There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell - v4 (6 page)

“Stop,” he said as he pulled Maye’s arm. “Listen.”

The foyer was quiet, with only the sounds of a happening faculty party drifting in from the next room.

“Listen,” he repeated as he cocked his ear and concentrated firmly, as if listening to voices from beyond. “It’s stopped.”

“Charlie, would you quit it?” Maye asked.

“How do you know it’s not a cricket? You’re not a cricket expert!” Charlie retorted.

“No, I am not,” she said between clenched teeth. “But I do know the sound that chunky inner thighs bound like a hostage in a girdle and then strangled in pantyhose make when they are rubbing against each other causing enough friction to melt a nuclear plant to a bubbling, toxic puddle!”

“Oh,” her husband said, then suddenly understood. “That’s what fat sounds like?”

“Fat is silent if there’s background noise or sounds of nature or something to override it,” Maye cried defensively. “But in a mausoleum, yes, that is what fat sounds like!”

“Charlie Roberts!” The intimidating tenor voice boomed through the foyer as Dean Spaulding spotted Charlie approaching the library. “Come in, come in!”

Maye followed Charlie into a room filled with high, dark mahogany bookcases teeming with antique bound editions, long, slim leather couches and chairs, fresh flowers—most of which were not in season—sprouting from crystal vases on side tables and on the broad, sweeping mantel of the imposing, carved-stone fireplace. Maye had never been in a room like this that she didn’t have to pay to get into and then gawk at from behind a velvet rope. She felt the sudden urge to curtsy like a Cockney chambermaid but instead tried to follow Charlie’s lead, despite the overwhelming feeling that she had quickly shrunk to the size of the phantom cricket that chirped from between her thighs.

Maye was overwhelmed.

“And this is my wife, Maye,” Charlie said as Dean Spaulding extended his hand and Maye gave it her heartiest shake.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she said as she tried to smile, noticing that the rest of the attendees had suddenly hushed and were all paying attention. “Thank you for having us.”

Whether he sensed her unease or it was his regular party protocol, Dean Spaulding gently took Maye by the elbow and introduced her to every person there—Charlie’s colleagues and their, as the invitation read, Significant Others. There was Professor Martin Oberling and his wife, Christina; Dr. Maria Albertson and her S.O., Julie; Dr. William Hummel and his charming wife, Meg; Professor This and Dr. That, and this wife, that husband, that life partner, that fiancée. Dean Spaulding went around the room and approximately said, “I’d like you to meet Maye Roberts, Charlie’s wife,” around thirty times. Maye had always been bad at names, but this was impossible—she tried desperately to match faces with traits but just plain gave up around number eight when she met a perky, tiny blond S.O. named Melissabeth, which was completely unfair, Maye thought to herself. That’s a two-trick name. Go with one or the other, but this double-duty name is like a Hummer—no need for something that big and that takes up two parking spaces.

When the introduction whirlwind was complete, Dean Spaulding took both of Maye’s hands in his.

“I know it’s hard being the new person and meeting all of the department at once, but I want to make sure you really love this place,” he said to her with a gentle smile. “We value Charlie very highly; he’s an incredible asset to us. We’d love to have him stay at Spaulding University for quite some time.”

“Thank you for giving Charlie this opportunity,” Maye replied. “I can’t tell you how much he loves it here.”

An older, impeccably dressed woman turned into the library with a pinched, hard face and brushed-back, flipped-curtly-at-the-end Nan Kempner socialite hair in grim reaper black.

“Oh, it’s Rowena,” Dean Spaulding said as he looked up. “Rowena, I’d like you to meet Maye Roberts, the wife of our newest faculty member.”

Rowena looked up, flashed a sudden small smile, and walked several steps toward them.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Maye said, extending her hand, which Rowena grasped limply.

“Pleasure is all mine,” Rowena said politely as she smiled emptily and handed Maye a gin and tonic. “I believe this is for you.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I hear an argument about Walt Whitman that I feel compelled to settle!” Dean Spaulding said, laughing heartily, then moved to join a group of professors, including Charlie, who were discussing whether the first or deathbed edition of
Leaves of Grass
was more powerful. He looked at Maye and winked, and she smiled back.

