cool night hits my head like a hammer, but I am not nearly plastered enough to be oblivious to embarrassment. More rounds of good-bye, and Giles motions me across the street and into a cul-de-sac. Our heels clack-clack on the asphalt and echo back from the house fronts; it is the loudest noise around.
This. Like this, Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland would be leaving a party. Walking back to the car. He, tall and handsome in his blue Barbour and his Oxfords; she, in her tailored woolen jacket and knee-length pleated skirt. Not quite knee-length, actually, and I know that I look nice in it. But what is that to the purpose, if the purpose is to take him home, rip his clothes off, and jump him? Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland on their way home to make love all night with an uninhibited abandon that belies their composed, academic exteriors.
“Anna?”
It’s like getting your naked toe caught under a door. You have time to expect the pain, and then it shoots through every nerve. He calls me so rarely by my name, it’s like a physical shock rushing through me.
“It’s this one.”
Car. I had been walking past his car. No idea what make it is; I am still not used to paying attention to that sort of thing. Cars are yellow cabs or not; that’s the only distinction necessary in Manhattan. I climb in, feeling strange in the passenger seat. The seat belt is unfamiliar, but he doesn’t help me with it as I fiddle it into the lock.
“I’m afraid the car smells of dog.”
“I don’t mind. How does this—oh, got it.”
“All right?” His eyes glitter in the light of the street lamp. He is as keenly aware of this unprecedented privacy as I am.
“Yes. Sorry.”
He reverses out of the lane and onto the street, fast, and for a dismayed moment I worry that he may be trying to impress me with his driving.
“Sorry? What about?”
No, stupid. He is simply a much more experienced driver than Lame-Duck Lieberman. Calm down.
I am not calm. How could I be calm, with Giles Cleveland’s hand on the gear stick, jerking it unexpectedly toward my knee as we speed along the main road? I’d like to ask him about manual transmissions, but I daren’t draw attention to the fact that I have developed a fetish for his hands.
“You’re not sorry you got a bit sloshed, are you? You had to.”
We come to a halt at a busy junction. The car is flooded with red light. He looks over at me. “You had to make yourself a little vulnerable, you know. Now all is well.”
Green.
“I thought I did that when I came here in February and jumped through all the hoops that were held up for me!”
He chuckles, and this time I am ready for the moment he will accelerate. Inches. His hand inches from my leg. I wish I were a Jedi knight. Then I could will his hand over onto my knee.
We have reached the beltway. He shifts into fifth and rests both hands lightly on the wheel.
“So…thirty.” He casts me a quick glance, eyebrows cocked. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” I reply sweetly. “I’m good. I’ve been thinking that when I’m thirty I can afford to be more…you know.”
“What?”
“More of a bitch.”
This makes him burst out laughing.
“Do you want to be?”
“Yeah…sometimes. Well, academia is The Place of Extended Adolescence, isn’t it? And it’s beginning to get to me. The most dumbass, moronic big-heads get to mess you about and you have to curry favor with them instead of telling them where to stick their bright ideas. And I have five and a half more years of having to shut the fuck up…if I’m lucky.”
“Oh, you’ll get tenure, for sure. Only take care never to get tipsy in the presence of the Provost.”
“Hmm?”
He glances over, as if to see whether I am really not following. I am really not following.
“Language.”
“Oh! Sorry…I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be—I don’t mind. And you’re right, of course.”
There is a pause. I’m glad. I want to enjoy the fantasy of driving home with a man who, when he has parked the car and walked the dogs, will follow me into the bedroom, undress me, and make love to me, because he likes it when I am a tiny bit drunk and in need of some tender loving care.
“Have you recovered from the recent…brouhaha? And having to shut up about it?” He sounds quizzical, but I can only see his profile, so I can’t