All's Well(22)

Everything, I tell Grace. And I cry a little if I’m drunk. And Grace looks away.

She’s a little creepy if you ask me, she once said.

Aren’t we all a little creepy at that age? I asked Grace. I certainly was. Weren’t you?

No, Grace said.

I look at Ellie now, her silence containing multitudes. “What can I do for you, Ellie?”

“I wanted to warn you,” Ellie says, looking up at me, her pale face grave.

“Warn me?”

She nods. Looks over her shoulder at the hallway. She left my door half-open. Too late to close it now. “There’s been some… dissatisfaction.”

“Dissatisfaction?”

“Dissent.”

I smile, though it hurts my hip, my spine, my pelvis, my femur bones. “Which is it, Ellie? Dissatisfaction or dissent?”

She looks over her shoulder again, then back at me.

“I think a complaint is going to be made,” she whispers.

I burn. Spine seethes. Hip swells. Legs are screaming for me to rise even though I can’t stand up any more than I can remain seated. “A complaint?”

She nods.

“About what?” Even though of course I know about what. And I know who is responsible. Can picture her at the helm, flipping her burnished hair in righteous outrage, amassing validation from her Ashley/Michelles, emboldened by Fauve, who no doubt took her aside after rehearsal. My dear, I just want you to know that I witnessed Miranda’s pigheadedness firsthand, and I feel you’re absolutely within your rights. It’s your theater club, after all. If you need anyone to back you up, you just let me know. Trevor, her right-hand man, nodding dumbly like First Murderer in Macbeth. All of them marching to the dean’s office together.

Or.

Perhaps Briana betrayed me to her moneyed parents on a weekend home away from campus. I picture a dining room ablaze with golden light. Briana sitting in a gilded chair with clawed armrests, hair gleaming under the chandelier, complaining while stabbing idly at a gold-rimmed plate of poached salmon and braised asparagus. She cast me as a poor unlearned virgin! Her parents nodding sympathetically as they sip large-lipped glasses of amber wine. Her mother placing the call to her dear friend, the vice president, the stem of glass number two between her manicured fingers. About the insane drama teacher. Her stupid insistence upon a play she and her daughter have never even heard of before. All’s Well That Ends Well? Is it even a Shakespeare play? Can’t something be done? Surely something can be done.

“Some of the students,” Ellie begins, looking over her shoulder yet again, “are upset about the choice of play this year. And they’re going to complain. Formally. I overheard.”

I feel my face go red. I look up at Ellie.

Ellie won’t look at me now. Her gaze is for her black pants, her thick thighs alone. Because she is so tender-souled, she’s allowing me a private moment to process all of this, to gather myself. And yet clearly she burns with rage on my behalf.

“When did you hear this?” My voice is calm. Only curious. Not at all wavering.

“After rehearsal. On my way out.”

I can’t cry in front of Ellie. I will myself not to. Don’t, don’t.

“Thank you, Ellie. Thank you for letting me know.” My voice is definitely wavering now. She needs to go.

“Professor Fitch?”

“Yes, Ellie.”

“I just want you to know that I wasn’t part of the discussion at all. I would never do that.”

“Of course not.”

“I just felt you should know.”

“Of course you did. Thank you for telling me.”

“Professor?”

I try to will Ellie away. So I can weep openly. Drop back down behind the desk. Take more pills before my Playing Shakespeare class.

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if you would be up for this.…” She clears her throat, and I half expect her to pull out her Lady of Shalott journal and begin reading one of her depression sonnets to me aloud.

I look at Ellie now, gazing at me so fixedly.

“I make these baths, Professor,” she says. “I’d love to make one for you.”

“Baths?”

“It’s just dried herbs and essential oils and salt,” she says quickly. “Anyway, they’re very healing. Relaxing in a way. They might help with your pain. They’re supposed to have restorative properties.” She blushes, the pentacle pendant around her neck glimmering against her bloodless skin.

“I make them for people,” she says. “For myself too sometimes.”

“Do you?”

I picture Ellie lying in a bathtub filled with stagnant water, her necklace glowing in the dark. Wet hair slicked back. Wan face floating above the steam, lit weakly by a tealight. Her eyes are closed with palpable intensity.

“Would you be interested in a bath?” she asks me.

I try to smile. “Ellie. I’m sure you have better things to do than make me a bath.”

She doesn’t smile back. Just stares at me, dead serious. “I’d like to,” she says. “It’s easy for me.”

“Well, I’m a bit beyond baths, I’m afraid. But thank you. Thank you for thinking of me.”

My office phone begins to ring. The dean? Possibly. Ellie and I both look at the phone.