Winter Jacket: Finding Home (31 page)

“Glasses?” I asked instead.

She smiled mildly. “Why don’t you hang up your jacket in the front closet and I’ll take care of the wine.”

When I returned to the kitchen, Jessica had moved the stuffed chicken breasts to plates and had begun to serve out portions of the sides.

“That’s a lovely dress,” she noted.

I self-consciously ran my palms down the front of the skirt of my dress.  I’d traded yoga pants that night for a black cocktail dress even though the weather report suggested I should wear a snowsuit.

“Thanks. You look nice, too.”  Jessica wore a sleeveless navy dress that buttoned up the middle, and her hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, accentuating her high cheekbones. “And the food looks really good, too,” I remarked.

“Hopefully it tastes just as good,” she said. She grabbed the two plates. “Grab the wine and glasses for me?”

Always happy to have a task that would keep my awkward hands busy, I grabbed the open bottle and stemmed glasses from the countertop and followed her into the sunken dining area.

Dinner was pleasant, if not overly formal. There were long stretches of silence, punctuated by the scrape of forks and knives across plates. The stuffed chicken breast, wild rice, and garden green beans were satisfying and familiar. We talked about the new semester and mundane details like budgets and course offerings. Safe topics.

The stains had come out of my carpeting and my pantry was one wine glass lighter. Jessica Merlot had tried to kiss me, and I needed to know why.

“Why did you kiss me?”

“You’re an attractive woman, Elle. And single if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t see the harm.”

“And dinner tonight?”

“I realized afterwards that it was unfair of me to surprise you like that. I wanted to make amends. But you don’t get to be where I am in your career,” she continued, “without knowing what you want and how to get it.”

“I’m pretty sure whatever you’re suggesting is against university rules.”

“You’re a tenured professor, Elle. Nothing I do or say can impact your job security. Besides,” she said with a particularly smug smile, “we both know you’ve had no problems ignoring school policy in the past.”

“Hunter and I never—”

“I know,” she hastily cut me off. “You never engaged in sexual congress with one of your students,” she said robotically. “We’re both healthy, consenting adults, Elle. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“I’ll make this easy for you. I’m going to go upstairs to my bedroom. If you want to join me up there, fantastic. If not, all you have to do is leave. No hard feelings. No consequences.”

She stood from the table, leaving her plate and half-finished food. I remained seated and watched her disappear towards the front of the house. The white divider door swung back and forth with her exit. After a long moment, I too left the dining room table. My steps creaked across the house until I reached the bottom of the staircase. The front door and my escape was directly behind me.

I stared up the staircase to the silent second floor. My hand rested on the handrail and my palm immediately became clammy. Jessica Merlot was incredibly attractive. Anyone with eyeballs could see that. She was also technically my boss and a bit of a bitch. But I knew from my experiences with my old graduate school colleague, Ruby, that sometimes hate sex was the best kind of sex. But beyond hot and tawdry sex, could I envision anything else happening with her? Could I see a future with her beyond the four walls of her bedroom?

If I had never met Hunter, this would have been a no-brainer. I would be bounding up the stairs, two at a time. But I had had Hunter in my life, if only for a bright, brief moment, and she had changed me. Nothing good could come of me climbing those stairs. That wasn’t who I was anymore.

I lifted my hand from the banister and silently let myself out of Dean Merlot’s house.

The next day, I watched my inbox and sat by my phone with trepidation. Jessica had promised no consequences if I left, but I really didn’t believe it. I imagined she would be embarrassed about what had nearly transpired, and that it couldn’t go unpunished. But the day came and went without a phone call or text message or e-mail from the office of Dean Merlot.

I had nearly pushed the memory of the previous night from my head entirely when my colleague Emily knocked on my open office door.

“I thought you’d already be there, knowing how much you hate being late.”

“Be where?”

Emily arched an eyebrow. “Faculty meeting?”

“Shoot. That’s today?”

My friend chuckled, not unkindly. “Taking a little while to get back into the swing of things, huh?”

I hastily jammed a stack of papers into my workbag and hustled to follow Emily out the door.

