Office Mate Read online

  “It does,” he murmurs.

  What is this? Is he actually interested? Is he understanding something I’m trying to express?

  “The score is really over the top, isn’t it?”

  Okay. Maybe I was wrong. “Over the top?” I ask coolly.

  “Over-the-top emotional. I’ve heard parts of it.”

  “It’s a movie score. The whole point of it is to evoke emotion. What else is it supposed to do?”

  He tilts his head slightly. I might be wrong, but I could swear the corners of his mouth twitch up just a little.

  Is it a smile? Now?

  Is he trying to rile me up on purpose or something?

  I don’t get this guy at all.

  I narrow my eyes. “And anyone who listens to opera shouldn’t be criticizing other kinds of music for being too emotional.”

  I didn’t miss it this time. His mouth twitches up so quickly it’s almost imperceptible. “Fair enough.”

  Maybe I should consider it a victory. That I nearly got him to smile.

  And I would be glad about it if I didn’t suspect he was mostly just laughing at me.

  FOR THE NEXT THREE weeks, there isn’t much improvement in our office cohabitation.

  We do get into a pattern. We go through regular small talk and learn to stay out of each other’s way. We sometimes talk when we’re in the office together for long periods of time, but it’s always similarly awkward discussions. I never know what he’s thinking, and I’m convinced he doesn’t even like me.

  I know he can talk. And he can smile and laugh. I know this only because I’ve caught him occasionally having discussions with other faculty members, usually talking about research interests or literature.

  But he never talks like that with me. He definitely never laughs.

  He probably thinks I’m silly, frivolous, girly, insubstantial, and every other negative impression people have always had about me.

  I try not to worry about it, but it bothers me.

  A lot.

  On a Thursday a few weeks after the term started, I’m trying to type up the minutes for a committee meeting I just attended. (I unfortunately ended up being nominated as secretary.) Evan comes back from his second class at a little before noon, and he’s got three students in tow.

  Two girls and a boy.

  They evidently all have questions for him about papers they’re writing, and he talks to them each in turn. He’s very serious and gentle in his discussions with them, taking time to make sure they understand and asking them insightful questions.

  He might not smile and laugh a lot, but he’s good with students.

  And he doesn’t even seem to notice that both the girls are making goo-goo eyes at him.

  It’s not surprising. He’s young and good-looking and unmarried. Of course students are into him.

  It’s not a big deal. It’s another thing that shouldn’t bother me but does.

  I keep working on the minutes as he meets with the students, but I don’t focus very well since I keep listening in to the conversations.

  He looks as handsome as ever today in one of his suits. He’s got five of them, and he wears one each day. I’ve kept track, so I know this for sure. He doesn’t always wear them in the same order or on the same days, but he wears each suit once a week, and he only has five.

  When the last student leaves, he goes to the bathroom (I assume that’s where he goes, although obviously I’m not there to witness it) and comes back to pull his lunch out.

  He usually brings his lunch. Either a sandwich and a piece of fruit or leftovers from whatever he had for dinner last night. Today he has a turkey sandwich, an apple, and water in the refillable bottle he always uses.

  It might be healthy, but it sounds quite unappetizing to me.

  I’m trying to finish these stupid minutes so I can go to the dining hall to get something to eat and then head to the library to talk to one of the librarians about coming to my classes and talking about library research. I’ve got another committee meeting late this afternoon, and I want to get everything done before then.

  “What are you working on?” Evan asks without warning, just before taking a bite of his apple.

  I turn in surprise. He usually doesn’t volunteer conversation. “Just writing up minutes for the meeting I had earlier. Irritating but necessary.”

  “Ah.”

  I don’t have to ask what he’s going to be working on. He prepares his lesson plans for the entire week on Monday so he can spend the rest of his spare time on his writing. “How’s your book coming?”

  He’s got a contract from a reputable university press to turn his dissertation into a book. It comes as no surprise to me that he’s already got a book on his vita. He’s an overachiever if there ever was one, and he doesn’t seem to do anything except work.

  “Good. Just finishing the second chapter.”

  “That’s good.” I try to think of an intelligent question to ask about John Milton, but I can’t think of anything.

  I think the conversation is about to end, but he finishes chewing his bite and then says, “I see you did some work on Anne Bradstreet in your dissertation.”

  My eyes widen. “Where did you see that?”

  “I looked it up.” He clears his throat. “I was curious about your scholarship.”

  Hopefully he wasn’t dubious about my ability to do good scholarship, but it’s impossible to tell from his face. “Oh.”

  “I would be interested in hearing about it.”

