Choke On Your Lies Part 5

FIVE.

At home, still mine for the time being, I polished off the Scotch and opened another bottle of wine, this one an Oregonian Pinot Noir. Poured a gla.s.s and sank into my couch staring at the front window, waiting for the shadows to stretch, and for darkness to seep in like unconsciousness. This time of year, that wouldn't be until after nine that night. As long as I had enough wine and five melancholy CD's in the stereo, starting with Lucinda Williams, merging into live Bob Dylan, and from there we would just see what happened.

I had convinced myself that I wasn't up to what Octavia was asking of me. Digging into Frannie's personal life, uncovering her scam like some sort of narcissistic Phillip Marlowe, yeah. Imagining myself in a powder-blue suit like he wore in The Big Sleep, catching a teenage girl as she swooned and pretended to faint. No, the suit didn't fit-too big in the shoulders for me.

Besides, if I started digging, Frances would surely get wind of it and make this whole mess worse. She might end up dragging this into court, involving all our friends and colleagues, making the next year of work a living h.e.l.l of office politics, taking sides, rumors and secrets. I would end up with daily stomach aches, hardly able to pull myself into the office, a nervous wreck peeking around corners to make sure I wouldn't run into Frances.

Just something about me-when I fell in love, I fell deeply, and I wasn't good with turning break-ups into friends.h.i.+ps, or even into that awkward tolerance, as if nothing bad had happened between us. Work was work, and love was love. But how could I believe that horses.h.i.+t when, every time I would have to sit through yet another speech by the Provost, I would be reminded? Or when I saw her just being herself with the people we'd entertained at home-fed them, shared intimate details with them, because that's what artists and writers tended to do, embarra.s.singly so.

Octavia's fighting spirit had taken the s.p.u.n.k out of me, I thought. There was no way to keep the anger at such high tide when I was really drowning in sadness. See? I've even fallen into cliche talking about it.

I'd call her back later and ask if Pamela could take care of it all and make sure I came out okay financially. Then I would look for another apartment, move myself in, and probably leave for the rest of the summer. A vacation, somewhere on my own to start over. Maybe call Nuha and see if it was possible to patch things up, ask her to meet me in South Carolina, where a friend had offered me use of his beach house while he was spending the year in Germany. But I doubted she'd be interested. Of course Octavia was right about that, and stopping when I did right before Nuha came, plus the outpouring of emotion that followed, hadn't left me in a particularly attractive light.

The last time I'd tried to contact her, we had a painfully brief and silence-pocked phone call-me stepping on eggsh.e.l.ls, making sure she was all right, her ignoring my apologies to mechanically thank me for all the help getting into grad school, where she'd begun working for her university's literary magazine as an a.s.sistant Editor. Plus, she'd had three poems accepted for publication, and had even won a contest. I understood she wasn't saying this to make me proud, but rather to let me know she didn't need me anymore. What happened between us had been a mistake, she saw that now, and stopping before we went any further, in hindsight it was a huge relief. A silly coed crush, the reality unable to match the fantasy.

She didn't have to say any of it. It was all in the tone of her voice.

Of course, after our "close call", I was guilty enough to still champion her work and help with grad school-glowing reference letters, putting in a good word at places she applied where I knew people, mailing her work to some editors with high praise. So much of the success she was having, and which gave her cause to shun me, happened because of me. Mick Thooft, major dumba.s.s.

My decision was made. I lifted my gla.s.s of wine to the universe and said, "To resurrection." Hoa.r.s.e, sore, and creepy.

The beach, the sun, peace and solitude, time to write again. Poems about the death of love, always a creative goldmine. Over a thousand miles from my problems at home, and that distance would heal wounds, steel my soul for the Fall semester, the forced small talk and smiles, and the story of my retreat and all the new work it helped foster. Better than showing up drunk and mournful.

By mid-afternoon, the CD's repeating after additional woe from The Decemberists, Jenny Lewis, and Steve Earle, I found the strength and clearheadedness to stand, take in a few deep breaths, and go looking for the phone.

