My Dark Vanessa(36)

X-ing out of Facebook, I google “Henry Plough Atlantica College,” and the first result is his faculty profile with the same decade-old photo of him in his office, the beers he and I would later drink together unopened on the bookshelf behind him. He was thirty-four then, only a couple years older than I am now. The second search result is an article from the Atlantica student newspaper dated May 2015, “Literature Professor Henry Plough Receives Teaching Award.” It’s a prize given every four years, the recipient decided by a student vote. Junior English major Emma Thibodeau says students are thrilled with the result: “Henry is an incredible professor, so inspiring and you can talk to him about anything. He’s just an amazing person. His classes have changed my life.”

I scroll to the bottom of the article where a cursor sits blinking in an empty text box. “Want to leave a comment?” I type, “Re: ‘an amazing person’—Trust me, he’s not,” but the article is two years old and Henry didn’t do anything that bad anyway, so what does it matter? I toss the phone across my bed, go back to sleep.



Strane calls when I’m walking to work, stoned from the bowl I smoked while getting ready. My phone vibrates in my hand, the screen flashing his name, and I stop in the middle of the sidewalk like a tourist, oblivious to the flow of pedestrian traffic. I bring the phone to my ear and someone smacks my shoulder, a girl in a jean jacket—no, two girls in matching jackets, one black-haired, one blond. They walk with their arms linked, backpacks bumping against their tailbones. They must be from the high school, sneaking out during lunch period to roam downtown. The black-haired girl, the one who ran into me, shoots me a look over her shoulder. “Sorry,” she calls, her voice lazy and insincere.

On the phone, Strane says, “Did you hear me? I said I’m vindicated.”

“You mean you’re ok?”

“I’ll be back in my classroom tomorrow.” He laughs as though he can’t believe it. “I thought for sure I was finished.”

I stand on the sidewalk, my gaze still fixed on the two girls as they move down Congress Street, their undulating hair. Him back in the classroom, once again unscathed. Disappointment seeps into me as though I wanted to see him fall, a meanness that catches me off guard. Maybe I’m just stoned, my mind tumbling down a rabbit hole of feeling. I need to stop smoking before work. Need to grow up, let go, move on.

“I thought you’d be pleased,” Strane says.

The girls disappear down a side street, and I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I am. Of course I am. That’s great.” I start walking again, my legs unsteady. “I bet you’re relieved.”

“I’m a little more than relieved,” he says. “I was making peace with the idea of spending the rest of my life in prison.”

I stop myself from rolling my eyes at the exaggeration, as though he might somehow see me. Does he really believe he’d ever go to prison, a Harvard-educated, well-spoken white man? The fear feels unfounded and vaguely performative, but maybe it’s cruel to criticize. He’s been panicked, in crisis. He’s earned the right to some melodrama. I can’t understand what it feels like to stare down that kind of ruin. The risks he took were always greater than mine. Just be nice for once in your life, Vanessa. Why do you always have to be so fucking mean?

“We could celebrate,” I say. “I can get Saturday off. There’s a new Scandinavian restaurant everyone’s crazy about.”

Strane sucks in a breath. “Not sure that’s going to work,” he says. I open my mouth to offer something else—a different restaurant, a different day, to drive up to Norumbega rather than have him come here—but he adds, “I need to be cautious right now.”

Cautious. I squint at the word, try to understand what he’s really saying. “You’re not going to get in trouble for being seen with me,” I say. “I’m thirty-two years old.”

“Vanessa.”

“Nobody remembers.”

“Of course they do,” he says. Impatience sharpens his words. He shouldn’t have to explain that even at thirty-two years old I’m still illicit, dangerous. I am living, breathing evidence of the worst thing he’s ever done. People remember me. The whole reason he was on the brink of disaster is because people remember.

“It’d be best if we keep our distance for a while,” he says. “Just until this all cools down.”

I concentrate on breathing as I cross the street to the hotel, throwing a wave to the valet standing at the entrance to the parking garage, the housekeepers in the alley taking long drags from their cigarettes.

“Fine,” I say. “If that’s what you want.”

A pause. “It’s not what I want. It’s just how it has to be.”

I open the lobby door and my face is hit with a waft of air thick with jasmine and citrus. They literally pump the scent in through the vents. It’s supposed to energize and rejuvenate the senses; the kind of attention to detail that makes this a luxury hotel.

“It’s for the best,” he says. “For both of us.”

“I’m at work. I gotta go.” I hang up on him without saying goodbye. In the moment, it’s enough to make me feel I’ve won, but once I’m settled at my desk the pit in my stomach takes root and blooms into humiliation—discarded again at the first opportunity, tossed aside like trash. The same thing he did when I was twenty-two, when I was sixteen. It’s a truth so blatant and bitter, not even I can sweeten it into something easier to swallow. He only wanted to make sure I’d stay quiet. He used me again. How many times? What’s it going to take, Vanessa?