The Lesson

by Welch, Virginia

  She threw her head forward, bent down from the waist, and brushed her heavy hair downward again and again, so that when she stood up straight it would look fuller. She took extra time with her eyes, applying a sultry eye shadow with a hint of sparkle, sexy and glamorous for evening wear. She rummaged around in the dark piles of the closet floor until she found her rhinestone heels, “floozy shoes” her mother called them. Gina almost never wore them anymore, because since Michael left she’d had virtually no dates, and the few she’d experienced had been forgettable, casual affairs. With four-inch heels, her rhinestone lovelies were all skinny straps and sparkles. Gina loved them. She had purchased them long ago at the St. Justin’s Thrift Shop, a secondhand store run by her parents’ parish. They made her feet look pretty and feminine, but she paired them with jeans to cut the flooze factor. Looking down at her twinkling toes, she turned one ankle to admire them. Floozy or not, they couldn’t be sinful. They’d been approved by the Pope.

  Finally, she generously sprayed Heaven Sent on her neck and the shoulders of her sweater, enjoying the soft sweetness of one of her favorite colognes. Then, uncertain if she’d sprayed enough for Rolando to smell it too, she sprayed a little more. She did, indeed, feel very glamorous.

  After a quick check in the mirror, she decided she looked good, though she wished she had rounder breasts and a daintier nose like other girls. It was during frequent times of self-examination such as this that she remembered, for the millionth time, the insult of a particularly brash Buchser boy who had said, in front of several others that, “The first thing that enters the room when Gina Jacobs comes through the door is her nose.” This wouldn’t have stung so badly had not she been so self-conscious about her minimal topside. She consoled herself with the knowledge that Michael liked her just the way she was. Besides, that Buchser boy was a jerk. She hadn’t seen him in years. No doubt he was serving time somewhere.

  At six fifty-five she was in her Austin, excited and feeling very pretty. It felt good to be out of her apartment for the evening. She felt alive again. Her good feelings were spoiled only by a niggling sense of guilt, which she pushed into the back of her mind as far as she could.

  Gina was driving happily down Homestead Road, away from the university and toward Scott Boulevard, when she heard the sound of a car horn. Honk! Honk! She looked left and right, but there was no other car beside her. Honk! Honk! Honk! The racket continued, closer and more frequent. Someone, it seemed, was frantically trying to get her attention. She wondered if her tailpipe was on fire or if she had lost a hubcap. The honking was even louder now, directly behind her car.

  She looked into her rearview mirror and saw a green VW beetle. Through its windshield she saw a slender man gesturing for her to pull over. Honk!

  Chapter Five

  Rolando’s Apartment, Scott Boulevard

  Gina studied the man briefly. She saw rose-tinted glasses. Darn!

  She turned on her right-turn signal and pulled her Austin to the curb. Kevin did the same, pulling in right behind her as she turned off her engine and got out. Before she had shut her door he was walking toward her. She saw his eyes take in her sexy sweater and clingy jeans. A smile lit up his entire face. Secretly she was pleased that he found her attractive, but she wasn’t going to let him know that.

  “Kevin Wyatt, why are you chasing me all around Santa Clara?”

  Gina stopped herself several feet away from him, farther than normal relations allow, her hands parked on her hips. Her tone was abrupt and there was anger in her eyes. He had rudely interrupted her perfect evening and spoiled her expectant mood. She no longer cared about sparing his feelings.

  Kevin’s smile disappeared. “Gina, I’m not chasing you.” He spoke in a quiet, even tone. He sounded almost penitent.

  From the look on his face, Gina could tell that her outburst had shocked him.

  “I’m not chasing you,” he repeated. “I called your apartment but the line was busy, so I decided to come over to see if you wanted to do something tonight. You were pulling away from the curb as I got there, so I tried to catch up, that’s all.”

  Gina said nothing, just stood there frustrated and fuming. She felt like she’d been caught in a trap, and she couldn’t figure a way to unstick herself.

