My Dark Vanessa(41)
“Those guys are morons,” I say.
His eyes snap open and he inhales sharply. “They’re not so bad,” he says, opening his novel and turning his body a little away from me.
“But they were being dicks to you,” I say, as though he might not have realized.
“Really, it’s ok,” he says without looking up from the book. He clutches the pages, chipped black polish on his fingernails.
In Quebec City, Madame Laurent leads us through the cobblestone streets, pointing out the historical architecture—the Notre-Dame Quebec Cathedral, the Chateau Frontenac. Jesse and I barely acknowledge each other as we hang back from the rest of the group, watch the mimes perform on their big granite pedestals, ride the funicular from upper town to lower town and back again. He buys chintzy souvenirs: a watercolor of the Chateau Frontenac from an old woman on the street and a spoon with a scene from the Winter Carnival etched on the back, which he offers to me. We catch up with the group an hour later and I expect to be in trouble, but no one even noticed we were gone. For the rest of the afternoon, Jesse and I again sneak away, wandering the Old City streets without talking much, just nudging each other every once in a while to point out something funny or strange.
On the second day of the trip I try calling Strane from a pay phone, but there’s no answer and I don’t dare leave a message. Jesse doesn’t ask me who I’m trying to call, doesn’t need to.
“He’s probably on campus,” he says. “There’s a coffeehouse open mic thing today in the library. They make all the humanities faculty go to them.”
I stare at him as I slide the phone card back in my pocket.
“You don’t have to worry,” he says. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“How do you know?”
He gives me a look, like, Are you kidding? “You’re together all the time. It’s fairly obvious what’s going on. Plus, I saw it up close firsthand.”
I think of what Strane said about foster homes and jails. I’m not sure what I’ve said counts as telling Jesse, but to be sure, I say, “It’s not true.” The words sound so pathetic he just gives me another look. Like, Please.
We leave on Sunday morning. An hour into the bus ride home, Jesse sighs and sets his novel upside down on his lap, looks over at me, motions for me to take off my headphones.
“You know it’s a stupid thing to do, right?” he asks. “Like, unbelievably dumb.”
“What is?”
He gives me a long look. “You and your teacher boyfriend.”
My eyes skim the seats surrounding us, but everyone seems preoccupied—sleeping, or reading, or with their headphones on.
He continues. “It doesn’t really bother me morally or anything. I’m just saying he’ll probably ruin your life.”
I ignore how cleanly his words cut and say it’s worth the risk. I wonder how I sound to him, delusional, brave, or both. Jesse shakes his head.
“What?”
“You’re an idiot,” he says, “that’s all.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I don’t mean that as an insult. I’m an idiot, too, in my own way.”
Jesse saying I’m an idiot reminds me of Strane calling me a dark romantic—both seem to point to an inclination toward bad decision-making. The other day Strane referred to me as a “depressive,” and I looked up the word: a person with a tendency toward melancholy.
A bad storm hits Norumbega and we wake to a glittering campus shrouded in a half inch of ice. Tree limbs bow under the weight, arching toward the ground, and the snow crust is so thick we can walk atop it without our boots breaking through. On a Saturday afternoon, on the couch in Strane’s office, we have sex for the first time in sunlight. Afterward, I avoid looking at his naked body by watching dust motes swirl in the weak winter sun tinged green from the sea glass window. He traces road maps of blue veins on my skin, talks about how hungry I make him, that he’d eat me if he could. I wordlessly offer him my arm. Go ahead. He gives it only a soft-mouthed bite, but I would probably let him tear me apart. I’d let him do anything.
February comes and I am both better and worse at hiding things. I stop bringing up Strane during my Sunday night phone calls home, but I can’t stay away from his classroom. I’m a permanent fixture there now. Even when other students come in for homework help during faculty service hour, I’m planted at the seminar table, pretending to be absorbed in my work but eavesdropping so intensely my ears burn.
One afternoon when we’re alone, he takes a Polaroid camera from his briefcase and asks if he can take a photo of me at the seminar table. “I want to remember what you look like sitting there,” he says. I immediately start to laugh from nerves. I touch my face and tug at my hair. I hate having my photo taken. “You can say no,” he says, but I see the longing in his eyes, how important this must be. Refusing would break his heart. So I let him snap a few of me, both at the seminar table and sitting behind his desk, another on the couch in the office, my feet tucked up and my notebook open on my lap. He’s so grateful, grinning as he watches them develop. He says he’ll treasure them forever.
Another afternoon he brings me a new book to read—Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov. I start to flip through as soon as he gives it to me, but it doesn’t look like a novel; the pages show a long poem, a series of footnotes.