Eye to Eye (28 page)

“Why, Dr. Weatherall,” he says. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

I take a deep breath.

“One of my students came by this afternoon. Paige Prentiss. It seems she had a rather troubling encounter with you recently.”

Block waves his book at me as though he's swatting a fly. “You know how imaginative girls that age can be.”

I wait two more seconds before committing possible career suicide.

“No, I don't. I don't think she was being imaginative at all. I think she was upset, and felt betrayed, and you're responsible for that whether you like it or not. You. Are. Responsible.”

Block raises an eyebrow and lays the book down.

“Well, you seem to know everything having heard only half the facts. Did Ms. Prentiss mention what she was wearing into my office that afternoon? Did she stress her own half-clothed state?”

I measure my response.

“You're the adult. She admires you. And you know better.”

He hesitates a half second before squint-smirking at me as though everything I've just said is beneath his consideration. Then he sighs, picks up his book, and says, “Well, if that's all, Dr. Weatherall, I have some reading to attend to.”

And I know better than to argue any further, to quit while I'm not completely in over my head. I look him straight in the eye, hold the gaze so he knows that I mean it, and then leave. Career suicide, possibly, but there still have to be a few causes worth dying for.

 

The next day, I decide against leaving my bed. Part of me is still angry at Antonius Block, angry that regardless of how badly he behaved, he will never, ever, ever acknowledge it—not even to himself. I fantasize about writing a rebuttal book of poems to his sexist-but-brilliant sonnets, a Phair-esque “Exile in Guyville” to his Stones-canonical “Exile on Main Street.” Delusional, yes, but nice that I'm finally fantasizing about writing again.

By midafternoon, I still have not received an e-mail letting me go, so I finally change out of my sweats and decide to face the day. It's been autumn for a while now, but this is one of the first afternoons that really feels like fall. Sweater weather. People are outside enjoying the sun, the crisp air and the cool breeze. There's something wonderful about being alone, about walking in silence among the pairs of people, the groups of people, even the solitary readers nestled under the trees, carefully chosen books in hand. The little dogs are out en masse, and I have canine envy, trying to decide whether a Boston terrier or an Italian greyhound would be a better companion-savior from this life of thwarted intentions. Atlanta isn't yet my city, but it's a great city, and I love being here. Funny how you can suddenly become attached to a place just when it seems like the option to stay might evaporate.

I consider whether I haven't been engaging in a bit of Paige Prentissing myself, drawing an unnecessary line in the sand between Zach and my life here. Sure, long distance isn't anyone's first choice or fantasy, but I've been working so hard not to give an inch of ground, to prove that I'm not the kind of woman who tosses everything away for some guy, that I've forgotten that everyone who has a healthy relationship cedes an inch or two of turf in the interest of peace and parity. And that taking two steps toward Zach doesn't necessarily mean that I'm taking three back in my life. Even I know that summer in Langsdale wouldn't be that different from summer in Atlanta: hot and sweltering. I just wouldn't have to spend it alone.
Not,
I might add, that there's anything wrong with that. It just seems that my life lessons lean toward the other direction—toward understanding that it's okay to learn to need a person, faults and film series and all.

If Zach has been lighting candles, he must be on God's good side, because the phone is ringing and it's Ronnie. I park myself beneath a tree, and the light filters through the leaves and freckles across my legs.

“I got blown off over voice mail,” I tell her. “For the nut-bride.”

“Noooooo,” Ronnie says. “I saw that picture online here, and I thought it was just a coincidence. You know, two hot black men in Atlanta, both named Maxwell, who like dating crazy white women.”

“Har-har. No, that's my very own fetishist. Maybe she's willing to give up burgers for him.”

“Maybe she sees another good publicity opportunity.”

“Yeah. I guess. I hate being dumped.”

“Why? Because you were so deeply in love with him and your soul mate is gone? Every time I talk to you you're finding reasons not to like him. He just beat you to the punch. And didn't you go on three dates? I'm not sure you can even be dumped after three dates.”

A beautiful-past-heterosexual man with a miniature pinscher walks by and gives me a sympathetic smile.

“Random strangers in the park feel more sorry for me than you do.”

“I don't know, Doris. This seems to me to make your life easier. You've had one door closed for you, so you can concentrate on the one that's been half-open this whole time. I think you need to decide where you are with Zach once and for all before you take on another Maxwell or anyone else. Besides, I simply cannot think that it's a bad thing to lose a man who won't eat meat. Think of all the other things he might abstain from on moral grounds.”

“I do like them a little depraved.” I wish that Ronnie were here, and that we could have this discussion over two martinis and a bowl of hot wings. “So Zach wants me to come stay with him for the summer.”

“In Langsdale?” Ronnie asks, barely disguising her horror.

