By Jove

by Marissa Doyle

  One afternoon in early October they lay on the west-facing hillside behind Hamilton Hall. Theo had diverted them from their usual afternoon go-over-homework-and-class-assignments meeting to enjoy the Indian summer weather.

  “Oh, what a day!” she sighed as she stared up at the cloudless blue sky. “Just breathe that air.”

  “I am breathing,” Grant said seriously. “I usually do.”

  Oh, Grant. “No—I mean really breathe. Isn’t it wonderful? It makes me want to flap my arms and follow those geese up there,” she said, pointing with her chin at a V-formation that passed overhead. “And look at those maples over there, just starting to show color around the edges—incredible.”

  He squinted at the trees. “They’re, um, very nice.”

  She let her arm fall to cover her face. This was the way he was, and it never failed to amuse her: so cynically observant about some things, and utterly clueless about others. Especially about anything that involved the senses. One day a few weeks ago he’d found her in one of the seminar rooms with her shoes off, blissfully burying her toes in the silk Kerman rug. He’d been mystified, even when she made him do the same.

  Now he rolled over in the grass to regard her. She reached up and brushed aside his hair. “Just checking your ears,” she said with a grin.

  “My ears? Why?”

  “To see if you’re a Vulcan. Honestly, can’t you feel what a glorious day it is? Don’t you want to roll in the grass like a colt and be glad you’re alive?”

  “I’m very grateful to be alive,” he said, looking down at the grass, then up at her again. “But thank you,” he added in the same quiet tone.

  “For what?”

  “For teaching me to be human.”

  “Wait a minute. Let me see those ears again.” She reached for his hair. He captured her hand and held it.

  “You have no idea what being with you is like for me,” he said, looking earnestly into her eyes. “You are so here, so in the minute, seeing and feeling and knowing.”

  “Aren’t you here? Don’t you see and feel and know?”

  “Not in the way you do. I see that the sky is blue and that the leaves are changing colors because it’s fall. But they’ve done that for millennia. They just are. Only man can look at them and see the passing beauty in them. Maybe it’s their mortality that gives men the ability to appreciate the things that don’t last.”

  “So you admit it—you are a Vulcan.” She grinned at him again. “But those things do last. I’ll always remember lying here on a perfect October day with you.”

  “Someday that memory will die with you.” He squeezed her hand, then held it against his cheek. She held her breath. “But I don’t want to think about that.”

  “Then don’t think about it.” She stroked his cheek. “I know we all have to die someday. But until we’re dead, we’re alive. They say that where there’s life, there’s hope.”

  “Hope,” he said, with a tight, humorless laugh. “You talk to me of hope?”

  What had happened to Grant that he was this way? “Why not? That’s what it means to be alive. To live in the hope of another perfect fall day. Can’t you see that?”

  He studied her face as if looking for some hint of irony, and she felt the tension slowly leave him.

  “Theo,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You make me see that.” He bent his head toward her.

  A flutter of excitement ran through her at his closeness. She slid the hand that still rested on his cheek around to entwine in his hair, as soft and dark as mink, and pulled him down to her.

  He touched his mouth to hers carefully, delicately, like the brush of a feather. She felt him tremble, and with a rush of tenderness held herself in check and let him set the pace of their kiss, closing her eyes and keeping her lips soft and yielding as he explored them. Time stretched and slowed.

  But after a brief eternity she couldn’t hold back any longer. With a little sigh she let her lips part and brushed her tongue across his lips.

  “Theo!” he gasped, and gripped her shoulder.

  She murmured into his mouth, “I want you to taste me, Grant. Please.”

  “Taste you…oh, God, Theo…” Now it was her heart pounding as the slow honeyed seconds flew by. He may have had little practice, but the sheer emotion—the passion, the longing—that his kiss summoned in her was making her—

  “Oh, really,” said a disapproving voice above them.

  “You’re just jealous, Di,” came the cheerful reply. “I know I am.”

  “Jealous? I don’t think so. Kissing is so—unsanitary!”