The entire faculty met once a semester in the largest classroom on campus, a lecturer hall in the science building typically reserved for intro courses. The purpose of such campus-wide meetings were murky to me as they usually turned into a platform for each department to brag about their individual accomplishments, which I felt could have been satisfied by a mass e-mail. I loved teaching, but I found the administrative responsibilities of my job tedious.

Emily and I skirted into the room, clearly some of the final faculty to arrive from the size of the assembled crowd. I slumped down in my chair and avoided eye contact with the woman at the podium at the bottom of the stacked rows of chairs, Dean Merlot. She began the meeting moments later, and I remained focused on the paper agenda for the meeting that had been passed out.

All around me, the other faculty were as bad as the undergraduates they taught, phones out and texting or updating social media while others spoke about new programs and initiatives meant to highlight the college and foster personal growth for our students. I tried to stay interested in what my fellow teachers were saying, but my attention was periodically drawn to Jessica at the front of the room. Always the picture of perfection, she sat with one leg crossed over the other, leaning slightly forward and looking keenly interested in everything each department head had to say.

Near the end of the meeting, just about the time my legs started to fall asleep, Doug Witlan from the biology department took the microphone.

“I wanted to share the good news that a generous alumnus donated money for the campus green initiative. I’m looking for volunteers from the faculty to help build above ground garden boxes on Saturday morning.”

He gazed around the room expectantly, and when no one volunteered, Jessica took the microphone.

“I will be at the garden construction site Saturday morning,” she announced. Her pointed stare flashed around the large room. “I hope to see most of you there supporting this worthy cause, especially any assistant professors looking for opportunities to build your service portfolios towards achieving tenure.”

I had to smile when a number of shaky hands, most of them belonging to junior faculty members, raised in the air. Jessica Merlot certainly knew which buttons to push to get results.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I hopped out of my chair, eager to make an escape without a confrontation with Jessica. But the aisles were too narrow and the other faculty too slow. I was midway down the stadium seating when I heard Jessica calling my name.

“Dr. Graft.” She spoke into the microphone in the built-in podium, but didn’t look in my direction. “Would you mind sticking around a little longer?”

“Oh, I’ve got a class to teach soon, and I’m supposed to be meeting with a student,” I said, struggling to find an excuse. I really didn’t; the rest of my afternoon was free.

“I promise it won’t take long.”

“Good luck,” Emily whispered before abandoning me.

My escape foiled, I sat back down until the other faculty had filed out of the room. When the last of my colleagues left, Jessica closed the door to the lecture hall, shutting us inside. Her back was toward me, positioned between the exit and me when I heard the audible click. It sounded like someone had disengaged the safety on a handgun.

“Thank you for staying, Elle,” she said, turning on her heels. “I know you have a busy schedule, but there’s something I wanted to discuss with you.”

I glanced uneasily at the shut door. “Are you sure it can’t wait? I really should be going.”

She ignored my last ditch effort to flee. “I need to apologize for my conduct last night. I know I put you in an uncomfortable situation.”

Understatement of the year. I remained silent because I sensed she wasn’t finished talking yet.

“I’m hoping you can overlook that little slip up and that we can continue our professional relationship. I know things haven’t been easy between us, and I’d really hate if what transpired last night made us take a step back.”

“It’s water under the bridge, Dean.”

“Jessica,” she lightly corrected.

“Right. Jessica,” I nodded.

She breathed out deeply. “So I guess you have to be running off now?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Actually, I’m free the rest of the day.”

Jessica laughed heartily. “Wow.”

I winced, feeling guilty for the made-up excuses. “Yeah.”

“I don’t suppose you’d want to get coffee?” she proposed.

A smile reached my mouth. “I’d actually really like that. And I know just the place.”

+ + +

“Tall guy with glasses,” I challenged.

“Basketball player.”

“And what else?”

Jessica and I sat in the bank of easy chairs at Del Sol where Troian and I habitually hung out before she had moved away. I was attempting to teach the Dean the format and guidelines of Top, Bottom, Switch, but she was being resistant.

Jessica gave me an exasperated look. “What’s the point of this game again?”

“It’s more of an activity or exercise, not a game. There’s no winners or losers.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“We make up stories about stranger’s lives,” I said. “It’s fun. It’s creative.”