I found it recharging on the base, the message light blinking on the machine. I'd missed quite a few messages, not even bothering to turn on the ringer. Two sales robots, one live salesman, and a few "Anything I can do?" calls from friends and grad students. s.h.i.+t, word was spreading more than I had realized.

Then Jennings: "Mick, if you'd like, Octavia has invited you to dinner here at home. I think she really likes Harriet's cooking." Lowering his voice into a grit-teeth song-song. "But a little b.i.t.c.h-y, if you know what I mean. Like two queens fighting over the spice rack. Anyway, eight o'clock if you're interested. We'll see you."

I smiled in spite of myself. Sure, I could do that. After the meal would be a nice time to let her know what I'd decided. Since she smoked her after-dinner drink, basically, she'd be in the perfect mood.

Then one more call. Hoping it was Frances. Hoping, hoping. Apologizing for the day before. Saying it was all a mistake. And then I could invite her to South Carolina with me, and, and, the blood was rus.h.i.+ng to my p.e.n.i.s in antic.i.p.ation- "Hi, Mick? It's Barry."

Barry Straton, head of the department. His specialty was Composition and Rhetoric, but he also wrote screenplays in his spare time. None had sold yet, but he'd come close a few times, so he said. And these were some really cheesy stories, too-a historical romance set against the backdrop of the War of 1812, kind of like Gone with the Wind meets Guiding Light; then there was Capone Meets Earp, some sort of time travel yarn about Chicago gangsters going back in time to the Old West. Yikes.

Barry said, "Look, give me a call as soon as you get this. I've already tried emailing you several times. It looks as if I'll need to rearrange your schedule for the fall. We have to take back one of the poetry workshops. Plus, the Provost isn't happy with the enrollment numbers of the upper-level cla.s.ses, so the Beat Poet lit cla.s.s has been cut. And because a couple of other people in the department are involved in those big grant projects, you know, like Frannie, and I'm sorry about this-sounds so s.h.i.+tty having to do this now-um, we...G.o.dd.a.m.n it. You're losing your cla.s.s release so the department can spread the wealth. Yeah, yeah, it sucks. I'm afraid that leaves you with, um, a comp, an Intro to Creative Writing, all freshmen, and a lit survey. I fought for you, though. It was looking like you would teach two comps, but I didn't let that happen. Not as long as I'm chair. Call me, even at home. Chin up."

Before he'd gotten halfway through, I was on the floor, my back against the cabinet doors, crying like a child. Freshman comp? I was a G.o.dd.a.m.ned published poet! Tenured! You f.u.c.king start with comp and then leave it behind. Lit survey? I didn't understand. Okay, so the publis.h.i.+ng had fallen off recently, but that was just because I was waiting for the next wave of poems. Couldn't a guy have a fallow period for a year or two? All the greats did...and that was before we knew they were great.

Worst case scenarios filled my mind: Frances must have told the Provost how terrible it would be for her to face me in the Fall, especially after how I reacted yesterday, pretending I had never even seen the quit claim deed. Oh, how terrible. I pictured it-I shouldn't, I know I shouldn't-Frannie waiting until they were naked, post-coitus, her head on his chest, a few phony tears. A lot of "Why can't Mick be mature about this? I always thought he would be able to accept it and move on..." and then the kicker, how I had the "entire Creative Writing program" backing me up, letting me get away with murder with my cla.s.s release when I hadn't written more than one lousy verse these last few years.

So of course, the next morning, my chair gets a call. Concerns about enrollment. Concerns about rewarding the less productive members of the faculty. Concerns about the "fairness" of making sure the Gen Ed cla.s.ses are occasionally taught by upper-level faculty instead of adjuncts and junior profs.

In other words, he couldn't fire me, but he could certainly torch the battlefield and hope I would retreat.

Perhaps that wasn't the worst choice. As they say about academics, the fights are fiercest where the stakes are lowest. Let the Provost and Frannie have their victory. I had friends, connections, publications, and could find another job. Maybe string together some one year visiting writer gigs, see the country.