  Grant sat up as if jerked by a string. Theo made a small, anguished sound, and her dismay threatened to choke her. Past Grant’s shoulder she saw Diana Hunter and Paul Harriman standing over them. Di looked disgusted, but Paul regarded them with interest.

  “That looked like fun,” he said, turning his smile on Theo. “You never told me you were such a good kisser. Or offered to show me, for that matter.”

  Theo closed her eyes for a second, trying to gather her scattered wits and conjure some answer that wasn’t too irritable. She said politely, without sitting up, “Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?”

  Grant glanced at her. A hint of a twinkle showed in his eyes.

  “Well, it was,” Di said. “C’mon, Paul. Let’s walk somewhere else.” She cast one further dark look at them and flounced away. Paul blew Theo a kiss and followed.

  Grant collapsed on his back, eyes closed, and began to shake.

  Theo glowered after the retreating pair and muttered, “Damn them anyway.” When she looked back at Grant she was relieved to see that his shaking was actually muffled laughter.

  “I’m glad you think it was funny. I thought it was singularly poor timing,” she said in an aggrieved tone, then pushed herself up on one elbow. “I’m sorry if I startled you—I mean, if you didn’t want—”

  Grant’s laughter ceased at once. He opened his eyes, and now his expression was gentle and wondering. “Theo, you don’t know how much I did—do—want it. I’ve never—”

  “I guessed.” She touched his cheek.

  He stiffened, then relaxed as her fingertips brushed his skin. A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. “Really? Am I that transparent?”

  Yes. “No. And anyway, it doesn’t matter.” She touched his lips with one finger.

  “Theo. My beautiful, warm Theo, let me explain—”

  “You don’t need to explain anything to me.”

  “But I do. All my life I have worked and watched and suffered. But I have never loved. No, that’s not true. I have always loved people but in a theoretical sort of way. Never singly, never just one at a time, like this. Like you. Now it’s happening to me, and I’m terrified. Excited and eager and exhilarated and scared nearly witless. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, and I live in fear that I’ll make a stupid mistake and drive you from me.”

  “You won’t, but even if you did, don’t you think I’d forgive you?” She reached out to stroke his cheek again.

  “Be patient with me while I learn to love you, Theo. Please. It’s all so new to me.” He swallowed, and asked, “Was it—all right, to kiss me? Did I do it right?”

  She smothered the smile that his earnest expression evoked. “It was more than all right. Why do you think I was so annoyed at the intrusion?”

  “Oh. I thought so. Your expression was remarkably eloquent when you looked at Paul and Di. You were right. Damn them anyway.”

  They both laughed and Theo nestled against him, head on his shoulder, rejoicing to herself as his arms went around her. “You did it very well,” she whispered in his ear. “But further practice is always a good idea, you know, if you want to perfect your technique.”

  His embrace tightened. “I’ll remember that, thank you.”

  Theo thought of something. “Grant?” she asked softly.

  “Hmm?”

  “When we kissed—were you there? Were you in the moment then?”

&nb
sp; He pulled back and smiled down at her, the pale, serious El Greco face transformed. “I was, Theo. I was there, I think.”

  She kissed his nose. “That was your first class in Being Human 101. Congratulations, Mr. Spock.”

  Chapter Four

  The following Friday Dr. Waterman asked Theo to fish-sit while he went away for the weekend. She drove that afternoon out to his house, on a low cliff overlooking Massachusetts Bay.

  Following him from room to room, Theo marveled at the tanks of fish everywhere. Fortunately their care was simple.

  “A teaspoon in each tank, every morning,” Dr. Waterman said, tapping a large plastic container. “That’s all you have to do.”

  “I thought tropical fish were more labor-intensive. Changing the water and testing it and so on,” she said, staring at a majestic pair of blue and purple angelfish that swept in tandem around one tank.

  “Yes, well, there is a lot of that. But nothing you need to worry about for just a weekend. Feed them and they’ll be happy.” He smiled and nodded at her.

