The Dark Proposal (The Claire McCormick Trilogy) (2 page)

“You say you’ve been published. How many times since you graduated?”

“Six times.”

“Were you published in that Brooklyn magazine you interned for?”

“Yes, but only once. They told me they’re having cutbacks.”

He shook his head. “If you want to be an editor someday, then you need to hustle more and not let anything hold you back. The competition amongst freelancers is fierce, especially these days. What outlets were your works published in?”

Claire named them, with her voice growing weak because the news websites and local newspapers now seemed unimpressive.

“How about this: send me your work. I’ll look them over and see where you need to improve, if you do.” He stopped in front of one of the buildings and began digging into one of his pockets. “This is where my class is. Here’s my card with my email on it.” Daniel produced a business card and handed it to her. “Have a good night. I’ll speak to you some other time.” He turned and entered the building.

She watched him disappear inside before examining the business card. Colored black with white writing, it had his name, the words “Freelance Journalist” underneath, his home and cell phone number, email address, and personal website. Sliding the card into her jeans’ pocket, Claire hurried along to catch the bus to go home.

“Where were you?” came the stern greeting Claire got when she stepped into the apartment she shared with her two friends.

Closing the door behind her and locking up, she responded, “Sorry! I got caught up with something.”

“You should’ve at least called,” said Samantha DiCarlo, her bright brown eyes flashing. “I always call you or Monica when I’m running late, especially for dinner.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry. It’s not like I always do that.”

“Okay, she’s sorry, Sam. Let it go,” said Monica Alejandrez, who was dishing out some sloppy joes.

The three girls had been friends since their first semester at Richmond. Claire and Samantha took a required
 
U.S. government class together, and they met Monica at a dorm party. They quickly bonded despite having different majors and being from different parts of the country: Claire from a small town in central New Jersey, Monica from Corpus Christi, Texas and Samantha came from Long Island. Even the three did not understand how they easily became like sisters. Maybe it was their similar sense of humor. Maybe it was that they all looked alike; all three were slim, of medium height, and had dark brown hair, though Claire was the only one with blue eyes. Or maybe it was their personalities that blended so well together.

As the roommates sat around their kitchen table and began eating dinner, Claire told them about Daniel and how he could help her with getting work. “He seemed a bit distant when we walked to the building he teaches at, but he did seem interested in helping me.”

“How old is he? He’s not some old geezer, I take it?” Samantha asked.

“Of course not. He’s young, but I don’t know how old.”

“Wait, young?” Samantha paused before sipping her soda. “As in, young enough?”

Monica giggled. “Is he good-looking at all?”

“Oh come on, guys!” Claire threw her hands up, mockingly annoyed as her two friends continued to laugh and tease her. “Okay sure, he looks good but he’s not Hollywood gorgeous. But get this – he is so friggin’ pale!”

“Pale?” asked Monica. “As in really white or super white?”

“Super white! He looks albino or something. But he did say he spent the summer in Australia, and they just had their winter there.”

Samantha shrugged. “Big deal if his skin is super white. The point is, can he help you get a job?”

“He told me to send him the articles I had published for him to look over. He said nothing about getting a job. I told you, he freelances too.”

“Then why bother having him help you if he doesn’t have a steady job?” Samantha raised an eyebrow. “Claire, you barely did your bit with last month’s rent with the shit pay Richmond College gives you. And you barely do any freelancing, so what makes you think this professor will make you freelance more?”

Claire stopped herself from putting her glass of soda to her mouth. “Because chances are he’ll have good connections, and I can get more work.”

“As in, better paying work?” Samantha sighed. “Better than what you got before?”

Claire almost slammed her fork down. “Anything helps! It’s tough to freelance in this economy. But maybe this professor could help me get further, with better pay.”

“Its all about who you know, Sam,” Monica sat between them, her eyes darting between them.

Samantha sighed heavily. “I just don’t want to end up having to throw you out, Claire. I feel like I’m always paying for everything since I bring home more money than you, thanks to bartending. Monica did her best with tutoring this summer and now she’s substituting while going for her master’s. When are you going to pitch in?”