“I’m a university administrator,” she deadpanned, “not a writer.”

“Did you always want to be a dean of faculty?”

“No. I had no idea what that even was until I got to graduate school.”

“What did you go to school for?” I asked.

“Economics. I was always good with numbers.” Jessica fiddled with the wooden stir-stick in her coffee. “College administration just kind of happened.”

“Do you think you’ll stick with it?”

“Well I’m certainly not running off to Hollywood any time soon if that’s what you’re asking,” she said, smirking.

“That makes two of us.”

“So you’re staying?”

I nodded. “That’s the plan at least.”

Jessica pursed her lips in thought. “Something came up in a recent trustee meeting I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, but I wasn’t sure if it was worth pursuing if you were running back to Los Angeles next semester.”

“Oh really?”

She nodded. “Word got out about what you were doing on your sabbatical and the trustees caught wind of it. Secrets don’t stay secrets for very long around here.”

“Understatement of my career,” I grumbled. “Am I in trouble?”

“Just the opposite. I’ve never seen a bunch of white haired, rich old men more excited. They’re talking about creating an endowed chair for you.”

I nearly spit out my coffee. “They’re
what
?”

“I know. One semester away and they’re ready to give you the keys to the kingdom,” she snorted.

“How, I mean, what are they thinking?” I practically hissed. It was just about the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard of.

“They want our little liberal arts college to become a destination school for screenwriting degrees in the Midwest. They want us to compete with Iowa University’s creative writing program.”

“I wrote television for a semester, Jessica,” I said, shaking my head hard. “I’m not remotely qualified to build a program like that. Maybe my friend Troian, but not me.”

“Is she in the market for a job?”

“Not really. The show is still doing really well, and the money she makes as showrunner obviously trumps a professor’s salary.”

“The trustees are like a dog with a bone,” Jessica said with wistful regret. “They want this thing to happen.”

“And these are the same trustees who don’t like that I’m gay, right? The same people who thought the culture of campus had become too liberal?” I said for clarification. “I’m not going back into the closet for a raise and the title of full professor.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“If you’re so confident the trustees wouldn’t push me back in the closet, then what’s keeping you buried in there?”

Jessica’s feature’s pinched. “Careful, Graft. Let’s not ruin this perfectly pleasant day.”

“I think it’s a perfectly reasonable question,” I defended.

“I don’t see the point of dealing with that headache if I don’t even have a girlfriend,” she interjected.

“Then let’s find you a girlfriend,” I reasoned. “Have you ever been to Peggy’s bar?”

“That dive that’s literally on the other side of the tracks?”

“It’s fun,” I defended. “We should go there sometime.”

“Whatever for?”

“To find you a nice lesbian, obviously. And they’ve got great craft beer on draft—although I imagine you’re a wine or cocktail kind of woman.”

“You image correctly.”

“You’d also be overdressed,” I noted with a sardonic smile. “Do you even
own
any T-shirts or jeans?”

“Spend more time with me off campus, and maybe you’ll find out,” she challenged.

I laughed and shook my head. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

“Just the opposite, Dr. Graft,” she smirked. “I’m making it
very
easy for you.”

Lord. I was going to have to rethink a casual friendship with this woman. I was single, and she was sexy and willing. There was no good reason we shouldn’t be taking this dangerous banter back to my place and up to my bedroom. Except there
was
a reason I was exhibiting uncharacteristic willpower and restraint—a leggy blonde who wore the hell out of nursing scrubs. She hadn’t said as much, but common sense told me I would never work my way back into Hunter’s life if I resumed my promiscuous habits.

My laughter stopped when I spotted a familiar flash of blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Hunter’s here,” I mumbled. We hadn’t spoken or seen each other since my visit to the hospital.

“What was that, dear?” Jessica asked.

Before I could repeat myself, Hunter was striding across the coffee shop in our direction. “Hey,” she said brightly as she came to a stop in front of me. “Fancy running into you here.”

“Hey you,” I returned, a too eager smile on my lips. “What are you up to today?”

