My Last Innocent Year(38)

“If anyone asks,” Connelly said as I stood up and smoothed my hair, “tell them you came to talk to me about your job search, that I had some leads for you.”

I nodded.

“And that you might need to come back to show me things, résumés, cover letters. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“And Isabel?” He pulled me onto his lap. “I might need to see those things pretty soon.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me again, harder, deeper; I thought he might swallow me whole. Before I left, he held a finger to his lips, the annunciation of a secret.



* * *



I WAITED FOR him every day, a folder filled with copies of my résumé and cover letters I’d never send tucked under one arm. Sometimes he walked past without making eye contact, or tossed a curt “Hello, Isabel” my way before heading upstairs with a colleague or another student. On those days, I learned to hold my face in an expression of detached disinterest. On those days, I became a master of waiting. But on the days he walked by alone, the days his eyes met mine as he brushed past, I would wait until he reached the second landing before following him upstairs. I took my time walking down the hallway, feeling the tickle of my hair against my shoulders, the rub of denim on my thighs, the nub of my tongue behind my teeth. I’d knock on his door three times and wait for him to open it, the sound of my breath hot and hollow in my ears, anticipation rising in me like a cobra. Then he’d pull me toward him, wrap his hands around my rib cage, press his lips against my ear, and tell me what he liked. Good student that I was, I learned quickly.

February deepened. Snow lay heavy across the ground. In Washington, DC, Monica Lewinksy sought immunity in exchange for testimony against her former lover. In New Hampshire, I disappeared behind the locked door of Connelly’s office.

We kissed on his leather sofa until I was slippery with desire. I was desperate for him, but he wouldn’t have sex with me until he was sure I understood the rules.

“We have to be careful,” he said. I had his fingers in my mouth and was nibbling on them, delicately, like I was sucking the meat off an olive stone. “I’m serious.” He pulled his hand back. “This isn’t a joke. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“No gossip. No telling your friends.”

“I won’t. I promise.” I reached for him, but he pushed me away.

“I want to be sure you want it.”

“I do.”

“Soon,” he whispered.

Tom was still technically my thesis adviser, although I hadn’t met with him in weeks; the pages I left sat in his mailbox, untouched. Jason thought I should talk to someone about getting a different adviser, but the only person I could think to talk to was Joanna, who was still head of the department despite being on leave. I saw her sometimes, floating in and out of Stringer Hall, Igraine in tow. She looked thin and distracted, her pale skin even paler, the hollows beneath her eyes deep and bruise blue.

Besides, Connelly had been reading my pages instead. He wasn’t an expert on Wharton, but he read my work carefully, asked penetrating questions, and found connections I didn’t even know I had made.

“This,” he said one afternoon, jabbing at my pages with his finger. “This is the kind of writer you should be. One who writes what everyone is thinking but is afraid to say.” He reached for my cigarette and took a drag. “Everyone here is so fucking selfconscious. Sometimes I want to grab them and say, ‘The world will not fall apart if you tell the truth.’”

I lay back on the sofa, feeling his praise reverberate in my chest. He’d moved a few more things into his office—a brass lamp, a spidery-looking plant, a couple of paisley throw pillows. It didn’t look homey per se, just a little less temporary, which comforted me.

“Has no one ever told you this?” he said, passing back my cigarette. “How good you are?”

I shook my head.

He stroked my cheek with his knuckle. “Well, that’s a goddamn shame.”

We didn’t talk much about him or his work or the time in his life when he’d been, briefly, famous. I imagined it would be painful for him to be reminded of what he’d lost, but maybe I was projecting, as Debra would have said.

“Do you ever go up to your cabin anymore?” I asked once, tentatively.

“No. I only needed that kind of solitude when I was writing poetry. It wasn’t a very happy place in the end. That’s where this happened.” He pointed at the scar on his hand. “Too much time alone isn’t good for me, it turns out.”

I brought his hand to my mouth, traced the ridge of the scar with my lips. “Do you miss it?”

“The cabin?”

“The writing.”

“I still write, Isabel.”

“I know. I mean, writing poetry.”

“No. I’m lucky to have had the success I had. Most people don’t get it even once. And I don’t punch windows anymore, so that’s good. Plus, I like what I’m doing now—writing for the Citizen and teaching. Passing the torch on to worthier successors.”

He never talked about the novel, the one Jason had told me about. It had been published a few years after I’m Sorry I Can’t Stay Long, soon after he and Roxanne were married. According to the few mentions of it I could find, it had been widely panned. “A crass attempt at mass market fiction from one of our finest poets,” said one review. “I think this is called, in common parlance, a ‘money grab,’” read another. It was the last thing he’d ever published; two years later, he started writing for the Citizen.