Unlovely (18 page)

"Okay, well we'll keep working on
that, Claudia. Anything else that has you concerned? I mean, physically."

Claudia paused, trying to decide whether
to share. "I've become a little paranoid about allergies lately. Like I'll
eat something or get stung or something, and then blow up and die."

"Really? Is this a new worry?"

"Not totally new. I used to think
about it when I was in high school. A very good friend of mine died suddenly
from a wasp sting when I was a kid."

"And her death was upsetting to
you?"

"Yes, of course it was."

"Does death frighten you?"

"Of course. Death terrifies me.
Life terrifies me. That's why I'm here."

Claudia couldn't stand the thought of Mark Adams
walking around, knowing her the way he did, and thinking she was a head case.
She couldn't live with him writing her off as some crazy girl that he'd screwed
one night, a story to share over shots of vodka with his Russian friends. She
was going to have to do something about Mark.

After English Comp she headed over to
the Russian department, praying that she wouldn't run into Mark on the way. She
wasn't ready to meet him face to face, yet. Happily, she didn't see him, but
she did walk past
Arkady
. He saw her, too, and gave
her a little wave before ducking into the next open doorway. The look on his
face betrayed embarrassment, not curiosity or amusement. All she could do was
hope that he hadn't yet learned what had transpired last night. He would
eventually, of course. He would certainly ask Mark about it.

Claudia entered the Russian department
office, where she discovered the departmental secretary sitting at her desk
right inside the door. A pile of over-stuffed manila folders lay on her lap,
and she was sorting them into two precarious piles.

"Yes? Can I help you?" the
girl asked dully, not sounding helpful at all. She continued to sort files.

"Yes, I'm a Russian student. I'm
looking for a grad student. Mark Adams. Can I have his phone number?"

"I guess I can give you his office
number, but I'd have to stop what I'm doing and look it up for you," the
secretary muttered, barely glancing at Claudia. "He shares an office with
two teaching assistants. If you want to see him, it's on the ground floor.
G-15."

"No, I think I'd rather call."

The secretary looked up, clearly
perturbed.

"Really? You need the phone
number?" The look on Claudia's face said she did. "Okay. Wait a
minute." The secretary sighed with exasperation at the amount of work she
was expected to do, the way people demanded she just drop whatever she was
doing at a moment's notice. She leaned forward carefully in her chair to access
her Rolodex, trying not to upset the remaining file folders in her lap. They
slipped to the floor.

"Shit."

"Sorry."

The secretary spun through the Rolodex,
stopped, then scribbled some digits onto a sticky note. "There you
go."

"Thank you. Sorry about the
files."

"Yeah."

Claudia walked away clutching the paper.
That had been easy enough. The office girl was certainly rude, though.

Claudia headed straight back to her
room; the secretary had indicated that Mark was in his office, so this would be
the time to call. He picked up after the first ring.

"Mark Adams."

"Hello, this is Claudia."

Silence.

"Can I see you later this
afternoon?"

"Are you serious?"

Claudia hated being asked if she were
serious.

"Can I see you this
afternoon?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Where would
you want to meet?"

"The Russian stacks in the library,
maybe? No one is ever there. I need to talk to you."

"I really don't want to get into
anything Claudia. I don't know what you could want to talk about. You were kind
of a bitch to me last night. Can't we just pretend we don't know each
other?"

Claudia couldn't believe he just called
her a bitch. No one had done that since
Fulko
. And
she'd had sex with this man! Who was he to call her a bitch? She bit her tongue
instead of responding in kind.

"I need to talk to you. We can go
to the stacks and talk, or I could come to your office and we could talk
there."

Mark was quiet again.

"Look, I'm not going to flip out on
you or go crazy or something, if that's what you're thinking."

Still no reply.

"Okay. I'm coming over to your
office. You may want to tell your office mates to clear out. That's up to
you."

"No. No, don't come here. My office
hours last another hour and a half. We'll meet at the library at four. But I'll
meet you in the lobby. I don't want to do any of this cloak-and-dagger,
meet-in-the-shadows crap."

Again, Claudia bristled.

"It wasn't cloak-and-dagger crap,
Mark," she said, carefully modulating her voice to avoid betraying her
irritation. "I just want to be able to have a quiet, undisturbed
conversation with you. I'm fine with meeting in the lobby. We'll figure out
where to go from there."

"Okay, four. See you." And he
hung up.

Claudia hung up the phone and stared at
it. Mark Adams. Jerk. Would
Arkady
have been better
for this little adventure, or would it have turned out this way no matter what?
Who could know?

At ten after four, Claudia walked into
the library to find Mark sitting on a bench, chatting up some redhead she'd
often seen walking around the halls of the foreign language building. The girl
was standing near Mark with her hip thrust out to the side, rocking back and
forth on her heels. Probably an achievable sexual conquest, from the looks of
it.

"Hey, I'm here," she said
brusquely, interrupting their conversation and forcing the redhead to move off
to the side. She was surprised at her own bravado, but she'd decided on the way
over to act assertively, even if every instinct told her to flee.

Mark looked up at Claudia, irritated.
"So you are. You're late. I would have left if I hadn't bumped into
Carolyn."

Claudia turned to the girl with a quick
smile that could have been interpreted as a grimace. "Hi, Carolyn. Sorry,
but I'm going to have to steal him away from you. We have to talk."

Carolyn turned to Mark, who shrugged.
Annoyed at being dismissed, she directed a withering gaze at Claudia, but the
target of her effort didn't even notice.

"Okay," Carolyn said,
continuing to stare at Claudia until forced to concede she'd failed to
discomfit her. She turned back to Mark. "Well, 'bye."

