By Jove

by Marissa Doyle

  “Sort of,” he said shortly, and ducked under the surface.

  Theo felt like slipping back into the pool and not coming up. How could she have been so tactless and unthinking? But the scar writhing across his smooth skin like an agonized snake looked painful even now, though the wound that created it was obviously old and well healed. She had almost felt a pain in her own vitals, just looking at it.

  And now he would not meet her eyes, which was even worse. Why couldn’t she just tell him straight-out that the scar, horrible as it was, didn’t matter?

  “I need to go shower if I’m going to make it to Dr. Waterman’s first class,” she said. “What time do you want to meet for coffee? Around four?”

  Grant looked at her, his face carefully blank. “Are you sure you still want to?”

  She touched his shoulder again, a lingering touch this time, and felt shocked at her boldness. “Yes, I want to. Very much.”

  He gazed at her a moment longer then smiled wryly. “I’m sorry. I’m a little hypersensitive about my scar. Most people look disgusted and turn away, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if it revolts them. But you—”

  “Apart from being sorry that you must have suffered dreadfully at some time—”

  “You might say so,” he muttered.

  “—apart from that, it doesn’t matter.” She added softly, not caring for once if she blushed, “There’s certainly nothing wrong with the rest of you.”

  His eyes widened. “If that was a sexist comment, then I thank you. Four it is.”

  …

  Theo found herself slipping back into the routine of being a student with surprising ease. Her classes were absorbing, and some were downright fun. In Dr. Waterman’s Rhetoric and Composition class she found herself translating famous passages of literature and poetry into Latin, to try to reproduce their tone and emotion.

  Theo wrestled joyously with her translations of passages from Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and taking her courage in her hands, persuaded Grant Proctor to try his hand at it as well. She told herself it was in order to expand her educational boundaries as they compared notes. But mostly it was to guarantee that they would meet for coffee or a post-swim breakfast or lunch several days of the week.

  Grant quickly became as immersed as she in Dr. Waterman’s exercises and seemed to enjoy their amicably fierce debates over the subtleties of verbs and grammatical structures as much as she did. The fencing with words, the thrust and parry of his conversation, was exhilarating. The fact that her partner in these verbal bouts had dimples to die for was even more so.

  “Translating Jane Austen into Latin was an interesting experience,” she said as they met for lunch during the second week of classes. Dr. Waterman had given them parts of Persuasion to translate. She’d been absorbed by the task of fitting early nineteenth-century prose with Latin vocabulary and grammatical structures that gave it a slight touch of formality without becoming too stuffy. But it had been enormous fun as well. Persuasion was her favorite Austen book; not even Colin Firth—er, Pride and Prejudice—could budge it from first place.

  “I hadn’t read it before,” Grant said, frowning at his notes.

  “Hadn’t read Persuasion?!” Theo pretended to faint in her chair. “I am shocked—positively shocked!—to hear that.”

  He looked up at her in consternation, then relaxed and smiled. “Actually, I haven’t read much modern fiction in general.”

  Theo hesitated. Oh dear. He wasn’t one of those people who thought reading fiction was a waste of time because it wasn’t “true,” was he? She hadn’t gotten that impression—not after the moose and the porcupines—and since when was Jane Austen modern fiction? “Um, why not?”

  He sat back in his chair, thinking. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Other things always seemed to get my attention first. Do you think I should read more?”

  “Well, what did you think of Persuasion? Did you enjoy reading it? If you did, then yes, I think you ought to read more.”

  “I did enjoy it. I liked—” He thought for a minute, eyes narrowed. “I liked Anne’s and Captain Wentworth’s constancy most of all, I think.”

  “Captain Wentworth wasn’t always so constant. What about his courting Louisa Musgrove right in front of poor Anne at Lyme?”

  “But he didn’t really care about Louisa. He just didn’t know his own mind. As soon as he came to his senses, he remembered who he truly cared about. ‘You pierce my soul,’ he wrote in his note to Anne,” he said quietly, musingly. “It sounds as if it should be painful, doesn’t it? And yet it was anything but that for him. Pungis animum meum,” he repeated softly then fell silent, gazing off into space as if suddenly caught in his own thoughts.

