Waiting for a Girl Like You

by Christa Maurice

  Cheryl frowned. “I thought you were done with that.”

  Shit. Shit! Did the whole world know? “How did you know?”

  “I had lunch with Gerald Vukovich yesterday. He said he was surprised you invited him to be on your master’s committee. He thought you were doing Eliot.”

  Gerald Vukovich? Roger was putting together her thesis committee? She needed to get into her e-mail and find out what else he’d done in her name. Oh, and change her password so he couldn’t do it again. “Things have been a little crazy this summer. That’s why I had to come back. Right now, I’m on a bit of a deadline. Can I catch up with you later?” Alex maneuvered Cheryl back toward the door and pulled it open.

  “I bet you are on a deadline trying to get that dissertation defended by the end of the third summer session.” Cheryl leaned on the door jamb. She wasn’t known as Captain Oblivious for nothing. The woman could not take a hint spelled out in twenty-foot tall burning letters in the middle of the student center.

  “I’d love to chat, but let me get situated, and I’ll drop in on you later today. Okay?” Alex closed the door in Cheryl’s face. She heard Cheryl jump back. Well, those who had no clue when to take a hint sometimes had to get a door in the face.

  Alex turned to her desk. Since she was the returning floor supervisor, she hadn’t had to empty her room like most people, but nothing had been updated since her life started falling apart around spring break. The calendar still read April. Her syllabi had either fallen off the wall or were hanging by dried-up tape. Old papers littered the floor. It might have been better if they’d made her clear out her room. She set her laptop on a pile of papers and opened it.

  According to her sent mail, Roger had submitted the Plath thesis to the university shortly after Marc ordered him out of the diner for grabbing her. By the time they were at his house making love, Roger had been sequestered in his cabin at the campground next door, polishing the paper, hacking her e-mail, and submitting it.

  Damn it, she hadn’t changed the password yet. She veered into the settings and created a password that looked more like cartoon physicists swearing than English.

  Back in sent mail, she found e-mails written, which sounded eerily like her, to six professors including Vukovich, asking them to be in her thesis committee. None of them were Plath scholars except Diana Gregor, who had been Melanie’s advisor. Which begged the question, what did Roger have on Dr. Gregor? Not that Alex needed to know, but it did add to Roger’s image of a bottom-feeding bloodsucker.

  What had she been thinking in chasing him? He’d appeared to be so intelligent and wounded, trapped in his unhappy marriage. She’d just wanted to make him happy. Which she had done too successfully based on the way he was pursuing her now.

  In her inbox, she found that Dr. Gregor had accepted within an hour of the invitation, and three others had accepted since. The senile Dr. Whittier had asked in a moment of lucidity why she wanted him on a committee for a Plath thesis when he was a Norse scholar, and she’d never had a class with him. His e-mail signature looked like it could have been created with sticks, and she hoped it wasn’t some kind of Norse curse. She had no answer for him. She guessed Roger had chosen him to add gravitas to her committee since he was the oldest professor on campus and very respected in his unrelated field. She only needed four. And the four who had accepted were either easygoing types who would have approved her thesis if it had been written in crayon on a freshly painted wall, or in the case of Dr. Gregor, were probably being blackmailed by Roger.

  She grabbed the phone off the wall and dialed Roger’s house. He’d be home by now, waiting to meet with her in his office where they could “straighten all this out, darling.”

  “Hello?”

  “How could you?”

  “Alex! Where are you?” He sounded so relieved that it broke her heart a little. He really loved her even if he had to ruin her life to show it.

  “In hell as far as I can tell. Although I’m not sure if it would be in the circle for adulterers or the circle for liars and cheats. If they were next door, maybe I could shift back and forth.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The committee. The thesis committee!”

  “But it’s for you, my love. Vukovich is so honored to be asked, he’ll give you a pass. Anders has always felt if you did the work to get this far, then the thesis was just a formality. Lucci thinks publish or perish is a crock and will approve any old thing to undermine it.”

  “And Dr. Gregor?”

  “She’s going to give you credibility. She owes me a favor, and if she gives you a thumbs up, you’re in for any teaching position in the country.”

  “Where they are going to expect me to be a Sylvia Plath scholar.” Alex pounded her fist against the wall. “I don’t know anything about Sylvia Plath other than she wrote The Bell Jar and stuck her head in an oven.”

  “So for your doctorate, you’ll stay here and return to the Modernists because they are your first love. This is all academic.”

  Had he just said it was academic to mean it was inconsequential? It wasn’t inconsequential. It was her life, and it was academic. This was impossible.

  “Honestly, honey, your defense is going to be eight hours of talking about the weather with a break for lunch, and at the end you’re going to have a job. I haven’t told you the best part.”

  “Best?” When would this nightmare end?

  “I talked to HR and you could have freshman English classes starting fall semester.”

  “Roger. You can’t do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “This is cheating. It’s plagiarism. I didn’t write that thesis. I didn’t earn this.”

  “Alex, most people would be thrilled. I’ve ensured your entire career.”

  “Ensured? You have me chained to you for the rest of my life. I can’t leave this university unless I buckle down and learn everything there is to know about Sylvia Plath, and I’d rather stick my head in an oven. If any of this ever came out, I would be ruined.”