  She picked up the tub and shook it gently. “Is it the same as what you use at school?”

  She often stopped by his office in the early morning to gaze at the rainbow of fish, and more often than not he would let her feed them. She would carefully sprinkle the silvery flakes of food from the little spoon into the tanks, trying not to inhale, but it was impossible not to smell the ineffable sweet floral scent that made her nose tingle and her other senses heighten delightfully.

  “Yes, it is. But please be careful with it, Theo. Breathing it in or otherwise ingesting it is unwise. I don’t often trust anyone else to take care of my fish, but I feel that they’re in good hands with you.” He gave her a fatherly pat on the shoulder and glanced at his massive diving watch. “I’d better get going if I’m to arrive in time for the dinner. You have my cell number if you need me, yes?”

  Theo returned to school for her last class after assuring Dr. Waterman that she and his fish would be fine while he was gone. After class was over she stopped in his office to give the fish there an extra feeding to carry them through Saturday, then wandered down to the Great Room.

  It had become her favorite place to study, its beauty in sharp contrast to her dreary room in Graves. More polished linenfold paneling covered the walls, pierced at regular intervals with diamond-paned windows. Small groups of couches and chairs were scattered on the mosaic floor, and it was in one of these that Theo generally spent a few hours after dinner each evening, reading or working on her laptop or sparring happily with Grant.

  Just now, late-afternoon sun illuminated the floor with rich golden light, making the mosaics glow on their creamy background. There was Apollo reaching toward a girl whose bare legs were being swallowed in gray bark and long hair scattered with green leaves: the transformation of Daphne. And there was a magnificent winged horse, its neck a proud arch, eyeing a youth who held a golden bridle in one hand and in the other an apple to tempt the fey creature. Where was the cruelly magnificent bird she had seen as she dozed on the night of the department dinner? She glanced around, trying to estimate where the chairs had been set up, and saw Julian leaning against one of the Doric columns by the far door, smiling.

  “They’re something, aren’t they?” he said. Walking up to her, he gazed down at Pegasus and Bellerophon, hands clasped behind his back. “I like to do just what you’re doing, sometimes, when I need distraction.”

  She glanced at him cautiously but he stood still and looked down at the images with a pensive expression. He had made her nervous in her first few days here, and she had avoided him as much as she could after the department dinner. To her relief she’d seen little of him since then, and her attention had been caught up in her teaching and in—as he jokingly called them—her humanities classes with Grant.

  But Julian seemed different this afternoon. His manner, though friendly, was easier. Less—well, predatory. Theo found her guard relaxing.

  “I love it in here. It’s my favorite place for studying,” she confessed, and could have bitten her tongue. Was that a wise thing to have told him?

  But he merely smiled and nodded. “I can understand that. It’s the most beautiful place on campus, in my opinion.” He looked around the room, still smiling, then looked back at her. “Actually, I’m glad to find someone here. Do you have a minute? I could use a hand.”

  Theo thought quickly. Someone, he had said. Not you. “Sure. What can I do?”

  “Come upstairs and help me find something. I’m working on a paper for a conference next spring and can’t find a reference I need. A fresh pair of eyes would be useful.”

  Theo followed him up the stairs to the department library and museum on the third floor. To her surprise he bypassed the library, another paneled room lined with shelves holding thousands of books and monographs, and led her into the museum.

  If the library was impressive, the museum was astounding. Theo knew that art museums from all over the world constantly requested the loan of items from it: Andrew Barnes whom she’d met at the department party often worked with June Cadwallader on processing loan requests, and had told her about it. Its strength was less in the size of its collection than in its rarity and condition: from exquisite Greek jewelry and rare Roman iridescent glass beakers to amazingly well-preserved documents. State-of-the-art cases held the pieces on rotating display and kept the rest in storage in optimal conditions.

  But despite the splendor of the place, Theo had visited it only once. The museum’s curator, Dr. Bellow, had frightened her nearly out of her wits when she had gone up to see it in the first week of classes. He was a tall, somber man who gave an impression of overall grayness: his hair, his clothes, even his skin seemed to have an ashen tinge. Only his eyes were alive: they were black and glittering, like obsidian, and as sharp.