  “So where are you going tonight?” he continued. “Movie? Dinner? Bowling? You want some company? I have the whole evening free.”

  “I have a date.”

  Now why did she say that? She didn’t really have a date—an evening she had instigated with her ex-fiancé’s former roommate was not a date. She hadn’t had a real date with a real man in six months. The words sounded cruel to her. She knew she was behaving badly but she couldn’t seem to control herself. Maybe it would better if Kevin quit thinking she was so perfect anyway.

  “Must be a pretty hot date,” he said, glancing down at her feet. “You look awfully nice.” His smile was still gone.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Yes, very hot date.” Liar. “Kevin, I have to hurry or I’ll be late.”

  He shouldn’t have been asking about her private plans for the evening, but his lack of discretion wasn’t what irked. As angry as she was at the moment, deep down Gina knew she wasn’t really angry at Kevin. She was just frustrated at her frustrations: with Michael, with dating—or lack thereof—but mostly she was frustrated with herself and her squeamishness about visiting Rolando. She squirmed inside at the thought of Kevin’s knowing exactly who she was going to spend the evening with. Kevin couldn’t possibly know about Rolando or his reputation, but all of a sudden she felt exposed, as if her secret were about to be laid bare to the world. She didn’t want to talk about it, especially to Kevin. He was so decent. His showing up made her feel guiltier than ever. She was perturbed too, because it had felt so good to be dressed up and spending the evening with a real man, and now Kevin’s uninvited presence was spoiling these good feelings, exciting feelings she hadn’t enjoyed in months.

  Gina didn’t want to give him any clues about all these internal doubts, so she abruptly said good-bye, stepped into her car, and shut the door. As she pulled from the curb she glanced into her rearview mirror. Kevin was sitting in the driver’s seat, his car engine off, not making any motion to continue down the road. For a second she was very sorry she had agreed to meet Rolando and was overcome with a panicked desire to pull back to the curb and run back to Kevin’s car to tell him she had changed her mind. But that would be awkward; she didn’t know how to pull it off. How would she explain herself? Darn it, darn it. She really would rather spend a relaxing evening telling jokes with Kevin—only as a friend, of course—than risk herself with Rolando, but Kevin would misinterpret her decision and everything would become more complicated, as if her relationships weren’t complicated enough.

  Kevin was fun but Rolando. It was hard to let go of the tempting thought of spending an evening talking to handsome, sexy Rolando and being in Michael’s apartment again. She wanted … she wanted to be near him or anything that reminded her of him, at least for tonight. She pushed the guilt down a little deeper and kept driving toward Scott Boulevard.

  #

  In less than five minutes Gina was standing in the covered foyer outside the door of Rolando’s second-floor apartment. She knocked, and when he answered a minute later, she saw that he had not changed. He was still the striking, confident Latin, eyes sparkling flirtatiously.

  “Gina baby!”

  Rolando smiled but all the pleasure was in his eyes, not his mouth. He looked her up and down shamelessly before he invited her to step in, an act that made Gina feel gorgeous but embarrassed. It wasn’t quite like he was undressing her with his eyes. It was more like he took keen pleasure in admiring a pretty woman and didn’t care if anyone knew it. It was his signature.

  It felt strange to be standing in the apartment she had visited so many times in the last two years. She scanned the rooms, half expecting to see Michael step from the hallway. The living room and kitchen were exactly as sh
e remembered: stark, just enough cast-off furniture to accommodate two graduate students; two ugly, mismatched lamps; a TV; the sparest of cooking utensils; no throw rugs; nothing on the walls−absolutely no extras or decorative touches. Like all off-campus student rentals, the walls were painted dirty white and the carpet was old. Guys’ digs were so unlike the elaborate, cutesy cluttered look of the rooms on sixth floor Swig, where she and all the girls had outdone each other trying to make their cramped abodes chic yet homey. And nothing here had changed, except that Michael’s loving smile wasn’t waiting to greet her. It was weird that the apartment looked the same as it always did yet he was not there. A wave of exquisite desire washed over her. She missed Michael profoundly.

