Tart (8 page)

“So it's like…standard procedure?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” She laughs. “Claudia, you look like I renounced the death sentence. Haven't you ever been through it before?”

“No. I never taught before I came here,” I say, feeling a bit shy.

“That's right. I keep forgetting. You seem like such a natural. Well, I wouldn't worry about it. I'm sure your students love you.”

We order sandwiches at the Hungry Slug Café and look around for a table. As we survey the room, I recognize the woman I doused with coffee the first day; she's sitting with the Costume Design professor, Esther Small. I've got very few names memorized at this point, but Esther's the sort of woman you remember. She's six feet tall, close to seventy years old, and she dresses like a twenty-two-year-old fashion slave from L.A.—tight jeans, platform shoes, suede jackets trimmed with mounds of fur. The two of them look up from their salads; they smile at Mare, but when they see me trailing a couple steps behind, their faces go blank and they pretend to be engrossed in conversation.

“Did you see that?” I whisper.

“What?”

“Those women you said hi to—they hate me.”

Mare laughs. “Claudia. You're a little paranoid today….”

“No, seriously. I spilled coffee on the little one weeks ago. She still hasn't forgiven me. Every time I see her on campus, she gives me serious stink-eye.”

“Monica?” Mare sighs. “She's not an easy one to figure out. We've both been here ten years, and I still haven't got a clue about what makes her tick. I hear she's going through a divorce, so she's probably not in the best mood.”

“Is she faculty?”

“Yeah—haven't you met her yet? She's in our department. She teaches Asian theater and that sort of thing. She's really into Noh and Kabuki and—I don't know—shadow puppets, or something.”

There are distant alarm bells going off in my brain. Monica…where have I heard that name? “So she's, um, getting divorced?”

“That's what I heard.”

I can feel the beginnings of nausea in the pit of my stomach. “What's her last name?”

“Parker,” she says before biting into her sandwich.

“Par-ker?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course,” I whisper, and the blood goes out of my face.

She looks up, still chewing. “What's wrong? You're all white. Are you sick?”

“Oh, nothing. Or maybe—I don't know—actually, I do feel a little sick,” I say, wrapping my sandwich back up.

“I thought you were starving.”

“I was, but…” My neck and face are starting to perspire. “Maybe something I had for breakfast didn't go down right.”

Or maybe it's someone I went down on three weeks ago. Jesus, Claudia.

Just then Monica and Esther get up to leave. Over Mare's shoulder, I watch Monica in her pale-yellow, raw-silk pantsuit; she's very pretty, in a petite, dark, hyperpolished sort of way. Very Nordstrom's. She looks like the kind of woman who sorts her underwear into neat, color-coded stacks. She catches me watching her and shoots me a quick but withering glare, followed immediately by Esther glancing in my direction with pursed lips. She puts one hand on Monica's back protectively and guides her toward the stairs as if she's some sort of invalid.

“Listen, Mare,” I say, “I'm going to head back to my office. I've got a lot to catch up on.”

“Honey,” she says—she's the only woman I've ever met besides waitresses in the Deep South who can pull this off, “you really do look ill. Maybe you should go home. Are you okay to drive?”

“I've got another class to teach. No, I'll be okay.”

“You might have that flu that's going around.”

“I doubt it,” I say. “It's just PMS or something.”

I walk unsteadily back to my office, gripping my sandwich with a shaking hand.

Parker. Goddammit, Clay.

This is the second time he's done this. When we met he was deliberately evasive about being married; now he's failed to give me vital information about his wife—namely, that I
work
with her. I can picture him sitting there on his stool at the Owl Club.

“That's right. First day at school.”
He was wearing such a smug little smile.

“How did you know?”
I asked, my skin even then prickling slightly with premonition.

“I just do.”

Yeah, you just did because it was your goddamn wife's first day, too. What in the hell is he trying to do? Brand me with a scarlet letter?

