Becoming His Muse, Complete Set (8 page)

“You need your rebound so we can move on to a proper friendship,” says Ruby, matter-of-factly.

He pales somewhat. “What are you saying? That you’ve already…?”

“Moved on? Yes.”

Jonathan pushes his food away. “I’m not hungry anymore.” He picks up his book bag. “I’m going to take off. Stuff to study. You know…” He doesn’t make eye contact with either of us before carrying his tray to the dirty dishes shelves.

When he’s gone, I say, “How can you be so cruel? He’s still in love with you!”

“Exactly. And he’s got to move on.” She sighs. “I hate being such a bitch around him, but he’s got to screw somebody, even in anger, so that we can put the past behind us.”

“Promise me you won’t ever become a professional relationship expert,” I say. “So who did you screw?”

“Some frat guy. I didn’t even come.” She puts down her pizza crust and pushes her paper plate away. “I’d really like to find a man like Logan O’Shane.”

I bite my lip and say nothing.

“Some of the guys in my creative writing class are trying to act like him but they are so far out of their league. I mean, you’re either born with that kind of charisma or you’re not.”

I lean forward and whisper. “Would you really screw around with a prof if you had the chance?”

“Like if I had the chance with someone like Mr. Logan O’Shane?” She licks her lips.

“Seriously, Ruby. Would you?”

She screws up her brow and thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. Not on purpose, I guess. My parents would kill me if I got kicked out of school. Actually, they’d probably just disown me.
Your
parents would be the ones considering homicide.”

She studies me for a few moments as I wonder if she’s actually right about my parents. My father anyway. He’d certainly make my life hell any way he could, but eventually love would outweigh shame and disappointment. Wouldn’t it?… Maybe not.

“Ava?”

I look up, in that moment realizing I’ve been biting my lip. I release and feel the blood rush to plump up the little indent.

“Are
you
thinking about it?”

“No!” I set aside my Greek salad. “You know I couldn’t do it. I’ve got to graduate if I’m going to have a shot at going to New York.”

A devilish smile pulls at Ruby’s lips. “Just don’t get caught. Aren’t some rules made to be broken?”

She sounds just like Logan. “It’s too risky. Like Jonathan said, you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned.”

Ruby shakes her head. “Listen, Ava. Your degree isn’t enough to get you to New York. You need more
experiences
. You always say you wish you could be half as bold as Jenny Freeman, now’s your chance.”

As if she’s conjured up the devil herself, Jenny struts by our table with frozen yogurt in a cup. She sees us and stops.

“Ruby!” says Jenny. “You’re a Lit major. Did you check out the new writer-in-residence?” Her eyes sparkle as she pushes her full spoon between her smiling lips.

“Oh, yeah. He’s an incredible writer.”

“He’s quite the hottie,” says Jenny.

Ruby nods. “Ava thinks so, too.”

I kick her under the table.

Jenny sizes me up. “So the serious art student is interested? Interesting.”

I clear my throat and call up my best good-girl voice. “I think you both have forgotten that the College Board just implemented a new policy banning relationships between teachers and students.”

“Who said anything about a relationship?” says Jenny. “I’m talking about sex.”

Ruby laughs. “According to the College Board, the word relationship is a euphemism for sex.”

Jenny scrunched up her eyebrows. “Huh?”

“That means it includes sex in its definition of relationship,” I clarify. I like Jenny and I don’t want Ruby making fun of her slim vocabulary.

“But how can they enforce such a thing if it’s between
consenting adults
. I mean if both parties are into each other. It’s not like we’re in high school.”

“Exactly. Consenting adults who keep their business to themselves.” Ruby gives me a meaningful look.

“Have you ever had a fling with a prof?” I ask Jenny. She sucks on her spoon as she thinks, giving me time to wonder if I really want to know the answer.

“Nah, just Teacher Assistants. But I’d totally go for Rich Ten if I had the chance. He’s a total ’10’.”

