Forbidden Love (9 page)

Millie raised her eyebrows. “Okaaay. So
what’s so unusual about that? It could have been an uncle or
something.”

“How many uncles you know are so important,
they’re in pictures that people take with them to college? You
choose that kind of stuff carefully, don’t you?” Trisha’s
frustration with Millie’s disinterest was increasing. Why was this
conversation so difficult? She was looking for solutions. She
didn’t want to believe that this relationship that was driving her
off the edge, that made her feel desirable and rebellious and
energized, was too much of a risk. Her best friend was supposed to
help her shake away these feelings of doubt, not feed them.

“Do you trust him?”

Trisha folded her arms across her chest.
“Yes,” she said, definitively.

“Okay,” Millie said. “Then it shouldn’t
matter what creepy old men he has in his pictures.” She pushed her
plate of linguine, which she had only partially eaten, away from
her, and looked around the dining hall furtively. This was odd, as
Trisha had witnessed her devouring multiple dishes of carbs in one
sitting.

“Oh, hey,” Trisha said brightly. “Are you
still talking to Dave?” She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of
this before—the high school friend—dumbass status be damned! That
was it! She had a first-hand source right under her nose, and it
had taken her this long to realize it.

Millie gave her an impatient expression. “Not
really,” she said.

“Do you think you might—” Trisha paused.
“Might be willing to just chat with him one more time? Get some
info for me? I bet he would know the situation.”

Millie took a swig out of her Gatorade bottle
and glanced around the room one more time. “If I see him,” she
said.

Trisha didn’t know what was up with her. “Are
you in any classes with him?”

“If I see him,” she repeated. She stood and
collected her jacket and duffel bag from the back of her chair. “I
gotta go. I have to take a shower then go to a study group for Race
and Gender. And by the way—there’s a party on Thursday night at
Wicker House, if you’re interested.”

Wicker House. Known for its talented amateur
bartender, Eldon Losco, who could render his guests brainless with
just one of his concoctions, and for its operation as a temporary
hotel, where the guys took turns perching at the top of the stairs
and collecting five dollars for every bedroom a couple—or a
threesome—wanted to use. Trisha wasn’t sure it was the kind of
night out she was really lured by anymore. In fact, it wasn’t
usually the kind of night out that lured Millie.

“I don’t know,” Trisha said, scrunching her
nose. “Do you really want to go?” She tried to imagine Rusty
entertaining the idea of going to a party like that, and
couldn’t.

“I need to get out,” Millie said. “I’m sick
of this whole routine. I’m too serious about things, don’t you
think? I mean, we’re in college, right? This should be the best
time of my life.”

This didn’t sound like Millie at all. “What’s
gotten into you?” Trisha saw now that Millie’s fatigue from
practice was enhanced by a hollowness beneath her eyes, deep
grooves around her mouth. Had Trisha not noticed these details the
day before?

Millie hesitated. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll
catch you later, okay? If I happen to see Dave, I’ll try to work in
questions about Rusty as innocently as possible. He’ll never
suspect something’s up.”

But she didn’t even bother to lighten her
sarcasm with a smile. Trisha watched the back of Millie’s jersey
switching tiredly as she walked away. What had she done to deserve
dinner with a bitch?

The following day, when Millie bowed out of
lunch with her, Trisha started to question herself even more. Had
she been wrong to seek her best friend’s guidance? Hardly. Had she
crossed a line, asking Millie to talk to Dave, a guy she couldn’t
stand, to solicit some insider gossip? Probably not. She had made
plenty of sacrifices for Millie, including trying to get her own
brother Jay to ask Millie out when she was visiting Trisha’s family
in Rockport over the summer. She had coached Millie on clothing,
hair, makeup, and dancing. She had shown up at Millie’s dorm room
at two, three, four a.m. to calm her down after fights with her
clinically crazy Southern ass-backwards roommate. No, no—Trisha
wasn’t being selfish. It must be something else. And this mystery
of Rusty’s was so damn important—how could Millie disagree? By the
time she had arrived at Characterization class, Trisha had resolved
to call Millie that night to wrestle the problem right out of
her.

