Commencement (2 page)

“Enthusiasm?” I laughed. “Is that all you felt last night? Enthusiastic? Boy, I must be slipping.”

“That word was poorly chosen. I should choose another.” I could hear the smile in his voice and couldn’t help but broaden my own in response. “Passion. Perhaps that’s better?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of mind-numbing, vision-blurring, seizure-inducing lust,” I teased. “But, hey, you’re the one with the English degree and the silver tongue.”

“Mmmm,” he growled. “Silver indeed. Once I have my way with you, you’ll upgrade that assessment to platinum.”

I gulped. “Oh yeah?” I asked, rolling my eyes at myself.
What a lame response.

“Yes,” he said, musing. “Torture—that’s the word.”

“What?”

“That’s what last night was. Torture. That’s what it was to watch you strip for me, to be so close to those lush curves and not be able to touch them. To watch your greedy cunt suck on that bottle as I fucked you. To watch your eyes spiral into bliss as you came for me.”

My mouth went dry while my thighs went wet, and I struggled to speak. “You, well, the bottle…you, uh…,” I mumbled.

“It was fucking torture. This, is fucking torture.”

I nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see me. I was sweating buckets now, his words heating me, stoking fires along my spine. I held the phone tightly to my ear and walked back towards the bathroom.

“When we are finally together…that, I promise, will be rapture.”

“Rapture?” I whispered.

“Exultation,” he replied

“Those are good words,” I said quietly, the evidence of my arousal still trickling down my thighs.

“Yes, those are bloody excellent words.”

I nodded again and dropped my towel to the floor. I was going to need another shower.

W
e talked for twenty minutes
, a ridiculous conversation full of flirting and obscene innuendo that left my cheeks hurting from smile strain by the time we hung up. I could’ve talked for hours, but I really did need to pack and then swing by Clouds for my paycheck before I drove down to my mom’s house the following morning.

“What’s up, cupid?” I said to Sasha as I walked in to her office.

“My frustration,” she quipped, setting a stack of papers down and sliding a pair of readers off her face. “I’m sick to death of paperwork.” She gestured to the chair in front of her desk. “Sit and help me procrastinate for a moment. Why am I cupid?”

“Because you gave the Professor my number.” I sat down opposite her and leaned my elbows on her desk. “I thought you had a rule against giving the customers our contact info?”

“Oh, let’s not be coy—he’s not a customer. He’s your lover.”

I grinned at her, bouncing in my seat a little “Yeah, he is!”

“That’s my girl. So last night was…?”

“Last night was amazing. Complicated, but amazing.”

“Complicated usually is. I am deeply envious.” Sasha laughed, opened a drawer in her desk, retrieved my paycheck and handed it to me. “Here is your pay, and here”—she plucked a slip of paper from a stack— “is my list.”

Sasha is a foodie, with a knack for knowing all the best artisan bakeries, cheese-mongers and small wineries in a four-state radius. It just so happened that my three-hour drive down to Cape Annabel takes a route that is peppered by some of Sasha’s favorite spots. For a few years I’d been keeping her, and sometimes the club’s tiny bar menu, stocked with pastries, charcuterie and the best micro-brews that Maine has to offer. I took the list from her and looked it over.

“If Torkelson’s has that incredible Pinot Noir infused Salami then get as much of it as you can and just cut half of the prosciutto I listed.”

“Wow, a pretty big haul this time,” I said, looking up at her.

“I put cash in with your paycheck,” she said, shrugging.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Can’t a women buy twenty pounds of salami without the third degree?”

“No.”

She sighed and drummed her painted fingernails on the desktop. “The gentleman I’ve been…spending time with, recently informed me that he plans to run for State Senate.”

“Oh?”

“Our relationship, what little of it there was, has been ended. He feels he’s less likely to get elected if it becomes known that his…inamorata is, as he phrased it, a ‘modern day madam’.”

“Shit, that sucks.” I frowned at her. I wasn’t entirely sure what this had to do with salami, but I was definitely pissed on her behalf. “Fuck him.”

“Not anymore,” she said and lifted her reading glasses to her face. “My two greatest pleasures in life,” she said, sliding a letter opener into the flap of an envelope and dragging it violently down the length of the fold, “are food and cock. I currently have no prospects for cock, hence the list. If I cannot stuff one hole, Jane, I intend to stuff the other.”

“Food and men, huh? Yeah, I think I can agree with that.”

