any salary at all at Ardrossan, Dr. Lieberman, you ought to consider a class in anger management!
Am I breaking down?
I cannot. I can’t break down.
There is a knock on the door.
“May I come in?”
Oh, no! I can’t face him now! Not now!
He opens the door a little wider and steps into the room. The sight of those lean, broad shoulders and that silver head of hair makes my chest expand with longing.
“By all means!” I jump up from my swivel chair and indicate one of the two other chairs in my dingy little office. “It’s not very—”
He doesn’t sit down. Leans against the bookshelf, one hand in the pocket of his pants. When I at last manage to look at his face, I realize that his awkwardness has nothing to do with having ventured upstairs into the servants’ quarters.
“A lot of essays, those.” He nods at my desk. “How are you getting on…with the students and all that?”
I sink back onto my chair, limp with defeat.
“Yvonne has been talking to you.”
“Not talking, no. We passed each other in the hall just now, and she said there had been an incident in your class. She said you seemed upset.”
“It’s Logan Williams,” I say, taking a deep breath. “He’s been trying to undermine me from the start. You know, butting in, making snide remarks under his breath, generally being a right PITA—even his posture, he slumps in his chair, sooooo bored, and he’s always a few minutes late, always! And of course I know I shouldn’t let him get to me, but…”
“Why did he, today?”
It is so hard to fight the impulse to trust him.
“Come on, Anna. Spill.”
Giles doesn’t care.
Erin’s verdict echoes in my mind, but he is here, and I must trust somebody. So I tell him everything; how I came across Logan and his girlfriend in the woods, about the “semen,” the “phallusy,” the reference to Jewish-American Princesses in tight little skirts, and even the suggestion that I’m a sexually frustrated ball-breaker. He is leaning against the shelf and listens impassively. When I’m done, he crosses his arms in front of his chest and sighs, I think in despair over my rashness and inexperience.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” I continue hotly, “but a student was disrespectful to me, in a blatantly sexist manner, and I’ll be damned if I’ll take that sort of provocation—”
“—lying down?” His lips twitch, then he shrugs his shoulder in apology. “Sorry.”
“Oh, that’s—you know what?” I hear my chair bump noisily against the wall as I jump up again. “Thanks very much for your ‘understanding’! If you’ve only come to—to be English about it, then this is a kind of mentoring I can do without!”
As I stand, quaking with rage and embarrassment, Cleveland moves over to a chair in front of my desk and sits down. His long legs crossed at the ankles, he pushes both hands into his pockets and frowns up at me.
“I haven’t come to be English about it. Logan Williams’ behavior is inexcusable, and we can think what to do about him later on. But more important is how you dealt with him. And how you will deal with him and his like in future, because I bet this sort of thing has happened before, and it will happen again.”
“I can assure you that I’ve never been addressed like that by a student, ever! Not at NYU, not when I first started teaching university students six years ago in London, and not when I taught Hebrew to twelve-year-olds!”
I know I’m shouting because the alternative is crying, and I would much rather Cleveland thought me aggressive than pitiful. My throat muscles hurt from suppressing the tears that keep shooting to my eyes, and I stare down at the papers on my desk, surfing the wave of my emotions. If I blink, the waters will rise over the banks of my lower lids and drop down onto the pile of essays in front of me.
Cleveland doesn’t move, and he doesn’t speak. Bless him.
“I’m sorry,” I finally manage to say. “I know the whole thing is absurd, but he really got to me. I mean, phallusy—that’s—it’s funny…” I giggle. Maybe I am sliding into hysteria after all. “I know I’m being defensive! I’ve never felt so defensive in my whole life, and—and I shouldn’t, I mustn’t! I know that I have to sort it out by myself, and I will, only I had to talk to someone about it, but…but if I