  “About Anne Bradstreet?”

  “About your dissertation.”

  “Oh. Okay. Sure.” I’m confused and strangely flustered. Don’t ask me why. I just am. “If you want.”

  “Perhaps we can talk about it sometime when you’re not busy?”

  This is strange. It feels significant, but I have no idea why. He’s just so serious about it. And it’s small talk. He can’t be all that interested in my dissertation on women’s concept of history in colonial America. It has absolutely nothing to do with his areas of research or teaching. He’s probably just being polite, and it’s a nice gesture. Maybe it’s a good sign, but I wish he would approach it more casually. “Sure,” I say with a bland smile, turning back to my committee notes since I feel so weird and self-conscious. “That would be fine.”

  “Good.” He goes back to work too, and neither of us talk until I finish writing up the minutes and get up to go to lunch and escape the office for a little while.

  I WORK LATER THAN NORMAL that evening because my four-o’clock meeting runs long.

  It’s almost five thirty when I start walking home. (I wisely had thought to bring my bag with me so I don’t have to stop by the office before I head back to my house.)

  Because my house is so close to the college, I walk unless the weather is bad. The campus is surrounded by an established residential neighborhood, most of the houses small and built in the forties and fifties. I’ve crossed the street that’s one of the boundaries of the campus and am walking down a sidewalk when I pass a vacant lot.

  The property belongs to the adjoining house, but they’ve never used it, so it’s been nothing but grass since I’ve moved here.

  A figure in the grass catches my attention.

  Kids will sometimes play in the lot, but that is not a kid. It’s a man in a suit.

  A second look proves why the figure seemed familiar at first glance.

  It’s Evan.

  He’s crouching down in the middle of the lot. I have no idea what he’s doing.

  “What are you doing?” I call out.

  He jerks in surprise and stands up. A quick expression twists on his face, and it’s so quick I’m not positive what it is.

  Maybe he doesn’t want to see me. Or maybe he’s embarrassed.

  What the hell was he doing?

  I stand and wait until he comes over to me. “Hey,” he says. “You’re heading home later than normal today.”

  I frown at him. “I h
ad a late meeting. What were you doing?”

  He lets out a breath that sounds resigned. “I was...” He clears his throat and shows me something in his hand. It’s a broken silver barrette. “I was picking this up.”

  “Why were you picking up the barrette? Do you go around picking up trash?”

  “No.” He glances over at the lot and then back at me. “Okay, fine. I leave peanuts there for a couple of crows every morning, and they leave me shiny things as a thank-you. I pick them up on my way home so they won’t think I’m rejecting their gifts.”

  My eyes widen, and my breath hitches in my throat. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You leave peanuts for crows?” I don’t know why this piece of information excites me, but it does. My heart has sped up. My stomach has gotten flutters.

  “Yeah.” He gives me a sheepish look. He’s obviously a little embarrassed by admitting that to me. “I was eating some one Saturday as I walked over to campus, and I saw the crows looking for food in the lot, so I tossed the leftover peanuts to them. They were waiting for me the next day to see if I had more peanuts, so I started taking a few with me to toss to them. Now they’re there every morning waiting for their peanuts.”

  I cover my mouth with one hand as if this might hold back a swell of feeling. “That’s so sweet.”

  “It’s not a big deal. They’re just peanuts. But they’ve started leaving me things, so I try to pick them up as I go home.”

  “I had no idea crows would do that!”

  “They’re pretty smart. If you’re mean to them, they’ll hold a grudge and tell all their buddies about you. But if you’re nice to them, they’ll try to thank you as best they can.”

  “I love that.” I’ve still got that pressure of emotion in my chest and the butterflies in my stomach. It’s a swoony kind of feeling I really shouldn’t be feeling about Evan. “I had no idea.”

  He gives me a little smile. It’s very small—barely a smile at all—but I see it. No way I would miss it. “It’s not a big deal.”

  It feels like a big deal to me, but I don’t want to embarrass him by acting like the small gesture is important.

  But it tells me something new about Evan.

  He has a kind heart—even for animals that other people don’t care about.

  There’s a lot more to him than I had realized at first.

  A WEEK LATER EVAN BRINGS up my dissertation again. He wants to talk about it with me.

  I don’t know about everyone else, but I didn’t actually love my dissertation. I think some parts of it were good. I got two articles out of it and a few conference papers. Since Milford isn’t a research-focused college, that’s more than enough for the administration to be happy with my research output. But I don’t think overall my dissertation is all that great. I wrote some of it just to get it done. And it was such a stressful time of my life that I don’t much like to think about it now.

