My Last Innocent Year(25)

I spun around on my knees and ducked under the windowsill. I could feel the blood pulsing in my temples and armpits. Later, I would convince myself that what I had seen hadn’t been that serious, but right then, in the immediate aftermath, there was no denying the violence of the scene I’d witnessed—the way Tom had grabbed his wife, how desperately she’d tried to get away from him. I shivered, remembering the bruise I’d seen on Joanna’s neck that day outside Dean Hansen’s office, Tom’s outburst during our meeting, the way he’d slammed the desk. I thought about calling Abe back, but he’d probably already left his office to head upstairs and soak his feet. I didn’t want to bother him, and, besides, what would I tell him and what would he say? And how did any of it involve me anyway?

I closed the window and listened to Joan Armatrading sing about mixing water with the wine as I finished sewing the lining of my coat. The sun was gone now, the room nearly dark. I broke the thread with my teeth the way my mother used to, then headed into town to meet Kelsey and Jason at the movies. I thought about telling them about Joanna and Tom, but then the lights went down and I fell into the dream of the image on the screen. As we passed a bucket of greasy popcorn back and forth, I wondered why I’d been so shocked. Married couples fought, didn’t they? Sometimes in public, sometimes in front of their children. It was unfortunate but not unusual and, in any case, it wasn’t my problem. So I tucked it away and, as the promo commanded, sat back and enjoyed the show.



* * *



TOM HAD SUGGESTED I reread The Custom of the Country, Wharton’s 1913 novel about the social-climbing Undine Spragg. Unlike Ellen Olenska, whose decision to divorce nearly ruins her, Undine uses divorces, several of them, as a way to get ahead. What did it mean for a woman to control her own destiny, Tom asked me? And why did we find Undine so distasteful? Did we prefer heroines who suffered?

I grabbed a bag of M&M’s from the vending machine and ate them slowly as I wandered through the stacks, sucking off the sweet coating then letting the chocolate melt on my tongue. The light was on in the stacks where Wharton was shelved. There was a man standing there. He had his head cocked to one side, his arms crossed high on his chest. It took me a second to recognize Professor Connelly.

“Isabel,” he said. “My God. You startled me.”

“I’m sorry.” I took a step back.

“That’s okay. I was lost in my thoughts. I get a little spacey in the stacks.” He was wearing a gray sweatshirt that said RUTGERS and a black wool hat. With his hair pulled off his face, he looked young, like someone I might find in a frat basement or dorm laundry room.

“I was just getting a book.”

He looked around. “I figured.”

“No. I mean, here.” I pointed at the shelf in front of him.

“Oh.” The stacks were narrow, but there was enough room for me to grab the book without touching him. “Wharton. One of my favorites.”

“Mine, too.” I pressed my knuckles to my cheeks to hide my blush. He asked what I was working on, and I told him about my thesis.

“Sounds interesting,” he said, like he meant it. “Hey, I meant to tell you. I read a story you wrote, in that feminist journal.” He tapped his forehead. “Something bitch?”

“Bitch slap,” I said. “How’d you read that?”

“Roxanne—my wife—she was interviewed for one of the issues, so we had it lying around.”

“Oh, right.” Debra had interviewed Roxanne last year about her experience at Wilder. The piece was called “Better Dead Than Coed,” which was one of the rallying cries against coeducation. I’d forgotten I had a story in that issue too, about a frat party gone wrong. I’d interspersed the action with entries from the Wilder glossary, a booklet they sent to incoming freshmen so they’d be familiar with Wilder vernacular.

“Is there really Wilder slang?” Connelly asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Boot, rager, mung.”

“God, what are those things? Wait—do I want to know?”

I pretended to think about it. “I think you can handle it. Boot means vomit, a rager is a party, and—my personal favorite—mung: the layer of spit, piss, beer, and puke that coats the floor of every frat basement.”

He laughed. “Good Lord. What a place. My wife has some stories. Before the school went coed, they used to bus in women for parties. They called it, if I remember correctly, the ‘fuck truck.’”

“Jesus,” I said, laughing with him. “I can’t believe you read my story. It was kind of dumb.”

“No,” he said, suddenly serious. “It wasn’t dumb at all. It was chilling. By using the glossary, you showed how this behavior is condoned by the culture at large, which goes so far as to write it down.”

“Is that what I was doing? Wow. You’re good.”

He looked down at his tennis shoes. “It’s what I do. Kind of my superpower. The only one I have. Is that what it’s really like here?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it before saying, “Yeah.”

“Shit.”

I laughed again. The light above us buzzed, a drone like a bee trapped in a window frame. I thought about the story in Time magazine and the girl who’d driven up to his cabin. I wanted to ask him about it, the poems, the cabin, the girl, but then the light turned off. Connelly’s eyes glowed in the sudden darkness, like an animal caught in headlights. There was something so intimate about it, the laughter, the darkness. I wanted it to last forever but knew it couldn’t. I spoke first, not wanting him to be the one to break the spell.