Maye looked back at Rowena, whose makeup had settled into the creases of her face like sand in a shipwreck, particularly around the pucker of her tiny, puckered, blood-red mouth. The pencil-thin bridge of her nose was flanked on either side by motionless marble-like eyes, nudged so close together they seemed baboonish. Even the warm pink hue of her genuine pearls looked cold and freezing wrapped around her neck.

Rowena crossed one arm over her tailored, camel-colored wool waist jacket, bent her other arm, and tapped a curry-yellow index finger at her temple twice.

Despite Rowena’s tintless and ghoulishly ghost-white skin, Maye thought snidely to herself, that must have been the applicator finger for the self-tanner, in the sense that the skin on her hands had begun to turn to hide.

“How are you finding Spaulding? Is it quite a bit different from your hometown?” she inquired. Honestly, however, Maye knew she didn’t care if Maye and Charlie were comfortable and happy in this new place, as it was no matter of concern for her if Maye missed her family and friends in Phoenix and felt a bit awkward at the faculty party. For Rowena, it was simply a matter of standard, obligatory conversation.

“It’s great, thank you for asking. I am learning how to recycle,” Maye said with a smile, wishing that Mrs. Spaulding would suddenly turn the corner and defuse this conversation bomb like a SWAT team. She longed for something else to say, but having met so many new people at once, she couldn’t remember who Rowena was attached to—was it Dr. Castle or Professor Brooks, or was she a faculty member herself? Yes, yes, didn’t Dean Spaulding mention something about Professor Brooks’s significant other also being a professor of…of…was it Old English? Medieval lit? Postmodernism? Nineteenth-century American? As hard as Maye tried, she couldn’t remember, and she certainly couldn’t ask now; horribly embarrassed, she resorted to the obvious. “Have you lived here long?” was the lone, soggy nugget Maye could pull out of her conversation cache. She hoped it might lead to another thread or perhaps even an expression from a woman who seemed to have the emotions of a mineral—that is, if a mineral could hate.

“I was born in Spaulding, and I will die in Spaulding,” Rowena informed her matter-of-factly, then pointed her finger at Maye. “By the way, Maye, who is new in Spaulding, that is a lovely sweater. Vintage, yes? The beading is exquisite. However, it is an afternoon sweater for an afternoon event. Which this is not. Perhaps that sweater would be appropriate attire in Phoenix. But this is an evening event, as everyone else understood it to be.”

Although Maye knew better, she was still waiting for the punch line about her pretty new sweater when Rowena turned and promptly walked out of the library.

Maye stood there. She looked at Charlie, laughing and joking with a circle of his colleagues. She looked at Dean Spaulding, who was holding open a leather-bound first edition of Whitman. She looked at the other guests, lounging and talking on the sofa, and then she felt her face get hot. Flushed. Burning. Her eyes stung. Her ears buzzed with embarrassment and shock. She felt a little dizzy.

“Oh my God,” she mumbled to herself. “That was so unnecessary.”

I need to find a bathroom, she thought, and walked out of the library before she even realized she was able to move.

Chh chh. Chh chh. Chhchhchhchh
. Maye shot through the foyer in search of a door, any door that could hide her for just a moment.

She didn’t know which way the bathroom was; up the stairs, down a long hall, back through the library?
Chh chh
. Was she
that
inappropriately dressed? It wasn’t like she was wearing a tube top or exposing her butt cleavage.
Chh chh chh chh
. Did everyone know? Was it apparent to everyone but her? She didn’t want to embarrass Charlie; she couldn’t embarrass Charlie. How could she find the bathroom?
Chh chh chh
. She darted down the long hall and slid into the thankfully empty dining room, where she stopped and leaned up against a wall.

Stupid, awful sweater, her mind raced; I hate this sweater. I hate pink. Breathe, she told herself; calm down. This is fine. I hate this stupid expensive sweater I spent our grocery money on this hideous pink thing I hate it! Breathe. It’s fine. Slow down. Under the pink sweater is a nice polished-cotton white oxford appropriate for any occasion. You can wear an oxford anyplace, to a funeral, to a wedding, a baby shower, a court date. An oxford has no time restraints. You can wear the oxford at your arraignment after wrapping your anger-induced swollen green Hulk hands around Rowena’s aging neck, which has more pleats than a Catholic girl’s school uniform.