Her head dropped any thoughts of Millie when
she stepped inside Room 201. It was time to gear herself up for two
hours of staring at that body, barely contained in those classy,
perfectly pressed clothes, and beating back any compulsions to act
on her desires for it. What she loved, she had decided, was the
knowledge she had of that body, that nobody else in the room had.
And every one of them sat there, grinning like sycophants up at
Rusty’s animated expressions as he doused them with his expertise,
having no clue that one amongst them was benefiting from private
lessons. Trisha sighed, feeling cozy and privileged all of a
sudden.

Rusty hadn’t arrived yet. Professor
Kastarellis was rifling through papers on the front table. As
Trisha strode across the room, Genevieve stopped her with the swing
of a hand holding a red and black water bottle.

“I found this, Barron,” Genevieve said
casually, leaning into one hip and swishing her hair to the side.
“It’s yours, right?”

Trisha blinked and stumbled backward,
flustered by the intrusion into her personal space. “Uh—yeah. I
guess. It has my name written on the bottom of it, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does. I found it when I was in the
theatre downstairs yesterday, rehearsing my ‘vulnerable
character’”—her tone rose in pitch, as though she were imitating a
damsel in distress—“with Mr. Quirke.”

Trisha stared at her. What the hell did she
just say?

Genevieve widened her eyes and wagged the
bottle at Trisha. “Go on. Take it. I almost broke my ankle tripping
over it, for Christ’s sake.”

Trisha took the bottle. “Th-thanks.”

Genevieve pushed out her
lips at Trisha in acknowledgement and returned to her seat, where
she crossed her legs in a flourish. Trisha stood in the middle of
the semi-circle for a few moments, reeling from Genevieve’s
obviously calculated confession. What the fuck had she been doing
alone with Rusty in the theatre-in-the-round? Trisha’s heart was
threatening to thrust right out of her chest. Her throat was
closing. Her eyes were stinging. She looked around; Rusty still
hadn’t come. Where was the bastard? She thought desperately about
how she could manage to pull him into the hallway and demand an
explanation. Her face burned at the memory of Rusty’s voice:
“I
told
you I’d
give you a leg up on the homework assignment.”

“Miss Barron, have a seat?”

Trisha clicked out of her
reverie. Professor Kastarellis was looking at her. “Sorry,” she
mumbled. Now she had to sit next to Genevieve, who was sucking on a
strand of her hair. She was probably the only nineteen-year-old who
could get away with making something so juvenile look so sensual.
Trisha was doing everything she could to keep herself from
screaming. She
hated
that bitch!

“So, I have some bad news,” Professor
Kastarellis went on. “Mr. Quirke had to leave suddenly to address a
matter back in his hometown, so we won’t be blessed with his
instruction this week.”

A collective, good-natured whine undulated
across the room. Trisha sat up straight. She couldn’t possibly have
heard Professor Kastarellis right. What the hell? He’d left, and
hadn’t even mentioned it to her? This just solidified that
something cryptic was going on. He had called her on Sunday, told
her he had to work so he couldn’t see her…but that he was looking
forward to class. He had talked dirty to her and teased her into
such a mess that she couldn’t study for her Anthro quiz. He had
told her how much he’d enjoyed being with her, how thinking about
her got him through the day. But he clearly didn’t trust her to be
himself, entirely, fully, wholly. Could things get worse? Trisha
dropped her chin into her palms.

Genevieve leaned forward, raising her hand.
“He told me to tell you all that we shouldn’t worry about him,” she
said, her hand still raised, even though Professor Kastarellis
hadn’t invited her to speak. “He said that sometimes his family
just needs him on a moment’s notice.” She settled back in her
chair. “He’ll be back by Sunday, he thinks.”

So Genevieve was his
fucking secretary? Trisha gripped the edges of her desk. What kind
of fucking secretary? Literally, a
fucking
secretary? She was so close
to knocking that self-satisfied smile off of that black-haired
bitch’s face. Maybe with her red and black water bottle.