Who was I kidding? I could scoop up one or two of those, the pay barely above minimum wage, before having to give it up in the face of younger, fresher poets making better connections and getting more high profile publications, and then all I'd have left is community college comp cla.s.ses, five a semester, no time for poetry or contemplation.

I dried my eyes. I pushed myself off the floor. I sniffed. And I went out looking for someone who might have a good idea of where I could find that robot pen.

SIX.

I had never done any "investigative" work before, so I wasn't sure exactly how to begin. I needed to find out where David Carter spent his summers, but I didn't want to alarm him right away, send him running to Frances and thus giving her ample time to find a way to stop my search. So it would need to be a surprise. If I visited my office on campus, I could get his permanent address from his file and then go from there. I just hoped he wasn't off on vacation, or spending the summer with his other parent, or something like that.

How little I knew about him, sitting in my office at my computer several days a week, most of our talk about what we saw on the screen-html code, jpegs, fonts, pixels, whatnot. I sometimes engaged him in conversations about his cla.s.ses, what he had been reading, and encouraging him to try different writers, explore different avenues of thought. And all that time...

I had to shake it off. If I was going to keep my house, I had to confront him. And as my dealings with Octavia might have illuminated, I was not a very confrontational guy.

And so I drove to campus, slowly, hoping my inebriation would go unnoticed by any patrol officers. The college wasn't abandoned like it was during holiday breaks. In the summer, rather, you had a smaller but still very active community of learners and teachers, non-traditional students, high school visitors and their parents who hadn't yet chosen a school, and international students who were not able to make it home, rather choosing to work on campus and take an extra cla.s.s or two.

I was hoping to avoid an awkward b.u.mping-into with my colleagues, many of whom, now that I had the hindsight, must have conspired to keep the truth about Frances's extra-marital activities from my view, most likely believing whatever ridiculous stories she had told them about my "emotional unavailability" when exactly the opposite was true. It was Fran who had held back from me, but I guess she realized that it sounded better with her as the victim.

How did I know? Again, hindsight. The way my male friends suddenly began inviting me out for drinks, possibly in an attempt to suss out my cheating ways. Or they would mumble comments about the length of students' shorts or skirts, seeing if I would bite. Or the female members of our faculty suddenly giving me a cold shoulder, more formal. Except for one-the forever hippiesque Marsha, who, after years of painful small talk skirting around our political differences (me: social libertarian, her: socialist activist), decided to sit down for longer conversations, continue them out into the parking lot, and, once, an impromptu kiss that turned into a heavy petting session in the back of her Subaru Outback. Of course, I'd ended it within a few minutes, begged her pardon, and said I was happily married. Marsha, then, stuffing her bra into her messenger bag, winked at me. "Sometimes, the moment is the moment, that's all."

Thinking of that as I parked only three s.p.a.ces down from where we had groped and licked and fogged her windows, it dawned on me that maybe-highly improbable, but just maybe-our tryst wasn't as spontaneous as it originally seemed. In fact, I imagined an envelope similar to the one Octavia handed me at lunch on Sunday, but this one instead nestled among Frances's papers, waiting to be unsheathed if I were to make waves over the house or other divorce terms.

I'd been so stupid. A poet with his head in the clouds, d.i.c.k in his hand, trying to live in a constant state of t.i.tillation, under the belief that even though I was going through a dry period in my own writing, I was still revered by my colleagues who were all holding their breaths awaiting my breakthrough.

Instead, I'd been a sad, clueless failure who even turned down a pity f.u.c.k from the second most promiscuous professor on campus. The honor of the first most promiscuous went to Prof. John Grace, from Sociology, who'd married and divorced three women, the second and third being former students fifteen and twenty years his junior, respectively, before deciding "The h.e.l.l with it" and f.u.c.king as many coeds as would have him until his equipment no longer functioned. Still going strong at sixty-six.

I entered the English hall like a thief, easing the door closed and looking over my shoulder. I'd worn my hiking trail sneakers to cut down on noise, but the rubber soles squeaked against the polished tile something awful, no matter how I adjusted my walk-like a bad John Cleese imitation. At the department door, I pulled out my key, but first twisted the handle out of habit. It was already unlocked. Either someone was working late or had been careless, as the office was dark except for the college logo bouncing around on the screensaver of our department secretary's computer. No light on in Barry's office. The next test was pa.s.sing Frances's wing without being noticed.

