Authors: Sylvain Reynard
Before he could ask her what was wrong, Christa Peterson breezed in, her large Michael Kors bag dangling from her wrist. She looked remarkably well rested, and her eyes were bright. She was wearing red. Not cherry red or blood red, but scarlet. The color of triumph and power.
She saw Paul and Julia together and cackled quietly.
Paul’s dark eyes shifted from Julia to Christa and back again. He watched as Julia hid her face while she checked her mailbox.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“Nothing. I think I’m coming down with a cold.”
Paul shook his head. He would have pressed her, gently this time, but Professor Martin entered the office at that moment.
Julia took one look at him and quickly picked up her messenger bag and her coat, hoping to make a break for the door.
Paul stopped her. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I was going to walk over to Starbucks.”
Julia shook her head. “I’m pretty tired. I think I need to go home.”
Paul’s eyes glanced down at her bare neck, her bare
unmarked
neck, and moved back to her face.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
“No. Thanks, Paul. I’m fine, really.”
He nodded and watched her turn to leave, but before she could enter the hallway, he followed her. “On second thought, I should head home now too. I can walk with you, if you want.”
Julia bit her lip but nodded, and the two friends exited the building into the bone chilling winter air. She wrapped her Magdalen College scarf around her neck, shivering against the wind.
“That’s an Oxford scarf,” Paul observed.
“Yes.”
“Did you buy it in Oxford?”
“Um, no. It was a gift.”
Owen
, he thought.
I guess he can’t be a complete bonehead if he went to Oxford. Then again, Emerson went to Oxford…
“I really like the Phillies cap you gave me. I’m a Red Sox fan, but I’ll wear it with pride, except when I’m in Vermont. My dad would burn it if I wore it on the farm.”
Julia couldn’t help but smile, and Paul mirrored her expression.
“How long have you been sick?”
“Um, a few days.” She shrugged uncomfortably.
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“It’s just a cold. They wouldn’t be able to do anything for me.”
Paul stole glances at her while they walked past the Royal Ontario Museum, snowflakes swirling around them and the crystal monstrosity that was the north wall.
“Has Christa been hassling you? You seemed upset when she walked into the office.”
Julia stumbled in the ankle-deep snow, and Paul quickly reached out one of his large paws to steady her.
“Careful. There could be black ice under there.”
She thanked him and began to walk a little more slowly after he released her.
“If you slip again, grab hold of me. I don’t go down. Ever.”
She glanced at him sideways, completely innocently, only to see him blush. Julia had never seen a rugby player blush before.
(It was rumored to be impossible.)
“Um, what I meant is that I’m too heavy. You wouldn’t be able to pull me over.”
She shook her head. “You aren’t that heavy.”
Paul smiled to himself at the perceived compliment.
“Has Christa been rude to you?”
Julia looked down at the snow-covered sidewalk in front of them. “I’ve been staying up late every night working on my thesis. Professor Picton is very demanding. Last week she rejected several pages of my
Purgatorio
translation. I’ve been redoing it, and it just takes so long.”
“I could help you. I mean, you could email your translations to me before you give them to her so I could check them.”
“Thanks, but you’re busy with your own stuff. You don’t have time for my problems.”
He stopped walking and placed a light hand on her arm. “Of course I have time for you. You’re working on love and lust, and I’m working on pleasure. Some of our translations will overlap. It would be good practice for me.”
“I’m not working on love and lust anymore. Professor Picton made me change my topic to a comparison between courtly love and the friendship between Virgil and Dante.”
Paul shrugged. “Some of the translations will still overlap.”
“If we’re working on the same passage we could compare translations. I don’t want to bother you with stuff that’s unrelated to your project.” She looked over at him tentatively.
“Send me what you have and what your deadlines are, and I’ll look at it. No problem.”
“Thank you.” She appeared relieved.
He withdrew his hand, and they began walking again. “Did you know that the Chair of Italian Studies sent out an email announcement about your admission to Harvard? He said that you won a pretty big fellowship.”