“Dr. Tennenbaum?” I say, incredulous.

“Damn straight,” says Jenny.

“I can see the allure,” says Ruby.

“He’s going prematurely gray, you know. He’s not that old even. Like thirty-five or thirty-seven or something. He filled in as Prospero during our summer performances of The Tempest. He looks great in a toga.”

“I didn’t realize you knew him so well,” I say. I also didn’t realize he let other students to call him Rich.

“I wish I knew him better, if you know what I mean. But he’s unresponsive to my flirtations so far.” She frowns. “And probably forever with that new policy. He’s not a rule breaker. Oh, well.” She smiles, seemingly over her disappointment already.

I shouldn’t be surprised that my friends have noticed the handsome Dr. T. I suppose, before Logan showed up, he was the cutest prof around, though I’d never felt an attraction toward him. I think it’s because he’s been so supportive of me that I’ve let him fill in where my father’s let me down. With all that, I feel strangely protective of him.

“What about guys your own age, Jenny?” I say, thinking of the guys she was talking about just the other day.

She rolls her eyes. “They’ll do for now, but boy do they take ages to grow up. Gotta go. See ya.” She salutes her spoon at us and off she goes.

“She’s right, you know,” says Ruby. “Older men are where it’s at. They know so much more about how to please a woman.”

Ruby gives me a long appraising look, the one that eventually sharpens into advice. “Ava, you need to think more like Jenny, which means
less
thinking. I know you have to make your own decision about Logan O’Shane, but if I were in your shoes, I’d jump at the chance to jump his bones. He’s gonna go down in literary history, I’m pretty sure of that. And if you get to be his lover, you just might go down to.”

That got me thinking about going down on him…

Ruby winked. “I mean, what if he
writes
about you? How cool would that be?”

I shudder. “Not cool at all. I’m not attracted to him for those reasons.”

“But you are attracted to him, right?”

I nod, thinking back to this morning and the puddle he’d left me in after sketching. “I hate to admit it, but yes. Then again, at times I’m attracted to Brad Pitt, too, and it’s not like I’m going to hop in the sack with him.”

Ruby threw her head back in frustration. “Ava! How can you possibly give me a hard time about
my
logic? If Brad Pitt happened to shoot a movie here and eyeballed you for a mattress mate you would not hesitate!”

I couldn’t help smiling. “I guess not. But it’s not the same thing.”

“My point exactly!”

I laugh. “And what exactly was your point?”

She pauses, screwing up her face in concentration. “Damn, I forgot. All I can think about now is Brad Pitt naked.”

“The point,” I say, recovering our initial discussion, “is that profs are off limits. I’ll have to do the dirty with one of my virgin hunting suitors you so kindly set on me.”

Ruby sighs. “Suit yourself. But you and I both know that satisfaction has its limits with this picked over crowd.”

“I’m not a rule-breaker, Ruby.”

She sighs again, more heavily this time. “I know. Me neither. But at least we can dream.”

Later that night, after his basketball practice, Stephen shows up for our tryst. When I open my door, I try not to imagine Logan slouching against my door frame. When I hand Stephan a beer, I try not to think of Logan’s fingers sliding around his whiskey glass. When I slide Stephan’s Varsity jacket from his shoulders, I try not to imagine ripping Logan’s pretentious tweed jacket off his back. And when Stephen fondles me with his clumsy grip, as if my boobs are basketballs, I try not to wonder what my nipples would feel like in Logan’s mouth. 

I stop before things go too far.

Stephan's confused, disappointed, and a tad pissed off when I ask him to leave. But I've realized something important: it’s not a celibacy streak I need to break, but a rule in my own mind.

The next day, after morning classes, I work up the guts to go see Logan at his office. He did invite me after all. And there’s nothing so strange about a student going to consult with a teacher in a different department. Maybe I need some help with research.

