Fall Semester (5 page)

Malcolm loathed him. He could scarcely contain the vitriol that followed on the heels of his shame.

“It’s a project that I am not at liberty to discuss at present,” he said slowly, coolly. “Subsidiary rights and all.
Perhaps
you understand.”

Rainey didn’t miss the jab.

“Of course, of course. It’s always trouble when you are dealing with someone else’s creative work,” he leveled as he passed through the door. He meant it to be a low blow, but Malcolm girded himself against it. Rainey had no clue what he did or how he did it. No clue what it meant to take a poem or a story and give it a new language. It was like killing something beautiful and hoping you could bring it back to life. It was like fucking voodoo, and where did Rainey get off implying that
he—

Malcolm caught himself scowling. Helene, Dalton, and Maren were still next to him, although they were caught up in the awkward pantomime of gathering their things, eyes downcast.

Malcolm stalked off back to his office. The empty box still sat on his desk. The firearm still waited in his trunk. He checked his watch. The bank was a lost hope. It would have to be the office, even though he couldn’t help but envision some kind of debacle that would end with his picture on CNN.

He carried the box down the south stairs and out to his car. Although there were still about a dozen vehicles in the parking lot, no pedestrians were in sight, and the University Police patrol car that often parked under the two oaks on Rex Street was blessedly absent.

He popped the remote to unlock the trunk of the Accord and took another look around before opening it. The 6mm was still tucked under jumper cables, but he wished he’d thought to at least wrap it in a towel. Wasting no time, Malcolm placed the box inside the trunk, took off the lid and shielded the AMT with one hand as he grabbed the handle with the other. It was in the box. He picked it up, clutched it to his chest, and slammed the trunk behind him.

Heart hammering, he fixed his eyes in front of him and marched back to Griffin Hall. As he did, a patrol car cruised down Rex and stopped at the corner of Lewis Street. Malcolm swallowed hard, knowing that he could not let his panic run away with him.

He pulled open the door and sped up the stairs. At the second floor he heard voices coming from the bullpen, the office that housed the eight T.A. cubicles on the south end of Griffin. Other than the lingering grad students, the floor seemed empty.

At last, he reached his office and locked the door behind him. A sigh rushed out of him as he let his heart slow. Malcolm scanned his office. The only place where he would feel safe leaving the gun was in the bottom drawer of his file cabinet. He opened the file, slid the stack of folders forward, took the gun out of the box, and tucked it into the darkness. He slid the drawer back, heard it click, and locked the files.

Malcolm let himself collapse in one of the wooden armchairs opposite his desk. It had not gone as he’d planned, but that danger was behind him. Now, he just had to face the words.

Drained and nearly limp, Malcolm packed his briefcase and locked up his office. A maintenance worker pushed a dust mop across the floor in front of the closed department office. Two of the three rows of fluorescent lights above had been turned off. As Malcolm headed for the stairs, figures stepped out of the bullpen, closing up behind them.

“Oh, hi, Dr. Vashal.”

Malcolm squinted to see Maren, Helene, and Jess crossing to the stairwell. He guessed that it was Maren who had greeted him. He nodded and let them descend ahead of him. They were quiet, and he wished they would converse among themselves as if he weren’t at their heels. This was not to be. Maren looked over her shoulder at him.

“Friday night is no time to work, Dr. Vashal,” she said.

Malcolm could not think of a response.

“Is that so?” he said finally, wishing only to reach the last stair and aim for his car.

“Who was it who had to finish grading freshman journals?” Helene intoned with irony.

“Yes, exactly. Friday
evening
is the time to finish work. And I’ll study tomorrow,…” Maren conceded. “But now I’m having a drink….You look like you could use one, too, Dr. Vashal.”

How dare she?
Malcolm gave her a look of shock. Dalton laughed.

That bastard.

“Give it up, Maren,” he said, still laughing. “Dr. Vashal isn’t really the party type.”

Malcolm could not stand to watch the boy laugh at him, but the biting remark that should have leapt to his lips failed to present itself. The truth was he probably did look like he needed a drink. He felt utterly depleted. He would go to Bisbano’s—if only to make it impossible for him to face
La Fuente de Piedra
before morning. But he’d be damned if he’d let Dalton laugh.

