The Exceptions

by David Cristofano

  We stare at each other for a minute before he breaks the silence. “But for her, Johnny. Days, you know?”

  My response to him, as valid as it may be, is generated solely out of hope, constructed by the strongest forces within my heart: “How long does it really take? How many days passed before you knew you were in love with your wife?”

  “We dated for nine months before we got engaged.”

  “What, you got engaged the day you fell in love? That wasn’t my question. How long before you were certain you loved her?”

  He doesn’t say a word, eventually purses his lips and shrugs as if to imply, Whatever—except his silence means he’s not much different from me after all.

  I look around the room and think of how Melody spends her days, how this is her domain. “How’d you track her here?”

  Sean’s face goes sour. “Geez, what do you think I do for a living?”

  “I was never all that sure. You suck at it, whatever it is.”

  He wipes his face with both hands, gives me a condensed version: “She was a student at UCLA. Records office told me she tested into their adult education program, shaved off over two years of coursework, got her bachelor’s degree in mathematics in less than two years, then her master’s one year later. Then she came here, to Clemson, where she’s a teaching assistant under some professor emeritus while studying for her PhD.” He laughs through his nose. “Someday she’ll be Professor Felicia Emerson.”

  I repeat her name to myself, the words forming on my lips but the sound never escaping. Felicia Emerson.

  I stare at the clean chalkboard behind Sean, imagine Melody filling it with shapes and numbers and rules I could never understand. She has truly created a life for herself, on her way to becoming a doctor. The feds could’ve never provided the means for this. She is free. Finally. And my presence here can do nothing but take it away again.

  “So why all this?” I ask. “Why now?”

  “Because you need to fix the situation. After finding out about the whole wedding band thing in Los Angeles, I thought she’d eventually forget all about you. But I wasn’t kidding when I said you wrecked her. She’s wasting away, Little Johnny. Pining for her pathetic Prince Charming. Look at what you did: You ruined her life twice. Not many men can claim to have done that to a woman.”

  “How—”

  “Ruined it the first time by stripping away all hope from her childhood, then you ruined it again by giving her hope—hope that she might one day find you.” He shifts his weight and the desk cracks. “I won’t deny you gave her freedom. But what good is it if she won’t take it?”

  That this could be true sends a warmth and a shiver through me at the same time, though I know I have no choice but to reject it. “Give her time,” I say. “Someday she’ll fall in love with—”

  “Three years, Johnny. Three years. Take it from someone who knows: I understand what runs through her mind every morning when she gets out of bed and consciously slips that ring over her finger. You think you set her free? I know you’re not very intelligent, but you should be smart enough to see she’s shackled to you by that diamond band.”

  I lick my lips and try to say something, anything. I can feel the mounting desire of wanting to see her, to hold her, to accept Sean’s words as truth even though I know it’s the worst possible thing I could do for her, for me.

  Then Sean says, “You gave her the freedom to be herself, but it turns out this is actually who she is. It kills me to say this—and please know I’m saying and doing all this for her only, that I still hate everything you are—but… the only way she can ever be truly free is to fulfill her wish to be with you.”

  We stare at each other but I’m looking right through him. What runs through my mind is the misery Melody faced these past few years, the risks she had to take and how she managed to manipulate a system that expects you to have a history, some proof of who you say you are. I comprehend how hard she worked, the long nights of studying, the determination and effort, the pleasure she received from her achievements and accomplishments, from earning those degrees. This is the first time in her thirty-year life she has something that is genuinely hers, something she built by her own means. And I know deep down I can never take the risk of pulling it away from her. Would I be nothing more than the feds?