“Thank you, yes, in Langsdale. I feel like if I go, I'm like one of those women in a horror movie who's escaped from a dungeon, but goes back into the haunted house to look for her cat, or some shit like that. I worked so hard to leave that hellhole behind.”

I get a raised eyebrow from a passerby.

“Depends on how important Zach is to you.”

“Why can't I be so important to Zach that he comes here? Why!”

“Deep breath, Doris. Maybe it's because you have the summers off. Did you talk about the possibility of his moving?”

“How can he, with that stupid movie theater? See, I end up back in the same place. And I can't give up my job for him. I worked too, too, too hard. Even if I am one of those miserable career women that Toni clips articles about in the newspaper. I simply don't think it's fair that I move on right now. Not when I just got here.”

“You haven't even seen the stupid movie theater.”

“I know. And I'm only getting mad because I miss him. I really, really, really miss him. He would never, ever, ever in ten million years date a Maggie Mae Mischner.”

“Unless she were a lesbian.”

“Or a twelve-year-old,” I say, laughing. “And this is the person I so romanticize.”

“He's a good man, and he loves you. I'd say see the theater with an open mind. I really think the two of you need some face time before you make any more decisions about the rest of your life.”

Maybe I am giving in to nostalgia for the past, or the desire to be the person I was when I was with Zach, but upon arrival home I book a ticket for Langsdale. I leave December tenth with an open-ended return date. Obviously I won't stay there any time past when school starts here, but I'm going to try to leave judgment at the door and see what happens in freezing-ass Langsdale with my pseudohippie un-ex-boyfriend. The minute I buy the ticket I feel relieved. I remember what it was like the first night I spent with Zach, the way his hair smelled, the way his voice sounded lower in the dark. I remember the time he made me dinner with anemic farmer's market vegetables that had wilted in his refrigerator, and the hat he knit me, shaped vaguely like a beret, even after all the times I'd barbed him about knitting. I remember driving around in the middle of the night when neither of us could sleep, and parking near the lake to listen to the frogs.

And although the odds might be against us, at least now I'll know that I gave it every shot I could. That Zach and I tried to be one for the decade if not one for the ages. It's also nostalgia that makes me forward the e-mail of my itinerary immediately to Ronnie, even though I know she's doing final edits on her novel and I should probably be leaving her alone. Because as much as I love my new life, I still clearly have one foot firmly planted in the old. And maybe it's disjointed, and maybe it's dislocated, and maybe there's not much else for a modern girl to be but a little fragmented and unsure, but this evening, I am ninety-nine percent positive that I'm making the right decisions.

The great irony of being an academic, or professor, or teacher of any kind is that you're likely the biggest idiot on the planet when it comes to real life. The last to know what any B-list actor would know. Perhaps it is unfair to say likely, but damn, it's been a coincidence that in my life I have observed this to be true any number of times.

Like, I actually thought I was in some epic power struggle with Ian, but he's just a kid. He's still just a kid who's a colossal pain in the ass, although I'd forgotten what it was like to be sixteen, for one, and I'd also mistaken his insecurity for some sort of threat against me and who I was. When really, in spite of all of his dough and privilege, and big-mouth bravado, he has a huge deficit in the Figuring Out Who He Is Department, whereas I—even if I have been stumbling around a bit since coming home to L.A.—pretty much know what I am. It's just a matter of applying who I am to the world at large. You can read a ton of books, teach a ton of classes, and still take a while to come to what Oprah calls “The Aha Moment.” I call it the “Duh! Moment.”

Ian and I put the hip-hop showcase fiasco behind us. We revisited the hip-hop video paper he had written, and now after going to that show, Ian said he understood some things. He looked miserable, having to tell me I was right, but he told me anyway. He was scribbling on his paper, doodling stars and daggers.

“So, like, does your nephew think I'm a dick or something?”

I watched him doodle and started scribbling on my legal pad. I did happy faces. “You didn't make a good first impression, no. Not your strength, first impressions.”

Ian kept scribbling and then threw his pencil down on the table. He turned up his lip like Billy Idol used to, back in the day. “At least I admit I'm an ass.”

“
Now
you do.”

And Ian rolled his eyes for, like, the hundreth time since I've known him.

Today is my last session with Ian, but I've got a lot of other students set up thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Bernstein. They think I've worked a small miracle by tutoring Ian into a B+ in his English class. Turns out there are all kinds of lazy, overprivileged kids in Hollywood, Bel Air, the Palisades and Malibu, with parents who are desperate for somebody to bully their children into shape. This is what Ian is telling his “friend” and my new tutee, Shonna, built like a brick house, dressed “down” like she's still got money to burn, chew up and spit out. Punker chic is how I'd describe her. She twirls her bone-straight, blue-black hair and stares at me with heavily lined brown eyes. She's got three blue stars tattooed up her forearm, and is wearing a black T-shirt that says YOU SUCK. The old lady in me wants to say, “Honey, why, oh, why would you wear a mean shirt like that?” But after almost half a year with Ian, the not-so-old lady in me thinks her shirt is practically charming.

