Bloodroot (16 page)

When other teachers were around, Kelsey and I talked shop: grades, lesson plans, our favorite student excuses. On Sunday nights when it was just the two of us, we talked family. I listened a lot and said little about her dead mother, her crazy father, and her still vibrant wish that she hadn’t been an only child. She asked for story after story about Danny and me as kids. I told her every adventure I could recall, except for the graveyard stories. She had her favorites and I told them often.

Kelsey listened as I wrestled out loud with having a brother and then losing him, only to find and then lose him again. Outside my family, Kelsey was the only one who knew the bad parts. She went a lot easier on me about it than I did, or my folks, for that matter. My mother, before she got sick, wouldn’t talk about Danny at all. It only made her cry. After the diagnosis, she started talking about him again. Sometimes on her bad days she talked
to
him, confusing him with one of her old pediatric patients, apologizing to an invisible boy Danny about painful shots and mean doctors. After that started, my father couldn’t discuss Danny without flying into a rage. When it came to my brother, Kelsey was all I had. I hid that from her as best as I could.

I couldn’t be bothered with the rest of the office: TAs so frazzled by graduate work and second and third jobs they could hardly assemble a sentence, recent MAs yet to shed the protective pretentiousness they’d cultivated in graduate school. Kelsey and I were the office exceptions. I was in my eighth year as an instructor. Kelsey had come on three years ago, taking the job at Richmond so she could be close to her ailing mother after a couple of years of teaching high school out west. She had a degree from some Buddhist/hippie college in Nevada and it was her mother’s cancer that had ruined her plans to quit teaching and join the Peace Corps. But her mother died six months after Kelsey had returned to Staten Island and yet here she still was. Her sticking around made me wary of her.

Since we were friendly pretty much with only each other, most of the office, like Whitestone, pegged us for a couple. I didn’t mind. She was certainly pretty enough: high Iroquois cheekbones dusted with freckles, hazel eyes flecked with gray, a small, sly smile. Taut, muscled legs. And something about her rough-and-tumble tree-hugger /thrift-store Ivy League look turned me on. But I’d never made a move. The tepidness of my cross-office lust really had nothing to do with her, and at times I felt weirdly compelled to tell her that. It was all me. Most of my life most of my desires had been vague. Getting naked with Kelsey was no exception.

She perched on the edge of my desk, handing me my coffee. “Extra sugar,” she said. “Just how you like it.”

Kelsey reached into her jacket and produced a white envelope. “I want to show you something. I got in.”

“Got into what?”

“Not what,” she said, “but where. I got into a Ph.D. program in Chicago.”

She handed me the letter. I stared down at the paper but didn’t read it. “I didn’t even know you’d applied.”

“I didn’t tell anyone. I was going to need this job next fall if I didn’t make it in anywhere. I got the letter on Friday; I’ve been carrying it around all weekend. You’re the only person I’ve told.”

“I’m honored,” I said.

She laughed. “Don’t be. You’re the first person I ran into that would care. But I
was
hoping you’d be here tonight.”

She held out her hand for the letter but I didn’t return it. I looked back and forth between her and the paper. It took me a moment to put a name on what I was feeling: disappointment. And not for her.

“So?” she asked. “Whadda you think?”

Kelsey beamed like she’d been asked to the senior prom by the star quarterback. Like she couldn’t believe something this good had happened to her. She’d gone after the spot, deserved it, but to her it felt like dumb luck. I was happy for her, and proud of her—an emotion that surprised me. And I would be sad to see her go. I hoped her quarterback wouldn’t turn out to be an asshole.

“I think Chicago’s fucking cold,” I said, handing her the letter. “I’m a little . . . confused. What happened to the Peace Corps? Or that other thing? What was it, Teach for America? You’ve been all about that ‘save the world’ stuff since I met you.”

“Chicago has one of the best history programs in the country, you know,” Kelsey said. “And I plan to go, but I’m not iron-clad married to the idea. It’s a hell of an accomplishment just to get in.”

