Untrue Love Page 8

  “Where did you get that?” she asked, indicating with a nod of her head that the topic of conversation had shifted to the younger woman’s clothing.

  “This?” Donna answered, suddenly self-conscious. She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I got it from a roommate, maybe? It was years ago.”

  “Someone you can’t remember moved out of your apartment and cared so little for that hoodie that she didn’t bother to bring it with her, and so you thought that you should start wearing it yourself?”

  “I guess. I like it,” Donna protested.

  “What do you like about it?”

  “The hoodie?”

  “Yes, Donna, we’re still talking about the hoodie. What made you wear it today?”

  “I don’t know. It’s warm. I like the color. It’s soft. And it’s got pockets for my hands.”

  “Pockets are good?”

  “I like them. Sometimes when I’m walking around I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I put them in my pockets.” And, as if to illustrate her point, she slipped her hands into her pockets and gave a little smile.

  Ellie sighed, and for a moment she walked on in silence. Was there anything she could do for this woman, or was she about to try the equivalent of teaching calculus to a dog? Regardless, she felt she had to try. There was no reason why Donna couldn’t be attractive; she had shiny black hair, a pleasant oval face, and eyes that radiated so much sincerity that sometimes she looked like a Disney character. She seemed the sort of girl who would bring a wounded bird home and nurse it back to health, which was all well and good for birds and other creatures of the forest but not the sort of thing that would attract a man’s attention, unless that man happened to be St. Francis of Assisi. Ellie’s mind began to form the wispy outlines of a plan; she would be the Henry Higgins to this girl’s Eliza Doolittle.

  “Whatever you’re doing Saturday afternoon, cancel it. We’re going shopping. I’m going to get you in some flattering clothes if it kills me. And if it does kill me, I’ll embrace that death and return from the grave to haunt you until you throw that hoodie in the trash, like your roommate did years ago.”

  Donna didn’t answer, but Ellie didn’t care; the decision was made. She picked up speed and left the younger girl to hurry behind her as she walked briskly toward her office.

  25

  ELLIE HAD HOPED to find a cat carrier in the old lady’s apartment, but she had no such luck. She did find three closets in the dark, musty apartment, and each was crammed from floor to ceiling with a jumbled assortment of clothing and miscellany, from ancient tennis rackets to a stereo turntable, but no cat carriers. Ellie found herself wondering how the woman had managed to bring her cat to the veterinarian’s office; maybe she just carried the thing, or maybe she didn’t bother.

  So it was that Ellie found herself carrying a reluctant cat up the stairs. She was able to lure the creature out from under the bed by opening a can of tuna in the kitchen, but the cat was not happy to find itself in a strange human’s arms and was doing its best to squirm free. Ellie kept a careful eye on its claws and gritted her teeth all the way through her front door.

  Once inside the cat disappeared in a blink, leaving Ellie to trade a long, level gaze with the dog. She had found a pet store in town and came home with a dog bed that she deposited in the corner of her living room, not so much in kindness as in the hope that this would concentrate the dog hair and the drool in a single section of her apartment, for easier cleaning. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about the dog, or how the dog felt about her. She had only brought him up to her apartment an hour ago, and already they had spent long stretches staring silently at one another across the species divide.

  “Aren’t you going to thank me for the bed?” she asked.

  The dog had no answer for her, but it did quirk its head in a gesture that seemed to show it wanted to understand. She took it as encouragement to continue.

  “If we’re going to get along,” she said, “there will need to be a few ground rules. First, I need to know what to call you. I didn’t think to ask your owner what your names are, so we need to come up with something. I’m going to call you Usher, because that’s a great name for a dog, and your feline sister shall be Madeline. Second, there will be no pissing or shitting inside. None at all. Third, you will chew nothing aside from the things that I give you to chew. And finally, if you must bark, you will engage in that activity within regular business hours. If a squirrel is disrespecting you at three in the morning, I expect you to make a note of it and take it up with the squirrel at a more reasonable hour.”

  The dog stared at her impassively. Ellie took his silence as assent and continued.

  “I’m going to level with you, because I believe that the basis of any good relationship is honesty. I’m not a dog person. I’ve never owned a dog, and I’ve never been fond of the dogs of others. In your case, though, I’m willing to wipe the slate clean and put my best foot forward. I’m going to need your help on that, though. Can I count on your partnership and support?”

  In response, the dog started loudly licking its privates. Ellie sighed, which is when her father wandered into the room.

  He knelt to scratch the dog’s belly. “Hey, buddy,” he murmured, and then turned to his daughter. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “Don’t start, Dad,” she sighed.

  “It’s a good thing! Owning a dog will do you good.”

  “It’s not my dog. He’s just staying here for a while.”

  “And then there’s the cat.”

  “There is most definitely a cat.”

  “I’m proud of you, honey.”

  “Dad.”

  “I’m serious. These are commitments. You haven’t always been comfortable with commitment.”

  “Dad!”