Through the interior door, I saw a blade of light stabbing out from beneath the door of Ashton Heder, our Medieval lit specialist. He and his wife were casual friends of ours, trading occasional Friday night dinners and other get-togethers, usually to watch Criterion Collection films, and we would sometimes head over to the Loft or Micawber's Books for a poetry reading. Of course, since his wife was closer to Frances than me, neither of them had sought me out this past month.

Maybe he'd already heard me. Maybe he was off teaching a cla.s.s. Whatever. I just had to get past his door as quietly as possible, slip into my office, get the info on David, and sneak out again. Even my breath sounded loud. I knelt, untied my shoes and eased them off, then carried them down the hall while I slo-moed down the hardwood floor on sock feet.

Closer and closer. Almost there. Luckily, Ashton had covered his door's window with his cla.s.s schedule and some cute photos of his two dogs, backed by thick construction paper. A small but effective bow to the need for privacy in our offices, as sometimes we don't particularly want the students to drop by any old time we're on campus, even though we tell them that.

I crouched, in case I might cast a shadow. Sweaty, my muscles aching, as if this was somehow grueling. Felt like a marathon to me, even though it was barely thirty feet. Just as I'd pa.s.sed, Ashton coughed. I bit my tongue. Held it together, but wanted to shout, hop, kick the wall. Only two more office doors to get past.

Then, more noise. The wheels of an office chair rolling back. Various papers ruffling. Footsteps.

s.h.i.+t.

I leapt the final distance and fumbled with the office key-should've had it ready! Come on! Make it fit!

Got it.

Inside only a second before Ashton opened his door. I swung mine closed, full twist on the handle to avoid clicks, held my shoulder against it. Stuck my bleeding tongue into my cheek and listened.

Steps, door creaking, then shutting. Footsteps heading off down the hall toward the main office.

I eased off the handle and slid to the floor. Lungs working double-time. I rubbed a finger on my tongue's new wound, pulled it out. Maybe there was some blood there, hard to tell. It was pretty dark in the office except for late afternoon sunlight, and I wasn't about to risk turning on the light.

This was all so silly. How was I going to function in the Fall? Hide in my office? Eye everyone with paranoia? Self-exile in my own department?

I would have to deal with it when the time came. At the moment, it was more important to prove Frances was the lying s.l.u.t I was finally beginning to see her as. That would go a long way towards tipping the sympathies of the faculty back towards me. And it all started with David.

I found his file and sat at my desk, held up pages to catch the light. The good news was that he didn't live too far away, up in St. Cloud. Not difficult at all to find, provided he was still at home. On second thought, maybe it was easier to pull off a phone call than I thought. A problem with the web journal? Yes, yes, I see. Some pages that needed double-checking. Or a lost submission. He would eat that up, wouldn't he? David was the only one with the answers, coming to our rescue.

An email would've been easier, of course, but also easier for him to ignore. Plus, he might just try to explain the answer to me. No, for this I needed to feign my luddite nature and appeal to his ego, which I frankly didn't know existed until those photos. But to sleep with my wife while working for me, he either had giant bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s, or he thought I had b.a.l.l.s the size of peas.

It would have to wait until tomorrow, though. To call and risk speaking to his parents or him in my current drunken state, well, even I knew better. I stopped myself after punching in five of those ten digits in his number, hung up, and sat still long enough to still the strange mix of anger and elation I felt for what I planned to do.

I jotted the address and number down on a Post-It, shoved it into my pocket, and stood to leave. My head was full of the scene as if it was on an episode of Cheaters or some other gotcha program. The stunned expression as I told David, "I know what you've done." Would he go ballistic? Would he fall apart like a sand castle at high tide?

Was so enraptured by it that I had stopped listening, thus stepping out into the hall to find a very startled colleague. Not Ashton after all, but rather his wife, Stephanie.