“Always so full of
shat,
Dalton,” Malcolm said, evenly. “I’ll buy your first round just to stop your mouth.”

The look that overtook Dalton’s face was worth the price.

Malcolm arrived at Bisbano’s and headed downstairs to the cellar to find the English department commanding two long tables pushed end to end. MacIntosh, St. Marks, and Russo were there, but, thankfully, Rainey had toddled home to his wife.

True to his word, Malcolm stopped at the bar before joining them and ordered three pitchers of beer to be sent to the table. He hastily knocked back a shot of Patron and focused on the heat in his throat instead of the surprised looks of those around the table as he took a seat.

The barmaid came in carrying two of his three pitchers. Malcolm hated to address them all, but anything was better than the stunned silence.

“You can thank Jess Dalton for this round. It seems he forced my hand.”

Dale and Rebecca Greene, two married Ph. D.s, were sitting closest to him, and Dale gratefully reached for the first pitcher.

“Excellent! Maybe Dr. Vashal will start a trend: At Bisbano’s, professors buy!” He filled his mug to laughter, topped of his wife’s, and passed it down.

The waitress reappeared with the third pitcher and a mug for Malcolm. He filled it, relieved that the conversation at the table had revived. The grad students debated the topic of pizza, pesto and olive oil versus marinara sauce. This discussion seemed obtuse to Malcolm since Bisbano’s didn’t offer a choice. One could have called their pizza sauce “marinara,” but Bisbano’s called it “tomato.” Their pizza was edible, but it was not the reason the place had survived 30 years in Lafayette’s tumultuous economy. It was the closest place to campus that served both alcohol and food.

Malcolm looked around. The restaurant had not changed or been updated in the five years he’d lived here. The faux wood paneling and black and red vinyl upholstery were circa 1980. The one redeeming feature of the restaurant/bar’s atmosphere was the cellar, which opened to a quaint courtyard under the canopy of overhanging oaks. Tonight the courtyard sat empty. A September evening in Lafayette rarely called anyone out of air conditioning.

Across from him, Avery, Helene, Maren, and Sasha Allen were trying to agree on toppings for one pizza. Malcolm distinctly remembered his own days in graduate school when he had spent Friday nights both famished and low on funds.

Without warning, a memory of J.J. sideswiped him. The two of them, lying in his bed in his one-room cereal box of an apartment in Miami, eating Vietnamese noodles. He tried to shove the image from his mind, but the memory had bitten him, and its venom worked his blood.

They met the week he had found the collection that would become his
Stray Dogs.
He was walking past the Catholic Student Center on Miller thinking about Miguellez’s story, “Sanctuary.” Two immigrant brothers sneak across the border in Salinas. The elder, 16, finds work in the lettuce fields. The younger, 14, walks until he finds a Catholic church in the kind of American neighborhood where he dreams of living. The priest there gives him a job as a yard boy. The priest feeds him lunches and offers him second-hand clothes. When the older brother loses two fingers to the machete during the harvest, the younger goes to the priest for help. The priest kisses the boy on the lips and tells him that he knows of a way.

It had been the black Toyota Tercel with the orange boot that caught his eye. The Tercel that was illegally, deliciously parked in front of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church.

“Holy crap!” She’d cursed behind him, and Malcolm turned, already smiling, to see long legs in black tights and tartan skirt and, God pardon her, true red hair down to her ass.

He remembered that there was never time to eat, even if they’d had any money. He wrote every minute that his tongue and cock and fingers weren’t inside of her. She told him he burned like the sun.

He had been a fool to think he could keep her happy.

Malcolm drained his beer and moved to reach for the pitcher, but Maren Gardner grabbed it first. She then took his glass, filled it, and handed it back to him before filling her own.

“Thank you,” he muttered. The girl smiled at him.

“It’s the least I could do. Thanks for the round.” She let her full glass clink against his as in a toast.

