Extracurricular Activities

by Maggie Barbieri

  I let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Oh, Ray. You can do much better than that.”

  He drank the rest of his tea and got up from the table, turning to leave. “I told you that you’d never believe me.” He put his hand on the doorknob and, seeing that I had nothing else to say, quietly let himself out.

  Chapter 2

  Father Kevin McManus called me later that week to invite me to dinner and I jumped at the invitation. My social life had come to an abrupt halt after my divorce from Ray and then the hiatus of my more recent romance with the sexy, yet married, cop named Crawford. A night out with a friend was just what I needed, even if he was celibate and really into God. School was well under way and I was happy to be back into my old routine.

  I hadn’t seen too much of my nymphomaniac best friend, Max; she was involved in her relationship with a police detective that took up most of her time and made good use of her nympho skills. And Kevin, well, I guess he was busy saving souls or turning water into wine, but I hadn’t seen him in weeks, either.

  So I had thrown myself into preparing for a new year of school. I had minds to shape, theory to espouse, syllabi to collect from mummified nuns…heck, a paycheck to cash. Let’s face it, the minds I was shaping weren’t all that interested in theory I was espousing, but I always faced a new semester with high hopes.

  I straightened up my office, waiting for Kevin to arrive. A knock at the door interrupted my weak attempt at filing, which consisted of a file that was called “miscellaneous” and housed everything from syllabi to standardized tests. I reached over from my position in front of the filing cabinet and opened the door.

  Ray stuck his head in. “Hi. Can I come in?”

  If you must, I thought. I looked at my watch and saw that I had fifteen minutes until Kevin arrived, plenty of time for Ray to ruin my good mood. I hoped we weren’t going to walk down memory lane again. “Sure.”

  Ray took a seat across from my desk, folding his hands in his lap. “I called your friend Detective Crawford.”

  “Good. Did he help you?”

  “He asked me to come down to the station to make a formal statement but I haven’t had a chance.”

  Ray had been in the precinct for questioning earlier in the year and I was sure he was in no rush to go back.

  “I need to talk to you about a student, Alison.”

  I sat down at my desk. “Who and what is the problem?” I knew if Ray was coming by, there was a problem and that the student must be his advisee. Great. A biology student with an English literature problem. Professors usually don’t get involved in each other’s business unless some student has come whining to us about unfair treatment, what they perceive as too-tight deadlines, or a grade about which they disagree.

  “Julie Anne Podowsky.” He looked out the window of my office, a floor-to-ceiling affair that afforded a great view of the cemetery at the top of the stairs that led to the building. He looked back at me. “She’s my advisee and she told me that she’s having trouble in your Modern Lit class.”

  She was right about that. “She’s handed in one paper late and gotten a D on the latest quiz.”

  He squirmed in his chair. What was that about? I wondered. “See, here’s the thing. She’s taking the MCAT soon and she’s trying to get into a good medical school, so she needs her grades to be tops,” he said. “Preferably As.”

  “Well, then she should study harder and get her work in on time,” I said. What the hell was he thinking? I didn’t want to presume that he was asking me to give her a pass, but it seemed like he was heading in that direction. Given what I knew about Ray the philanderer, it made sense, but given what I knew about Ray the professor, it didn’t jibe.

  Unless…so there it was. Yep, I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes. But the thought entered my mind and stayed there. I had hoped that Ray had enough sense not to get involved with a student again, but apparently I was wrong. I looked at him. “You should leave. Now.”

  People who have been married have a sort of telepathy and now we were communicating without saying too much. “She’s twenty-one,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.” I stood. “Let’s forget that we had this conversation, Ray. And tell Ms. Podowsky that I wouldn’t want a doctor practicing medicine on me who thinks that Robert Frost was the author of Chicken Little.”

  He decided that that didn’t need or deserve a response and he huffed out of my office. Talk about a man who let his johnson do his thinking for him. I shook my head in silent wonder at his lack of judgment.