"Oh, Jesus, Mick!" She dropped a stack of copies, held her hand to her chest. "My G.o.d!"

"Sorry, sorry, I had no idea. Here." I dropped to my knees, crawled over and started picking up copies. It seemed they were pages from one of Ashton's papers-in-progress.

Stephanie was saying, "No, no, it's all right. Really." And then she went to her knees and tried to gather them faster than I could. If she hadn't already figured I was drunk, I'm sure the way I crumpled each one into my nightmare stack provided the necessary clue. She wore khaki shorts and a tank-tee, flip-flops. I couldn't help but look at the places where her muscles tightened, the glimpse of green bra beneath the armhole of her s.h.i.+rt. A nice-looking woman indeed. I'd always thought so, but I'd never seen her in the summer. Never seen this much of her skin.

"Please, let me. Ashton is, um, at a conference, and he forgot this. I'm going to fax it over."

"Why not email?"

"He doesn't have access to a printer."

"You could email the file to a fax machine."

She reached out and took my pile, scurried back upright, providing me a nice close-up view of her thighs...but no, no, I hated being that guy. I had tried so desperately not to be that guy, and certainly not in front of Frances's close friend.

"No, Mick, really. I don't know how to do all that. Yeah...um, a fax is easiest."

"I could show you."

"Really, I don't have time. I'm...sorry. Are you okay? You look a little pale."

I said, "I'm fine, really. Just, you know. Summer allergies. Had to take some medicine."

"Scotch-flavored medicine?"

Oh, she wanted it like that, eh? "I washed them down with a little. Your point?"

"Did you drive here?"

Wheels spinning in my head. She needed to fax Ashton a paper. Okay. "Wait, what conference would Ashton be at in the summer? One I would've heard of?"

"You know, just a small thing. I don't even think anyone's there. It's over in Marshall at their university. A tiny thing. It's like a corn field out there, isn't it?"

I shrugged. "Never been."

More wheels. It wasn't a conference. It was a job interview. And I would bet it wasn't in Marshall, either. No one would leave here for Marshall, I could guarantee.

I blinked, and noticed Stephanie was staring at my feet. I followed her line of vision, saw my socks. I had forgotten to put my shoes back on.

"I take them off in my office sometimes," I said. "So comfy, I forgot to put them back on."

She pointed near my hip. "You've got something, um.."

I patted my chest, my stomach, my pockets. "I'm sorry?"

"Here, let me." She slinked over, reached her thumb and index finger towards me, lifted the Post-It from the front of my pants. Guess I had missed my pocket.

She took a quick look at the info, then handed it back to me. "Got a date?"

Way out of line. Just the sort of thing I would expect to set the rumor mills on fire until Frances figured out exactly whose address it was and why I was interested. She'd figure it out in thirty seconds flat.

I said, "Let me ask you. When did you guys plan on telling us? It's kind of hard to replace someone with Ashton's specialty in the middle of summer."

Her lips tightened. Eyes like hard marbles. "They haven't offered yet."

"But you're pretty sure..."

"You never know. That's why...you just never know."

"Where?"

Took a deep breath through her nose. "Colorado. Denver."

I crossed my arms. "Nice."

"You bet."

A long moment of silence. She hugged the papers close.

I smiled. "I won't tell if you won't."

Her lips defrosted.

I added, "I haven't had the best month. It's just dinner with a friend. Frannie doesn't need to know. And Barry doesn't need to know about you guys just yet. Agreed?"

Of course, maybe my gamble wouldn't work. Maybe they'd already told plenty of people. I had been out of the loop for a month, after all. However, if that were the case, why lie to me? The look on her face-terror, I would call it-when I mentioned telling Barry, it was real. Too real. I didn't think my little t.i.t-for-tat threat had that much firepower to it. What was the worst that would happen to Ashton? A cold shoulder around the halls? Stephanie didn't work here, so it wasn't as if any of this would affect her. Still, maybe they were truly worried about what would happen if he didn't get the job.

She finally picked up her chin and said, "Deal. Total silence. For all involved."