She sighed and walked away from me, tossing the letter on her desk. She kept her back to me, staying quiet for a long moment. I guess I’d meant to hit a nerve. I wasn’t just disappointed she was leaving; I was angry, too. But I hadn’t meant to hit that nerve that hard.

“You ever wonder why I’m still here?” Kelsey asked.

I shrugged, raising my hands. “The exorbitant salary and scintillating professional camaraderie?”

“Can you be serious, please?” Her chair squeaked when she sat, elbows on her knees, hands hanging limp between them. “I should’ve known you’d give me shit for this. I’m a sellout, I admit it.”

“Sorry.” I mimicked her posture. “I’m just surprised. You were so gung-ho.” We stared at each other across the office. I shifted my weight in my chair; it was busted and leaned to the left. “Okay, when you say ‘here,’ do you mean the island or the job?”

“Both,” she said.

“Yeah, I wondered,” I said, lying.

I already knew the answer. It was the same reason everyone else in the department with big or even medium-sized plans, including me, lingered. Staten Island was boring as hell, fourteen miles long, and had the gravitational pull of Jupiter.

“For a year and a half,” Kelsey said, “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to fill out those apps, the Peace Corp, Teach for America, Americorps. I’ve got Lonely Planet books on half of Africa, South America, Eastern Europe. Hell, I even looked into getting on a Greenpeace boat at one point.” She raised her hands in the air. “Don’t shoot! Save the Whales!”

She didn’t laugh so neither did I. “So what happened?”

She rubbed her palms on her cheeks, her eyes everywhere but on me. “I lost my nerve, or the heart, or both. I don’t wanna do that shit anymore. I don’t see the point.”

“So you don’t want to go live in some hut in Djibouti for three years,” I said, “scarfing down malaria pills and telling people not to shit in their own drinking water. That’s nothing to beat yourself up over, Kel. In fact, it puts you firmly in the sensible majority.”

“I know,” Kelsey said. “That’s what I don’t like about it.” Her shoulders slumped. “My old classmates would be so disappointed.”

Right, I thought, like they’re all balancing on a mountaintop and holding the lotus position, energizing their auras or whatever. But running down her fellow karma college alum for the flat-screen-watching, SUV-driving suburbanites they probably were didn’t seem like the best way to cheer her up.

With her embarrassed slouch and her pursed-lips pout, she reminded me of another kind of teenager. One who’s finally realized they’re not going to Mars, or selling out the Garden, or replacing Derek Jeter at short and can’t believe both that it won’t happen and that they thought somewhere inside that it really might. I wondered what had hurt Kelsey more, the death of the dream or the loss of faith that killed it.

Me, I never had that moment, but I saw it in my students all the time.

“So the Third World isn’t your gig,” I said. “It’s no big deal. It just means your time, your next opportunity, is elsewhere. The world’s a big place and it needs all the help it can get. Be patient. Isn’t that what Buddha always says?”

“Is that what
you
tell
yourself
?” she asked. “That you’re being patient. You’re the same as me. You don’t belong here, either.”

Her question got my back up, but there wasn’t even a whiff of sarcasm in it. I wasn’t sure what to think. Was she offering me a compliment or asking how not to end up like me?

“We’re not talking about me,” I said. “And besides, I’m different than you. I never gave a shit about Djibouti to begin with. So I have no problems with lowered expectations.” I rolled my chair closer to her. “Kelsey, really. Give yourself a break.”

“You know, I almost called you,” Kelsey said. “To celebrate with me on Friday night.”

“I would’ve liked that,” I said. “A lot. But I would’ve missed the party anyway. I was out.”

“Wasn’t much of a party,” she said.

Her prom-girl energy had dried up and blown away. Nice fuckin’ job, Curran. What was it they said about true failures, that they resent others their success? That was why Lee was late to Trenton in 1776; he thought he should’ve had Washington’s job. I should’ve played along. Wasn’t that one of the things I did best? It’s what I always did with Danny. Who really cared what I really felt? I took a deep breath.