She held up a traveling coffee mug. “Grabbing some caffeine between shifts. I’m working a double today.” The salmon-colored scrubs should have given it away, but I couldn’t be blamed for not noticing her clothes when her eyes continually drew my attention.

“That sounds brutal,” I sympathized.

“Not any worse than that stack of papers you have to grade,” she noted, nodding at the mountain of writing assignments on the table beside my easy chair.

“They don’t have coffee at the hospital?” Jessica inserted herself into the conversation.

Hunter’s gaze left me briefly and fell to the woman seated to my right. “They do, but Del Sol’s breakfast blend is worth the trip.” Her clear, blue eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

“Oh, right,” I jumped back into the conversation. “You two haven’t been properly introduced. Hunter, this is Jessica Merlot, the Dean of Faculty.”

“Dean?” Hunter echoed. “Wait.
You’re
Dean Merlot?” She rapidly blinked. I could tell she was nearly as blindsided as I had been at the realization that the problematic Dean of Faculty was also young and beautiful. And knowing how much the Dean and I had butted heads before, it was no doubt a shock to see us having coffee together.

Jessica wiggled her fingers in greeting. “Guilty as charged.”

Hunter’s posture straightened as she recovered from the initial surprise. “It’s nice to meet you.” I noticed she hadn’t added the word “finally,” but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Hunter was always polite, especially in awkward situations.

“Hunter is my, uh …” I struggled with the label.

“Ex-girlfriend, I know.” Jessica smiled benignly. “I recognized the name.”

Ex-girlfriend.
I still hated how that sounded.

Hunter clasped her travel mug in both hands. “I should get back to the hospital. It was good seeing you again, Elle. And Dean Merlot, it was nice meeting you.”

“You as well,” Jessica nodded. “I always enjoy getting to chat with young alumnus.”

Hunter hustled out the front door either to escape the uncomfortable interaction or because she was going to be late getting back to the hospital. I watched her retreating form until the front door closed behind her, obscuring my view.

“She’s charming, Elle,” Jessica murmured over her coffee mug.

“I know,” I said, eyes still trained on the door as if I willed it, she might reappear.

“Why haven’t you resumed a relationship with her now that you’re back in town?”

I returned my attention to Jessica. “She’s enjoying the single life,” I shrugged, trying to keep my tone even and disinterested.

Her eyebrow arched. “Is that so?”

“Don’t even think about it,” I growled. “I will murder you dead, Jessica Merlot.”

Jessica laughed musically in response. I had to admit, she had a lovely laugh; it was infectious. “I wouldn’t dream of it, dear.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

I was running late. My morning class had run long, and the students in my minority literature class had a rough draft due soon, so they were naturally panicking and had inundated me with questions in the moments after I’d dismissed class.

I had my first committee meeting since coming back with the Women’s and Gender Studies. There wasn’t much on the agenda, but that didn’t make the need to be on time any less. I hustled down to the library basement to the conference room, simultaneously checking the time on my phone and pulling folders out of my workbag. If I hadn’t been so frazzled and distracted, I might have noticed the balloons and the banner hanging in the conference room.

“Surprise!”

I jerked my head up. “What?”

Emily Sullivan, my mentor and friend from the English department snickered. “I told them it wasn’t a surprise party, but you know how stubborn women can be.”

Everyone from the interdepartmental committee was already there: Penny the chair, Suzanne Jay from History, Betsy Martinez from Theology, Kathy Wagner from Sociology, and Emily from English, like myself.

A cake sat in the center of the conference room table.

“Welcome back, Elle!” Penny, the grey-haired matriarch of our group enveloped me in a surprisingly hard hug.

“Are we just going to stare at this cake?” Kathy from Sociology complained.

Peggy moved quickly through the limited agenda, which consisted mostly of the typical griping about insufficient funding and a new freshman class ill-prepared for the rigueur of college coursework. When business had been conducted, the committee turned their attention to their next order of business—me.

I stood beside Emily as everyone hovered around the remnants of a half-eaten chocolate cake. “We didn’t do this when you came back from sabbatical,” I pointed out.

“I didn’t do anything glamorous during my break,” she countered.

I opened my mouth to protest.

“And before you go stringing together a complicated web of lies,” Emily interrupted me, “everybody knows.”

