by Meli Raine
I think it’s even worse when you’re the object of the unwanted affection.
Eric’s look of anticipation makes my stomach flip, and not in a good way. He walks up the small set of stairs to the main doors. I cut left, and he follows.
“This is the dean’s wing, Carrie. Are you working...” His voice fades out and his eyes grow wide. “Aye, no. He didn’t.”
I stop. Acid runs through me, quick and edgy, making my blood boil and bubble. I feel my face flush. My knee feels like pins are pricking it.
“He what?”
“Are you the new program coordinator in the dean’s office?” Eric whispers. His face spreads with ten different emotions in ten seconds. I react with a cold shutdown of every emotion I can.
I succeed, but barely. Watching him, I pretend this is a field study. I’m just observing him. A watcher doesn’t react. A watcher just sees.
“It’s Dean Landau now, you know,” Eric says in a tight voice. He pulls the cuffs of his shirt down to poke out from under his jacket. Hs eyes have changed. Closed off. Gone dark. He won’t catch my eye.
Uh-oh.
“I heard yesterday. I didn’t know until then,” I tell Eric.
He doesn’t seem to know what to do with that information, his mouth opening and closing three times before he snaps it shut, like a trap door.
And then emotion flickers in his eyes. “Good luck, Carrie,” he says, turning to a small stairwell that leads up, I know, to the Latin American Studies department’s offices.
That emotion. I know it well.
It’s pity.
You see pity in enough eyes and you come to detect it before your mind knows.
Shake it off, I tell myself. Great. Now I’m using pop music to guide my inner emotional state.
It could be worse.
As he walks up the stairs I search the hallway for a women’s room. Aha! There it is. I remember now. There’s one on every floor, to the right of the stairwell.
I go in, pushing the heavy, windowless oak door. A radiator hisses. In August? I chuckle. Good old Yates. Dad always told me Facilities was the department that received the least funding and the most responsibility. The job never ended, which was good for him. He got plenty of work. I frown at the memory.
Fat lot of good it did him.
One look in the mirror and I groan. My hair is a tangled mess with grass in it. My knee looks like I got checked in roller derby by someone named Hellbrawna Knockyersocksoff. A smudge of dirt rims my right eye socket, like a football player wearing under-eye grease.
And my skirt makes me look like a whore. One more inch and not only would people see my panties, they’d be able to tell whether I waxed down there.
No time to head home. I check my phone. Hell. I’m late already! With the handful of things in my purse that might help, I scramble to look presentable, washing off the dirt, blotting the worst of the blood up and ignoring the run on my pantyhose.
On ever-wobbly ankles, I make my way to the dean’s office. With a trembling hand I open the outer door and walk up to an empty reception desk.
Mine. That’s where I will soon sit.
And then a woman stands from behind the counter and her eyes meet mine.
Definitely not filled with pity.
Chapter Ten
“No way,” Claudia Landau hisses as our eyes meet. In high school we called her The Claw, and if looks could kill, I’d be dead nine times over right now.
Her fingers fist in her hand, the bright-red nails curling in so hard her nickname rings in my ears. I’ve shed enough blood today. Don’t need any more, especially at her hands.
“You got the job? You?” She snorts and unfurls her hand. Fingers reach up and she tucks a long strand of onyx hair behind one perfect ear. Claudia is beautiful. Stunning. Model perfect, with flawless porcelain skin. Wide chocolate-brown eyes, broad, high cheekbones. Full lips.
And a personality as ugly as the outside is gorgeous.
“Carrie Myerson,” she says, circling me like I’m a piece of meat. Her eyes take in my skinned knee, my messy hair, and suddenly my stomach goes cold. All the promises I made myself seconds ago fade.
It won’t be okay. Nothing will be okay here. Professor—no, Dean Landau will be hard enough to work for.
I’d forgotten about Claudia.
“You look like a piece of shit that’s been dragged around attached to the ass hair of a cat,” she murmurs. Her voice is like an icicle. Cold, and with a point that pierces.