Julia’s eyes went wide. “Um, no. I didn’t know that. I didn’t get that email.”
“Well, it was sent to everyone else. Emerson made me print out the email and post it on the bulletin board next to his office,
after
he insisted that I highlight all the important information, including your name, with a bright yellow marker. Figures. He was nothing but rude to you while you were in his seminar, and now he’s probably going to take credit for your admission to Harvard. Asshole.”
Julia’s eyebrows furrowed, but she didn’t comment.
“What?”
She flushed slightly under his scrutiny. “Nothing.”
“Julia, spit it out. What were you thinking just now?”
“Um, I was just wondering if you’d seen Christa hovering around the department? Or Professor Emerson’s office?”
“No, thank God. It looks as if she’s moved on to someone else. She knows better than to talk to me. I’m just waiting for her to give me a chance to tell her off.” Paul winked and patted her shoulder fraternally. “She better not give you a hard time. Or I have a few stories I could tell.”
* * *
On Thursday, Julia met with her therapist in preparation for her meeting with the Dean, which was scheduled for Friday morning.
Recognizing that Julia needed to discuss what was happening, Nicole set aside her goals for that session and listened patiently before offering her opinion. “Stress can be very destructive to our health, so it’s important to deal with it adequately. Some people prefer to talk about their problems, while others prefer to think about them. How have you dealt with stress in the past?”
Julia fidgeted with her hands. “I’ve kept quiet.”
“Can you share your concerns with your boyfriend?”
“I can. But I don’t want to upset him. He’s worried about me as it is.”
Nicole nodded sagely. “When you care about someone, it’s understandable that you would want to protect them from pain. And that’s perfectly appropriate on some occasions. But on others, you run the risk of shouldering more than your fair share of stress or responsibility. Can you see why that might be a problem?”
“Well, I don’t like it when Gabriel keeps things from me. I feel like a child. I’d rather have him share things than shut me out.”
“It’s possible that Gabriel feels the same way, that he worries about you shutting him out. Have you discussed this with him?”
“I’ve tried to. I’ve told him I want to be equals, that I don’t want to keep secrets.”
“Good. And what was his response?”
“He either wants to take care of me or he’s worried about disappointing me.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
Julia gestured with her hands as she tried to find the words. “I don’t want his money. It makes me feel poor and dependent and—and helpless.”
“And why is that?”
“He gives me so much already, and I can’t reciprocate.”
“Is it important to you that your relationship be reciprocal?”
“Yes.”
Nicole smiled kindly. “No relationship is absolutely reciprocal. Sometimes, when couples try to split everything in half, they discover that the relationship is not a partnership but a bean counting exercise. Striving for reciprocity in a relationship can be unhealthy.
“On the other hand, striving to have a partnership in which each partner is valued equally and shares both burdens and responsibilities can be healthy. In other words, it isn’t a problem if he makes more money than you. But he needs to understand that you want to contribute to the relationship, perhaps not financially but in other ways, and that those ways should be respected just as much as the money. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. I like that idea. A lot.”
“As for protecting one another…” She smiled.
“You could make a biological argument as to why men feel the need to protect their women and children. Whatever the reason, it’s a fact. Men tend to find their self-worth in actions and accomplishments. If you refuse to let him do things for you, he’ll feel useless and superfluous. He wants to know that he can take care of you and protect you, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Partners should want to protect one another. But like any view, it has its extremes and it has its middle.
“What you and your boyfriend should do is to strive for the middle. Allow him to take care of you in some ways, while exerting your independence in others. And you should impress upon him the need for you to take care of him too.”
Julia nodded. The concept of moderation appealed to her. She wanted to care for Gabriel, and she wanted him to care for her, but she didn’t want to be a burden, and she didn’t want him to look at her as if she was broken. But sorting all of that out practically was a different matter.
“Some men have what I call
chivalry syndrome
—they want to protect their women as if they were absolutely helpless. And this might be romantic and exciting for a time, but eventually reality will set in and it will become stifling and patronizing. When one partner does all the protecting and the other does all the receiving, it’s unhealthy.