My mouth snapped shut, and with it, all of my ready excuses. “How?”

“You really should have used a penname, my friend,” she laughed. “Turns out, it’s Bob’s daughter’s favorite new show. I’m supposing she’ll want an autograph or an invitation on set soon.”

Bob, my Cosby-sweatered colleague was currently chair of the English department.

“I think he was a little annoyed that you didn’t tell us. I know
I
was annoyed.”

I felt myself shrinking, even though as far as confrontations went, this was mild. “I, uh, I had to keep it a secret,” I floundered. “I didn’t want it getting back to Dean Merlot.”

“Oh.
That
woman.”

I teetered uncomfortably in my high-heeled boots. I had spoken the truth, but that didn’t mean I didn’t felt guilty for making Jessica my scapegoat.

“I get it,” Emily said, nodding her head thoughtfully. “She breaths down our collective necks enough without giving her another excuse to put you under the microscope.”

I scooped a bite of cake into my mouth. It was a little dry, like it had been sitting out for too long. “Yeah,” I mumbled around the mouthful.

“Well now I’m definitely making you and your sweetie come over for dinner so you can tell me all about your glamorous life in Hollywood.”

I swallowed roughly. I had been under the impression that if everyone had known about my sabbatical, they’d also known that Hunter and I had broken up.

I could have told Emily the truth—that Hunter and I were no longer dating—but I kept those details to myself. I hoped our relationship status of “It’s Complicated” would be changing soon.

On the walk back to my campus office, I looked at the messages I had missed during my meeting. One text message from an unknown caller popped up on my phone’s screen:
Peggy’s? Tonight?

I didn’t recognize the number or even the area code.
Who is this?
I typed as I walked across the campus green.

I mentally rifled through a list of possible callers as I waited for a response. Had Cady gotten a new number? Was it Leah or maybe Megan from the bar? But I didn’t know how either of them would have gotten my number.

My phone chirped with a new text:
It’s Jessica Merlot.

My curiosity had me texting back.
How did you get this number?

I realized she probably had access to all of my personal information or at least was intimidating enough to bully it out of human resources. I knew firsthand how difficult it was to challenge the formidable dean of faculty.

Would you have preferred another e-mail from my assistant?

I’ll pick you up at 9,
I wrote.
Don’t make me wait.

Despite my texted warning, Jessica wasn’t ready when I pulled up to the curb in front of her house. She answered the door, looking flushed and unraveled.

“I can’t decide what to wear,” she complained. “All of my clothes are ridiculous.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

I’d never seen her in the same outfit twice, and I imagined her walk-in closet was probably the size of my bedroom.

“Come in and see for yourself,” she huffed.

She let me in and immediately headed for the staircase that presumably led to her wardrobe. I hesitated on the bottom step and watched her ascend the staircase. Her backside flexed beneath grey dress slacks with every step.

“This is no time to play coy,” she called down to me. “This is a fashion emergency.”

I took a deep breath and, grabbing the wooden banister to ground me, I began the uneasy climb to Dean Merlot’s bedroom.

Clothing spilled out of a generous closet and covered nearly every available surface in the large master bedroom. A king-sized bed was situated in the center of the room. The bed frame was wooden and oversized with sturdy-looking bedposts that had me biting my lower lip. It was a bed built for expert knots and tying your lover spread eagle. Being alone in a room with Jessica was dangerous enough without the giant sex bed distracting me.

Jessica walked out of the closet holding onto two sheer white blouses. “What do you think?” She held each one in front of her torso for my inspection.

“Those aren’t the same shirt?”

She rolled her eyes. “You really are gay.”

“Hey!” I protested. “There’s nothing wrong with my fashion sense. I only meant that I didn’t think it makes a difference. Both shirts look fine.”

Jessica sighed and the blouses joined the other clothes strewn on the mattress. “I’m not looking for
fine
. I’m looking for
fuckable
.” Her rounded shoulders slumped forward.

“You don’t have anything like this?” I gestured to my own outfit of skinny jeans, knee-high leather boots, and a fitted flannel shirt whose sleeves I’d rolled up to three-quarter length.