“No, I didn’t say men—men I can do very well without. It’s cock I like, and at the moment I’m in short supply, so I’ll be needing quite a lot of Pinot Salami.”

“Alright then, boss.” I stood up and lifted my hand to my forehead in mock salute. “I won’t let you down. You’ll have your salami dildos by Friday!” I turned and headed for the door.

“Jane,” she called after me, laughter choking her voice.

I turned and raised my eyebrows.

“I’m going to eat the salami, not fuck it.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Jane!” she shouted, and I waved her off as I headed down the hall.

“Made you laugh!” I called, and I heard her groan even as she continued laughing.

T
he next morning
, as I was gassing up my car for the drive down to Mom’s, I remembered what I didn’t even realize I’d forgotten. Again. The third surprise. Good God it was like every time I spoke to this man my brain reset to zero and all sense flew out of my head. I pulled up his number on my phone as I buckled in, and then transferred the call to the Bluetooth speaker in my car.

“Don’t say anything,” I said when he answered.

“Alright, um. For the sake of clarity, are you instructing me to refrain from using that particular word or all words found in the English language?

“All of them. Shush.”

“How about French? Est-ce que je peux te parler en français?”

“Fuck, that was sexy. I can’t think when you’re being sexy. Shut up.”

“Votre désir est ma commande.”

I squinted at the road, trying to wrestle a translation from the tiny lexicon of French that I still possessed from high school language classes. “Oh! Your wish is my command! Aw, that’s cute. And also sexy. I told you to stop being sexy.”

“Je suis désolé”

“Gah!” I yelled. “Stop!”

There was silence. Well not quite, it sounded less like actual silence, and more like someone holding a hand over the receiver of their phone while they laughed.

“Okay listen, I meant to ask you this when we spoke yesterday and I forgot.”

Nothing; no reply.

“Hello?”

“Je t' écoute”

“Je…je…oh
‘I’m listening.’
Right, sorry. I told you to shut up, didn’t I? Okay, my question is what was the third surprise?”

Silence again.

“You said that I surprised you three times. You explained the first two, but you never said the third. I mean I kind of assume the third was walking into Cloud’s and seeing me gyrating half naked around a pole, but you didn’t specify that. We kind of got distracted by other things and you forgot to say, and I’m really curious.”

He cleared his throat. “Am I to talk now?”

“Yes, please do.”

“Okay, how about the being sexy part? Can I be sexy again?”

“Just answer the question, Mr. Charming Pants. Jeez.” I laughed.

“Mr. Charming Pants? Nice. Alright, let’s see, what was the third way in which you surprised me?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm, let me think. Ah yes, I remember. I remember very well.”

“Okay,” I prompted. “So tell me.”

“No. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“What? Why not?”

“Well, I didn’t actually forget to list it the other night, I just decided to keep it to myself.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s private.”

“It’s about me!”

“Too right,” he said, laughing, “but it’s my secret and I shall discharge my secrets… as I see fit.”

“Discharge? That sounded suspiciously Shakespearey there, buddy. You were just about to quote something, weren’t you?”

“I was, but I thought better of it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you asked me to stop being sexy and you have on previous occasions implied that the quoting Shakespeare thing could be construed as sexy. I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“Oh my God. I’m rolling my eyes right now. I’m rolling them so hard. I want you to know that.”

“Duly noted,” he said and I heard laughter in his voice again. “How’s the drive?”

“Ugh, just started. I’ve got a few long, boring hours ahead of me.”

“Well, shall I keep you entertained?”

T
he long drive
to Cape Annabel was considerably more enjoyable with the Professor to talk to.

“You’re an excellent car buddy.”

“Well, thank you. I’m aiming for the perfect balance of entertaining you, without risk of dangerous distraction.”

“You’ve done great.” I laughed. “So what are your plans this week?”

“I’m going to ply my body with large quantities of lo mein as supplied by a most excellent Chinese restaurant nearby, and then I’m going to finally catch up on some television programs that I’m obscenely behind on.”

“Yeah? Which ones?”

“First up is
Downton Abbey
. I think I’m about two decades behind everyone else.”

“Oh, I love that show. Which season are you on?”

“The third.”

“Oh,” my voice fell flat.
Shit, he’s in for a bad week.

“What? Why the ‘Oh’?”

“Really? You’ve got no idea? You’ve managed to remain spoiler-free for that show all this time?”

“Yes, I have. And I’ll thank you not to ruin it for me now.”

