One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.
“Reenie?”
“Yes, hello. Could I speak to Anna Lieberman, please?”
“It was after a party, and—”
“That kiss—what are we talking about here, anyway? When you say ‘kiss,’ do I hear ‘blow job’?”
“No!”
“That kiss may have cost you and your parents tens of thousands of dollars. You realize that, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Because a fling with a member of your tenure-and-promotion committee will cost you exactly that: tenure and promotion. And if you think word won’t get round why that promising young scholar didn’t get tenure at Ardrossan, you know a lot less about academia than I do! If all you wanted was a teaching job at a third-rate school somewhere in flyover country, why bother with an Ivy League education?”
This is the heavy artillery. I am impressed that Irene would get genuinely upset with me. Irene Roshner. The arch-player.
“Anna, I gotta go. Ed Barton is giving me the evil eye. But one more thing. I’ve known you practically forever, and I’m going to tell you this truth about yourself: you could not handle an affair with Cleveland. I’m not saying that because I don’t want you to have great sex again—I do. But Cleveland’s not the one. You’re hardly tough enough for academia as it is. You’re way not tough enough to brazen out an affair with one of the shooting stars in your field. You said he is going to be big.”
“For sure he is.”
“Then picture it. All you’ll ever be is the little girl Cleveland fucked when she was new on tenure track at Ardrossan. There are bitches who could handle shit like this, but you’re not one of them!”
“Thanks, Reenie. You’re making your point very clear.”
“Love you, too. Bye!”
In a depressing kind of way I was more at peace when I still thought that Giles was married and that he disliked me. I bore the deep, blind yearning of my body for his like I bore Andrew Corvin’s garbage in my office. A time of tribulation that I will always connect with my first months at Ardrossan. Eventually the situation would have resolved itself and become a hazy, even amusing memory: the crush I had on Giles Cleveland during my first semester. It is much, much harder to muster stoic self-denial now that I know what his lips feel like on mine. Now that I have heard him admit that in another world he would come to my bed. Does Indiana count as “another world?”
He won’t try to seduce me. He could have had me on a platter the other night, and he refused. Politely, regretfully, but he refused, and he was right.
In the morning there is little time to brood, partly because—improbably—I oversleep. I scold myself out of bed and into the shower, where the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question presents itself. To shave, or not to shave? I do my armpits and shins, carefully, can’t be doing with any cuts today. Trimming is allowed. I always trim. Nothing to do with the prospect of sex tonight.
Did I say “prospect?”
Tomorrow evening I will be sitting in my parents’ living room. It seems surreal, and yet it will happen, and it will feel completely normal. There is just time to send a text to Gloria: Wd love to go to Edelstein’s. Will u book? When I am in the middle of brushing my teeth, the phone rings.
“Anna, this is Mom. If I can still book a table for Saturday evening, I will, but they may be full. In that case I’ll go for Sunday lunch—or do you have plans?”
“No, that’s fine. Irene and I will work around that.”
“Only you needn’t think Nat and Jessica will join us.”
Orange alert. Gloria is peevish.
“I hadn’t thought of Nat and Jessy. Why?”
“Jessica announced to me yesterday that she and Nathan have decided not to go on their winter holiday together.”
“What does that mean?”
“You may believe that those were my very words to her!”
“Mom—I’m sorry, but I’m about to leave for the airport, literally this minute. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay? Don’t worry too much!”
It is still dark, and cold enough for gloves. Karen and the girls are letting the dogs out as I wheel my suitcase past.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” she shouts over. “Going home for the holidays?”
“Yeah, ain’t it great? Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Have fun! Is that your taxi?”
As I approach the car Giles gets out, and I am relieved to see that he has the same kind of idiotic half-smile on his face as I