  Kevin showed up at my office a few minutes later and looking at his outfit alone lifted my mood. He was in his “casual” outfit—shorts, a LIFE IS GOOD T-shirt, and sandals. Kevin liked being a priest but hated the uniform; if he didn’t have to wear his Roman collar, he didn’t. Most of the time, he coordinated a pair of jeans to the black shirt/white collar ensemble; other times, he wore black pants and a regular shirt. Tonight, he had gone completely over the top and looked like a middle-aged surfer as opposed to a man of the cloth.

  Whenever Kevin and I ate out, we either went to Maloney’s for wings—a local campus hang-out—or to the River Edge Steak House when we needed more sustenance. We headed out the back door of the Administration Building and up the concrete steps to the parking lot. After deciding that walking would be in both of our best interests given the amount of time we spend behind our desks and what we planned to consume, we headed down the avenue and arrived at the Steak House about ten minutes later.

  We sat down in the cool comfort of the dark-paneled room, and ordered drinks; me, my usual Ketel One martini (with extra olives…it’s a drink, and an hors d’oeuvre, my favorite kind of beverage), and Kevin, a glass of chardonnay.

  After taking a sip of my drink and feeling white heat travel down my esophagus and into my stomach, I started to relax. Just being away from school and out for the evening, even if my date was a priest, was a vast improvement over what I had originally planned, which was laundry followed by more laundry.

  The waitress appeared at the table and took our order. Kevin and I both ordered the Steak House’s famous giant sirloins with baked potatoes and asparagus on the side. I held up my almost empty martini glass and waved it toward the waitress. “And I’ll take another one of these, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Kevin asked me how things had been going.

  “Eh. Boring.”

  He gave me a pitying look.

  I laughed and polished off my drink. “That about sums it up.”

  “No word from Crawford?”

  “Not a one.”

  Kevin gazed out the window. “Why do you think that is?”

  I laughed ruefully. “I asked for time. He’s pretty literal.”

  “That doesn’t remind me of anybody I know,” Kevin said, rolling his eyes. He ran a hand through his shaggy blond mop of hair, a blatant time killer.

  “Cut to the chase, Kevin.”

  He waited another beat or two. “Do you think it’s time to move on?” he asked quietly.

  The waitress put salads in front of us, delaying my answer. I dove into the pile of iceberg lettuce and Russian dressing with more enthusiasm and fervor than the wilted plate of greens deserved. I pointed to my full mouth with my fork.

  “I’ll wait for your answer,” he said. “I’ve sat in darkened confessionals in silence for hours. Your iceberg-filled mouth isn’t very daunting. Trust me.”

  I chewed and thought about his question. Was it time to move on? I didn’t know. I did know that I missed Crawford terribly and hoped I would hear from him. I wished I was more twenty-first century and could pick up the phone and call him myself, but I always hesitated; I don’t know why. “I don’t know, Kevin. Do you think I should move on?”

  He turned pensive. “I do. And I want to bring something up about that and now is as good a time as ever.”

  I waited.

  “I have a brother…”

  I put
my hand up. “No!”

  “…and he’s single.”

  I shook my head.

  “He’s not married. Or separated and married. Or not separated. He’s completely available. His name is Jack and he works for the Rangers. You know, the hockey team?” he asked, knowing full well that I knew who the Rangers were. I was intimately acquainted with many of the New York Rangers, if only in my sweat-soaked sexual fantasies. Besides that, I liked hockey. A lot. Kevin took a sip of his drink and waited for my response.

  I had nothing to say. I would rather have a root canal without anesthesia than go on a blind date, but I kept that tidbit to myself.

  “You haven’t really done a lot of dating since your divorce.”

  Fortunately for me, his cell phone trilled, preventing me from having to strangle him on the spot. He pulled the phone from his cargo shorts, peering at the caller ID. “The convent,” he said. He clicked the phone on. “Hello?”