“Alright, I’m just astonished. You’ve got a serious talent for avoidance, sir.”

“Mmm, so I’ve been told.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” he said, then changed the subject. “What are your Thanksgiving plans? Large family gathering?” he asked just as the call waiting on my phone buzzed.

“Oh, that’s my mom, can you hang on?”

“Absolutely”

I put the Professor on hold, switched over to my mother, and then switched back a minute later.

“I’m back,” I said. “My loving mother is standing me up for our pizza date tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, but I forgive her. Her boyfriend snagged reservations to Pinelli’s, an incredible restaurant in the city—the waiting list is like two years long—so I don’t blame them one bit for taking it. Sounds like they are going to stay the night, too. So it’s just me and a bottle of wine and a pizza tonight.”

“Pizza and wine? That’s one of my favorite meals. Want company?”

“Company?” I asked as I turned down the long gravel driveway that led to my mom’s house, high on the cliffs overlooking Cape Annabel harbor. “How does that work with you three hours away?”

“Modern technology, darling. I assume you have a camera on your phone or laptop?”

“
S
o let’s see
…We’ve done the sitting room, dining and living room, and the library, that leaves the kitchen,” I said as I rounded the corner into the kitchen, my mobile phone held aloft as I took the Professor on a remote tour of my mother’s house.

“I’m completely obsessed with that library,” he said. “You have to give your mother my compliments. I could get lost in there for hours.”

“I’ll tell her you said so. She’ll laugh, because that’s exactly what my sister and I used to do as kids. We’d curl up on the window seat in there during a storm with mugs of hot chocolate and our favorite classics.”

“You have a sister? Does she also have a name plucked from the pages of a gothic novel?”

“She does.” I nodded, grinning at him. “Charlotte, and before you ask, yes, she was named after the Bronte sister. And she’s insufferably proud of it.”

“I see, so those two little girls in the window seat during a storm, one was reading Bronte and the other Austen.”

“Oh absolutely. Charlotte is an unapologetic fan of the Byronic hero. Case in point, her boyfriend, Mason, is a moody, controlling piece of shit. Naturally, she adores him.”
Which is why she won’t be here for the holidays
, I almost said out loud.

The Professor laughed so hard he choked. He reached for his beer and sputtered through a sip. “So poor Ms. Frank, in my class, she never had a chance. You’ve been arguing for team Austen since childhood.”

“You bet I have. I’ll take Mr. Darcy over that pyscho Mr. Rochester any day,” I said. The oven timer chimed, signaling that the frozen pizza I’d popped inside twenty minutes earlier was now ready for consumption.

“I am comforted to hear that. If your taste in literature has affected your tastes in men, then I like knowing you assume I have more in common with Darcy than Rochester.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “By the way, this is the kitchen,” I said, panning my phone quickly around the room before setting it on the counter top.

“What a spectacular ceiling—a truly exemplary use of the color white.”

“Oh shut up,” I said, slipping on oven mitts. “You’re just there for a minute while I get my pizza.”

“This must be what it feels like to be a turtle, on its back at the mercy of the elements.”

“Quit moaning and eat your food. How’s the lo mein?” I asked, setting the pizza on the counter and picking up the phone just in time to catch him shoveling a slippery tangle of noodles into his mouth.

“Dellishuss,” he said. “Brudy, famtasic.”

“Hey, say it don’t spray it, mister,” I said, pretending to wipe off my face.

He swallowed and laughed, then lifted a napkin to his screen and mimed dabbing at my face.

“Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” I smiled back at him, admiring how sexy this man could look even in casual attire. He wore a blue T-shirt under a bulky, black cardigan with a high rolled collar. His hair looked like he’d combed it in a wind tunnel and his jawline bore a healthy sprinkle of scruff.
Dellishuss indeed.

“What kind of house is this? Where does it fit in the standards of American architecture?” he asked.

“That is a topic of some lively debate in this family, actually. Really I’d say it’s a beach bungalow that swallowed a cape cod and then developed delusions of Victorian grandeur. Lots of built-ins and wainscoting, and plenty of nooks and crannies for epic games of hide and seek when we were kids.”

“So you spent your summers in this house, then? As a child?”

“We did, until my parents divorced, then we moved here full time.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “It was a long time ago and my dad is an ass-hat; we are all better off without him.”

“Sadly, I can relate.”

“That is sad,” I said, genuinely sorry to hear he had a crap dad too. But the last thing I wanted to do right now was derail our fun by swapping sob stories, so I fast forwarded to the next part of the tour.