  She had been admiring an elegantly wrought silver drinking cup, set in a case at eye level to enable viewers to appreciate its workmanship, when those eyes had appeared on the other side of the case, staring at her. She had nearly shouted in surprise. Nor had she been captivated by Dr. Bellow’s small gray dog, which sniffed at her ankles and growled softly. It looked up at her with eyes as flat and remorseless as its master’s.

  “No, Kirby! Heel!” Dr. Bellow had said sternly, and tried to smile at her. He had chatted quite pleasantly after that, but she could not erase the memory of the terror she had felt when she glanced up from the dancing nymphs and satyrs on the cup into those gleaming pools of blackness that seemed to lead into eternity.

  “I don’t see Dr. Bellow anywhere,” she said nervously to Julian as he unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. “Or Kirby.”

  “It’s after regular museum hours. He’s probably down in his office by now,” Julian replied carelessly.

  “His office isn’t up here? I don’t remember seeing it near the other faculty offices.”

  “It’s not. It’s in the basement. Don’t ask me why; he seems to like it down there. And I don’t care for Kirby any more than you do. I’m just as happy he’s there and not here.” Julian motioned her toward a case set against one wall.

  The top of the case, set on rows of drawers, held a display of carved gems from different parts of Greece, once set in rings and used to seal documents and letters. They were tiny works of art, carved from colorful banded jasper and agate and quartz.

  Julian waved a hand at the drawers. “I’m looking for a specific seal and can’t find it in the museum index. As I recall, it depicts a male figure holding a cup out to a reclining woman.”

  He handed her a small lump, and Theo saw that it was some type of Plasticine clay. “Start with that drawer and I’ll start over here. Look at each one and if it looks promising, press it on the clay. That helps make the image more identifiable if the stone matrix is striped.” He pulled a couple of chairs up to the case and unlocked the drawers.

  Theo held the clay in her hand to warm it as she surveyed the first row of seals, each in its o
wn cushioned compartment. She sat stiffly at first but relaxed as she examined the exquisite little carvings, some of stylized trees and vegetation, others of gods and men. One depicting a pair of geese in flight reminded her of lying on the hillside with Grant. And there was one with a leaping dolphin. The sight of it made her smile. Good thing Dr. Waterman didn’t keep any of those in his tanks.

  She rubbed her nose to conceal her expression and felt a tingle, accompanied by a rush of pleasurable wooziness. Dr. Waterman’s fish food! Theo looked at the back of her hand and saw a few silvery flakes still clinging to it. Some of the food must have stuck to her hand when she’d fed them just now. She’d tried to be careful, really she had. She hadn’t meant to—

  A wave of euphoria surged through her. She looked back down at the seals. Their colors glowed more brightly in their drab protective foam, and she stared at them in delight for a moment before shutting the drawer and opening another.

  “Any luck?” Julian said from his chair.

  “No. But they’re so beautiful,” she sighed. “I could look at them all day.” She looked around the room and drank in its contents. “All of it. So, so beautiful.”

  Julian looked at her and his eyes widened slightly. “Is everything all right, Theodora?” He shut the drawer he had been searching and pulled his chair closer to hers.

  “I’m fine. I love all this—love it here. It’s everything I’d hoped it would be.” She smiled at him. Julian was being so nice today—not at all alarming, really. He was awfully attractive, wasn’t he? Those turquoise eyes were mesmerizing, and the tanned face was youthful and unlined despite the silver-gray hair.

  “And what did you hope it would be?” he asked with a slight smile.

  Tingles coursed through her; it felt like her blood had been replaced with champagne. “A place where everyone loves the same things I do, and where we can talk and laugh and even argue for hours, and still understand each other perfectly.”

  “Didn’t you have that before where you taught?”

  “No. Never.” She shook her head earnestly and felt dizzy. “Even though I was teaching what I loved, no one cared about it. Or about me.”