by J. J. Bella
"There you are," said the Dean. "Have a seat."
I walked over to the open chair, Evan regarding me with that same pensive expression. Sliding into the chair, I waited for the Dean to speak.
"Well, now that you're both here, I think we can begin."
The dean shifted in his seat, looking down at both of us with his watery blue eyes.
"I'll get right to the point," he said. "It's recently come to my attention that you two have been…fraternizing in a manner that is most definitely against our codes of conduct."
"But-" said Evan, cut off by the dean raising his hand.
"Let me finish," the dean said. "This is the type of situation for which we have zero tolerance. For now, we only have a witness, as well as more than a few rumors. But if we look into the matter further and find that you two have been carrying on such an affair, we'll have no choice but to pursue full disciplinary measures, which may result in you being terminated, Professor McCall, and your expulsion, Miss James. That is, unless either of you has anything to say in your defense."
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. We were caught. My stomach felt sick part of me wanted to start crying right then and there. I wondered just who would tattle on us, who would spread these rumors for no other reason other than to gossip. After all, it's not like what Evan and were doing hurt anyone.
"Actually," said Evan, "I do have something to say in my defense."
My eyes shot over to Evan, who seemed to have not been flustered in the slightest by what the dean had just said.
"Oh?" asked the dean, his bushy, graying eyebrows raising.
"I'll come clean," said Evan, "we are having an affair."
What is he doing? I thought, having figured that our best chance of getting out of this situation involved lying about what was going on.
"But it's not just a little fling between professor and student," he continued. "It's something more. Over the course of the summer in Europe, Roxanne and I hit it off, to say the least. To get straight to the point, we fell in love."
What? I thought. I mean, feelings had developed, sure, but "love" was going a little far. Although in these few months, I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't been developing feelings.
"And, well, I proposed to her a few weeks ago, and she accepted."
What?!
"However, we were both aware of the school's policy regarding such matters, and agreed to keep our relationship a secret until Roxanne graduates at the end of this semester."
My head was swimming at this; I felt dizzy. But to my shock, the dean seemed to be considering the matter.
"Miss James, is this true?" he asked me.
"Um, yes," I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth. "We're getting married."
"Hmm," said the dean. "If you two were simply having an affair, we might have a problem. But in light of this new information, especially since you're going to be graduating, Miss James, I might have to reconsider the matter. You two are dismissed for now; I'll run things by the conduct committee, but as of right now I'm leaning towards letting you both off of the hook."
Evan and I stood up and made our way to the door.
"Oh, and one more thing," said the dean.
"Congratulations."
I rushed from the office, Evan following close behind. I wanted to explode, but I knew that making such a scene on campus would be a very bad idea.
"We're engaged?" I demanded when we'd finally gotten to his office.
"Good idea, huh?" he said, a boyish smile on his face.
"It's a total lie!"
"Well, it was either that, or both of us getting booted out of the school."
I still didn't feel right about this; it meant that we were caught up in a reality built on a falsehood that could be exposed at any time. And if it were…
"Listen," he said, "all this means is that if anyone asks, you say you're engaged. Otherwise, it's business as usual. Then, when you're graduated, we ‘break up', and it'll be like it never happened."
I still didn't feel good about the whole thing, but Evan was right- it beat out the alternative.
"And you'll have to move in with me for a little while, just so everything looks legit."
"Move in with you?" I asked; this seemed almost too much.
"Just for the rest of the semester. You can have one of the spare bedrooms. Think about it- does it really make much sense that a professor would have his fiancée live in some run-down student apartment while the two of them plan their wedding?"
He had a point there. But I just nodded, conceding the point.
"Then when this whole thing is over, I'll help you get settled in whatever city you want to go to grad school for."
I just nodded again; he was right.
"And this will be great for the book; we'll be able to work together whenever without having to fly under the radar."
"Alright," I said now convinced. "When do we start?"
18
I couldn't believe the plan that I'd hatched. Sure, it would work if we stuck to it, but a fake marriage? That was a little beyond the pale. But there was no other way. I'd screwed up big time by getting involved in a student, and now Roxanne and I were both going to pay the price by having to partake in a ridiculous charade for the next couple of months. I was right, however, in that if we can just make it through the rest of the semester, we'd be out of the clear. After all, you can't really fault a man for calling of an engagement, can you?
That weekend, I hired a team of movers to bring over the contents of Roxanne's tiny apartment. There wasn't much: just a few pieces of Ikea furniture, her clothes, and boxes of books. I couldn't help but feel a pang of nostalgia as I looked over her belongings; it reminded me of my own years as an undergrad, eating ramen noodles, buying used books, and studying into the night.
"This can be your room," I said, leading Roxanne to one of the guest bedrooms in the house.
"Pretty swanky," she said, looking over the high-ceilinged room, the French windows opened up to the long green span of the backyard beyond. "This whole house is a lot more than what I'd expect for a professor."
"Oh, really?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "What, you expect me to live in a library or something?"
