Page 19 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
I like the way she looks in my room, surrounded by my things, framed by my books and prints, lit by the sunlight coming in from the tall windows. She looks like she belongs here.
That is a very dangerous thought. I push it away.
“Is there anything else, Ms. Kowalczk?”
Her lips press together, roll in, purse into a plush, pink bloom. A thousand words considered, almost spoken, discarded.
I wait patiently, still leaning against my desk, watching her decide whether or not she wants to pick a fight with me. Outside, a hot breeze washes over the front yard, and the cottonwood sings back to it with a rustle and clatter of dry leaves.
“No,” Maddie finally says, and turns to leave the office. Then stops and adds, “Look, it’s not really any of my business what you get up to when Sara is away. But I don’t want anything to do with it again.”
“What I get up to when Sara is away.” I repeat her words slowly, sure I’m missing something. My mind flips through memories of frozen chicken nuggets and extra screen time requests and a handful of other venial single-parent sins.
“That’s right,” Maddie says, warming to her cause as she fully turns to me and unloads. “You know, my ex did this same shit to me, and it was only the one time, but that one time was enough to fuck me up for months. I’m still a little fucked up over it and the laundry list of other awful things he did to me, if I’m honest. And I think cheating is the mark of a coward. And a narcissist. And a... a dickhead.”
My body stills as I begin to piece together what she’s implying. “And to be clear, you’re saying that I’m a coward and a narcissist and a dickhead?”
She gives me a look of such unfiltered scorn that a lesser man might have withered right on the vine, but I meet her stare with a level one of my own, my eyebrow lifted ever so slightly.
“Obviously, that’s what I’m saying,” she bites out.
“It sounds like you’re building conclusions without gathering any data first,” I say, and then straighten up. “Do they forget to teach thesciencepart over in Political Science? Or is it all about disingenuous op-eds over there?”
“You’re thinking of Journalism,” she says, glaring up at me as I step closer to her.
“No, because the journalism students bother to interview their subjects.”
She takes a step back as I get close enough for my shadow to brush hers, and then another step back until her heel hits the bookshelf behind her.
“I don’t need to interview anyone.” Her eyes are pure dragonfire, green and mesmerizing, and an angry flush spreads across her throat and chest and rouges the tops of her cheeks. “It seems to be common knowledge.”
“Hmm.” I stop mere inches from her. “Common knowledge.That’s quite an assertion.”
She narrows her eyes as she looks up at me. Her chest is heaving. “It’s not an assertion. It’s a fact.”
I’m breathing harder now too. I can smell her, and she smells floral, delicate—jasmine, I think. I have some in the greenhouse. I want to touch my nose to her neck and trace it up to just behind her ear. I want to bury my face in her hair.
I lean forward until my lips are at her cheek, and breathe, “If you have a question, Ms. Kowalczk, then ask it.”
She pulls in a shivering breath, and I give in to temptation and brace my forearm against the shelf next to her head. Our bodies are nearly pressed together now, separated by nothing, by mere atoms of nitrogen and oxygen and argon.
“Fine,Professor,” she says, and I think she means for it to be cutting, but it comes out soft and tattered, like it’s a word she’s whispered to herself in the dark. “Are you cheating on your wife?”
“I’m not,” I murmur. From this angle, I can see the dark roots of her hair growing in, I can see down her bodice to the enchanting gap between her tits. I imagine myself running my fingertips along that gap. I imagine myself taking her waist in my hands and turning her around to face the books, guiding her hands up to grip the edge of a shelf as I kick her feet apart...
Maddie pulls back to meet my eyes. “You’re not?” she asks suspiciously.
“I don’t have a wife. Sara and I divorced five years ago, and she’s engaged to a much smarter person than me now. I’m not dating anyone, I’m not hooking up with anyone, I am as single as anyone can be. Now, may I ask why you came into my house like a little storm cloud, so certain that I’ve made you an accomplice to adultery?”
Her mouth twists adorably to the side—abashed, defensive, pouty. “The campus newspaper had a throwback picture of you and Sara on some trip. I guess I might have... jumped to a conclusion or two.”
“If your ex cheated on you, then I understand,” I say. Anger at this anonymous ex scratches at the soles of my feet and the middles of my palms, itchy, restless, but I keep my breathing even and carefully set the anger aside for another time. Anger is a mint plant—best to keep it in its own pot, far away from everything else. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Thanks,” whispers Maddie. Her eyes are wider now, her mouth softer, but she’s still breathing like she’s running for her life.
“I don’t cheat. And if you must know, you were my first since the divorce.”
“Oh,” she says, breathlessly. “Okay.”