“Uh, thanks, Gen,” Professor Kastarellis
said, and Trisha could have hugged him for the humoring tone.
“Well, we’ll just hope that everything turns out okay for Mr.
Quirke, and we’ll get his business done here in the meantime.”

Trisha felt as though she had to draw on all
of the patience and poise she had stored from her acting experience
in order to make it through the class. She couldn’t look at
Genevieve, or else she would explode. And she actually cried during
her monologue, thinking about how she had become doubly vulnerable
since Saturday, for reasons that she couldn’t share. Her classmates
gave her a standing ovation.

She called Rusty’s cell phone on her way
across campus to Millie’s dorm and wasn’t surprised in the least
when he didn’t answer. She hung up at his voicemail prompt the
first time, composed herself, and then left a message along the
lines of “I’m concerned to hear that you’ve gone home and want to
make sure everything’s all right with Hadden.” Where the hell was
he that he couldn’t pick up a phone call from the girl he was
romancing—screwing—deceiving—whatever he was doing to her?

Millie didn’t answer her door. She was
probably practicing down at the athletic complex. Trisha could
hardly stand the inadvertent rejection. Who was she supposed to
talk to? For the first time, wandering back toward her own room
under the white-gray sky and thinking about all of the open lonely
hours ahead of her, she felt like she might crumble under the
weight of too many secrets.

***

Her thoughts were already lighter, sort of
supple and faded, if she had to describe the sensation. Her mouth
and heart were warm and tangy, and she felt enormously comfortable
in her own body. She was sitting on Millie’s bed, in the disarrayed
folds of the comforter. Millie never made her bed. Millie was
incredibly messy. But tonight, Millie actually looked pretty damn
good. Millie was wearing a mini dress. Her basketball legs had a
greater purpose in heels, that was for sure. And she was in a much
better mood than she had been a few days before at dinner.

“Why’d you change your mind?” Millie was
leaning against her desk, ankles crossed, beer cocked in the air.
“I thought you were too good for Wicker House. Rusty the
Disappearing Act got you down?”

Trisha tossed back her head in flippant
dismissal. “I can’t wait on him. If he’s not giving me the respect
of telling me what he’s doing and where he’s going, then I can’t be
responsible for what I do.” She drained the last of her Smirnoff
Ice.

Millie laughed. “That makes no sense. You
sound like some crazy stalker.”

“I don’t care.” Trisha thought about Rusty’s
rapist role play. She hadn’t told Millie about that incident. Every
time she started to, she realized how deranged it sounded. “I’ve
spent too long with no consideration from men. Enough of that shit.
Let’s go to this party and forget about it.”

The night was unusually mild for the end of
January. They walked the three-quarters of a mile to Wicker House
with the cool breeze sweeping over their faces, and for Trisha it
cleansed from her any residue of guilt that she may have felt when
she first decided to go to the party. Yes, Rusty might be going
through something terrible at home, and she should show some
empathy for that, but how was she supposed to support him if he
refused to tell her what was going on? He made all of these
decisions that affected both of them, without any thought to how
she might be feeling. She needed to take on more of a fuck-it
attitude. So, fuck it.

The front door to Wicker House was wide open,
and the insides glowed with red and orange hues. The music, some
nondescript techno beat, accosted Trisha as she stepped into the
foyer. The first floor was packed—bodies milling around one another
and slouching against walls, beer bottles and plastic cups already
crowding tables. A black lab was winding around people’s legs,
sniffing for dropped chips. The humid air pressed in on Trisha. She
shook off her coat and threw it onto the banister.

“I think he’s in the kitchen,” Millie
said.

They made their way through the hallway,
nodding hellos to classmates they recognized but couldn’t name. A
line had formed in front of Eldon Losco’s makeshift bar, a narrow
folding table covered in bottles. They waited for ten minutes for
their scarlet-colored drinks, which he handed over reluctantly in
oversized novelty beer steins.