“Of course, some women have the feminine equivalent of chivalry syndrome—
wounded duck attachment
. They seek out men who are bad boys or broken and afflicted and attempt to fix them. But we’ll table that discussion for another day.
“At his extreme, a chivalrous male can do all kinds of rash things to protect his woman, including riding into battle on his horse, or taking up arms against thousands of Persians, when he should be running in the opposite direction.
Discretion is the better part of valor.
” She chuckled slightly. “Did you see the film
300?”
Julia shook her head.
“It’s about the Battle of Thermopylae, when three hundred Spartans held off two hundred and fifty thousand Persians before being defeated. Herodotus writes about it.”
Julia regarded Nicole with no little interest. How many psychologists could cite Herodotus?
“King Leonidas was an extreme case. One could argue that his last stand was precipitated by political concerns rather than chivalry. But my point is that sometimes the chivalrous man ends up doing more damage through his protection than can be done by the force threatening his partner. Spartan women used to tell their husbands and sons to come home carrying their shields or on them. If you found yourself in that situation, you’d probably prefer that Gabriel didn’t die holding the line against thousands of Persians and came home to you, instead.”
Julia nodded in absolute agreement.
“In your conversations with Gabriel, you might want to talk about that—how you feel about being protected to his own detriment, how you should share your risks and responsibilities, why you want to be a partner rather than a child or a helpless female.
“Perhaps Gabriel would be willing to attend joint sessions with us even though he isn’t coming in privately.”
Julia wasn’t quite sure that she’d heard Nicole correctly. “Pardon?”
Nicole smiled. “I said that in your conversations with Gabriel, you might want to talk about how you feel protected—”
“No,” Julia interrupted. “I meant the last part. You said that Gabriel isn’t coming in anymore?”
Nicole froze. “Um, that was very unprofessional of me. I shouldn’t speak to you about another client and his counselor.”
“When did he stop seeing Winston?”
“I really can’t say.” Nicole shifted in her seat. “Now, we should probably discuss some ways in which you can deal with stress before your meeting tomorrow…”
* * *
The Dean of Graduate Studies favored formality and refinement. For these reasons, he always conducted meetings in a large, wood-paneled conference room adjacent to his office on St. George Street. Professor Jeremy Martin, the Chair of Italian Studies, sat at his right in a large, high-backed chair that was vaguely medieval in style, behind an imposing, dark wood table that ran almost the width of the room.
Two small folding chairs were centered before the table, and that is where Soraya and her client sat most uncomfortably at the beginning of their meeting.
“A moment for introductions.” The Dean’s rich, baritone voice rang out in the room.
“Miss Julianne Mitchell?”
Julia nodded, but said nothing.
“And who is your representative?” His pale, cold blue eyes gave away nothing, but it was clear that he recognized the dark haired woman at Julia’s left.
“Soraya Harandi, Dr. Aras. I will be representing Miss Mitchell.”
“Is there a reason why Miss Mitchell has elected to bring an attorney to this informal meeting?” It was clear that he was already irritated.
“Why, Dr. Aras, my client was simply following your instructions. You suggested she retain a lawyer in your letter.” Soraya’s voice was deceptively sweet.
David resisted the urge to growl at her, for he did not like being made a fool. He gestured to the man beside him. “This is Professor Martin.”
Julia took a moment to appraise the Chair’s appearance. She knew that he would be meeting with Gabriel to discuss Christa’s harassment complaint after this meeting concluded. She tried very hard to discern his disposition but found herself puzzled. His demeanor was decidedly neutral, at least toward her.
The Dean cleared his throat. “We have received a very serious complaint about you, Miss Mitchell. Our purpose in inviting you to speak to us today is solely for information purposes as we begin our investigation. We will ask a few questions, then you will have the opportunity to ask questions of us. I hope the meeting will terminate in about thirty minutes.”