The oxford is fine. The oxford is perfect. See, everything is going to be fine, she thought, and in one motion, Maye crossed her arms, grabbed the hem of the sweater on either side, and pulled up swiftly, as fast as she could, pull, pull, pull, up over her torso, over her boobs, quickly, quickly, hurry, over her head, and just as the sweater released Maye’s face and got to her forehead, it stopped there and froze. The sweater was stuck. She pulled harder, but the sweater, now wedged around her skull like a nun’s wimple, tugged on either side of her face, which was growing increasingly red and puffy. She pulled again as she grimaced and grunted. And then, for some odd reason, her belly felt cold. Chilly. Somewhat breezy. As if it was exposed. She gasped and looked down, and the oxford was gone. It had vanished. The only thing that was there was Maye’s bra, and Maye’s belly, and the waistband of Maye’s girdle, which from girth pressure had now rolled itself downward into the shape of an enchilada and width of the rings of Saturn.

The oxford, apparently, was now up around her head in conjunction with the pink sweater, as the two articles of clothing acted like a tag team with either static or sudden love gluing them together. It was then that Maye remembered rule one in removing an oxford if you don’t want it to become permanently lodged around your head: undo the top button first. She struggled, tried to gather some leverage by twisting from side to side. It stayed put. She rested a few seconds, gathered her strength, gritted her teeth, and pulled up like she was lifting a car off of a baby. The shirt did not budge. She bent over and tried to pull from that angle, hoping that gravity would help, but when she saw shiny, flashing lights floating in front of her, she aborted that attempt, lest she have a stroke as a result and be discovered topless, fat, and drooling on the Spauldings’ carpeted dining room floor.

She sighed. Her arms were tired; she was now breaking a sweat. Pretend you’re fighting off a crazy, bloodthirsty raccoon during daylight hours and that its pointy sharp distemper teeth are trying to impale your face, her mind told her, and in one last, desperate attempt to get free, she flung herself completely into trying to pretend-save her life and liberating her head from the viselike grip of a polished-cotton collar.
Chhhhh chhhhhh chhhhhh
. It was as she was thrashing about like a chubby, far less attractive Frances Farmer in straitjacket that Maye realized abruptly that unfortunately, due to her hearing being muffled by layers of pink wool and polished cotton and by her cricket thighs but predominately by her very own grunting, she had neglected to hear the call that dinner was about to be served.

Dozens of eyes were now witnessing her earthy dance in the corner of the dean’s dining room as she displayed the brand of inhibition typically evinced only after ingesting cactus buttons or licking poisonous toads. Some were filled with disbelief, some with disgust, some with dismay, there was one particularly offended pair that caught Maye’s eye and triggered a voice in her head.

“Melissabeth!” it said surprisingly. “I can’t believe I remembered your name after all!”

“Charlie!” Maye called. “Have you seen the aloe vera ointment?”

“It’s in your office,” he replied as he came down the stairs and poked his head into the bathroom, where Maye was studying her forehead in the mirror. “It was right next to your keyboard.”

Apparently, surviving the disgrace of having thirty academics walk in on you while you’re brawling with your apparel as your ta-tas swing vigorously from side to side like you are used to strangers sticking money into your panties was not enough of a challenge for Maye; when she finally got home (after Charlie hastily ushered her to the car) she noticed a dark ring around her face when she passed a mirror—a ring similar to that on an elderly woman who believed that blending the foundation near her hairline was a frivolous waste of however much time her clock had left on it. On Maye, however, it wasn’t makeup, and it wasn’t a shadow. On her head was an inch-thick rainbow of a self-inflicted road rash from fighting with her shirt while she fantasized it was a homicidal raccoon.

“It looks like a bike ran over your head,” Charlie said. “Still hurts, huh?”

Maye closely studied her forehead and decided it looked like a do-it-yourself chemical peel. “Like a ring of fire,” she answered. “I thought cotton was supposed to be the fabric of our lives, not the fabric that gives you a third-degree friction burn.”

“Um,” Charlie began, trying to choose his words carefully. “I saw you, remember? You didn’t really look like you were taking a shirt off, you looked like you were fighting off bees. It was a violent act with the exotic spice of vulgarity.”

“I’m still really sorry,” Maye said, wincing as she poked at the scab that stretched like a scarlet ribbon across her forehead and stretched from ear to ear. “I’ll say that every day until I die, Charlie. I’m so sorry.”