“Of course,” I replied. My voice was too high, and too thin to sound convincing, so I added a big, bright smile. I was not about to spill my guts to two total strangers. Especially not to Ward. I still had my pride. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
A few hours later, and I was cursing my hubris. I should have pretended to get violently ill in the bathroom, cut myself on some glass, tripped down the stairs—anything to weasel out of this. The party was even worse than I thought it would be, and the ‘guest of honor’ hadn’t even arrived yet.
“Yes, I’m working here for the semester,” I explained to Dr. Lieu, one of the professors who would one day decide whether I graduated with a PhD. He looked down his nose at me with obvious, obnoxious pity and shook his head.
“It must be tough with your advisor on maternity leave,” he replied. His tone indicated that Dr. Abernathy’s timing for her pregnancy could be something I might find personally annoying. He clearly did. “Taking a leave from your research can’t be fun, and it’s too bad we couldn’t find you a TA position in the department. It’s bad timing. But I suppose Melissa’s biological clock was ticking.”
“I’m very happy for her,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. While mildly inconvenient to me as it would delay my graduation until at least next year, I wasn’t willing to judge another woman’s choice about when to start a family. Privately, I knew that Melissa’s pregnancy was hard won, much prayed for, and a near miracle. She was on bed rest at the moment, and I was not going to interrupt her just because I wanted to graduate a little bit quicker. Particularly when I had no idea what I’d do afterward.
“Hmm, yes of course. We are all thrilled for her and her wife.” Dr. Lieu, the department head, resisted rolling his eyes. Barely. He was such a freakin’ tool. “Well hopefully you’ll get out of this service job soon enough.” You would have thought I was scrubbing toilets, not distributing champagne. Then again, for Dr. Lieu and those like him, anything that wasn’t a life wholly devoted to writing and reflection was hardly worth living.
I’d been repeating versions of this conversation with every partygoer who caught sight of me, although only Dr. Lieu was quite so transparently patronizing and misogynistic. The faculty inevitably recognized me as I circulated with champagne flutes. I’d worked as a teaching assistant for most of them over the years, so I tried to keep my head down and my presence to an absolute minimum.
Kate had picked up on my uneasiness and offered to put me on dishes, but I knew it would mean she’d need to work twice as hard. We exchanged a look when I returned to switch out my tray.
“How’s it going out there?” she asked, popping another bottle of bubbly.
“I think they’re all having fun. We might need to cut off a couple of them soon though. Or start pushing water on them.”
“I meant you. It must be weird to serve your teachers and watch them get slowly drunk, huh?”
I almost giggled. “Very weird. I’ve taken their classes at both the undergrad and graduate level and also worked for most of them as an assistant—teaching undergrad classes, grading papers, emailing with students.” I shrugged. “They all pity me for working here, that’s what’s really annoying.”
Willie, who was standing nearby, made a grossed out face.
“Why would they pity you?” Kate asked innocently.
“Because they’re career academics.” It wouldn’t be possible to explain the bizarre mindset of these ivory tower dwellers in a thirty second conversation. They were so insulated from the real world that they barely acknowledged its existence. “They see regular jobs and the people who do them as inferior. They clawed their way up the ladder of academia just so they wouldn’t have to do anything else but write and think. The intellectual class can’t be dirtying themselves with labor, you know. Working at a bar is anathema for them.”
Kate shook her head at me. “I won’t pretend like I understand that at all, but hang in there. We’ve only got forty-five minutes left.”
Forty-five minutes to go and Adam still hadn’t shown up yet. The thought that I might escape this debacle without seeing him was beginning to look more and more probable. Of course, the instant I really started to think I should be so lucky, a light touch on my shoulder and a familiar voice pulled me back down to earth.
“Emma, is it really you?”
I took a deep breath to steel myself and turned around.