  “I thought you wanted to be with me. You said you loved me. When the time was right, I was going to leave Carla so we could be together.”

  Alex twisted her hands together. She had said those things, and at the time, she’d believed them, but now she knew it wasn’t love she had had felt for Roger because love was what Marc had shown her. Mentioning Marc would make Roger go unhinged, and she needed him at least practicing sane for the moment. “I don’t want you to leave Carla for me. I just want you to be happy.”

  “You make me happy. I can’t live without you.”

  “You have been living without me. I went away, and you survived just fine.”

  “When you left, you proved to me that I needed to work harder to keep you. I made it so—”

  Alex jumped up, knocking over her chair. “You made it so I was beholden to you for the rest of my life. How could you? I thought you loved me, but you never did, did you? You just wanted someone to worship you and need you.” Marc had lots of people to worship him. That was the last thing he wanted in a relationship. Of course, being stupid with Roger had precluded being happy with Marc. A sob caught in her throat. “Have you even tried to work things out with Carla?”

  “Alex, I never meant to hurt you.”

  She laughed. It grated in her chest more like broken glass than joy. “What am I supposed to do, Roger?”

  “Stay with me. You’ll get your doctorate and settle into a nice teaching position. And when the baby starts school, I’ll be able to leave Carla. I promise this time. I am going to leave her.”

  “Surely, you are.” Don’t call me Shirley.

  “You can’t leave me. I can ruin you. I’ll tell the university where that paper came from.”

  And there was the truth. The man she’d been so in love with? User. Master manipulator. Who had lured whom? Alex crossed the room and hung up the phone. He had her trapped. On the tenth floor of
a building with no elevator and caught in his deceit.

  Without Marc.

  * * * *

  Marc set aside his guitar. This was a waste of time. When Jason was in pain, he produced amazing music. All Marc could manage was to suck. No words, no music, no fucking anything. When he was with Alex, he had no trouble creating new music. The best he’d ever done. Jerry even liked the “Short Skirt” song and asked if he had anything else laying around he wasn’t planning to use because he might be able to cobble a career for his one-hit wonder from Marc’s cast offs. Jerry had said he thought Marc had grown as a songwriter and expanded his range, too.

  Maybe he’d meant that patronizingly. Marc opened the e-mail. There it was. Grown as a songwriter. Expanded his range. Like he was some kind of goddamn kid who had to grow up. He needed a drink. Somebody would be up for a drink. Hopefully.

  He climbed into his car, but instead of heading to Ty’s house or to any bar on Sunset, he found himself on the highway to the office.

  Marc pushed through the doors, expecting to see Jody perched at the reception desk, looking as pissed as she had since Jason got married. One would think that four years after he married Cassie, and had one child with another on the way, Jody would have gotten over losing Jason, but no. Then again, Jody wasn’t at the desk either. He started down the hall. Sandy, the band’s manager, had his door closed, but high-pitched women’s voices came through the office manager’s open door.

  Helen sat at her desk with a baby in her arms. Candy, the band’s publicist, knelt on the floor with a black-haired toddler, playing with blocks. Jody sat on the other side, reaching toward her with wonder in her eyes. That was a huge improvement over pissed. Bear’s wife, Maureen, lounged at one end of the couch, leaning over with her elbows on her knees, smiling at the toddler. Tessa, the band’s lawyer, perched at the other end, looking like she was afraid someone would try to hand her a child. Jason’s wife, Cassie, straightened from where she had been leaning over the chair where her daughter Andi was sleeping. No wonder Sandy had his door closed. The whole Greek chorus was here. At least they would be good preparation for the harassment he was going to get from the band.

  “Candy, you said one kid. That’s two kids. Can’t you count?” Marc said.

  “Very funny.” She tweaked the toddler’s nose. “I couldn’t leave June behind in China, could I? Just look at that face.”

  June grinned and went back to stacking blocks.

  “Marc, you must see this darling baby!” Helen said. “Come here.”

  He obeyed because it was easier. The baby was like every other baby he’d had thrust in his face. Small and fragile. The cap of black hair reminded him of Alex, but what didn’t? Eating had been nearly impossible since he came back from West Virginia because food in general made him think of her. Every tune he started playing turned into a dirge.

  “You’re home early,” Cassie said. “What happened with Alex?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Ida said she just up and ran off with no notice.”

  All of them were looking at him now. He’d been trying to brace for this for the past couple of days, but how did one prepare for the pity and disdain of every significant woman in one’s life for not being able to keep a relationship together? If Connie and Suzi were here, he could get it all over at once. “All I can tell you is what I told them. Everything was fine between us when I dropped her off at her cousin’s house. The next day when I went to pick her up after her shift, she was already on a bus back to school.”

  “Why was she still waiting tables?” Tessa asked. “Couldn’t you afford to keep her in the style she was accustomed?”

  Helen hissed at her.

  “It’s a valid question.” Tessa folded her arms.

  “She said Ida and Paul were counting on her, and she couldn’t let them down.”