Eloquent. She always did have a flair for the dramatic. In middle school, she tormented me. Talked a friend into stealing my clothes once while we were in gym class. I had to wear my gym uniform the rest of the day. That’s social suicide when you’re in seventh grade.
Then in eighth grade, she got jealous when I won the choir competition. I had the only solo in the spring concert. Somehow, she spread rumors that I spread rumors that the football team captain had gotten the head cheerleader pregnant. And they aborted the baby. You can’t prove that you didn’t spread rumors.
Convenient, huh? I was shunned. Booed at the concert. Mrs. Byers, the choir director, tried to control it, but you can’t stop the contagion of a queen bee on the warpath.
After that, she’d just been a royal bitch to me and anyone she didn’t suck up to for popularity points. Some new, shiny object caught her attention. Her drama followed.
I see college hasn’t matured her at all.
“Nice,” she says, waving her hand dismissively, “suit. If you can call it that. The tear up the back is a great touch.” Sarcasm drips from her words like venom.
Please tell me she doesn’t work here.
A new wave of cold takes over. I fight not to shiver. No way could she be my boss, right? I was told I report directly to the dean.
But if they created some job between us...
The doorway between the little reception room and the dean’s actual, private office fills with a strong, wide man with grey hair and stylish glasses. He’s looking down at a stack of papers and bumps into Claudia, who sneers at him. She yelps.
“Papa! You almost made me break a heel!”
“I barely brushed against you,” Dean Landau says. His voice is neutral. Controlled.
He’s used to dealing with her. I feel a pang of sympathy. Raising a daughter like The Claw must take a lot out of you.
The sympathy fades when he looks up and sees me. Dark brown eyes catch mine. There’s an intelligence there. It’s scanning me. He’s like a robot programmed to evaluate.
Then he smiles, and he’s charming. Really warm and welcoming, as he reaches his hand out and pumps mine hard.
“Carrie! So glad you’re here.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a nice guy. Like Brian. Or my dad. Or Mark—
Oh. Wait. Nice guys don’t arrest your dad and testify against them.
And they definitely don’t set your dad up for federal drug charges.
“I’m so pleased to work with you,” the dean adds. I see. This is the game.
We pretend nothing ever happened. Before.
Before.
I can play, too. If life handed out degrees, mine would be a Bachelor’s degree in Pretending Nothing Happened.
Maybe a master’s degree.
Make it a Ph.D.
“Dean Landau,” I say, matching his grip. It’s strong, his skin impossibly smooth for a man. My dad and Brian have rough hands, the kind of palms a man gets from twisting wrenches, holding roofing nail guns for hours, laying pipe.
Dean Landau uses his mind to earn his living, though. And never, ever his hands.
Wouldn’t want those to get dirty.
I know he leaves that to other people.
“Have you spoken with IT yet?” the dean asks, already looking back at his papers. Claudia watches us like a snake deciding which of two mice to eat.
“IT?” I ask, feeling dumb. He sounds like he’s saying eye teeth, which makes no sense.
&
nbsp; He nods, not making eye contact, and begins to turn away. “You need to go to Information Technology, in the engineering building, to get your staff permissions, email, and such. Just come back when it’s done.”
And just like that he’s gone, the door to his office closing like a coffin lid.
Claudia’s eyes burn into me. “You didn’t even know that?” She snorts.
Rage fills me. My face flushes, and I know I look like I’m twelve. Mark used to say emotions showed on my face like a neon sign.
“Why are you here? Other than to visit your father?” I ask, working hard to maintain a professional tone.
“I am here because I want to be,” she says, crossing her arms and leaning on a filing cabinet across from the main reception desk.
My desk.
If I pick a fight, this will be the worst ten minutes of any new job ever. I decide to try a new tack.
“Fine. If you’re here, maybe you can help me.” Asking her a question can’t hurt, right?
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she says loudly. “You want my help? You take the job I was supposed to get and now you want my help?”
A slow dawning of understanding pours in me. The cold starts to fade. “You wanted this job?”
“No shit, Dumbass.” Nice. The Claw always did have a potty mouth.