7
Emma
“Champagne?” I asked. My voice was neutral and emotionless, a true achievement given the circumstances. I stared at Adam like he was no one special at all. Just another customer in a long line of faceless customers. Inside I was a churning ball of emotion (mostly hate), but externally I was a fucking glacier: placid, serene, immovable. My smile was thin, but I forced myself to keep it on my face with Herculean effort.
Nothing to see here, dirt bag. You can’t make me feel a god damn thing. Not anymore. I’m a glacier now. In the past five years, I’ve frozen solid.
“I didn’t know you were even in town. It’s really great to see you!” He appeared dumbfounded and pleasantly surprised, but I knew it was at least partially an act. He knew I was in town. Not only was he a terrible liar who squinted when he was making shit up (something I’d learned too late), but he’d looked at my LinkedIn page at least three times in the past year. The cyberstalking bastard knew precisely where I lived and what I was up to.
He tried to hug me, but I brandished the tray in front of me, effectively blocking his approach. His lips parted in surprise, and possibly hurt.
My reply was bland. “Hmm. Well here I am. Do you want some champagne?”
Glaciers like me don’t give a shit about you.
He blinked at me, noticing the tray for perhaps the first time.
“Are you still waitressing?” There was definite pity in his tone, and it irked me.
“What does it look like to you?” My voice was droll.
I may still be waitressing, but I was not the same. I’d grown up considerably since we broke up. Adam, however, seemed to be exactly the same. He had the same tall, spare figure, the same wide hazel eyes, the same long fingered hands. He dressed like he always had in black pants and a white Oxford shirt. As far as I knew, he had no other clothes, just endless versions of this one outfit. He’d even worn it to the Poet Laureate ceremony the day before.
“Emma, I—" He reached out and touched my shoulder. At the contact, my defenses shuddered. My mental walls, the ones I’d spent three long years rebuilding and reinforcing, shook to their foundations. But they held. I flinched away from him.
“I’ve got work to do, Adam.” I took another step back from him, pulling out from his grasp. “See you around.”
“Wait.” His voice was sharp, but barely above a whisper. I paused reluctantly and raised an eyebrow at him inquiringly. He took the tray from my hands and set it down before pulling me by the elbow away from the crowd. Resisting would cause a scene, so I let him do it. As I was pulled away, I saw Ward and Willie watching. I hated that this conversation was on display, but more, I hated that it was happening at all.
What do you want Adam? What could you possibly want from me now? Surely, you’ve got a whole class full of nineteen-year-old girls to chase. I’m sure you can find some dumb blonde just like me in there.
“Emma,” he whispered, “It really is good to see you. I’ve been thinking about you for a long time. I owe you an apology.”
I blinked. My lips parted in shock. Seeing the change in my expression, a possible softening in my blankness, Adam kept talking.
“I never—we never should have—it was all wrong. Being with you, our relationship, it was wrong. It was all my fault. You were my student. You were too young, and I abused the power I had over you back then. It was an inappropriate dynamic.”
I stared up into his eyes in disbelief. Of all the things he could have said, this was the most surprising. I never thought he would apologize. Not that I didn’t deserve it, or that he was som
e sort of sociopath who couldn’t feel remorse, it was just odd. He’d seemed perfectly willing to use and abandon me three years ago. Unable to reply in any coherent fashion, I just nodded at him. I tried to pull away and get back to the party, but he grabbed both my shoulders to hold me in place. I stared up at him, frozen and unsure.
“Say something, please,” he asked. His voice was thick with emotion. It sounded real. “This guilt has been eating at me for years.” His hands on my shoulders felt warm and familiar.
I looked at him, at the man who’d stripped me of my innocence atop a desk after class one afternoon, a man who regularly fucked me during office hours and then gave me an A- in his class, and I felt shame. He swore me to secrecy about our relationship because of the damage I could have done to his reputation, like I was a dirty secret. At the time, I’d thought it was exciting to have a secret. I thought it was romantic. I sighed. How could I have fallen for him? I was such an idiot.