  Sean can read my indecision, says, “No one else knows she’s alive except me. And as for your disappearance?” He sniffs hard, cocks his head a little. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. You think I forgot that operation back in Maryland? The program is massive. And let’s be honest: You’re inept. You’re not—”

  “I’ll take care of it.” He steps forward, folds his arms. “You’ll both be off the map for good. This secret will be only three people deep, not an organization deep. No more chains. No more weak links. No more Gardners. And I promise I’ll keep my end of the bargain, I’ll keep the secret.” He takes one more step forward, waits until he’s certain he has my full attention. “But you owe me.”

  I get up from my chair, tip it over in the process. “I knew it. You bastard. You’re going to hold Melody’s existence over my head now? Is that why you really tracked her down? To reverse everything I set up with Justice in Baltimore? The protection of my family?”

  “I got news for you: Your family was never immune to prosecution.”

  “I see. So Justice has just sucked at acquiring evidence against our crew for the past three years.”

  He smirks as he walks to the door. “C’mon, let’s go wait for your bride’s class to finish.”

  “No.”

  Sean opens the door and gets one step into the hall before I put a hand on his shoulder, say quietly, “No.”

  He turns and looks at me, makes a face that asks the question Why.

  “It doesn’t matter that she’s known around here as Felicia Emerson,” I say. “Can’t you see it? She is Melody Grace McCartney. This is it. She’s finally home.” Sean turns and faces me directly. “Will she love me when we have to disappear one day? When she has to give up everything she’s worked for?”

  Sean gives me a look I’ve yet to see on his face, one of coolness and realization, like something triggered a hidden multiple personality to take over. He squints a little, turns his head to the side but keeps his eyes on me, seems to suddenly accept—or at least understand—my genuine concern for Melody, that even though I’d given up everything for her already, that doing it again right now, while she’s mere steps away, is the truest sign that I want her to be happy, that I could never hurt her.

  He shakes his head slowly and says, “Man, are you sure?”

  I take in a deep breath and it comes back out in a blast. “Yeah.”

  Sean slowly walks out into the empty hall and I follow. From the corner of my eye, I spy the door to Melody’s classroom, know she’s separated from me by a single wall, know I could have her in my arms within seconds, could fulfill any number of fantasies that I’ve perpetuated over the years. Sean notices my preoccupation; I sense him studying me.

  “I’ll get the car,” he says, “and pull it into the parking lot in front of the building—I mean, you know, if you want to wait here, see her for a few more minutes.”

  And of course: Like any addict, like every loser and scumbag who ever came to my family saddled with a need for money to get a fix, I rationalize the one last time scenario. I don’t answer, merely slow as I get closer to her classroom door. I peek from a distance and see Melody marking up the chalkboard, hunks of chalk dust drifting into the air and down to the floor.

  “Meet you out front in five minutes,” he says.

  I don’t say a word, move toward the window and watch Melody’s body wriggle and sway as she fills the board, the fringe of her dress swishing back and forth, her earrings shimmying with every slight movement, her braid gently swinging behind her like a chestnut pendulum. She keeps writing while reaching down to scratch the back of her lower thigh, and when her
dress rises I recognize the topography of her legs; an outpouring of memories comes to the forefront of my mind. I tip a little toward the wall. I want to touch her so badly, would give almost anything to have her in my grasp for just a few seconds, to be certain she is real, to have her arms around my body, to feel her warmth and her heart beating against my chest. Almost anything to feel her lips against mine, to experience just once more the way she could part my lips with hers and breathe life into me. Almost anything to whisper in her ear how I will love her forever.

  Almost anything. But not her freedom.

  As she continues toward the bottom of the board, she hesitates, stops in mid-scribble like something doesn’t seem right in her solution—and at the same time, I’m struck the same way. I’ve overlooked something big. I drop my gaze to the floor as Sean’s words echo in my head: “I’ll get the car and pull it into the parking lot in front of the building.”

  The winding paths, the amphitheater, the reflecting pond: There was no parking lot in front of this building.