“So you guys aren't dating?” I have to ask. I'm packing up all my books except the one I gave Ian as a We Survived Each Other Gift. It's Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World.
When Ian asked if it was fun or a bummer, I said it was a sneaky-fun book. It snuck up on you and you ended up liking it for all the lessons it taught you about the way you didn't want to live your life. He said that sounded like a fucking bummer, all right.

Shonna grinned at Ian, who's as red as the polish on Shonna's nails. “Nah, we're not dating,” she replies. “We just hooked up a couple times.”

I know that “a hookup” can be anything from kisses to marathon intercourse, so I quit while I'm ahead. “That's cool,” I say. “Ian's a good guy.”

Ian gives me a look like, I
am?

Shonna grabs Ian's hand from across the table. “Ian says he thought you were a total bitch and a complete idiot when you first started tutoring him, but that's just because you didn't take any of his shit.” Leaning in, she gives him a kiss on the cheek.

“Well, Ronnie couldn't stand me, either,” Ian adds defensively, chewing his metallic green fingernails. “She totally hated my guts.”

“Not your guts,” I clarify, standing with my book bag slung over my arm. “Just your completely fucked-up attitude.”

Ian grins when I say that. “See?” Ian turns to Shonna. “I told you she's no bullshit.”

“Are you sure you want me to tutor you?” I ask, checking my watch. I have to meet Earl and Bita in a little bit.

“Yeah,” Shonna says, nodding slow and easy as if she's listening to music on headphones. “I'm totally cool with you.”

“Good.” I move to leave the study. “Because I'm cool with you, too.”

“I'll be right back,” Ian tells Shonna, and follows behind me.

“What?” I adjust my book bag as we make our way down the hallway and toward the door. “Don't tell me you're walking me out. What a gentleman.”

“Fucking with me to the end,” Ian says, shaking his head.

“Old habits die hard.” I open the door and step out. “Thanks for the word of mouth. I may actually make a living.”

“And get a cell phone, I hope.”

“The very next thing on my list.”

“Later.” Ian leans on the door. “I hope your car starts.”

“Fucking with me to the end,” I say before I get in my car. Ian juts his chin out, the cool person's goodbye, and it's a small miracle, but my car starts—loudly—and I watch Ian close the door in my rearview mirror.

As I drive away, I remember when I returned Ian's phone call after the hip-hop show. He said he'd learned something about himself, something he thought was really shitty. And I told him I'd learned something about myself, too, since I knew, on some level, that things were going to happen exactly the way they did. And maybe there was something shitty about that. Very know-it-all and obnoxious, since Ian was too easy a target. He was no match for me, not ever, really. I'm a “grown-ass woman” as my mother says. I had to leave academics and teaching in Langsdale, Indiana, for my home-grown academics and teaching in Los Angeles, California, to figure that out.

 

Earl's still bartending—and going on auditions. I can barely say that without gagging, but since he was the supportive boyfriend all these months, I have to be nice about this, surreal as it is. When I think how concerned I was about Earl, concerned about how the good old boy would blend in L.A. I have to laugh. It's amusing as hell. He's still the same old Earl, thank God. Sincere. Charming. Hot. But he's also figured out that he doesn't really want to do anything but give this whole singing, acting thing a shot. There's something in the water, I swear, that makes perfectly normal people want to take their shot at show business once they get to Hollywood. So now that I'm pulling in reasonable dough with the six kids I tutor, it's time for him to see what he can do. He did get that bit part in a film. One line:
Jack on the rocks, bud. Coming at you.
He says that might get cut. But he doesn't care. He's happy, and if he's happy, so am I.

Tonight, we're celebrating four things. For one, I've finished tutoring Ian, and everybody I know is happy about that, glad that it all turned out okay. Doris called and left a message on our phone, asking if I was dancing up and down the street naked with joy. She also said that I'd be all right, even if I didn't see Ian every day. “You were secretly in love with a sixteen-year-old!” she yelled into the answering machine. The second thing we're celebrating is Earl getting that teeny part in the movie, the third thing is a bit premature, but I'm about to see the cover of
F: The Academy
in a day or two, and the fourth thing we're celebrating is the fact that Bita's divorce is final, which is a happy and a sad thing. We're eating in the neighborhood at Farfalla, a place where a man like Earl can get an actual piece of meat if he wants it, but a place that's medium-scale Italian that actually feels fancy. And I can pay for my and Earl's meals—for a very shocking change.