  Theo watched him. “That line has always given me the shivers,” she agreed. “But in a good way.”

  He smiled suddenly, but there was a touch of sadness about it. “Has your soul ever been pierced, then?”

  Theo took a breath. “No, it hasn’t.”

  But she lied. That smile, both sweet and sad, had given her a new and very immediate understanding of just what it felt like to have one’s soul pierced. She met his eyes, and blushed.

  They looked at each other for a long moment. Then he cleared his throat and glanced back down at his notes, but not before Theo thought she might have seen an answering flush in his own cheeks.

  …

  Despite her classes and Grant, though, she couldn’t help feeling that there was something missing in her life. A few days later, she figured out what it was.

  She was sitting in Dr. Herman’s Roman Historiography class in one of Hamilton Hall’s luxurious seminar rooms. Dr. Herman was, as usual, pacing around the table in his blindingly white Nikes as he spoke, hands behind his back. His curly brown hair bounced above his narrow, beautiful face with every step.

  “By the middle of the first century BCE the word historia was used to indicate a narrative history, while fasti took the meaning of calendar, or a list of historical dates. The term commentarius, however, had gained an interesting new—oh, hello Arthur.”

  Theo sat up straighter. Dr. Waterman had slipped into the room. He looked toward her and smiled.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Freddy, but I need to borrow Miss Fairchild for a few moments. Theo?”

  She swallowed her surprise and nodded. “Excuse me, please.”

  In the hallway Dr. Waterman gestured her toward his office. “I’m sorry to pull you out of class, but we wanted to talk to you right away.”

  “We?”

  “Grant and I.” He held his office door for her.

  Grant stood by a fish tank, staring at a large and gaudy belted angelfish. He looked up eagerly as they entered the room. “Did you ask her yet, Arthur?”

  Smiling, Dr. Waterman held up a hand. “I just got her out of class. Give me a moment.” He waved her into a chair. Grant perched on the arm of the chair next to it, looking impatient.

  “Theo, we hope you can help us with a slight problem,” Dr. Waterman began.

  “It’s not a problem,” Grant interrupted.

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “All right. So what’s the non-problem you need my help with?”

  “What Grant means is that our problem is an opportunity for you. Our first-year Latin class is overenrolled and has to be split into two sections. We wondered if you’d like to take over teaching one of them.”

  She felt a trickle of shock, followed by a wave of excitement. “Me? Really?”

  “There’s no one better qualified. None of even the second-year students have your teaching experience. Julian’s given us the okay pending administration approval. We can’t pay much, but you could take payment in the form of reduced tuition next semester. The curriculum’s already in place. What do you think? I don’t want to press, but we’d like to be able to divide the class up as of Monday morning. Think it over tonight, and let me know tomorrow.”

  “She doesn’t have to think it over
. C’mon, Theo. Say yes.” Grant’s foot tapped impatiently.

  “I told you teaching first-year Latin was no picnic. Tired of martyrdom already?” she teased.

  Dr. Waterman started to speak, then stopped. He stared at Grant piercingly for a few seconds, then sat back in his chair. She thought she heard him murmur, “Oh, my,” under his breath, but it was drowned out by Grant’s snort of irritation.

  “Twelve-year-olds were too much for you, huh? Afraid of freshmen?” he said, looking down his nose at her.

  “Is that a challenge?”

  “Well? Can you do it?” He crossed his arms.

  “Better than you can!”

  “Hah. Bet you dinner at the University Club that my students get better grades than yours on the midterm exam.”

  “Better go make the reservations now, and save yourself the bother later,” she said with a sweet smile.

  He grinned. “Good. Then I take it I’ll see you Monday morning at nine in the classroom next to mine?”

  Dr. Waterman chuckled. “I’ll sweeten the pot with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot to the winner, provided she—or he,” he added, holding up an apologetic hand at Grant’s protest, “—shares it with the loser.”