Claire opened her mouth to protest when Monica put her hands up between them. “Whoa, cut it out the both of you! Palermo will hear you!” Vincent Palermo and his wife, Theresa, lived in the house above the apartment and were the girls’ landlords.

“We have the same argument nearly every night and its not worth it,” Monica went on to say. “We know its tough out there, the economy sucks, no one in our graduating class has had it easy. Didn’t we all promise to stick it out together?”

“Yeah, but even families fell apart during the Great Depression,” Samantha mumbled.

“You know, I think I’ve eaten enough,” said Claire. “You can add this to the leftovers.” She got up and went to her bedroom, shutting the door heavily. She could hear Samantha and Monica softly arguing, but she didn’t pay attention.

Instead, she headed to her desk, squeezed into her tiny bedroom. There were two bedrooms in the cramped apartment, and Claire won the coin toss to get the small one while the other two shared the larger bedroom opposite hers.

At her desk, she turned on her laptop. Though it was a decent computer that ran well, she felt impatient as it set up. Her focus was on sending her published pieces to Professor Bertrand and hopefully impressing him with her work. If they weren’t well written, he wouldn’t bother helping her.

At last, her laptop was ready and she immediately went online to her email account. Quickly typing in the professor’s address from the business card, she then created a simple message:

Hi Professor,

Thank you for being willing to look over my published work. Any help is much appreciated!

Claire McCormick

She read it over twice before deeming it decent enough to send it to an established writer. She then inserted the links in the email and with one deep breath, she clicked on
Send
. There. Now anything could happen.

Still curious about the strange professor, she went to check out his personal website. Like his card, Daniel’s website was black with white writing. Divided into two uneven columns, the narrow one had a black and white side shot of him sitting at his desk, before a computer, doing some typing. Books and papers surrounded him, and he looked stern and deep in thought, more so than he did while they walked to the building where he taught.

On the wider column of the website was greeting from Daniel Bertrand. In first person, he spoke simply of his education in England and New York. He also mentioned
 
spending a semester in France where he perfected his French. The professor ended his greeting by saying how he used writing to work towards his mission to make people think and see the world differently.

At the top of the website was the link that read “Articles.” Claire clicked on that, and her eyes nearly flew open when a page revealed a long list of about thirty or forty links to Daniel’s work.
 
She certainly was dealing with the real thing.

As she began to read the links, there was a knock at the door. It came a second time followed by: “Hey! I hope you’re not ignoring me!”

“Come in, Sam” she called over her shoulder. Samantha opened the door, closed it and sat on the bed less than two feet away from Claire.

“Listen. I’m sorry I got all bitchy with you. I know its not your fault that it’s hard to find work. I mean, I should be working as a financial analyst rather than pulling beer from tap four times a week, so who am I to put you down?” Samantha paused and Claire turned her head away from her computer screen. “So again, I’m really sorry. I’m scared like hell and I took it out on you. Maybe I can’t handle the pressure of being on my own and paying rent, like my parents told me. Maybe I should think about moving back to Long Island.”

“No,” Claire turned her whole body towards her friend. “You can handle it, all three of us can. We’re just under a lot of pressure now and we have to work harder on living together on our own in this crappy world. I mean, it’s only been three months. And Vincent and Theresa have been very good to us, even though its because they have a mortgage to pay. There’s still plenty of time for us to find good paying jobs so we won’t have to struggle to make the rent and other bills.”

“Yeah, I know. But I am honestly still scared.”

“So am I. But we’ve got to stay optimistic if we want to do this. I mean, wasn’t that the plan? Not for me to go back to lousy New Jersey and for Monica not to go back to Texas? And to be on our own so we could prove it to ourselves that we are adults and not regress by moving back in with our families after graduation?” she nudged Samantha playfully in her upper arm.

Sam smiled. “Yeah, I do not want to be treated like a kid again. After four years away from home, there was no way I was not going to give up my freedom.”

“Same here. So, are we going to stick together?”