  I continued eating my salad, listening to his end of the conversation. He hung up a few seconds later. “Sister Bertrand needs last rites,” he said.

  I knew Sister Bertrand from my days as a student at St. Thomas; she was the Latin professor and a formidable conjugation adversary. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I was bilingual, having been raised in a French-speaking household, and I could sometimes figure things out without killing too many brain cells. Of course that was before I had discovered the joys of ice-cold vodka and olives. “Oh, Kevin. I’m sorry.”

  “Leukemia,” he said. “Hospice brought her back to the convent to die, and it looks like it will be tonight. I’m sorry,” he said, getting up. “If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind having them wrap my dinner? You can leave it at the desk in my building.” Kevin lived on the top floor of the men’s dormitory on campus; my car was parked in front of the building, as always, so he knew that I would be returning to that area within the evening.

  “Of course.” I stood and embraced him. “I’ll say a prayer for Sister.” I watched him leave before sitting back down and returning to my salad. The waitress delivered my second martini. I looked out the window at the traffic outside, people walking past the restaurant looking as wilted as my salad, baking in the unseasonably warm weather as they made their way home from the express buses stopping at the corner. I raised my drink to my lips and focused on the opening to the main dining room. I froze.

  Crawford, his wife, and his two daughters entered, smiling and chatting with each other, joking with the hostess as they made their way to a table that was thankfully as far away from mine as you could get. A waitress glided past me, a stack of menus in her arm.

  I grabbed her. “Hey, could I have one of those?” I asked.

  She stopped at my table. “Do you want to change your order?”

  No, I want to crawl in a hole and die, I thought, but a menu in front of my face is the next best thing. “Um, I just want to look at the dessert menu.” She handed me a menu. “And my friend had to leave. Emergency. Could you wrap up our dinners to go?”

  She looked at me as if my medication had worn off and I wasn’t making any sense. “Sure.”

  I held the menu up in front of my face and pretended to read it, peeking out over the top every now and again to make sure that the Crawford family was ensconced at their table and not making any sudden moves. Thankfully, Crawford’s back was to me, as was his wife’s; his daughters faced me, but I felt like I was far enough away that they wouldn’t recognize me if I had to suddenly give up the menu. They had only seen me once during what was now known in my mind as the “great hospital debacle,” an event that occurred when I had stopped in to visit Crawford while he was recuperating from a stabbing incident. While there, I introduced myself to his wife—a wife I didn’t know he had. I hoped neither one had inherited their father’s gift for observation.

  I continued reading the menu and arrived at “chicken breast marinated in our own combination of ginger, soy sauce, and garlic” when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and focused on the crotch of a very tall man. Crawford.

  “I can see you,” he said.

  “This is an extremely interesting menu,” I said. When he didn’t respond, I offered a stupid-sounding chuckle. I looked over at his table, where his family was all turned in their chairs, staring at me. His wife gave me a tentative wave, which I returned. “Who saw me first?”

  “Meaghan,” he said. “She spotted you, even behind the menu. She recognized you as the woman she saw at the hospital.”

  So one of them had gotten the observation gene. I threw my head in the direction of their table. “You don’t seem too separated,” I said, alluding to his wife. I regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “Christine is going away tomorrow morning on an overnight and asked me if I would take the girls for the whole weekend. She offered to drop them off and I offered to take everyone to dinner. Nothing has changed.”

  I snorted. “Great.” If nothing had changed, it meant that they were still separated. However, it also meant that they were probably still legally married, which, for me, was the deal breaker.

  He shifted uncomfortably from one giant foot to the other. “I’ve been meaning to give you a call. I wanted to see you.”

  “Well, here I am!” I said and threw my hands up, knocking my drink over. Icy vodka flew up in the air, almost in slow motion, and settled right into Crawford’s crotch. With his entire family watching this scenario, I resisted the urge to press my napkin into his zipper and, instead, watched as his face went from almost contrite to a mask of consternation.