“So now you’ve seen the kitchen,” I said, waving behind me. “Time to show you the garden and the beach.”

“Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked.

“I am,” I said, opening a cabinet and snagging my mom’s oversized picnic basket from a shelf. I stacked several slices of pizza on a paper plate, and then set it, a bottle of wine, corkscrew, glass and a pile of napkins into the basket. “I love eating outside this time of year.”

“Isn’t it too cold and dreary for that?”

“Nope,” I said. “I’m a Mainer. My people invented cold and dreary.”

“No you didn’t. You inherited your hearty dispositions from your forebears, who, I might add, come from the same genetic stock as my own. So you’re welcome.”

“Don’t get smug with me, buddy. My forebears ditched your rainy rock collection centuries ago in search of brighter shores and they found them. That’s why they call it
New
England. New, as in better. New, as in
awesome
.” I grabbed the phone and the picnic basket, and walked from the kitchen to the double set of French doors that banked the back wall of the living room.

“Well, listen, if my forebears hadn’t had the good sense to…persecute and oppress yours, then this brave new world would have…would have…,”

“Keep pedaling,” I said as I stepped through the French doors to the all-season porch.

“Well, it would have belonged to the French, wouldn’t it? And no one would’ve wanted that, except the French of course, so really you should be thanking us.”

I laughed as I set down the basket and pulled on the pair of galoshes that sat next to the door leading to the garden.

“Thank you, Professor, and please thank your countrymen for me. We Americans are so grateful to you. Without your noble efforts the world might have never known the joys of baseball, mega malls or reality television,” I said, retrieving one of my mother’s down-filled winter jackets from where it hung on a peg.

“Again, you’re welcome. Although I can’t tell if those examples were meant as an endorsement or an indictment.”

“Neither can I, actually,” I said as I threw the winter coat over my shoulders.

“I think I prefer observing this process in reverse,” he said, the Professor’s voice coming from inside the sleeve I was currently sliding my arm through. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re no doubt just as becoming cocooned in puffy coat or whatever this is, as you are in bits of lacy nothingness, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I prefer the nothings.”

“Right, well, while it’s always a bit warmer here by the seashore, it’s still November and it snowed today, so I’m afraid you’ll have to learn to love the puffy coat,” I said, and stepped out into the garden.

T
he path
of my mother’s garden wound through what looked like a vegetative crime scene. A layer of snow blanketed sleeping ferns and drooping succulents, and edged the perimeter of a few evergreens with the stark grace of a chalk outline.

“In the summer, this garden is amazing. At the moment it is, underwhelming at best, ” I said as I plodded across paving stones and ducked under a branch to the staircase that led down the hill from the garden to the beach below. “So we’ll skip it, and just head down to the pavilion.”

“Oh, that sounds exciting. What’s the pavilion?”

“Well, it’s like a party area, for having get-togethers on the beach. My dad had it built when we were very young. This house is one of just a handful on Cape Annabel Harbor that has its own private beach.” I continued talking as I came to the last few steps of the staircase. “The pavilion is partly covered and partly open,” I said, setting down the picnic basket on the lounge beneath a long wooden awning. “It has an outdoor kitchen, and fire pit”—I held up my phone and panned around the pavilion to the beach beyond— “and Claremont beach.” I stepped out onto snow dusted sand.

“Wow,” I heard the Professor whisper from my palm.

Wow indeed
, I thought. The sun was just beginning its descent under the horizon. Colors danced across the water, bright orange, pale teal and lavender. It was a view that always warmed me, no matter the season or the climate, but tonight, in this moment, standing here, sharing it with the Professor — I shivered. The breeze that coasted in from the sea was no colder than any other winter picnic I’ve taken, but still goose bumps broke out along my down-covered arms. I shook it off and walked back to the lounge area to light a fire.

“Oh, you’re a pioneer woman,” said the Professor enthusiastically.

“Not quite,” I said, flipping the switch on the fire pit that started the gas. “American ingenuity. We like our fires operable by remote control.”

“Oh, that’s just cheating.”

“Absolutely.” I propped the phone up on the lounge seat next to me, facing the beach, then set to work opening my bottle of wine.

“This is truly spectacular, Jane. It’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with me. I feel like seeing this has given me some precious insights into you, a deeper understanding.”