  “And sure, it’s just a couple of pets that belong to someone else, but you’re still going out of your way to take care of someone else’s needs. And I’m proud of you for doing it.”

  “You make me sound like a monster!” Ellie protested.

  “Not a monster. You just let other people take care of the things you’d rather not do yourself. I don’t think you’d have welcomed a dog and a cat into your home back in San Francisco.”

  He returned to scratching the dog’s belly while Ellie sulked at his compliments that sounded like criticism. She glared at the dog and her father, two unpleasantly loud and smelly males who had somehow insinuated themselves into her life.

  26

  DONNA STOOD IN the bookstore aisle, her head tilted so far to the side that her neck was nearly at a ninety-degree angle, and scanned the covers on display. She knew that someday bookstores would go the way of the dodo, and until that day came she intended to savor fully the experience of being surrounded by books and inhaling that intoxicating new book smell.

  It was a pointless exercise, she was aware. She had so much reading to do for classes and papers that there was no time for pleasure-reading, no more than the mother of three small children had time to play with other women’s babies. Still, she could dream. Her eyes drifted lovingly over the brightly-colored paperback spines as she mentally caressed the titles and imagined the lovely thoughts that were hidden inside.

  She felt another person’s presence behind her, a sort of fullness in the air that pressed against her awareness. She turned to see Glenn smiling at her.

  “Hi,” he said. “I was going to ask whether you were looking for a book, until I realized that would be the stupidest question in the history of questions.”

  She smiled back. “Actually the answer would be ‘no.’ I’m looking at books, but not looking for one.”

  He nodded appreciatively. “I like to do that too. Coming into a bookstore for me is like living a fantasy life in which I have time to learn the things I want to know instead of the things I’m supposed to know.”

  “Yes! Exactly,” she said, enthused. “Who knew that graduate school would mean learning so many things that I
don’t care about? I thought it would be all about reading important books and talking to smart people about important things.”

  “Instead we’re reading old books and talking to boring people about class requirements and paper topics.”

  Unconsciously they drifted off together, not heading in any particular direction. “I like your sweater,” Glenn said awkwardly, and Donna suppressed a giggle. She didn’t want to be mean to him, because he did seem awfully nice. And, if he wasn’t as tall or as handsome as Evan, she really couldn’t hold that against him.

  “Thank you,” she said finally. Her eyes scanned his jeans and tee-shirt, looking for a way to return the compliment, but she couldn’t find anything and opted for silence instead.

  Glenn was clearly uncomfortable, but he forged on. “I really like the way you do your hair, too,” he said, as if ticking off the items on a list that he had composed before seeing her.

  She stopped and gave him a half smile. “You’re nice to say so,” she said.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  She tugged self-consciously at a strand of hair. “I don’t do anything special with it. It’s just hair.”

  “Well, I like it. The braids are nice,” he insisted.

  “Thanks,” she said in a little voice, but inwardly she was pleased at the attention.

  “Do you want to get together sometime? To study? Or whatever. You know. Anything. We could do anything you want. Like study. Or stuff.”

  This time she couldn’t suppress a grin. “Stuff?” she asked.

  He blushed a bright red. “Oh, I didn’t mean…I just meant that whatever you wanted to do—”

  She laughed. “I know, I know. Don’t worry about it.” In the back of her mind a part of her wrestled with two options that lay before her. The two sides seemed evenly matched until the image of Ellie’s disapproving face loomed before her and Donna’s mind was made up. “Sure, we can study together. I’ll be in the library most of the weekend, on the second floor in the back.”

  He smiled happily at her. “I know that spot. There’s a desk in the corner—”

  “Near the potted plant. Right. That’s my spot, if it’s open. You can usually find me there.”

  “I’ll look for you, then. Saturday afternoon?”

  Donna felt a quick rush of nervousness, but she forced herself to nod. “Saturday afternoon,” she confirmed, and then beat a hasty retreat out of the bookstore and into the cold sunshine on the street outside.

  She was already three blocks away when a sudden thought made her steps falter: Had she just agreed to go on a date?

  27

  THE CLOCK’S SECOND hand swept its way down to six and then back up again toward twelve, and Ellie glared angrily at its progress.

  She could hear a muffled conversation on the other side of a thick wooden door. Past that door lay an office presided over by a man who, according to the appointment she had made and confirmed days earlier, should have started talking with her several minutes ago. Before her lay the desk of the trustee’s secretary, an elderly woman who had proven herself completely indifferent to Ellie’s plight.

  She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. For years she had tried to practice mindfulness meditation in a mostly fruitless attempt to get herself past moments like these. She focused on her breathing, and when that didn’t work she concentrated on her toes and the way they felt in her shoes that were too tight but were still the best pair of heels that she had. She fought to bring her awareness back to her physical state and away from the increasingly maddening fact that she had made an appointment, she had arrived five minutes early, and then a disorganized, inconsiderate jerk who didn’t think anyone else’s time was valuable had kept her waiting while some other meeting ran past time.