Get a hold of yourself, Claudia. Maybe you're mistaken. Parker is a common name, after all. Here—just look at any phone book. Let's see: Paoli, Paris, Parker…see. There must be sixty of them. My eyes scroll down the page. Lots and lots of them, even in a smallish town like this. It's like Jones or Smith or—oh, God. There they are. Parker, Clay and Monica. I slam the phone book closed, drop it on the floor and collapse into my chair. “This is not happening. This is not happening,” I tell myself again and again, like someone reciting Hail Marys. “Not…happening…not…happening.”

“Professor Bloom?”

I spin around so quickly I nearly give myself whiplash. It takes me two seconds to recognize her. I haven't seen her in two or three years, at least.

“Oh, my God. Rosemarie. What are you doing here?” I jump up with delight and surprise, rushing toward her.

“Checking in on you. From the looks of things, you could use a little checking.”

“Come in, come in.” I tug at her hand, excited. “Look at you. You've lost so much weight.”

She's still got that rich olive complexion, the brown, impish eyes, still wearing the neo-hippie garb—a patchwork dress in jewel tones, a big denim bag with Grateful Dead and pot-leaf decals all over it. But she must have lost fifty pounds since the last time I saw her. Years ago she was thick and curvy, now she's slender, almost willowy. We hug and her
body feels insubstantial in my arms. “My little cousin. And jeez, you sure are little now.”

“Yeah…I dropped a lot of pounds after…Jeff and I…did you know we split up?”

“Oh. I heard about that.” Jeff is Rosemarie's old boyfriend. They had a baby together about four years ago, but she died when she was only two. I heard from my mom that Rosemarie went a little crazy then. She was in an institution for six, seven months. Something like that.

“I had a hard couple of years,” she says, reading my face. “But I'm okay now.”

“Sure. You look great. Look at you.” She does a little spin. Rosemarie. I realize suddenly that I've missed her. “You look fantastic.”

“I guess crazy kind of suits me,” she says, her eyes shining.

“It always did.”

“So,” she says, “Do you have time to hang out?”

“Oh—oh, my God.” I say, looking at my watch. “I'm going to be late. I've got to teach in two minutes.”

Her face falls. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come.”

“No. Don't be silly. This class is over by three—want to meet me here?”

“Yeah. Okay. What time is it?” Rosemarie never has worn a watch. I remember her patiently explaining when we were twelve that time didn't exist, and she refused to pretend it did. She's been true to that; I've waited for her so often, I stopped imagining it was possible for her to be anything but late. When she finally shows, she always wears such an innocent, childlike expression, and she's so quick to recount her dreamy adventures. It would be maddening with anyone else, but somehow with my cousin it's hard to stay angry for long.

“It's 1:30. Meet me here in an hour and a half.”

“Right on,” she says. “I'll go braid my dog.”

Since I'm already running late, I don't bother to follow
up on this intriguing announcement. I run off to the theater, quickly lead them through some routine warm-ups, then distribute scenes I've selected for them to rehearse. Once they're safely tucked into the various corners of the room, practicing their lines in stiff, unnatural voices, I sink down into one of the red velvet chairs and think about Rosemarie.

When was the last time I saw her? God, it was when her baby, Jade, was still alive; we were at my Mom's house in San Rafael. Aunt Jessie was there and she was stupid drunk on a bottle of my mother's merlot; she kept trying to be cheerful in that sour, sloppy way she had. Rosemarie was still breastfeeding—Jade was just a tiny thing. I remember Aunt Jessie pulling the poor baby from Rose's arms and dancing around with her in campy glee, twirling like some ridiculous pantomime of a happy grandmother, until she stumbled over an ottoman. Rosemarie swiped the baby back, shushing her furious cries with “It's okay, honey. Your granny's happy to see you, is all.”

Rosemarie was always so patient with her mother. I never could understand how she managed, when Aunt Jessie was so flaky. Every few months they moved someplace new; most of the time Rosemarie never even made it to the local school. They just bounced like a couple of pinballs from town to town. Aunt Jessie might hold down a job pouring coffee at a truck-stop diner or selling sunglasses in some mall—whatever she could find. She pumped gas in Hattiesburg for a month or two, delivered flowers in Pensacola. But then whatever man she'd taken up with would get too possessive or too lazy or too anything, and Aunt Jessie would stuff their ragtag bunch of belongings into their old, decrepit van and they'd drive until they ran out of gas. That was how they decided where to live next; when the van wouldn't go any farther, it was time to get out and see the town. When the money ran out, it was time to get a job.