With an effort to maintain my cool, I walk the length of the Childer building where the English Department is housed. I push through to the faculty hall where the prof offices are located. I haven’t had reason to visit this wing since 3rd year, when I had to contest a low grade for a paper on Dante’s Inferno in which I’d included multiple drawings to illustrate my argument rather than just text, plus that other time when I wrote a Shakespeare paper using multiple Old English fonts I’d downloaded from the internet. The paper had
looked
cool but was practically illegible. Once I provided a copy of the paper in Times New Roman I was granted an A minus. My creativity had not been appreciated.

Even though I told Logan that I’d rather be sketching than reading—and that’s true for the most part—I still manage to read a fair bit, it’s a basic college requirement, after all. And in the last few days I’ve made an effort to read one of his novels. I want to learn more about him from his writing. And I want to see what all the fuss is about. Some of what I’ve read so far is intellectually pretentious, but a lot of it’s just raw, visceral, and honest. Some of it is even beautiful. His words make you feel something, even if that feeling isn’t always good. From his writing, I’m discovering that he’s much more layered and complex than I first judged, and so he’s become even more intriguing to me. I know from my own creative process that it’s important not to confuse the art with the artist, but it’s one of those jagged blurry lines that you can’t help detouring from sometimes. People are capable of making ugly and beautiful things, and those things often reflect the ugliness and beauty of their creator.

The magnetic draw I feel toward Logan O’Shane has only gotten stronger with a few days of fiery imagination. But when I enter the building and walk up to his half open door, I tell myself it’s with the intention of taming my imagination with the sobering facts of reality. He’s just a man, after all. Just a man. And I’m just a woman, a woman capable of saying yes. Or no.

I lift my hand to knock and then hesitate. Through the half open door I can see him sitting at his desk, a pen in his hand, a notebook open, its white pages glowing under the lamp directed at it. I watch him lift the pen to his mouth, the end of it touches his bottom lip. He closes his eyes for a moment. Thinking? Composing a new sentence? This is a private creative moment for him, a moment few get to see. I savor it, understanding it, but it’s not often I get to observe it, secretly, in another. It is a beautiful, naked moment, with just a tinge of sadness, because such a moment reminds me of our separateness, hints an the impenetrability of another human being, reveals the abyss that love and art seek to bridge, if only temporarily.

Logan’s eyes open and flash to the door. I haven’t knocked. I haven’t moved. He sees me though, and seems surprised. But he jumps up quickly, comes to the door.

“Come in,” he says, opening the door wider. I peek in first. The room is dark apart from the pool of lamplight over his desk. He’s pulled the thick drapes shut, though he must have left the window open slightly because the navy fabric moves as if by a breeze. I’m sure he needs extra fresh air to clear out the smell of smoke.

“Come in,” he says again.

I hesitate at the threshold.

“Are you afraid I might bite?” he says.

I laugh nervously. “It’s just a matter of time, isn’t it?”

He raises an eyebrow and smiles. “I’m the kind of man who likes to take my time, so you’re safe for a little while.”

Safe is not how I feel as I step across the threshold into Logan new office; I know I’m taking a first step across the threshold of my own limitations. I feel a rush of fear and daring.

Inside, I’m surprised at the comfortable, settled-in state of the room.

He walks around me back to his desk. “I had my personal effects sent up by train. My agent, Lowell arranged it. I just couldn’t bear to go back to the city.”

He doesn’t say why and I don’t press for an answer. I’m too busy looking around his office.

In less than a week, he’s made it look like he’s had this office for a decade. He has shelves filled with books, a two-seater velvet couch with cushions that match a threadbare carpet thrown over the institutional floor tiles. A big leather armchair, looking old and well-used, sits near his desk, which is cluttered with paper, books, an old Smith Corona perched on one corner, and a desktop computer and keyboard sitting in the middle flanked by a coffee mug on one side and a bottle of green water on the other.

“What’s in there,” I ask, pointing to the algae-colored opaque liquid in the bottle.