“Let's toast,” Bita says above the jazz softly playing in the background. She raises her glass. I was busy swirling my bread in olive oil and shove the bread in my mouth, so that I can hold up my glass. Earl holds up his glass of beer and puts the other hand on my leg underneath the table.

“I see that, Earl.” Bita grins, but then stares off into the distance. Her hair is in a loose bun and she's wearing huge gold hoops. I think she's the most gorgeous woman I know.

“You okay, Bita?” I lean into the table, peering into her face and Earl and I exchange glances.

“Hey, buddy.” It's been Earl's nickname for Bita and it always makes her smile. “You all right?” he asks.

“Ah, hell,” Bita says. “You guys look so happy. I guess I miss that asshole sometimes.”

“Sure you do,” I say softly. I reach across the table and grab her hand. She let's me hold it for a while and then she pulls away, brushing her bread crumbs off the white tablecloth.

“I'm better off without him,” she says, shaking her head, making up her mind.

“He didn't treat you right, buddy,” Earl points out.

“You knew it the whole time,” I remind her. “You just didn't listen to yourself.”

“I was so scared.” Bita pushes around the asparagus on her plate. “I was scared to leave and scared to stay. And I kept thinking how had this happened to
me?
The hard-ass, the woman who was always so together.”

“You were a
baby
when you met him. We were just kids in college, barely older than Ian.”

“I believe you are in love with Ian, just like Doris said,” Earl says, pinching me on my side. “That's going on, what, the third time you've mentioned him tonight.”

Bita agrees. “If you leave Earl for Ian, I got dibs on Earl,” she says, winking at him.

Earl blushes. “You got yourself a deal, buddy.”

“Sick.” I put more salt and pepper in my olive oil and soak my bread in it. “You guys are sick.”

All the talk of Ian reminds me of the last time I saw Charlie. He wasn't with Bita, he was at the Bernsteins' house for dinner—with the little chippie he was dating. He'd been long kicked out of the house and was staying at the fancy-ass W Hotel in Westwood. It was strictly a horrible accident that I'd run into him in the first place. Ian's tutoring session had gone late. We were talking about James Baldwin and Dostoyevsky—more bummer stuff that Ian still liked, even if he pretended not to. I was walking down the hallway as usual, leaving the house, when the Bernsteins came through the door, with Charlie and the chippie in tow. The Bernsteins knew Bita, of course, knew I was her close friend, so we all stood in the hallway looking miserable until Charlie summoned up the balls to introduce me to
Kiya,
who looked about as old as Shonna, which made Charlie a big fat cliché. If I'm to be the mature woman that I'm claiming to be, I should honestly say that the
child
was pretty (in a predictable kind of way) with manners (gave me a sincere hello) and didn't seem to have a bitchy bone in her body (unlike myself at that moment). And God bless her, Kiya seemed
into
Charlie, who seemed alcoholically bloated.

“Kiya's our receptionist,” Mr. Bernstein said, nervously tugging at the cuffs of his Oxford shirt. He had a thick shock of wavy, grey hair that he was fussing with the whole time. Mrs. Bernstein appeared to give me a
look,
a look that said,
Can you believe this motherfucker?
But I couldn't be sure.

“Liking your job?” Charlie asked, wasting no time in reminding me that I had a check coming to me every week because of him.

“I
do,
” I replied, my eyes darting between Charlie and Kiya. “I love working with kids, just like you.”

“Charlie,” Mr. Bernstein said, “let's get you a drink.” He pulled Kiya and Charlie into the sitting room, and that was the last time I saw Charlie.

“What was the ‘kids' business?” Ian asked. “I'm not a fucking kid.”

“Mouth, Charlie,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “Goddammit.” She turned to me. “It won't last,” she blurted. “And I never liked Charlie, anyway. He's not that great a writer. Ira has some attachment to him, for some reason.”

“Yeah,” Ian said, snapping what seemed like two dozen black bands on his wrist. “That guy's a complete tool.”

Mrs. Bernstein shrugged. “Whatever that means. Night, Veronica.” She looked at Ian. “And if you sit down to dinner with us, you didn't hear any of this.”

“Whatever,” Ian said, and took the stairs up to his room two at a time.

I let myself out.

And I thought, Good for you, Bita, for letting yourself out. Kids grow up, kids in college who marry too soon. And she had the smarts to get out when it all went wrong.

Coming back to the conversation at hand, Bita and Earl are talking about Bita taking some head shots for Earl. Jesus.
Head shots.

“I will capture your true essence, Erardo Lo Vecchio,” Bita says, laughing. “The rugged you, the country boy, all that.”