“Yes, we are Miss Claire. Yes, we are.” Samantha leaned over and gave her a tight hug. “I promise I won’t take my frustrations out on you any more.”

“Okay, I’ll remember that!” Samantha pulled away, smiling. She then noticed Claire’s laptop and saw the website she was looking at.

“What’s that?” Samantha asked.

“Oh, that professor I told you about?” She looked back at the computer screen. “I’m checking out his website with the links to all his work.”

Samantha got up and peered over her shoulder. “Hmm. He’s got a nice portfolio there.”

“I just sent him links to those articles I wrote. Hopefully he’ll think I did a good job and will help me out.”

Samantha didn’t say anything at first; she appeared to be studying the website. When Claire examined what she was looking at, she saw her friend was looking at Daniel’s picture. “Looks deep in thought, right?”

“Yeah, but he sure is hot looking!” Samantha said. “Maybe he could help you more ways than one?”

Claire burst out laughing. Yes, the thought was on her mind, but unlike Samantha, she was never really vocal about her sexual interests. Her friend pretended to be offended and started to insist that the professor would make a good match – or at least a friend with benefits – for her. The good natured argument paused when there was another knock on the door, and Monica poked her head in. “Glad you two made up!”

“Monica, come here,”
 
Samantha motioned her over. “This is the professor Claire was telling us about. Isn’t he gorgeous?”

Monica leaned in over Claire’s other shoulder. “He doesn’t look very friendly there, but its bad in a good way!”

Claire giggled nervously. “I will not shit where I eat!”

“Suuurre, you won’t,” came the response.

“No really! He probably has a girlfriend already. A guy like him would.”

More laughter came while Claire sat blushing. She was the most conservative of the three, always preferring to having sex while in a relationship rather than having one night stands, which wasn’t easy to do during the college years. Both Monica and Samantha were more open to casual encounters. Despite their friendship, those two always teased her for not being more sexually adventurous.

“I swear, twelve years of Catholic school really warped you mind!” Samantha was saying.

“You went to Catholic school too!” Claire weakly protested.

“And I rid myself of all it’s brainwashing once I got to college! I have no shame!”

“Really, Claire,” Monica said more calmly. “This professor may expect something in return for all that he’s doing for you.”

Her eyes widened in horror, which made the two girls laugh again. “I will not be some hooch who sleeps my way to the top!”

“Okay, but why not at least date him?” Monica squeezed her shoulder. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen anyone. And you could use someone better than those guys you dated back in college.”

Claire pursed her lips together. She never chose the best boyfriends. Her first was someone who used her for sex, and even though she played along, she felt used. When she entered Richmond College, she dated a senior football player, who treated her as an object to hang on his arm. Her last boyfriend, who graduated a year ahead of her, decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a film-editing career. The relationship ended badly since he only cared about himself in a near narcissistic way. That was a year ago, and since then, Claire had healed from her wounds, but being underemployed didn’t impress a lot of guys.

Taking a deep breath, she said to her friends, “I’ll see what becomes of this. If there’s any chance of a relationship, I’ll definitely sleep with him.”

“Okay, but you could still have fun with him before that!” said Samantha.

“Okay, that’s it now! Out of my room, get out!” The two roommates left her bedroom still snickering, and she went back reading Daniel Bertrand’s website.

As the night wore on, she repeatedly checked her email, and clicked on several of his links to read the professor’s articles. His topics might seem shallow to some, such as best places for singles in the Caribbean or how to a man could maintain a budget while wearing designer shoes to work, but he added depth to the stories that made them be more serious and important to the reader.

She examined Daniel’s picture. Yes, he was very good looking. Why not try to date him? Sure, there was a chance Daniel might be taken, but perhaps she could make sure if he wasn’t? He was handsome in a peculiar way and he had the same interest in writing as she did. Claire didn’t know too many who enjoyed writing as much as she did. Most of her English Writing classmates wanted to be English teachers and were now in Monica’s master’s program. Few were interested in becoming professional writers. So here was a chance to get to know someone who liked what she liked. She just hoped he would be willing to share with her.