  She frowned for a few seconds, then laughed too. “You’re dreadful, you know,” she said to Grant. “I was going to say yes anyway, so don’t think you pulled one on me.”

  “I know you were. But it’s more fun this way.” He smiled down her.

  And Theo realized, when she walked into the classroom next to his the following Monday and greeted her class of freshmen, what it was that she’d been missing. She had her class of interested students at last.

  …

  It was Friday. Four thirty on Friday, which was even better. Theo stretched luxuriously in her seat in the graduate student lounge. She loved her classes, loved her new life at college, loved teaching again now that her students were in her class because they wanted to learn Latin. But she’d never outgrown the exultant feeling of freedom of Friday afternoons.

  She finished her stretch and looked out the window for Grant. This was what she loved most of all—her time with him, sparring happily or finishing each other’s sentences when they were done disagreeing. When she was with him she forgot that she was supposed to be shy, uptight Miss Fairchild. It was intoxicating.

  But Grant wasn’t moving down the sidewalk to the building in that purposeful gliding stalk of his that she’d described as half tiger, half heron, much to his amusement. Disappointed, she sat back in her chair. Then she sensed someone standing over her, and looked up with a welcoming smile.

  But it was Paul Harriman, not Grant, who stood there.

  “Hello, Theo Fairchild,” he purred. There was a feline quality about Paul. Or at least a great deal of tomcat.

  “Hello, Dr. Harriman,” she replied politely.

  “Oh, spare me the doctor business, please. You make me feel about eighty when you do that.”

  He slid into the seat opposite her and tossed his head of shining gold hair. “All alone? How nice to have a chance to talk with you. I take it you’re a Latin scholar, since I haven’t seen you in any of my or Di’s classes. Such a shame. But I suppose we must keep Arthur and Henry and Freddy in students as well.”

  “Er, yes, I suppose so.” What could she possibly have to say to this Abercrombie model-turned-Greek professor? “Um I enjoyed your music at the dinner the other night.”

  “Why, thank you. It’s rather a hobby of mine—well, more than a hobby, now that we’re recording.” He let his gaze travel over her. “I understand that you’re a teacher. Enjoying coming back and playing student again? I’m sure we have lots we could teach you. At least,” —his voice dropped— “I know I have.”

  Theo wiped her palms on her jeans and glanced around to see if Grant was anywhere in sight yet. All she could see were two tables of female graduate students, their attention riveted on her and Paul. Or at least, on Paul. A few of them had their mouths hanging open.

  “We’re a close-knit group in the department,” Paul continued, leaning a little closer. “Very close-knit. We spend most of our leisure as well as professional time together. I should get my claim in now for the pleasure of your company at the next symposium. If you’re teaching in the department, you’ll be invited. It’s where we let our hair down, so to speak.” His voice lowered. “I would love to see your hair down. Spread over a pillow, perhaps.”

  Theo was glad that she hadn’t ordered a drink yet or she might have choked, or more likely, thrown it at him. Then, to her relief, she felt a pair of warm hands on her shoulders. Grant’s voice said, “Hello, darling. I’m sorry I’m late. Arthur kept me talking.”

  Darling? Theo twisted in her seat and stared up at him. Had he just called her darling?

  “Do join us, Grant,” Paul drawled. “Theo and I are having a lovely time.”

  Grant muttered something under his breath and pulled a chair from another table, bringing it close to Theo.

  “We were just discussing music,” Paul continued. “You’ll have to come over and see my instruments some time, Theo. I’ve got two lyres and a kithara based on ones found—”

  “Uh-huh,” Grant interrupted in a bored tone. Theo stared at him in open surprise. He glanced at her and rested his arm along the back of her chair so that it just touched her shoulders. “Great concert the other night, by the way. Your ensemble was almost professional-sounding. I was astonished.”

  Theo darted a glance at Paul, sure he would be outraged at Grant’s rudeness. Instead, he smiled.