“What do you want me to say?” I finally managed.
“What are you thinking?” His hazel eyes searched my face. For forgiveness? Regret? Anger? Surely, he found some of all three. He wasn’t the only one who’d made bad decisions.
“I… I’m thinking that I need to get back to work.” I pulled away from his grasp. There was no way I’d let him know one iota of the pain he’d caused me. No way I’d let him know how terribly depressed I’d been when he broke it off with me after finals, telling me he needed to focus on his writing. Not a week later, he announced his engagement to a doctoral candidate in the History department. He’d been cheating on me the whole time, or rather, he’d been cheating on her with me. I’d been the other woman, and I hadn’t even known.
A little curious part of me noted the absence of a ring on his finger. There was no wife with him at this party. Either their engagement was unusually long, and she just hadn’t moved down yet, or it hadn’t worked out. Good. Hopefully the poor woman wised up before her heart got crushed like mine had.
“Enjoy your welcome party Adam.”
Walking away from Adam felt a million times better than when he walked away from me, but it still didn’t feel good. I felt exhausted. Ward saw my face as I reentered the patio and paused mid-shake with the martini shaker to stare. Was it that bad? I forced myself to smile again and make the rounds like I wasn’t wishing I were anywhere else. At that moment I would gladly have accepted the offer for a free root canal to get away, but no alternative was forthcoming, so I continued to serve champagne.
Adam didn’t do his poetry reading. He spent the next twenty minutes staring at me from across the room in between congratulatory handshakes, instead. Awkward didn’t even begin to describe how that felt. Every time I turned his way he was staring intently at me. I tried to ignore it, but it was useless. I was keenly aware I was being watched. And not just by Adam. Kate, Willie, and Ward were all keeping an eye on me. Ward zeroed in instantly when I had to go to the bar to switch out my drink selection.
“Do you know that guy?” Ward asked, nodding toward the patio. I knew which guy he meant.
“Yeah.” Denying it seemed pointless. I filled the tray of fresh flutes as quickly as I could. My hands were shaking a bit, but there was nothing I could do about it.
“Is he bothering you? Do you want me to get rid of him?”
I looked up at Ward in surprise. He was staring across the room with an expression on his face that I’d not seen him wearing before. It wasn’t a look I ever wanted to be the recipient of; that was certain. It wasn’t quite as frightening as the look he gave Carl the night before, but it was close.
“Oh, no,” I said, swallowing and trying to regain my composure. “It’s fine. He didn’t do anything.”
Ward looked at me doubtfully. “Are you sure?” His concern looked real. I didn’t think I could handle a caring, sincere version of Ward at the moment, even if it was a pleasant departure from teasing Ward.
“Yeah, it’s no big deal.” I smiled at Ward, attempting to look professional and collected. I was about to walk away when he spoke again, almost like he couldn’t help himself from asking.
“He’s your ex-boyfriend, isn’t he?”
I nodded, and my pleasant expression faltered. Boyfriend felt like the wrong term given the circumstances, but saying I was his ‘fuck toy’ wasn’t very polite. Or flattering to me. My head hurt. I must be totally transparent. So much for being an emotionless glacier. Ward frowned at my admission.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to get rid of him? If he’s being shitty to you or making you uncomfortable…” Ward seemed oddly eager to throw Adam out.
I shook my head and squirmed. “No. I’m fine. Really.”
“You don’t really look fine.” He frowned.
Gee thanks, boss. Because I feel like shit.
“Sorry about that. I’ll try to do better.” I smiled brightly and stood a bit straighter.
“That’s not what I meant at all.” Ward looked frustrated. He shook his head in apparent irritation.
“It’s really fine. This whole party is for Adam. To welcome him to the department. Even if I really wanted you to, you can’t throw him out of his own party.”
“I can do whatever I want,” Ward replied. “We’re on my property.” He seemed perfectly sure there would be no adverse consequences.