Mark watched Carolyn walk away before
saying, "Wow, you're rude to everyone, aren't you?"

"That was rude? I didn't mean it to
be. Where do you want to go?"

He sighed heavily and got to his feet.
"How long is this going to take?"

"I don't know. It'll take as long
as it takes."

"Oh, hell. Okay, let's go to the
union and get coffee or something. It won't be crowded for another hour or
so."

"Fine."

They walked to the student union through
cold, late autumn drizzle, moving very quickly, side by side, not speaking to
one another. Claudia had no real idea of what she was going to say. The main
thing she needed to convey was that she was a balanced, normal person, that sex
with Mark had been no big deal. If she could transfer the responsibility for
her outburst on to him in some way – if she could make him feel guilty – that
would be good, too. She must convince him that he misinterpreted everything
last night. Why exactly the opinion of this man was so important to her, she
couldn't have explained. It just was.

They entered the student union with limp
hair and runny noses, and headed downstairs to the smaller cafeteria. Mark
bought his coffee, Claudia a cup of tea, and they walked across the uncrowded
room to a booth in the back corner.

Claudia blew her nose in a napkin, Mark
stirred his coffee, and they sat without speaking for the first couple of
minutes. The clatter of silverware in the
dishroom
seemed very loud; the servers were joking with one another in vulgar language.
The room was uncomfortably warm. It was an unfriendly atmosphere.

"So, here we are. What is it you
want to talk about?"

Claudia didn't like the hostility on his
face. She wasn't accustomed to being in a vulnerable position. She pulled off
her coat and rested against it, then stared into her cup for a few moments,
failing to find the inspiration she was hoping would be resting in the bottom.

She had to say something, so she began.
"Last night I never wanted to talk to you again, let alone see you. But
today I feel different. I feel better now."

Mark furrowed his eyebrows, drawing all
of his features even closer into the center of his broad face. It was
unattractive.

"Really? Is that why you wanted to
see me, to let me know you're better? Well, good for you. That's great,
Claudia."

Claudia pressed her lips together at his
sarcasm and closed her eyes, forcing down the mortification. She took a sip of
tea and put the cup down carefully, buying time to plan her words.

"No, that's not why I called you. I
wanted to see you to apologize for last night. I was out of control. I know it,
and I regret it." There. It was out. A semi-apology, no real loss of
dignity.

There was no change of expression on
Mark's face, just the tiniest nod of acknowledgment.

"Anyway, that's not how I usually
am," she continued. "I'm usually a very steady sort of person. I
don't know what was wrong with me last night. Maybe it was the alcohol or
something."

Mark brought his coffee to his lips and
said over the rim, "No, I don't think it was the alcohol."

Claudia took offense. "How do you
know it wasn't? I don't drink very often. I mean, wine on the holidays, but I
don't usually --"

"It wasn't the Schnapps. It seems
pretty obvious to me what it was: you were in over your head. You thought you
were more mature than you are. You aren't ready for sex. I'm sorry I didn't see
that right away."

Claudia stared at him, disbelieving. It
appeared that Mark was going to take this opportunity to humiliate her.

"I'm going to be honest with you.
You are not my type at all. Normally, I would never have made a move on you.
But let's be frank with each other, okay? You were looking to get laid, I've
been going through a dry spell, and I thought we could help each other
out."

Claudia just stared at his mouth as he
spoke, not trusting herself to look in his eyes, feeling the heat rising up her
neck. He was so crude. She wished he would shut up. She wished she were
somewhere else. This meeting had been a terrible idea.

"So, I came over with the Schnapps,
to loosen you up. Maybe you wouldn't have gone through with the whole thing if
there hadn't been alcohol involved, but I don't think we can blame the booze
for your behavior afterward. I mean, I gave you some Schnapps, but I didn't get
you drunk. You weren't drunk, right? I don't go around getting girls drunk so
they'll sleep with me. It was the sex that freaked you out."

Claudia opened her mouth to speak, but
Mark cut her off.

"Now, I will admit that I took
advantage of the situation, and I guess you deserve an apology for that. It was
thoughtless of me, but unless you've been living under a rock all these years,
you know that's kind of how guys are. You might as well learn that now, if
somehow you missed it. I don't know many guys who wouldn't have done what I
did. I mean, you know that, right? Can you honestly say I did anything really
wrong?"

"No one is accusing you of
anything, Mark," Claudia muttered, increasingly amazed as he just kept
talking.

"You wanted to have sex. You were the
aggressor here. That is the simple, objective fact of the matter, and really,
if you would think about this rationally for just a moment, you would realize
how lucky you were that I was the one you ended up with. There are a lot of bad
guys out there who might have done a real number on you. They wouldn't have
cared about you at all when it was done; they would have screwed you and left
before you even opened your eyes."

Claudia nodded.

Mark mirrored the nod. "And by the
way, you know,
Arkady
is no saint. I've heard his
stories. I'm not like that. I have morals."

In the middle of the monologue the truth
began to dawn upon Claudia. This wasn't hostility, this was defensiveness. Mark
didn't think she was nuts. He was feeling guilty. Deep inside he knew he had
trespassed, but he was unwilling to acknowledge it.

Tears of relief welled up in Claudia's
eyes. He wasn't accusing her or judging her. He was afraid.

The moment Mark saw Claudia's tears he
felt the hard knot he'd been carrying around in his gut relax. Quiet crying was
something he was familiar with. She wasn't here to accuse him of anything, she
was here to be reassured that everything would be all right. She was just a
little girl.