"No," she said, taking a seat on the large four-post bed, "just that it's pretty big. And nice."
"Rosemary, my former fiancée, loved this old Victorian style of house. We'd had our eye on this place ever since I moved here. When I had my first successes with my books, we had enough to buy this place outright, intending to start a family here and put all of this extra space to good use. Things didn't go quite that way, however."
Roxanne's expression turned to one of sympathy.
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories."
"Don't worry about it," I said, leaning against the door frame. "None of those memories are bad ones."
I stood in the room, thinking about Rosemary and the time we took our first walk through the house after we'd moved in, talking happily about our plans to have a child for each of the bedrooms. We talked about names, wondering if they'd be boys or girls, imagining what sort of interests and hobbies they'd have.
But I shook my head before I became too carried away with my daydreaming.
"I almost forgot," I said.
I left the room, walking quickly across the wood floor to the study. Once there, I took one of the paintings off of the wall, revealing a safe. Flicking the dial back and forth, I put in the combination and popped the thing open. Among other important documents, I found what I was looking for: a small box of purple velvet. The item in hand, I made my way back to Roxanne's bedroom.
"Here," I said, walking towards her with the box. "You'll need this."
I handed the box to her and she popped it open, revealing the brilliant, antique engagement ring within.
"Wow," said Roxanne, awe in her voice as she looked over the gorgeous, glittering stone. "This is beautiful."
"It'
s an antique," I said, sitting down next to Roxanne. "It belonged to my grandmother; they don't really make rings like this anymore."
"Was this the ring that you gave to your ex-fiancée?" asked Roxanne, taking her eyes away from the ring and bringing her gaze to mine.
"It was."
"I don't know if I can wear this," she said. "It's incredible. Too much for someone like me."
I put my hand on Roxanne's leg, as if interrupting her.
"No," I said. "It's just incredible enough."
Her beautiful face softened at this, and a small smile came to her mouth.
"Still," she said. "I think a cheap fake from the store would work just as fine."
"No, no," I said. "This is all about the ruse. The details have to be perfect."
This answer seemed to satisfy her. Taking the ring out of the box, she slipped it on her finger and looked it over, extending her hand out and letting the afternoon light play on the facets.
"Well," she said, "even if it's a fake engagement, I never thought I'd wear a ring like this."
She was being facetious, but I was still a little disheartened by how keen Roxanne seemed to be on talking down to herself.
"There's one rule for staying here," I said.
"Oh?"
"No badmouthing yourself."
A guilty little smile formed on her mouth.
"Sorry," she said. "Just force of habit."
"Roxanne, you're a wonderful young woman. You're brilliant, you're beautiful, and you've got an amazing life ahead of you. You deserve anything good that happens to you; don't ever think otherwise."
"Thanks," she said, her eyes now on mine.
We started at each other for a time, the silence heavy with anticipation. Soon, our lips began to move closer and closer, a crackle of electricity in the air between us.
"Daddy!" shouted Darla from downstairs.
"Duty calls," I said, both of us pulling away from one another.
Roxanne and I headed downstairs where Darla was already shucking off her coat and putting her school belongings away. As soon as Darla laid eyes on Roxanne, she rushed over, wrapping her arms around her legs.
"Roxy!" she shouted, clearly pleased to see her.
"Hey, kid!" said Roxanne, returning the hug.
I watched the display happily. Ever since the week in Europe when Darla came to visit, she'd been asking about Roxanne constantly. She was overjoyed, to say the least, when I told her that Roxanne would be staying with us for a time.
"Are you going to live with us forever now?" asked Darla, looking up at Roxanne with wide, eager eyes.
"Um, not forever. But for the rest of the year."
Her arms still around Roxanne's legs, Darla turned her attention to me.
"Can we get pizza tonight, Dad?"
The rest of the day passed with such ease and comfort that it was surprising to think it was the first night Roxanne had been here. She helped Darla with her homework as I worked on class business, then we worked on the book in my study for an hour or so over coffee, going over this detail and that. After that was pizza, which we ate the living room while watching one of Darla's movies, some animated thing about a talking cat. The first winter chill had set in that night, and a warm, roaring fire was set in the fireplace.
Soon after, Darla was in bed, and it was just Roxanne and I. We decided to have a glass of wine before heading to bed.
"This is a weird arrangement, I have to admit," said Roxanne, sitting on the couch wrapped in blankets, the orange glow of the fire dancing on her face. "But I think it'll work."
"I feel the same way," I said, a feeling of contentment creeping into my heart that I hadn't known for many years.
19
After that first night, things took a surprising turn. I mean, I wasn't expecting Evan and I to fall into some kind of wonderful, blissful domestic situation, but I wasn't expecting him to keep his distance the way he had been.
"Well, welcome again," said Evan that first night as he finished his glass of wine. "It goes without saying, but make yourself at home."