  “I expect I should be running along now, shouldn’t I?” he said. “Very nice talking to you, Theo. Maybe another time? Bon appétit, Grant.” He rose, and with another dazzling smile at Theo, left them.

  Theo watched as he drew near the first of the occupied tables. One girl, quicker of thought than her tablemates, dropped a pen directly in Paul’s path so that he was forced to stop and retrieve it for her. The other table of female students looked daggers at her. One actually hissed. Judging from his wide grin as he handed the girl her pen and accepted her invitation to join them, Paul didn’t seem too put off by his conversation with Grant.

  Theo turned back to the culprit who still sat next to her, now looking slightly dazed. “Um, Paul’s not a friend of yours, I take it?” she asked tentatively.

  “Actually, he is. Known him forever.” Grant shook his head once more. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “Well, now that you mention it—”

  “No, Theo, you don’t understand. I saw him sitting there across from you, undressing you with his eyes, and I wanted to put my fist through his face. I was jealous.”

  She caught her breath. Jealous? “Er, should I take this as formal notification that you’re interested in me as something other than a teaching colleague?”

  “Hmm? Well, yes, of course I am. I just never thought it would hit me that way. Jealous,” he said, with a wondering sigh. “Me, jealous.”

  Theo laughed. “Don’t you think you’ve got it a little backward?”

  “What?” Grant looked startled.

  “Well, when most people start falling in—um, I mean feeling interested in someone else in a—er, romantic sense, they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how they’re feeling. They just do it.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that maybe you should spend a little more time feeling and a little less analyzing.” Was she really having a discussion with him about how to fall in love?

  “Oh. I see.” Grant studied her for a moment. “Uh, Theo? I think I’m starting to feel considerably more than mere friendship for you.”

  “Oh, Grant.” She shook her head. “Haven’t you ever been in love with anyone? Ever had a serious girlfriend? With your looks, I can’t believe you haven’t.”

  “My—really? I mean, yes, of course I have.” He looked down and brushed a thread from his sleeve.

  She cleared her throat and rais
ed an eyebrow at him.

  He flushed slightly. “I’ve just never met anyone like you. Do you—” He paused, then said quickly, “Do you think you feel something more than friendship for me?”

  Theo wanted to laugh again, but didn’t. She took his hand instead, moving carefully, as if he were a wild creature she was trying to tame. “Yes, Grant, I am feeling something considerably more than friendship for you too.”

  “Oh. That’s good.” He smiled radiantly and held her hand in both of his. “So what do we do next?”

  Try as she might, she could not restrain a smile. “Why don’t we just try to relax and see what happens? Get to know each other better?”

  “That sounds like a good plan. I’m enjoying knowing you, Theo.” He exhaled. “I guess I can start talking to Paul again, then. So long as he doesn’t keep trying to get to know you better than I do.”

  Speaking of Paul… “What have you heard about these symposia that the department holds? Paul said we’ll be invited.”

  “I’ve heard about them.” Grant grimaced. “We have to come in appropriate Greek or Roman attire. Guess I’ll have to get my toga sent down from Eleusinian.”

  Visions of toga-ed bears declaiming in a pine forest, Grant patiently correcting their grammar, flitted through Theo’s head. “And I’ll have to get my mom to send me one of her costumes that she wears to Dad’s Classical Club dinners, except that she’s married and wears the stola, not the toga. Dad made her do all kinds of research on Roman clothing.”

  “I bet I’d like your dad. I hope I get to meet him some time.”

  An extra surge of happiness caught her. Men didn’t say things like that lightly, usually. “I hope you do, too.”

  …

  After that, their relationship did not change radically: outwardly they were still simply friends and colleagues. But Theo could sense something in the way Grant stared at her over their stacks of Latin quizzes when he thought she wasn’t paying attention or over the drinks or pizza that frequently followed. She swallowed her eagerness and waited for him to make the first move; it was like pretending to be a statue, waiting to see if the shy wild bird would light on her hand.