  But at the forefront of her mind was another thought, which grew more conscious by the second: she should not be here. She slapped it back into the dark place from where it had crept. Rolando was an old friend, and she was twenty years old. She could take care of herself. She would have a nice evening of conversation, enjoy a good meal, and then go home and forget about Michael forever. She would be fine.

  “Come in, come in,” said Rolando.

  He took her hand in his, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it dramatically, like a black-and-white Valentino movie from the 1930s, his eyes flirting madly with hers the whole time. Then, without letting go of her hand, he escorted her into the kitchen. So like Rolando to make every girl feel like a princess. Lord knows, it’s been a while. She was pleased with all the male attention and played along, though she didn’t remember him being so touchy.

  Something was boiling on the stove. Steam bubbles roiled noisily from a large metal pot. Gina knew that sound and what it meant. She’d seen her mother make pasta a thousand times. She figured that’s what Rolando was preparing for dinner. The familiar fragrance of simmering tomatoes and fresh-cut oregano filled the bare little room.

  “Pasta,” he said, while holding a forkful of spaghetti over the steaming pot, “cibo dell'amore, food of love.”

  “Well,” said Gina, “from what I’ve seen, pasta is more like alimentari di grassi donne anziane—food of fat old women.”

  They laughed together, which helped her feel a little better, at least for the moment. Gina had studied Italian only her freshman year at Santa Clara, so her skills were crude at best. Her goal had been to converse with her grandmother, who spoke not a word of English. Her grandparents, Filippo and Mariana, had emigrated from the little town of Trabia near Palermo, Sicily. She loved speaking Italian with Rolando, or what little she remembered of it, though she often feared she was butchering the pronunciation. He never seemed to mind. On the contrary, every effort she made to speak Italian he found to be charming, which, of course, was just another feature that made him more charming.

  “Wine?” he asked, as he pulled open an upper cabinet door.

  Gina saw at least a dozen bottles of various sizes and colors, all imported, French and Italian. She had not had a drink in a long time, but no one drinks pasta without wine, at least not in the home Gina had grown up in. One little glass wouldn’t hurt. He poured her a glass of something pinkish. She took a sip. She didn’t know enough about wines to realize she was drinking a rosé—she wasn’t even old enough to drink legally—but she did know it was delicious, much better than the strong, dark red wines her parents drank with dinner.

  She helped set the table and prepared a simple green salad. Rolando turned on the radio to a foreign station. Gina recognized it as an Italian broadcast though she understood none of what the announcer was saying because he spoke too fast for her to translate. But when the announcements were over, gentle music came on, instrumentals mostly, romantic and lulling, a fitting backdrop to spaghetti and wine. As they finished the details for the meal, they made small talk, mostly about schoolwork and mutual friends, though she noticed that Rolando did not bring up Michael’s name even once, and she didn’t dare. When Rolando said the pasta was al dente, he drained it and they sat down to eat. But before they did so he offered her another glass of wine. She knew from experience that two was her limit, so she said a second glass would be fine. As they ate she pondered how to ask about Michael without actually asking about Michael. After some time she deduced that Rolando was not going to be forthcoming, so she decided to take a direct approach.

  “Do you hear from Michael much?” She made a point of looking at her plate and not at him while she inquired, to make the question as casual as possible.

  “Almost never. He’s very busy.”

  “What’s he up to these days?”

  “This and that. Work.”

  Rolando pronounced “this and that” like “thees” and “thot.” His charm was bottomless, enhanced by his thick dark lashes and well-built torso. He wore a navy blue polo shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, paired with khaki trousers and expensive brown leather loafers. His shirt was neatly tucked in around his firm waist, which only enhanced his manly shoulders. His look was so collegiate, so casually elegant, so like the look of money that came naturally to many Santa Clara guys. Rolando may not be living large now, but he clearly came from a family of means.

