too.” I look back at the girl. “She has a way of explaining things, of understanding things.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she says.
“Makes you want to just be around her all the time, learn everything about who she is, you know?”
She squints a little. “I… guess.” And that’s the last she says to me, never looks my way again.
After ten minutes, the office door opens and the boy finishes a sentence as he walks out, smiles a little and waves as he heads down the hall, is quickly replaced by the next student. I’ve apparently arrived in the middle of her office hours or tutoring slots, or both.
I sit idle, wait as the students come and go. I’m not on the unseen list that Melody uses for meeting with these kids, yet the students seem to understand their order, their appointment times and predetermined lengths. Melody never surfaces from the room, remains concealed behind the door like a doctor seeing her patients.
Ninety minutes later the bench has cleared. Jimmy’s daughter is Melody’s final appointment, eventually meanders out of the office and studies a paper marked up with red ink, does the nod thing as she scuffles toward the stairwell, her Chucks squeaking against the tile floor with every step.
I wait until she disappears.
The hallway is silent; I am its only visitor. I stand and take baby steps to the door of the office. I swallow twice but can’t remove the lump, take two deep breaths but can’t find any oxygen, wipe my hands against my jeans but cannot dry them of sweat.
I reach the doorway and look in from the side, see Melody standing in the far corner with her back to me. The room’s dim light is supplied by a pair of matching desk lamps, one on each of two old oak desks facing opposing walls. Posters of ancient mathematicians are affixed crookedly on the center wall above a green seventies-style couch covered in books and overstuffed folders. Melody looks down, leafs through a stack of papers. I can hear the snap of each sheet as she iterates through the pile.
I step inside and face her back, am overcome with a sense of her presence. I can smell the mix of fragrances that compose her unique formula, immediately recall the way scents change once they’ve touched her skin, no matter the original essence—roses, powder, apples—they all become her distinctive version. Today, vanilla. And with this awareness, everything resolves at once: The lump gets swallowed down, the hands go dry, the air fills with all the oxygen I could ever consume.
I lick my lips and quietly speak to her: “Felicia.”
She does not turn, but her leafing slows. She shifts her feet a little and I can see her torso inflate as she takes a deep, slow breath and holds it. The only sound between us is her page-flipping.
I say it again: “F-Felicia.”
Keeping her back to me, this time she jumps a little, as though I’d caught her by surprise, as though it was my first word spoken. One of the papers from her stack drifts to the floor as she riffles through them at a slower pace. She does not turn, does not say a thing, does not try to pick up the fallen paper. I hear her release that deep breath as a second page falls to the floor; she doesn’t bother to pick that one up either. The pages rest on the tile like the first fallen leaves of autumn; they’re hard to ignore, signal the official start to the change of season.
I say so softly it might only be audible to me, a whisper so faint I might have confused it for a thought: “Melody.”
She stops ruffling through the pages and carefully places them on a small table in front of her, slowly turns her body around and faces me, puts her hands behind her as she rests back against the table, a single tear running down each cheek.
“Oh…” she whispers. She says something else but I can’t make it out, only see her lips move in an attempt to form words, then slightly quiver just before she puts her hand to her mouth. She sighs and laughs at the same time while she studies me, a pair of fresh tears dropping from her eyes.
I take a small step forward and offer my hand and say, “My name is Michael Martin.”
She doesn’t budge, never shakes my hand. I can read her lips as she repeats my name to herself a