  “That whole family has always been very responsible, at least the branch in Potterville.” Cassie settled on the floor, leaning on the desk. “They take promises seriously.”

  “And yet, she ran out on her job without giving notice,” Maureen said.

  “My point exactly,” Tessa said. “So what did you do or say to screw it up, Marc?”

  “Tessa!” Helen hissed and the baby started to cry. Marc wished he could join in. Might feel good.

  Tessa kept her gaze glued on Marc. “The full report.”

  “It was great.” He paused. So great she took off without a word. “I thought it was great. We got along. The sex was good. We could talk about stuff. We got into an argument that last day because a customer was manhandling her, and I told him to buzz off. Ida was going to kick him out because he had been there bothering her before.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Beats the hell out of me.”

  “Watch your language,” Candy snapped.

  “The kid is what? Four? And she just got here from China so she doesn’t speak English yet,” Marc said.

  “And I don’t want her first words in English to be swear words.”

  “I want to be there when you tell that to Ronnie.”

  “Done, and he’s okay with it. Now back to the way you have fudged up your life.”

  The chair was taken and no way was he sitting between Tessa and Maureen for this, so he perched on the edge of the desk. Helen had gotten the baby quieted down, so he didn’t have that grating on him. He might make it through this interview with a little dignity. If he could buffalo reporters, he could fool the women in his life. Marc drew a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. Nah. “As far as I know, he was just some customer who’d developed a fixation on her. She got mad because she said she could handle it herself. I told her I loved her and wanted to protect her.” It had been something along those lines. All he could remember was the expression on her face when he told her he loved her. That stunned amazement, like she couldn’t quite believe it was true.

  “You told her you loved her? You?” Tessa said.

  “It was on Facebook,” Maureen said.

  “I must have missed that. Did you even tell Dez you loved her before you’d been married a year?”

  “Someday somebody is going to explain to me why it is so fu—darn important to tell someone you love them. I show it all the time.”

  “You never have told me you loved me,” Helen said.

  “I never told my actual mother I loved her, and I send you flowers every Mother’s Day and on your birthday.”

  “Still. It would be nice to hear the words.”

  Marc twisted so he was facing her. “Helen, I love you. You make my life livable. Happy now?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Did this Alex tell you she loved you?”

  “No.”

  “No? Not ever?” Jody asked. The other women shook their heads and frowned.

  “Angela did tell me she was in some kind of weird relationship that just ended,” Cassie said. “Maybe she was afraid to.”

  “What happened?” Maureen asked.

  Cassie shrugged. “No one knows. Her family never met the guy. It was like some big, dark secret. Angela said she got the feeling the guy might have been her professor because of the way she talked about him up until the breakup. Angela said Alex always talked about him like he walked on water until this last year, and then she stopped talking about him at all.”

  Marc shook his head. “Couldn’t be. Her advisor is married. She told me.”

  “And that means?” Helen said. “It’s not like only rock star wives cheat.”

  “No, not Alex. She’s—she—” She’d muffled herself when they had sex. She always seemed surprised when he wanted to do stuff with her in public. She’d almost been in tears at the house, asking him if he loved her.

  Tessa stood up. “Cassie, I need your help with some research.”

  Marc half noticed them leave the office. He was too busy staring at a point on the wall. Alex? His Alex? She was so honest and fort
hright. How could she have been sleeping with her married advisor?

  Tessa and Cassie walked back in. Tessa stuck a paper in his face. Roger Delgado, professor of literature. The notes scratched at the bottom of the page said he was married with two children, one five, the other a few months old.

  “How do you get this information?” Marc asked to fill the silence while he absorbed what he was seeing.

  “Give me half an hour and I can get his shoe size and what color loafer he prefers.” Tessa settled on the couch. “I’m a lawyer moonlighting as a private investigator.”

  “No picture?”

  Tessa glared at him. “There wasn’t one on his staff page. Give me a few minutes.”

  “Is he the guy who was bothering her at the diner?” Candy asked.

  “Maybe. I think so.”

  “So let’s spin the scenario, shall we?” Candy stretched her arms over her head. “Ex-lover comes to town and begs her to come back. She’s crazy about you, but you represent a real relationship and that scares her, whereas lover boy is the bird in the hand. So she runs back to him.”

  “Have you been taking fiction lessons from Suzi again?” Cassie asked. “Because this is the story I’ve seen play out over and over. Ex-lover comes to town after a nasty breakup that I’m figuring came around the birth of the new baby to the wife. Lover boy is trying to woo her back, and she decides the best way to make him hers is to go tell the misses, breaking up their marriage.”

  “Or,” Tessa said. “Alex is blackmailing lover boy, and he went to WVA to tell her he wasn’t paying any more, so she ran home to spill the beans.”

  “I can’t believe that. Marc wouldn’t be interested in someone that despicable. Didn’t you say he was her advisor? What if he has something on her?” Helen asked.

  “I don’t care.” Marc stood up. “She ran off and didn’t answer when I called.”

  “Excuse me.” Sandy stood just outside the door, clutching a piece of paper. “Maureen, do you happen to know where Bear is?”

  “He said he was going to be working on the cars today.” She turned to the other women. “It’s that magical season of oil change.”