I sighed. I’m not sure a testosterone rush would do anything to make me feel better at this point, even if it would be objectively fascinating to see the two men interact. They were so different in most ways, and so similar in others. “It’s really not necessary,” I said. “It’s all just fine. A little awkward, sure, but you know how it is. It’s almost over anyway.”
“Hmm. Well if you want me to rescue you, just wink at me and I’ll come help. He looks skinny. I could probably toss him a good fifteen feet.”
I smiled at the suggestion, and my spirits lifted a bit. “Ok, I will. Thanks.”
“Drive safely everyone! Be responsible!” Dr. Lieu cried as I led him off by the shirt-sleeve. He toddled along behind me with a shambling gait. He had gotten a bit tipsy over the course of the party and would be taking an Uber home. Given that he’d consumed at least three bottles of champagne alone, it was impressive he was even standing. Leave it to a bunch of writers to drink their weight in free alcohol. I led him away from the party and out the back way to where his car was waiting.
After double checking the address with the driver, I deposited the man who would one day sign my diploma into the back of the car, and took a moment alone in the alley. I chewed a mint to get the vile taste of defeat out of my mouth, but it didn’t do the job. This had been one terrible party. I hadn’t even received very good tips. It seemed that my fellow academics had forgotten that while the drinks were free, my service was not.
Back on the patio, things were finally winding down. There were only a few people left. Predictably, Adam cornered me again as I was picking up.
“Emma, can we talk?” He was persistent. I’d give him that.
“I’m working, Adam.” At the moment, I was in fact picking up trash. Very important and pressing trash. It required my full concentration.
“I know, but… Your advisor is on maternity leave, isn’t she?”
I nodded warily. “Yes, she is.” Adam wanted something from me, and by the way he was looking at me, I suspected that I knew what it was. His eyes traveled over my body liberally.
“Why don’t you let me take over?”
I froze. “What?”
“I know your work and your interests,” he said, smiling at me excitedly. “I know what you enjoy writing about, what topics make you excited to learn. We’ve always worked well together.”
He had a point. I had loved working with Adam and talking with him about the topics we both enjoyed. We’d spent hours, half-dressed, talking about writing. It had been beautiful. But now I wondered if it was because of the attention he was paying me more than anything else. Still…
Adam must have read the indec
ision on my face because he pushed on. His voice became more confident.
“I learned from some of the other faculty that you’ve almost finished your research and are already drafting your dissertation. You could graduate much more quickly if you didn’t wait for your adviser to return. Plus, I really could use a good teacher’s assistant. I’ve got a full course load this summer.”
So, there was something in it for him. I should have known. He had no graduate students right now to do all his menial grunt work. But if I were his teaching assistant, I’d get a stipend, too. I wouldn’t have to work at the bar. I bit my lip, feeling totally confused and out of my body.
“Besides,” Adam said, reaching out to touch me, “we could pick up where we left off.” He dragged his fingers along the soft, delicate skin of my forearm and stepped closer. “But better this time.”
My indecision cut off like a light switch in my brain.
I’m not a toy.
“No,” I told him firmly. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. For a lot of reasons.”
Adam stepped closer to me, stupidly deciding to press his physical advantage. “Come on Emma,” he said softly, stepping closer still and brushing his lips along the skin where my neck met my shoulder. It felt pleasurable, and nostalgic, to be touched like that. But also, very wrong. And I hated myself for even considering Adam’s proposition.
I pulled away from Adam, but he grabbed my hand before I could escape. I felt trapped, although he had only lightly grasped my wrist. In a panic, I looked around, trying to find a way out that would be polite and effective. It was then I realized that there was no one else left on the patio. I was alone. With Adam.
“There you are Emma.” Ward’s low voice, so often obnoxious, was welcome. He’d arrived at my rescue without me even requesting it. He pulled me smoothly out of Adam’s grasp with a huge hand around my waist. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Admit You Want Me Page 5