“I didn’t know,” I answer. It’s all I can think to say.
She snorts. “You come along, begging for a job, and everyone moves heaven and earth for you. Suddenly it’s a ‘conflict of interest’ for my dad to bring me on as the admin.”
Conflict of interest. Oh, no. Is it a conflict of interest for the man who turned state’s witness against my dad to be my boss?
I can’t lose this job. I just can’t. Two years and I get my student loans under control and with free tuition, finish my degree. For all that, I can handle The Claw.
“I am sure Human Resources made a decision in the best interests of the university,” I say, the words smooth and flowing. My mouth even feels surprised. It’s like the words came from someone else.
I’m never that calm and composed when confronted.
The sound of a cell phone buzzes in her purse. As she looks for it, I step into the hallway and head for the IT department.
Her eyes follow me until I hit the stairs, where I collapse into an overwhelmed heap on the landing, my knee and ankle throbbing.
Why would The Claw need a crappy entry-level job like this? Even the job ad that someone from the alumni association sent me, after they called, said someone with an associates “or two years of college” was sufficient. The Claw graduated with Amy in May. Claudia had options. Why this?
And the dean. I can manage this for two years, even if my head screams every time I am around him. My dad is dead because people lied. I was orphaned because Landau lied.
My life has been ruined by him.
My shoulders relax and my head’s throb changes. Pain fades. A clarity emerges.
This is even better than my original plan.
Chapter Eleven
“Anchovies!” I exclaim, excited. My stomach growls. I’m wearing my old, grey, stretched out yoga pants and a loose baby blue cami. The trailer gets hot. Late summer in southern California is like living in dry soup. Christina Perri sings in the background out of my tiny old laptop speakers. Three fans in the small trailer windows make an attempt to blow air around.
I’m sweating like a pig, but I’m happy.
“On your half,” Amy groans. “Keep them there. They taste like salty pieces of shoe leather that crumbles.”
“Delicious salty pieces of shoe leather!” I shoot back. My mouth is so happy as it bites down on the corner of a piece of pizza bigger than my head. Sicily’s Pizza is the hometown college favorite. For three years I’ve suffered without. No more.
“Vicki Santi says ‘hi.’” Vicki’s parents own the pizza place. She’s worked there since, I don’t know, kindergarten? Seems like it. I loved sitting near her in school because she always smelled like oregano and basil. Made my mouth water and want more pizza.
“How’d she know I’m in town?” I ask through a huge mouthful of luscious perfection.
Amy eyes my anchovy, artichoke, feta cheese, banana pepper and sausage pizza. “Oh, she guessed,” she says, laughing.
I want to join in, but my tongue is doing a dance. A happy, tasty dance of joy. Ordering a big old Sicily’s and sitting around in our fat pants is our thing. Me and Amy.
Next up, pints of ice cream and entire seasons of Sons of Anarchy. We know how to party.
“I can’t believe The Claw showed up on your first day of work!” Amy mumbles through her own mouthful of feta and tomato pizza.
“First minute of the job! Like she was stalking me,” I mumble back. A long, stringy piece of mozzarella ricochets down my chin. My tongue finds it, winds it around and I eat it.
Amy laughs. “You and that tongue. Still tie cherry stems with it and it alone?”
I blush. “Yep.”
“Find a guy yet who can appreciate that?” She wiggles her eyebrows and leers.
The pizza nearly chokes me. “Um, nope.”
“You still haven’t—ah, come on! Of course you...” Her voice goes still. “Carrie?” she asks softly.
All the joking has faded. I feel stupid. Twenty-two and a virgin?
A virgin who can tie a cherry stem with her tongue?
What a waste, my roommate Janie had said when I showed her and her friends back in Oklahoma City. No guy’s ever gonna benefit from that.
“Nope.” I’m shutting down, but I don’t want to. Talking is what I need. Bearing my soul. Pouring out how I feel about life and my dad’s death. My new job and, yes, Mark. I still haven’t told her anything about him. She knows all about our past. I’m dying to tell her about his visits to my trailer.