  I turn and run so quickly I stumble to my knees, fall against the wall as I get myself to my feet. I race down the steps, crash through the door at the bottom of the building, and rush out into the morning sun. I run back out the paths that brought us to Martin Hall, go flying toward the road that led us onto the campus just in time to see Sean escape the university grounds, turn back onto Old Greenville Highway, and slowly disappear.

  I stand on a patch of grass at the front of the university and watch him fade away, hands on my hips, my breath nowhere to be found.

  I am abandoned. I am dirty and unshaven, still smelling of chopped vegetables and seared meats and Sean’s fast food. I am tired and sore from a night’s rest in the backseat of a car. I have no change of clothes. I have no means to shower. I do not have my wallet, do not have a single penny on me. I am a baby left in a basket on a stranger’s front stoop.

  I stand still, long after I’ve caught my breath and regained my composure. I watch kids come and go, watch the campus show more signs of life as it approaches nine o’clock.

  I can’t stand Sean. I hate that he did this to me, that he left me here with nowhere to turn, that my only hope of food and shelter will have to come from Melody, that he stripped everything away from me, from my possessions to my free will. He’s a pompous bastard who used his knowledge and investigative skills to disassemble my life and put Melody’s back in danger—all because he thought he knew better, that he knew what was best for everyone.

  As I twist my body around and face Martin Hall in the distance, I realize I should be hating myself as well, how Sean and I are more alike than I’d ever care to admit, more like cousins than Ettore and I ever were. Did I not do the same thing to Melody? Did I not toss her in the direction I thought would most suit her, most protect her? I left—abandoned—Melody in the Greyhound station because I thought I knew what was best. Is Sean not doing what he thinks is best for me?

  Not a chance. He’s doing what he thinks is best for Melody.

  What Sean just delivered to my existence might as well have been the most violent event of my life. It didn’t knock. It didn’t tap me on the shoulder, suggest I get ready. It created change by way of the most capable tools in the toolbox: confusion, humiliation, destruction. And now it’s my turn to feel the world shift beneath my feet, to utter those simple words: I never saw it coming.

  I walk slowly back toward Martin Hall.

  FIVE

  I hold the door for a line of students, a group more alert and talkative than the eight o’clock crowd, follow the last one in and make my way to the restroom. I wash my hands and arms and face with astringent antibacterial soap, run wet hands through my hair until I shape it back into something recognizable, gargle with tap water. There’s nothing I can do about my thickening five o’clock shadow, my wrinkled clothes, a neck stiff from sleeping against a car window.

  I quietly make my way back to the classroom where Melody had taught just moments earlier, except she and all of her students have disappeared, their replacements now getting situated in the desk chairs. Melody’s equations have been erased, nothing left but a white smear of chalk dust, no proof she ever stood at the front of the room and instructed the class, that she ever took a portion of the brilliance inside her and transferred it to those young minds. No proof. Vanished.

  I walk down the hall, check each successive classroom to see if Melody is teaching another course elsewhere: nothing. At the end of the corridor, I open the door to the stairwell. Echoes of voices and lazy footsteps bounce about the cement walls, float their way down to me. I begin quietly walking up to the next floor while two males discuss the solution to a math problem. I hear their words but can make no sense of them, like strangers speaking in a foreign tongue.

  But then Melody’s unmistakable voice reverberates throughout the concrete spiral: “Your methodology is sound, but you’re missing the gist. The infinite sum of terms calculated from the values of the derivatives is at a single point. If that single point was centered at zero then, yes, you would have a Maclaurin series—except in your case the center is not zero. Which means?”

  No response, only footsteps and the opening of a door.

  Finally, one of the boys answers, “A Taylor series?”

  Melody says, “Bingo,” and the door slams shut, leaves me alone in the wake of its boom.

  I run up the remaining steps and gently open the door to the top floor, know she must be on the other side. I take a deep breath and hold it, move so slowly I’d be able to avoid triggering a motion detector. From behind and to the side I see Melody leisurely stroll down the far end of the hallway, flanked on each side by the students, two textbooks pressed against her chest. Near the end of the corridor three more students wait on a bench between two large wooden office doors. They look at Melody as she heads toward them.

