take cigarettes with me,” he joked.

  She snorted. “You’d probably start coughing. I thought of chewing gum, but felt it was too obvious.”

  He laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “We should get going,” he said, grabbing his keys and wallet from a table, nervous and excited.

  “I’ll drive. That way, you can drink. You might want to, after what you’ve told me about your coworkers.” She led the way out of the apartment. As they rounded the corner toward the elevator, she said over her shoulder, “You know, I googled the opera and Puccini last night, Tom. Found some really interesting stuff.”