Amy is slumped on my tiny sofa, dressed like me, her hair messed up and her makeup wiped clean.
We’re back to being Carrie and Amy, and that’s all I want.
“You’re still a virgin?” she asks, breathless. “I’m not.”
“You had sex in ninth grade with Zach Burham, Amy. Of course you’re not.” And of course I know, because she cried in my arms afterward. Didn’t have sex again for two years, until she fell in love with Dane Crawford. Captain of the basketball team. He was six-six. Did I mention Amy is five feet even when she stands up straight?
They were cute. Until she caught Dane having sex with another girl when she went to visit him at his college. Long distance relationships are great. Amy learned a lesson:
Don’t surprise your boyfriend with an unexpected trip to his college on a Friday night.
I’d held her in my arms while she cried then, too.
“No one, though?” Amy prods.
“Not anyone worth...that,” I say. Too true. The men who worked midnight shift at the check processing center weren’t exactly the dating type. Pale and older, with bellies and balding heads, they looked like my dad’s generation. Except my dad was way healthier.
“Yeah, that is pretty important. What about Mark?” she sputters.
“You know we never did it!” I give her a look that asks WTF?
“But he lives here now,” she adds, jerking her thumb toward the cabins.
“You know that?” I ask, and then I stop before I say another word. Of course she knows that. Everyone in town probably knows that Mark lives in Brian and Elaine’s cabins. Just like they know I’m back in town.
And the gossips have already started wagging their tongues.
A wave of smallness and shame wipes my appetite away. In Oklahoma City, no one knew me. No one cared. I never told my roommates where I went every Saturday from noon to three. The one hour I got to visit Dad was the highlight of his life. We couldn’t hug. I couldn’t feel his strong, protective arms around me. The deep rumble of laughter in his chest was long gone. A tight hug, an embrace of holding on to me and telling me it would all be okay never happened in th
ose three years.
And it would never happen again.
At least living thirteen hundred miles away from my hometown, I didn’t have to deal with judgment on top of it all. And now he’s dead.
But the shame lives on here in Yates.
“Of course I know it,” Amy says, setting aside the pizza box. There’s enough left over for me to take a slice to work for lunch.
I can’t eat any more right now. My throat is too full of my unresolved past.
“Townies always know,” she says, digging in my tiny fridge to grab her pint of ice cream. Without looking at me, she peels off the top and scoops an enormous piece of what looks like cookies and cream into her mouth. She turns and freezes, her mouth open. The ice cream is a blob in her mouth.
“Carrie, you look like you’re about to pass out,” she says around the cold blob.
“What have I done?” I whisper, finally safe enough to break down. “Coming back was a horrible idea. The Claw. Mark. The dean. My dad. All of it.” My voice drops and so does my body as I move fast to the bed, laying on my back and staring at the fiberglass ceiling.
“I shouldn’t have come back. But after Dad died, what was I supposed to do?” My throat is full of salty tears and regret. It’s the taste of bitterness at having no choices. “I wasn’t getting anywhere in Oklahoma. Elaine kept telling me I always had a place here. The alumni association called and asked if I wanted to apply for the job. Free tuition and a full-time salary with benefits sounded like it was the right move.” My voice cracks. I’m rambling.
I don’t care.
Amy finishes her mouthful. Those eyes are warm and nonjudgmental. Caring and just listening. I remember why I came home again. Is having one friend, one tried-and-true BFF enough, though?
Enough to put myself through all this?
“You didn’t just come home because of that, Carrie,” she whispers. She says it so quietly it’s like a threat. A threat to say what she really means.
I’m all fed up with feeling threatened. Been there, done that. “You think my plan is crazy.”
“Getting a job at the college and snooping around to find the real person who was doing all that drug smuggling? To try to clear your dad’s name? No. It’s fine. That’s a smart plan. Why not jump out of a plane without a parachute or travel back in time to be Jack the Ripper’s mistress?” Her voice has this strange blend of compassion and sarcasm that only Amy can manage.