  I can no longer hear her voice, but I can see her lips move as she turns and unlocks the door to the first office, the boys nodding every now and again as she speaks. She struggles with the door, leverages her weight against it with a shoulder, and as it opens in a burst she disappears out of view. One boy follows her in, the other sits down on the bench.

  I step into the hallway, close the door behind me, hold it back so the sound of the latch is nothing more than the tick of a clock hand. Then I lumber down the hall, pretend like I’m supposed to be here, that I’m one of them, though nothing would indicate such a thing. I have no texts, no book bag, no clue where I am or what I’m doing, hope I somehow appear to be a graduate student. I’m at least ten years older than every kid on the bench, yet as I approach with obvious hesitation, the girl at the end picks up her book bag and puts it on the floor, slides over a few inches so I can sit.

  She looks like she could be my brother Jimmy’s daughter—long midnight hair in a ponytail, pudgy tanned skin, large nose and eyes—right down to the faded sweatshirt and black Chucks. As I sit next to her, she turns and addresses my apparent awkwardness.

  She nods and says, “You here to see Ms. Emerson?”

  I stare at her. Felicia Emerson. “Yes,” I say, but the lack of moisture in my mouth makes it come out as a whisper. I clear my throat and say it again. “Yes.”

  She nods some more, says, “She’s awesome. I don’t understand a thing Dr. Ames says when I attend the main lecture. But Ms. Emerson… I’d be failing this class—again—if it weren’t for her.”

  I smile a little and look beyond her, at the closed door to the office.

  The girl nods again, appears to be a tic that accompanies every word she says. “I really love her.”

  I lean forward, rest my elbows on my knees, and drop my chin between the knuckles of my fist. “Yeah,” I say, “I love her, too.” I look back at the girl. “She has a way of explaining things, of understanding things.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she says.

  “Makes you want to just be around her all the time, learn everything about who she is, you know?”

&
nbsp; She squints a little. “I… guess.” And that’s the last she says to me, never looks my way again.

  After ten minutes, the office door opens and the boy finishes a sentence as he walks out, smiles a little and waves as he heads down the hall, is quickly replaced by the next student. I’ve apparently arrived in the middle of her office hours or tutoring slots, or both.

  I sit idle, wait as the students come and go. I’m not on the unseen list that Melody uses for meeting with these kids, yet the students seem to understand their order, their appointment times and predetermined lengths. Melody never surfaces from the room, remains concealed behind the door like a doctor seeing her patients.

  Ninety minutes later the bench has cleared. Jimmy’s daughter is Melody’s final appointment, eventually meanders out of the office and studies a paper marked up with red ink, does the nod thing as she scuffles toward the stairwell, her Chucks squeaking against the tile floor with every step.

  I wait until she disappears.

  The hallway is silent; I am its only visitor. I stand and take baby steps to the door of the office. I swallow twice but can’t remove the lump, take two deep breaths but can’t find any oxygen, wipe my hands against my jeans but cannot dry them of sweat.

  I reach the doorway and look in from the side, see Melody standing in the far corner with her back to me. The room’s dim light is supplied by a pair of matching desk lamps, one on each of two old oak desks facing opposing walls. Posters of ancient mathematicians are affixed crookedly on the center wall above a green seventies-style couch covered in books and overstuffed folders. Melody looks down, leafs through a stack of papers. I can hear the snap of each sheet as she iterates through the pile.

  I step inside and face her back, am overcome with a sense of her presence. I can smell the mix of fragrances that compose her unique formula, immediately recall the way scents change once they’ve touched her skin, no matter the original essence—roses, powder, apples—they all become her distinctive version. Today, vanilla. And with this awareness, everything resolves at once: The lump gets swallowed down, the hands go dry, the air fills with all the oxygen I could ever consume.