again.
She was in the passenger seat, silent and stiff, and he climbed in beside her and started the engine without forcing a conversation. Not like he knew what to say. Or what he’d want to hear.
“You know, it’s quicker if we go to the school directly,” he said.
“No!”
“You’re ashamed. Of what we did.”
She shook her head but stared out the other window. After a moment, as the car wound down the quiet streets to the freeway, she said, “It’s just—his booster seat is in my car.”
“All right.” They drove the rest of the way to Pleasant Hill in silence, and when he finally pulled up to her apartment building, she opened the door and climbed out without once looking him in the eye.
The tag of her inside-out and backwards t-shirt was jutting out under her chin, taking the edge off his annoyance with the wall she’d put up. She looked too cute and harmless to be able to hurt him. But she was.
Then, just before she shut the door, she lifted her gaze to his. They looked at each other silently and his breath caught in his chest, wondering what she would say.
“Goodbye,” she said, and was gone.
As it turned out, Bonnie didn’t have to take care of Jake as long as planned. With the big news about her husband’s deployment, Shannon rushed home early to celebrate. Thank God, since Bonnie was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
She couldn’t possibly record her—whatever it was with Paul—as academic research. Let alone pursue her plans with a new partner. Just looking at another guy made her feel guilty, which was crazy. No matter what she did, she felt guilty.
A week later she settled on seeking absolution from her thesis advisor, who sat across from her in her cluttered office, frowning while Bonnie wondered, why had she done it? Not for the Master’s degree, though she’d told herself that at the time. When he’d taken away her clothes and tied her up and fucked her senseless, part of her had said, That’s OK. It’s the pursuit of knowledge.
But she didn’t know anything anymore.
“You can’t conduct sociological research on non-consenting subjects,” her advisor said. “Is this the secret plan you weren’t sharing?”
“He wasn’t non-consenting.”
Prof. Alice, her advisor, pursed her lips. “I can imagine, but that’s not the kind of consent I meant and you know it.”
“I was going to pass it off as creative non-fiction. Like a tweaked memoir. Art, not science. Interdisciplinary.”
“Then find an advisor in Creative Writing. Or Oprah. Gender Studies has enough bad press without this sort of unethical. . . research.”
Bonnie felt crushed, but knew she was right. She sagged into her chair and fiddled with a loose thread on her jacket. “I had the consent forms printed up,” she said. “But the moment never really. . . came.”
Prof. Alice snorted. “I bet.”
“If I get the next subjects to sign their consent, is it legit?”
“Bonnie, look,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “The way you’re going about this is problematic on many levels. With you as part of the experiment, vulnerable to emotional involvement and with no control group, the results are objectively useless.” She leaned forward over the desk. “You told me you were conducting interviews. Why not do that?”
Bonnie sighed. “I just couldn’t get excited about that.” She realized how that sounded and felt her face get hot. “Intellectually speaking, I mean. It’s been done.”
“I liked it, though. Each generation is different. I was looking forward to reading something current.” She leaned back in her desk chair. “The mating habits of the young is a nice distraction from wage inequality.”
“A trivial one, though. That’s what people will say.”
“So what?”
“I wanted to do something important.”
“Then go back to painting.”
Bonnie drew back in shock, blinking. “How did you know about my painting?”
“Your father talked about it.”
She nodded and looked down at her hands. “They weren’t unsupportive, you know.”
“Your mother showed me one of the wildflower paintings. A poppy.”
Three years were enough to control her grief, and she looked up into her advisor’s face with a sad smile. “She thought they were too small.”
“Like their subject.”
Nodding, Bonnie reached down for her backpack to change the subject. “Anyway, painting is no career. And I wouldn’t want it to be.”
“But do you need a career? Forgive me, Bonnie, but you must have inherited enough to live on for the rest of your life. Even after giving away as much as you were allowed to.”
Surprised Prof. Alice knew so much about her private life,