With that, he got up, took his glass to the kitchen, and went to bed. I was left there all alone, not sure of what to do. Was it expected that I'd sleep in his bed with him? Just how real was this fake relationship going to be? I considered these questions as I sat in front of the fire, which was now a smoldering pile of embers. I spun my ring on my finger and bit my lip.
Finally, I decided to just go to my new bedroom, where I had a restless sleep. In the morning, Evan prepared a nice breakfast of French toast for Darla and me before heading into his office to work on material for the majority of the day.
"Can we go to the park?" asked Darla as she stood by the window, her eyes on the red and orange leaves that fell from the tall oak trees in the front yards.
"Sure," I said.
"Then to the pet store to look at cats?" she asked, turning back towards me with an excited expression on her face.
"I don't see why not, little lady," I said.
So that's how we passed the day. Luckily, I'd made the decision to get all of my hard classes out of the way in my first few years at school, so now all that remained were easy-peasy intro classes that weren't too demanding, giving me plenty of time to relax and spend time with Darla. We went off to the park, where Darla stomped and played in whatever leaves she could find, and afterward we went to the pet store, where she happily played with every single kitten that was there.
Afterwards, we decided to grab some sandwiches at one of the local cafes where students went to study. As soon as we walked in, however, I felt the heat of many pairs of eyes on me. Chalking it up to my paranoia, Darla and I went to the counter to order our food. In the kitchen, I spotted a girl that I'd had an English literature class with last semester. She looked at me sneakily before whispering something to one of the other cooks.
Once Darla and I got our food and started a search for an open table, I realized that the staring that I'd been imagining was not at all in my head. The students in the place were all stealing glances, taking quick peeks and whispering to one another. My skin felt hot and my stomach felt tight.
I knew that they could only be talking about one thing.
Darla, of course, was oblivious to all of this. Happily munching on her sandwich, she recounted the cats she'd played with, constructing a list of cuteness.
"That's her," one of the students whispered.
"That's the girl that fucked Professor McCall," said another.
"That's her?" said a girl. "I wasn't expecting her to look like that."
I could barely take it. My food sitting untouched in front of me, I was overcome with the urge to leave.
"Hey kid, what do you think of taking off?"
"Fine," said Darla. "I only have the crusts left anyway, and they're gross."
We hurried out of the place and headed back home. After putting on a movie for Darla, I sat down at the kitchen table and thought worriedly about my circumstance. I wanted to talk to Evan, but he ended up being distant that entire weekend.
The next week, my first back on campus since moving in, was just as bad. Students gossiped everywhere I went, and the few friends I had one campus were avoiding me so they wouldn't get caught up in what was going on with me. And every night I'd come home to Evan being distant. Whenever he'd talk to me it would be in the tone of a professor speaking with a student in office hours who was asking him for clarification on one of the subjects covered in class. The warmth between us seemed to have vanished, and I didn't understand why. My time with Darla ended up being one of the only happy points of staying at Evan's.
A few days into the week, I found myself tossing and turning in bed, restless and unable to sleep. I wondered just what I'd gotten into, and if it was something that I'd even be able to bear.
20
Two weeks passed just like that. The end of the semester was already approaching. Roxanne had been a welcome addition to the household, and I was pleased that
she was spending so much time with Darla. The little girl had been in desperate need of a mother figure, and I was happy to see that Roxanne could fill that role, at least for a time,
The gossip at school, on the other hand, was beginning to become intolerable. Every professor seemed to have a smart-ass comment for me about robbing the cradle, and a flyer that someone had made and placed on the notice board in one of the break rooms that stated that I was the new professor in charge of freshman "orientation" only served to make things worse. All I could do was see the see the semester through, break things off with Roxanne, and hope that I might be able to salvage my career here at this university.
So I just grit my teeth, knowing that the faculty would find new things to talk about as soon as this situation with Roxanne was over and done with.
But there was a little problem with that: I didn't want this situation to end.
It was killing me to keep so much distance between her and me. Having her around constantly was so difficult, and it was taking all the restraint I had to keep the situation professional. I could just imagine what would happen if one of us slipped up and kissed the other on campus or, God forbid, we were caught en flagrante somewhere on campus. The scandal and gossip would never end; I'd be forced to work somewhere else.
One Saturday night at the office, however, the…pressure became too much to bear.
I was in the process of going over some of the chapter drafts for the book, pleased with how the work was shaping up. With Roxanne's contributions, the progress on the book was proceeding at a fantastic pace, and there was a chance the first manuscript could even be finished before the year ended. I was overjoyed that I'd be able to put out another book so soon after my last; it would really help with sales.
Taking a break and clicking around aimlessly on the internet, I couldn't help but pull up Roxanne's Facebook page. I clicked through some of her old pictures, laughing to myself about how gawky and awkward she looked in high school, her lovely features having not developed quite just yet.
However, as the timeline of pictures went on, the beauty that she currently displayed began to emerge more and more. Soon, at around her sophomore year of college, she was stunning. But it was the kind of beauty that only a late-bloomer could really have, a beauty that wasn't done up with make-up and revealing clothes- a simple, classic beauty.