Malcolm nodded, embarrassed, and hoped that none of the other grad students would thank him. He felt ridiculous, and for a moment he could not remember why he had come. And then he recalled that
La Fuente de Piedra
waited for him at home.

“
Un hombre condenado no necesita apurarse
,”
Malcolm mumbled before taking a swig of his beer.

“What?” Maren looked at him as if he’d addressed her.

“Oh!...Nothing,” Malcolm shook his head and looked toward the kitchen to dismiss her.

“A man….has….to hurry?” she asked, squinting at him.

Shit.

“You speak Spanish?” he asked, hoping to draw her away from his confession.

“A little,” she shrugged. “I took two years in college, but I’ve just about lost it.” She was looking him straight in the eye. “What is
condenado?”

Malcolm swallowed and eyed the girls sitting next to her. They were listening to Dalton and the other guys at the head of the table who were now debating the judging criteria for the Deep South Writers Conference.

“It was
contento. Un hombre contento no necesita apurarse
.
A content man does not need to hurry,” Malcolm lied.

Maren gave him a doubtful look.

“¿Es usted un hombre contento?”

Malcolm busied himself with a gulp of beer and tried to drown the terror that her attention had woken. He set his mug down with deliberate ease and slowly topped it off again.

“Do I look like I’m in a hurry?”

“Oh, of course not,” Maren said, with a wry arch in her brow.

Chapter 5

Maren

C
ondemned
. That’s what he had said.

Condemned?

Maren had thought that she’d heard him right, but she wasn’t sure that she correctly remembered the word, so she looked it up on her phone as Helene drove her home. She would have walked the four blocks from Bisbano’s to Louisa Street, but Helene had insisted.

“You know, you really need a car, Maren,” Helene said, as though reading her mind.

“No, I don’t. I’m only five blocks from school, and my parents just live across town. I can borrow theirs whenever I really need one. And I have my bike.”

“It’s not safe. Really. I mean, walking and riding your bike is fine during the day, but you shouldn’t try to walk or bike home from a bar. Not even Bisbano’s.”

Maren smiled at her new friend.

“Well, my dear Helene, that’s why I have you. To save me from going home alone on a Friday night.”

“Oh, I think Jess would have been only too happy to save you from that loathsome fate.” Helene faced the road, but she glanced at her friend with what Maren thought was a look of trepidation. Maren wrinkled her nose.

“Hmm....Jess is...pretty, but...I don’t know....”

“He knows it,” Helene said with certainty. And, Maren thought, a little bitterness.

“Yes....yes, that’s true.” Jess Dalton did know that he was pretty. Beautiful, in fact. And he could probably have almost any girl he wanted, even Helene, if her body language could be trusted, but the fact that he knew it, took it for granted, gave Maren a chill. Jess Dalton was trouble. Helene could have him.

But you deserve better, Helene,
she thought.

Helene’s Ford Focus made a left onto Louisa, and Maren could see the lights on in her living room. Good. Tuva was home, which meant that Perry had been fed. There was no way that little despot would allow Tuva a moment’s peace before he had his dinner. Maren suppressed a giggle. Perry was not easy to love, but Tuva exuded love to anyone and anything. Maren—and Perry—had been lucky to find such a roommate.

“Want to come in for a bit? I think we have Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer” Maren offered.

“Neh. I’ve had enough junk for one day.”

“GASP! Sacrilege!” Maren feigned horror. “How dare you speak of B&J’s Chocolate Therapy that way?”

Helene threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh! Forgive me. What was I thinking?!? But, no, thanks. I’m calling it a day.”

Maren leaned over and gave Helene a hug.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“It’s nothing, girl. See you Monday.”

Maren climbed out of the Focus, slung her messenger bag over her shoulder and began digging in it for her keys. As she bounded up the stoop and unlocked the door, she waved to Helene and opened the kitchen door to find one whimpering Perry, dancing on his hind legs and licking the air around her.

“Hey, there, sugar. Mommy’s late tonight. Sorry, Perry.” She palmed his small head and scratched behind his ears. At this peace offering, Perry dropped down to all fours and allowed his mistress to show her contrition as he half closed his eyes and leaned into the scratching. Maren could hear the TV in the living room.

