My Dark Vanessa(108)
But he doesn’t touch me. There’s nothing close to a touch, not even a handshake. It’s just endless looking—in his office, during class. As soon as I open my mouth to speak, his face turns tender and he praises everything I say to the point where the other students exchange annoyed looks, like There she goes again. It all feels familiar, a trajectory I remember so well I have to clench my fists to stop from tearing into him when we’re alone. I tell myself it’s all in my head and that this is how normal teachers treat their best students, a little special attention, nothing to lose your mind over. It’s just that I’m depraved, my mind so warped by Strane that I misinterpret innocent favoritism as sexual interest. But then again—making me a CD? Calling me into his office every day? It doesn’t feel normal, not in my body, and my body knows even if my mind gets confused. Sometimes it feels like he’s waiting for me to move toward him, but I don’t have the courage I had at fifteen, I fear rejection, and besides, he’s not giving me enough, no pat on the knee or leaf held up to my hair. My most brazen behavior: going braless one day under a silk camisole, but then I’m disgusted when he stares—so what is it that I want? I don’t know, I don’t know.
Late at night, when I’m too drunk to stop myself, I open my laptop and type the Browick address into my browser, bring up the staff profiles. Penelope Martinez got her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas in 2004, which makes her twenty-four. That’s how old Ms. Thompson was when she and Strane were doing whatever they did. Why did no one think that was wrong at the time, a twenty-four-year-old girl and a forty-two-year-old man? “Girl” because she was more like a girl than a woman back then, with her scrunchies and hooded sweatshirts. Penelope looks like a girl, too—glossy dark hair, button nose, and thin shoulders. She’s fresh-faced and youthful, Strane’s type. I imagine him walking beside her through campus, hands clasped behind his back, making her smile. I wonder what she would do if he tried to touch her. What she did the first time Henry touched her. I don’t know when they got together, but no matter what he would’ve been a decade older, big clumsy hands and hot breath through his beard.
One afternoon Henry and I are talking in his office when his phone rings. As soon as he answers, I know it’s her. He turns away from me, gives clipped replies to her questions, an edge in his voice that makes me feel like I’m intruding, but when I rise to leave he holds out a hand and mouths, Hold on.
“I have to go,” he says, exasperated, into the phone. “I’m with a student.” He hangs up without saying goodbye and it feels like a triumph.
He’s never come clean about her being his wife and not a “friend.” He never mentions her at all—why would he? Why would he not? There’s zero evidence of her, no wedding ring, no photo in his office. Maybe she’s mean to him, maybe she’s boring, maybe he’s unhappy. Maybe since meeting me, he’s had moments of thinking, I should have waited. I force myself to think about her because it seems like the moral thing to do, but she’s only a fuzzy figure on the periphery. Penelope. I wonder if Henry calls her that or if he uses a nickname. I look up her staff profile on the Browick website again, imagine the possibility that she might be talking to Strane at the exact moment I’m talking to Henry. Strane, who calls and calls, who says he needs me, that this radio silence is cruel and uncalled for. Maybe my neglect is making him so lonely he has to resort to flirting with the pretty young counselor. I bet she’s easy to talk to, easier than I ever was. I imagine her sitting through his rants with a patient, unwavering smile. The perfect listener. He’d love that. My brain keeps going to the point I almost forget it’s all in my head: Strane making Penelope laugh as I make Henry laugh; Henry at home, up late in the living room, writing me an email as Penelope sits in the bedroom writing to Strane.
Yet it always comes back to this hard reality: Henry must know I would let him touch me but he never tries. That, I know, is the most meaningful detail. It negates everything else.
February 13, 2007
It’s been six weeks since I spoke to S., when he told me that people are out to get him and that one of his enemies might try to contact me. I swore my loyalty, and I’ll stick to that loyalty forever (what’s the alternative? turning on him? unthinkable), but ever since that night at his house, I haven’t been able to stomach him. I have an inbox of voicemails. He wants to take me out to dinner, he wants to know how I’m doing, he wants to see me, he wants me. I listen to a few seconds of each and then throw my phone across the room. This is the first time it’s ever really felt like he’s chasing after me. No coincidence that it comes after a confession, on his part, of bad behavior.
I can’t bring myself to write out what he did, though being evasive makes his action seem horrific. It’s not as though he killed anyone. He didn’t even really hurt anyone, though “hurt” is such a subjective thing. Think of all the thoughtless pain we inflict. A mosquito on your arm; you don’t even hesitate to smack it dead.
After class, Henry says he needs to ask me something. “I thought about emailing you,” he says, “but figured it would be better to do it in person.”
When we get to his office, he shuts the door. I watch him rub his face, take a deep breath.
“This is uncomfortable for me,” he says.