  She glanced at the clock again. She had 30 minutes with this trustee, and already 13 of those minutes were gone. Ellie didn’t like being kept waiting. She didn’t like sitting in someone else’s waiting room as if she were a beggar waiting for scraps from the master’s table. She knew very well how offices like this were constructed with the specific intent of asserting the power of its occupant over whoever happened to visit there. She often used her own office to exert the same sort of power over students who disrespected her in class. Knowing how the system worked did nothing to make it more tolerable when she found herself on the other side of the equation.

  Again her eyes returned to the clock. The trustee behind that closed door had now arrogantly wasted seventeen minutes of her time. In her mind she began planning the huff with which she would leave when the clock marked half past the hour. She would stand, she would brush herself off, and then without even a sidelong glance at the man’s frumpy secretary she would—

  The door swung open. An elegantly-dressed man with a hint of silver in his black hair stood in the doorway. He paused, his piercing eyes capturing Ellie’s in a way that made her catch her breath. She could feel power pouring off the man in waves. She could tell that this was someone who was accustomed to being the center of attention, accustomed to getting whatever—and whoever—he wanted. His presence was exhilarating and intimidating, and in the space of a moment it swept away all of her self-righteous indignation and, in its wake, left her feeling like a clumsy little girl. She fumbled for the papers in her lap and lurched to her feet.

  “Paul Kingston?” she asked, extending her hand.

  He smiled but shook his head. “Truly, it pains me to say that I am not. You will find that man inside.” He inclined his head in the direction of the room he was leaving, then gave her another smile that was a near-theatrical mixture of regret and the promise of something more. He breezed past her on his way to the exit, and for a moment she breathed deeply and savored the richness of his cologne.

  “Mr. Kingston will see you now,” the secretary interrupted in a nasal tone.

  “Thank you ever so much,” Ellie muttered sarcastically under her breath. She cast one last admiring glance at the elegant cut of the other man’s Yves Saint Laurent suit and then stormed inside the office and pulled the door shut behind her.

  28

  INSIDE THE OFFICE, Ellie put on the mask she preferred to wear when she was speaking to a man for the first time. She opened her eyes wide, relaxed the muscles of her face, and quirked her mouth in a half-smile. She knew from long experience that the effect was to create an expression that hovered tantalizingly between warmth and a playful, teasing mockery. Most men were paralyzed by that look, unsure what she was thinking. Inevitably they found themselves looking for ways to please her, just as attracted to the warmth in her expression as a moth is to the light.

  The man before her, on the other side of a broad oak desk, showed no sign of interest. His handsome face, pale skin, and short blonde hair made him look the very image of a comprehensively bored Nordic man. He gazed at her with gray eyes that betrayed no interest in her whatsoever. Ellie’s expression did not shift from its practiced position, but inwardly her mood, which was already bad, began to shift downwards into something even more dire.

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” she said, not feeling very thankful at all. “I know your time is valuable, so I’ll be brief.” She paused to smile at him, hoping for some sign that he appreciated how considerate she was being, but all he did was rest his chin on his hand as if struggling to support the weight of his head.

  “I haven’t taught here very long,” she began, reciting a speech that she had memorized the day before. “But in my short time on campus I’ve come to truly love this university and the town that is its home. I think it’s a shame—actually, it’s a crime—that this lovely and intellectually vital institution does not receive the attention that it deserves. I have an idea for how we might address that.”

  She paused and glanced at him with a half-smile. When she’d rehearsed the speech, in her mind’s eye her audience was already pleased and intrigued by now. True, the trustee she had imagined was quite a bit older, balder, and fatter than the man who
sat before her now, but even so she probed his face for the signs of approval that she was certain she would find there. Instead, the man’s lips were twisted into an expression of distaste, as if she had just squirted lemon juice into his mouth.

  Undaunted, she continued with the second movement of her presentation. “I have in mind a conference. I’ve already picked a topic and sketched out a short list of invitees, though I’d be happy to discuss those things with you if you’d like. The big picture, though, is that we bring the academic world’s gaze to our campus by inviting some of its leading lights. They’ll come to present their papers and mix with their colleagues, and in the process they’ll meet our faculty and come to know our community. And, unless I’m completely off the mark, they’ll come away impressed.”

  Again she glanced in the trustee’s direction, and what she saw this time very nearly made her squeal in outrage. The man was no longer even looking at her. Instead, he had picked up a pen and was doodling something on a piece of paper, something that from her vantage point looked like the beginnings of a crude drawing of a bikini-clad woman with large breasts.

  “What I need from you,” Ellie continued in a carefully-controlled tone, “is your support and your guidance. The benefits of hosting a conference are enormous, in terms of prestige and the boost it gives to hiring top-notch candidates to our faculty. Of course I don’t need to tell you how important good faculty members are to attracting excellent college applicants. But a conference also costs money. If you agree that the conference is an idea worth exploring, I’d like to hear your thoughts on how we can gain the support of the rest of the trustees. And if you still have a few doubts, let’s talk them through so that I can set your mind at ease.”