  About this time Gina became aware that she was feeling the wine. She castigated herself for dwelling on some guy’s muscular torso when she should be behaving herself. Well there’s no harm in looking. I have eyes in my head. I can’t help seeing what’s right in front of me. Everything about him was adorable, even if he was a bit of a rake. She reminded herself not to get carried away. It’s the wine, she told herself, but she was still clear headed enough to get what she came for. She wanted to know more about Michael.

  “Does he like his work?”

  “Sì. He likes it.”

  Rolando, who normally loved to talk, especially to girls, inexplicably had no news about Michael, or at least nothing he wanted to share. She was frustrated at his sparse response, but she didn’t want to be the one asking all the questions, especially when it came to Michael, so she decided to stop asking altogether. She didn’t want to be obvious.

  For a while they ate in awkward silence, other than the droning in the background of some Latin lover, singing a long, sad, stupid song accompanied by a mandolin. The music started to bother her. The radio seemed loud now, and it only accentuated the fact that the conversation had stalled. And the spaghetti, her favorite dish, was not as good as she hoped. It was slightly undercooked and her mother’s sauce was better. She glanced across the table to see that Rolando had stopped eating and was staring at her intently, or, more particularly, it appeared he was staring at her chest.

  Could she have misinterpreted? Don’t be ridiculous. Even with the pink sweater she didn’t have enough on top to attract a guy’s attention.

  Suddenly she felt keenly uncomfortable and was sorry she had come. Something was wrong, no, everything was wrong, but she couldn’t figure out what was out of place. She wasn’t having fun like she thought she would, and conversation wasn’t flowing with Rolando in the smooth way it used to when Michael was there. Rolando seemed intent, not as casual and easy as she remembered him. She wanted to leave, but polite guests didn’t just eat and leave. She made up her mind that she would stay a respectable period after the meal and then get away as soon as possible.

  When they were finished eating, Rolando announced that he was happy to do the dishes later, and shouldn’t they move to the living room for a little TV? That sounded good to Gina. It would relieve her of the burden of conversation. She would stay, she decided, only for the duration of a half-hour sitcom and then make an early exit. Then he offered her another glass of wine. She declined. Already she was feeling the all-too-familiar and delightful sense of being dangerously relaxed. He urged her again to have another glass, and again she said no, she had had enough.

  They left their dishes on the kitchen table and moved to the living room where Rolando turned on the TV. As they took their places, Gina was dismayed to remember that the couch, which was as old as her parents and just as firm, offered all the suppo
rt of a marshmallow. Anyone who dared to sit on it instantly rolled downward toward the sunken center and was left, drowning, to flail and clamber his or her way out because their bottoms were so low to the floor. At one time with a very special law student the sinking couch had been fun, but now she felt only embarrassment as she found herself uncomfortably rolling toward the center, Rolando practically on top of her. She scooted herself to the edge of the couch, gripped the arm rest, and pushed her feet solidly to the floor to keep from sliding to the center. Rigid and uncomfortable, she looked forward to the moment when she could thank Rolando for dinner and make an exit. She paid no attention to the TV.

  Her death grip on the armrest and leg-numbing pushing against the floor should have left her wakeful. Perhaps it was the wine, but sometime after she had determined to endure a thirty-minute sitcom, she fell asleep. She woke drowsily to find that she had slid to the center of the couch. Her first wakeful thought was that Rolando was very near.

  The proximity of his hips to hers was discomfiting to Gina, who was poised to discreetly scoot back to the safety of her bunker at the end of the couch. But the sensual moment that made her feel uncomfortable made Rolando come alive. Without warning he turned his body toward hers and was on top of her, pressing his mouth on hers, running his hands down her body toward her hips. She was in such shock that all she could do was react, pushing and shoving and trying to free herself. She was overwhelmed with the sensation of his bulk pressing down on her body.

  “Stop it!” she said, trying to break away. “Stop it I said!”

  He held her down briefly, his eyes fixed on hers. From what she saw Gina knew, in one terrorizing moment, that he got some twisted pleasure from dominating her. After a few seconds of intentional delay, he let her go, pushing her in disgust.