“Don’t go getting all sentimental on me now,” I said as I poured wine into my glass and lifted a slice of pizza to my lips. Tears welled in my eyes, and I wiped them hastily, grateful the Professor couldn’t see my face at this moment.

I was so enjoying his company, and yet, it was making me somewhat melancholy at the same time. The strange half-nature of his presence, was messing with my head. He was here, his voice, his face on that small mobile screen, and yet he wasn’t, not really. It made me feel lonely.

You’ve been lonely for ages, girlfriend. Really, really, really fucking lonely.
I took another bite of pizza and a big swallow of wine, willing myself to shake off this nonsense.

“It is beautiful,” I said. “Wait till the sun goes down. The stars and the moon over the water, it’s really something, Professor.”

“Jane?”

“Yes?”

“Please call me Thomas.”

T
homas
, I thought, trying his name out in my head. We’d talked for an hour on the beach, and during that time the Professor had tried to coax me into calling him by his first name. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. At first it just felt awkward, and I was uncharacteristically shy about the whole thing, but the more he pushed the more I enjoyed holding out on him. Turn around is fair play as far as I’m concerned, and if the Professor was inclined to play games then I felt free to do the same.

“Not yet,” I’d said. “I haven’t graduated yet, so you’re still the Professor.”

“Oh, that’s just indefensible, that is. Giving me a taste of my own medicine?”

“Absolutely. Be careful how you treat the patient, Doctor, lest you end up the one in the bed…er…I mean…”

“Ha!’ he laughed, slapping a hand to his chest. “Got away from you at the end there, didn’t it?”

“A little bit.” I laughed along with him.

We’d said our goodnights and I’d walked back to the house alone, put away my picnic basket and settled into my childhood room for the night. I unpacked my clothes, plugged in my laptop and checked my email, then sat for a few minutes, staring idly at the lavender calico bedspread.

Good Lord, Mom,
I thought.
That thing has been here since I was sixteen. Time for an upgrade.

It was getting late, and I was wide awake, restless and foolishly replaying my dinner conversation with the Professor in my mind ad nauseam. I decided to take a long bath to soak his voice out of my head, but fifteen minutes later, my body was still anxious and my mind still chattering. I’d moved on from saying his name over and over in my head to whispering it to the bubbles that were quickly fading in the tub.

“Thomas….Thomas,” I said to the suds, giggling at my own idiocy.

I pulled the plug on the bath, and rose, reaching for my towel just as I heard an incoming call ringing on my laptop. Wrapping the towel around me, I sprinted into the bedroom and saw the alert flashing on the laptop screen. Dr. Thomas Grayson was calling me.

“Can’t get enough of me, huh?” I said as I sat in front of the computer screen.

The top of the Professor’s head, tousled, covered by both his arms, filled my field of view.

“Professor? Are you okay?” I asked.

He shook his head no.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

He shook his head again, and answered, a pained muffled sound. But I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“Seriously, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

“Cousin Matthew,” he wailed, his face still buried under his arms.

“Oh no!” I said, trying to sound sympathetic as I laughed. “Oh no, you watched the last episode, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, lifting his head. He ran a hand over his face, shielding his eyes from my view. “After we got off the phone I cued up the last few minutes of the Christmas episode, because the suspense was killing me. And now I’m too devastated to sleep.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I giggled, and then clapped my hands over my mouth trying to stifle the sound. “Have you been crying?” I asked.

“Not crying,” he said, taking off his glasses. “Just a little misty.” He rubbed his eyes and then replaced the lenses, looking up at me for the first time. “Whoa.”

“What?”

“Hang on, the evening is looking up for me now. Are you in a towel?”

“I am,” I said, looking down at my barely covered cleavage as if I’d suddenly forgotten. “You caught me just getting out of the bath.”

“Oh, how delightful.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and rubbed one hand over his jaw thoughtfully. “You know…I think could survive the sudden and tragic demise of Cousin Matthew, if only I had something lovely to distract me.”

“Something lovely?”

“Something resplendent, even.”

“Ah,” I said, rising from my chair. I tilted the screen of my laptop, adjusting the angle of the camera slightly. I took a few steps back, and plucked at the top of the towel. “So, you’re hoping for a show, are you?”

“A man always hopes, sweet Jane.”

“Well, let me see…” I pulled at the front of the towel, untucking the top. I opened it just a fraction and slipped my leg out to the side. “Maybe…” I whipped off the towel and threw it at the laptop. It landed square on its target, covering the camera completely and blocking me from the Professor’s view.