I'd always loved Rosemarie. We were both only children,
and we'd bonded like sisters. Even as toddlers we got along, as if there was a code of empathy in our blood. I felt sorry for her, getting dragged around by Aunt Jessie, never having much of a home, and at the same time I envied her amazingly placid, gypsy-ease with the road and everything it brought. Rosemarie was the kind of kid who could eat peanut butter from a spoon for dinner and a piece of gum for dessert without a word of complaint. She could talk to just about anyone, make friends with girls who had swimming pools and shiny blond hair or with men who lived in cardboard boxes—it was all the same to her. She liked people, period. And people liked her.

“Um, Mrs. Bloom?”

I resist the urge to look behind me for my mother.

“Yes?”

“I'm like
so
not into this today.” It's Beach Barbie, the girl I bummed a tampon from at the Owl Club. Actually, her name's Sarah, and she's a real pain in the ass, but I like her. At first I was startled by the coincidence—running into her at the Owl Club, then having her in class—but I'm realizing quickly just how small this town is. My students bag my groceries, they cut my hair, they serve me burgers at the drive-thru. I felt the first pangs of claustrophobia when I went to get a bikini wax and discovered I was about to have my pubic hair yanked out by a girl I'd just a given a D to.

Sarah flops into the seat beside me and blows her bangs off her forehead. “Would you hate me if I left early?”

“Probably.”

“I've got cramps so bad I think I'm going to faint.”

I fight a smile. Sometimes Sarah reminds me of myself. We both have a tendency to lean a little too heavily on gynecological excuses. “You need some Advil?”

She shakes her head. “I already took like seven.”

“Seven? Doesn't that constitute an overdose?”

She grabs a section of her long blond hair and begins examining it carefully for split ends. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think I want to be a professor like you. How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-nine.”

She squints at me. “Really? God, I hope it doesn't take me that long.”

I chuckle to hide my despair. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, twenty-nine? That's like—middle age.”

I slap her playfully on the shoulder. “Sarah! Go on, get back to your scene work. I want to see a really brilliant Antigone next week, okay?”

“What
ever
,” she whines, dragging herself back to the stage.

I let out my breath, my body deflating like a withered balloon. Oh, my God. I'm fucking ancient. In a couple months I'll be thirty. What did I do to deserve this? My worst fears are confirmed; I'm old and I'm alone. I spent the night with a married man before I'd been in town twenty-four hours and now all the women want me buried alive. I'll have to leave Santa Cruz before they drive me out. I'll wander the country in my unreliable Volvo and have serial flings with emotionally unavailable men. I'll pump gas, deliver flowers, mix Carlo Rossi Chablis with Kool-Aid and call it sangria, like Aunt Jessie.

By the time class is over, I've convinced myself that being flattened by a bus abruptly and painlessly is the best future I can hope for. I trudge back to my office through the first splattering drops of rain and stare at my e-mail in-box blankly, wondering what the point is. Monica Parker hates me, and so will the rest of the faculty once the word gets around. Ruth Westby just wants to complete the formality by evaluating my teaching so she'll have an official list of my inadequacies when she fires me. “Ah, yes, Claudia, here are the results: Sluttish, Lazy and Ancient. That wraps it up. Please remove your belongings by Monday.”

I haven't even noticed that Rosemarie is twenty minutes
overdue until she comes running in, out of breath, clutching a leash attached to an enormous, braided Thing. “What,” I ask, “is that?”

“You mean
who,
Claudia. This is Rex. He's part Saint Bernard. Aren't you, Rexy?” Rex is drooling happily on a pile of my student papers. He's the size of a small horse, and he's sporting so many tiny braids he looks vaguely ethnic.