  He looked down at his pants, the moisture spreading into the shape of Italy. He gave me a slight smile. “Maybe we could try this again at a later date?”

  “Yeah. I could do without the Greek chorus,” I said, shooting a glance at the three women at the front of the restaurant who were fixated on our conversation. “Please tell them that my usual greeting doesn’t consist of flying martinis.”

  He smirked. “Well, the first time we met, you vomited on me, so this is a vast improvement.”

  That didn’t deserve a response so I was grateful when my cell phone rang. “I have to take this,” I said, before looking down and seeing that I really didn’t have to take it: it was my ex-husband. No phone call from him could result in anything good. Crawford stood over me for a few more seconds, and when it was clear that we had nothing else to say to each other, he drifted off, looking over his shoulder with a doleful expression on his face.

  I flipped open my phone. “Hi, Ray.”

  “Alison…” He trailed off.

  “Ray?” I said.

  “Alison. I really want to talk to you about the situation with Julie Anne again.” The connection clicked in and out as if he were in a bad cell area. I heard him say my name and then what sounded like “can you hell” but the line was dead. I scrolled through the contacts menu on the phone and hit send when I came to Ray’s name.

  The waitress came by again. “We have a no-cell-phone policy,” she said.

  Of course you do, I thought. You should also have a no-home-perm policy, too, but of course then you wouldn’t be able to work here. I got up and went outside through the back entrance so I wouldn’t have to see la famille Crawford again. The phone rang in my ear and, after five or six rings, went to Ray’s voice mail. “Ray, call me back.” I walked to the front of the restaurant and caught a glimpse of Crawford and his family inside.

  I stood for a moment on the street corner watching the bustling activity on the avenue. After a few moments of thought, I made another call. The message was short and to the point, and the decision, I hoped, not one that I would live to regret.

  “Hi, Kevin? Yes, tell your brother I’d love to meet him.”

  I dropped Kevin’s dinner off at the dorm where he lived. On my short drive home, I thought about running into Crawford, a situation that could not have been more awkward. I wish I had been able
to keep my cool, but something about seeing him with his daughters and his wife made me lose whatever modicum of composure I actually had. And from what I had heard about his wife from the little he told me and from the details that his detective partner, Fred—who as luck would have it was also engaged to Max—had filled in, she was a veritable Mother Teresa, lovely and kind and devoted to her daughters. Crawford had said that they would be getting divorced, but when? It was not something that I felt we could delve into at the Steak House in any meaningful way.

  I thought about my impulsive decision to green-light a date with Kevin’s brother. A minor twinge of guilt gnawed at my insides; I was really crazy about Crawford, probably more than I ever had been about my ex-husband, but what was I supposed to do? How long was I supposed to wait while he figured out his personal life? Denial is a powerful thing, however; by the time I had reached my exit off the Saw Mill River Parkway, I had completely justified going out with Jack McManus and felt much better about things. I hadn’t paid too much attention to what Kevin had told me about his four brothers, but I seemed to remember that one brother was a little too into Madonna and liked to “vogue” at family parties. He also had another brother who was really into Star Wars, and had an adult-sized Chewbacca costume that he donned every Halloween. I prayed that neither of them were named Jack.

  I pulled into my driveway and gave a nod to Trixie, who looked at me as she always did, tongue hanging out to one side, her black lips pulled back into what seemed like a huge smile. It was nice, after having adjusted to living alone, to have someone or something greet me every evening.

  Darkness had settled over everything in the backyard and I carefully picked my way around lawn furniture and trash cans to get to the back door. Damn that nonexistent motion-detecting light. At least there was no ex-husband lounging on my patio furniture. I managed to insert my key into the back door and get into the kitchen without much of a problem and my eyes began to adjust to the blackness of the house. I flicked on the kitchen light and dropped my bag onto the table. It was in that instant of doing the familiar, the normal, the rote, that I noticed that I wasn’t alone.