“I’m happy for you. I am. How often do people get what they want? Even if they do have to adjust their ideas a little bit. Washington built this country on tactical retreat, knowing what fights to pick and which ones he couldn’t win.”

“Thanks, Kevin. I’m happy for me, too. I just have to accept that the Ph.D. is my important battle right now.” She stood and walked along the wall, moving away from me, trailing her fingertips on the cold concrete blocks. “I will miss this place, I guess. The whole institutional underdog-proletariat vibe of it.”

“That’s such an elitist, doctoral-student thing to say,” I said.

“See? Maybe I am headed where I really belong.” She laughed, rocking back on her heels. “I don’t feel like working. Let’s get outta here. I’ll let you buy me a drink.”

I turned to my desk, pressing my hand to my belly to keep it from doing somersaults. Now who was ninth-grade nervous? I threw my musket down and ran for cover.

“I’d love to,” I said, “but I can’t. I didn’t get a single thing done over the weekend. I was busy the whole time. I’ve got all these papers to grade.”

Big mistake, the “busy weekend” excuse. Kelsey would think I was lying. I hadn’t had a busy weekend since she’d joined the department and she knew it. And considering what had taken up my time that weekend, I was in no position to defend myself.

“Ouch,” Kelsey said. “Who knew all it took was an invitation from me to turn the department procrastinator into a workhorse.”

“It’s not like that,” I said. “Look, maybe . . .”

“Maybe another time? Don’t make it worse and give me that line.” She tapped her watch. Her feelings weren’t as hurt as I’d thought.

“Remember, the clock is now ticking,” she said. “I won’t be around forever.”

She grabbed her bag off her desk and headed out the door, easing it closed behind her. I heard the latch click into place. I dug my red pen out of my bag and picked up the first paper on the pile, trying to put Kelsey out of my mind. I didn’t have much luck.

If I’d shown a hint of courage and charged the field of battle months ago, maybe Kelsey’d be my girlfriend now. Maybe that would’ve changed how this weekend went. What if Kelsey had called me on Friday? What if she’d gotten to me before Danny had? I might never have ended up in Santoro’s restaurant and in that graveyard. I wouldn’t have those moments in my personal history, on my permanent record, now.

But it wouldn’t have changed the big things. She’d still be leaving and Danny would still be back and working for Santoro. There’s no way she would’ve chosen me over Chicago, no way I would’ve chosen her over Danny. If it hadn’t happened last Friday, I would’ve ended up in Danny’s plans one way or another. No, I’d been smart, not scared about Kelsey. All I’d really missed was getting gut shot and dumped for Chicago. Kelsey was as good as gone. In a way, we’d been brilliant, and broke up first. The worst was already over.

I caught up to her as she was backing her car out of her parking space. Shocked to see me but smiling, she rolled down the window. She waited for me to catch my breath.

“I’ll be damned,” I said, “if I let you ruin my bad reputation around here.”

“Buy me two drinks,” Kelsey said, “and I’ll help you make it worse. Get in the car.”

I did. She patted my knee as I pulled on the seat belt. “Let’s go to the Red Spot,” she said. “I want to go someplace that has some history.”

“Good Lord, is that place still open?”

“Believe it or not. Besides, it has a courtyard. We can smoke. I feel like smoking a whole pack.” She had that bright-eyed schoolgirl look again. “Let’s show up for work in some real pain tomorrow.”

“I quit smoking,” I said.

“The hell you did. I smelled it on you soon as I walked into the office.”

“Okay then,” I said. “Guilty as charged.”

I ORDERED US DRINKS,
double Ketel and soda for her, double Maker’s and water for me while she got us two packs of cigarettes from the machine. There was no one else in the place. The bartender, a forty-year-old guy with a nose ring and a dyed-black Mohawk that paused at a bald spot, slid a couple packs of matches across the bar with my change.