“Hi, Tuva!’ Maren called. “Thank you for feeding Perry. I’m sorry I’m back so late.”

Maren heard the squeal of the recliner as Tuva leaned over its arm and looked through the doorway, smiling as always.

“Of course, Mahreen! He is only wanting his belly filled and a lap to lie in, like any male,” Tuva joked.

Maren scooped Perry into her arms and carried him to the doorway. True to form, Tuva was watching
Mythbusters
. Carrie, Grant, and Tory were proving that stressed out drivers burned more fuel than relaxed ones.

“They have put raaaats in the car,” Tuva explained, unable to hide her disgust. “I’d drive faster, too, with raaats in the car!”

Despite her opinion of the rats, Tuva’s laughter shook the windows as Grant gripped a peanut-buttered steering wheel to the deafening tones of rap music and hit the test track. Maren leaned against the doorframe, laughing at her roommate. After Mythbuster Grant completed the least efficient test drive on record, Maren bid Tuva goodnight and carried Perry to her bed. He made himself comfortable while she undressed and pulled a white shift gown over her head. Maren padded to the bathroom in her fuzzy socks and loaded up her toothbrush. She closed the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet and looked into her own brown eyes.

Dr. Vashal’s eyes are like sage and smoke.

The thought leapt forward and should have startled her, but it didn’t. It had been waiting in the periphery of her mind for just such an unguarded moment, but Maren had known it was there since she had grabbed the beer pitcher ahead of Dr. Vashal. She had found herself watching him across from her, looking as though he were lost in a thought—a painful one. When he looked up to see her holding the beer pitcher, his eyes had locked on hers, and she’d almost been afraid, as though she had been caught trespassing. Behind the fear, though, was a desire to ask him what was wrong, but she didn’t dare.

Maren carried the question to bed and pulled the duvet over her. Perry snuggled into the curve of her as she rolled over to turn out the lamp, and she sighed in the darkness.

Why
condemned?

And he clearly had not meant for her to hear him. Right? Certainly, he had not been prepared for her to understand him. He’d looked terrified when she’d begun translating his words. And when he’d covered for it,...lied about what he’d said, she had asked him if he was happy.

Maren’s cheeks burned as she lay in the darkness. How could she have asked him that? It was...so..
.intimate
. Ugh! Maren flipped from her right to her left side, startling Perry. He leapt over her hips to find his favorite curve and turned three times before settling down.

“Sorry, Perry,” she whispered, stilling herself and letting the discomfort of the thought seep through her. Why had she asked him if he was a happy man? Clearly, he was not. No one could accuse Dr. Malcolm Vashal of being cheery. Or content.

But why?

And why condemned?

Maren thought of her father, who was as condemned as a man could be. Her heart twisted, and her eyes filled. His oncologist said that he had a few months. To look at him, one would never believe it. Sure, he was thinner, and paler now, but he never let the rest of it show. He did not look like a man condemned to die.

Malcolm Vashal did.

Maren wondered if he were sick, too. It would be terrible for someone so young to be struck with a terminal illness like her father’s.

God, I hope that’s not it.

The spontaneous prayer did catch her by surprise, but she recognized its truth. She
did
hope that Dr. Vashal was not sick.

Maren had never considered herself to be particularly religious. She had gone to Catholic school here, like so many other families in Lafayette, but she had never been confirmed, and her parents had only insisted on going to mass at Christmas and Easter, and less often as she and her brother and sister had gotten older. But she did find herself praying to some distant Almighty from time to time. Call it whatever one will, but Maren felt that in the great silence of the universe, something listened.

Please take care of Daddy,
she asked it. She never flailed about in her mind, begging for a miracle cure that could not happen. Instead, she pictured her father feeling ease and comfort. She closed her eyes and slowed her breath to cultivate the peace she wanted for him. She held the feeling at the very edge of sleep.

Unbidden, she saw smoky, sage eyes behind her own lids. They held pain.

Give him what he needs
, she petitioned.

Maren’s last thought of the day was of how good it felt to pray for Malcolm Vashal.