A Knight in Central Park(14)

He wrinkled his nose. “Forget I mentioned it. But then why the sudden interest in my personal life?”

“My major is in Psychology, remember?”

“It’s all coming back to me now.”

She responded to his sarcasm with a disappointed sigh. “They were right about you all along.”

He rubbed at the pain stabbing at the back of his neck. “Who? What now?”

“Your students.” Shelly returned to the stairs and took a seat on the bottom step. “The truth is, Professor, I agreed to be your assistant for two reasons. First, I needed the money, and second, rumor had it that you’d make a great case sample for the topic of my thesis.”

“And that would be?” Inwardly, he wanted to strangle himself for asking.

“Why Some Men are Afraid to Commit.”

He should have guessed.

“I took a student poll,” Shelly said, her voice growing cheerful. “Ninety percent of your students believe that you, Professor McFarland, are afraid of commitment. Never mind the faculty poll which...”

“You polled the faculty on my relationship problems?”

“Well, it’s a relief to hear that you’re willing to admit you have a problem. Nothing worse than an AOC in denial.”

“An AOC?”

“Afraid of Commitment,” she said in exasperation, as if AOC were stamped in big black letters across his forehead.

“Your theory is absurd,” he told her. “I’m not the least bit afraid of commitment. I just don’t have the time for any sort of lasting relationship. That’s all there is to it. Nothing more.”

“There’s much more, Professor, but I won’t bore you with all the details. Bottom line is that detachment has a protective value for people like you; people who like things peaceful, quiet, and orderly. Making commitments upsets your passive, somewhat boring existence. It’s easier for AOC’s to do without someone rather than to allow themselves to feel. To have one’s privacy exposed is scary and uncomfortable...makes men like you sweat.”

Joe was quiet for a moment. Not because he had been enlightened in any way, but because his head was spinning. He opened the door and headed outside.

Shelly made a tsk tsk sound, then added in a frank tone, “No matter how much you enjoy your own company, Professor, some day you’ll tire of being alone. I guarantee it. But if you ever want to talk about what might be holding you back,” she said loud enough for him to hear when he quickened his pace, “I’ll be here for you, Professor.”

Exactly what he was afraid of.





Joe ran along Broadway, the brisk morning air spanking his face. When his head finally stopped buzzing, he found himself chuckling at all of the mumbo jumbo psycho analogy Shelly had thrown at him. Another minute and she would have had him analyzing every failed relationship he’d ever had. The way he saw it, they weren’t failed relationships at all. He just happened to date smart, independent women who were too busy to think about settling down. That’s all there was to it. In the end, Shelly would probably blame his parents for his lack of commitment. Psychiatrists were so quick to blame the parents.

His parents, although far from saints, had done their best. His mother had a few problems, drank too much at times...but that was a long time ago. She’d loved him the only way she knew how. His father was another story, but he too, had his reasons for not being there for him when Joe was growing up. And besides, he thought as he ran a little harder, a little faster, none of that mattered.

It was all in the past.

And he only wanted to think about the future, which meant he needed to get his life back on track, back to normal, which brought him right back to Alexandra Dunn.

Who was she anyhow? What was she up to? And what the hell was it about her that made him wonder if there could be some truth to her ridiculous stories?

He was a professor, a man of reason. He dealt with real data, principle and methods—not with phenomena outside the range of normal. But her pronunciation and use of English was consistent with Middle English spoken throughout Europe during the fifteenth century, the time she claimed to have come from. Where would she have learned to speak in a language no longer in use? And her clothes. The dress-like tunic she’d been wearing when he’d first met her was hand-made. He’d seen particles of dirt and straw within the coarse wool, the sort of cloth worn by the lower class in the fifteenth century.

A dog barked, its sharp teeth held at bay by a chain-linked fence.