  Mostly I’ve moved on. I’m two years out of my PhD program now, so not very many people even ask me about it anymore.

  But Evan, evidently determined to always be contrary, wants to talk about it with me, and there’s no way I can politely put it off.

  Jennifer keeps telling me it’s a good thing. He’s showing some interest in me. He wants to get to know me better. He wants to be on better terms, just like I do.

  But surely he could do that by talking about movies or books we both like or our families or places we’ve traveled or hobbies we have or the crows he gives peanuts to or anything except my dissertation.

  But no. It’s only the dissertation he wants to hear about.

  And when I tell him I’ll be happy to talk one afternoon, he suggests we go get coffee.

  Which means I’ll be stuck with him for at least a half hour, talking about my dissertation.

  I hate the thought of the stupid thing.

  He suggests a coffee shop just a block from campus, and I’m relieved because I don’t want everyone on campus to see us in the dining hall together and start to get ideas.

  I make conversation about the neighborhood as we walk, relieved I wore comfortable shoes today with my tunic top and broomstick skirt. It’s a warm day, and I’m perspiring a little when we get there. Hopefully I won’t perspire off all my makeup or sweat through my top.

  We get our coffee—mine is actually hot chocolate since I don’t like drinking coffee in the afternoon—and he pays for both drinks. We find a table for two in one corner. It’s not that crowded in late afternoon, and I don’t see anyone from Milford.

  I’m not sure why I’m worried about it. It’s just that I can imagine Evan’s face if people started talking about us, wondering if we’re dating or something.

  He wouldn’t like that at all.

  “So,” I say, trying to relax and find my normal friendly attitude. “You wanted to talk about my dissertation?”

  “Yes.”

  He starts quizzing me.

  Seriously.

  It feels like an oral exam.

  He doesn’t just want to hear about the broad strokes, the normal summary I share with anyone who happens to ask. He wants details. And some of those details I haven’t thought about in more than two years.

  I can’t remember everything, and I have to struggle to keep up with his queries.

  It’s exhausting, and I really have no idea why he wants to know so much about such a random topic.

  But I do my best. I wouldn’t be rude to him anyway, and I’m hoping it’s progress that he wants to talk to me at all.

  He questions me for over an hour. He’s really incredibly smart. He pulls together my ideas in ways I hadn’t realized they’d fit together. It makes my dissertation sound better than I think it actually was.

  At least he comes away with a positive impression of it, whether it’s based in reality or not. And I’m relieved when he finally runs out of questions.

  I wonder what he’d be like on a date. Would he approach his date with the same kind of studious reserve? Would he question her like he was giving an exam?

  The thought tickles my humor, and I have to struggle not to giggle.

  “What is it?” Evan asks, his dark eyes searching my face.

  “Nothing.”

  “You were laughing.”

  “I wasn’t either.”

  “You were trying not to. Did I do something funny?”

  “No. Not at all.” That much is definitely the truth. In the month I’ve known him, he hasn’t made a single joke and he’s never laughed out loud.

  “Then what were you laughing at?”

  I shake my head. I’m generally an honest, open person without a lot of qualms about sharing my personal stuff, but there’s no way I can tell him the truth that I was giggling about how he’d act on a date. “It’s really nothing. I’m just surprised you’re so interested in my dissertation.”

  “There’s a lot of overlap in our topics—John Milton was a Puritan, you know.”

  “Of course he was.” I honestly hadn’t even thought about it. Maybe that explains his incongruous interest. “Do you see a lot of common themes?”

  He nods. “Theologically, absolutely. Socially, some. Politically, not nearly as much.”

  “Well, I’ll read your book when you have it done so I can see any similarities between our work.” I smile at him, feeling a little better now that I have a context for his interest.

  “Will you?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “It’s not the kind of book most people would read for general interest.”

  I shrug. “Well, I’ll read it anyway.”

  “You can read the chapters I have done now if you’d like.” He’s been looking down at his coffee cup, but he slants a look up at my face through his thick lashes. I have no idea what he’s looking for in my face.

  I’m surprised, but I immediately recognize that it will be easier to read a dense tome in chapters than all in one fell swoop. “Sure. I’ll read th
em anytime.”

  “I’ll send them to you when I get back to my computer.”

  He’s really taking this seriously. Hopefully he won’t expect brilliant insights. I’m as smart as anyone, and I have a really good knowledge of American history. But my intelligence works by intuitively understanding cycles and cultural moments and the development of thought and action. I always feel out of my depth when people dive deep into critical theory. It just doesn’t fit with how I understand my field.

  I smile, however, since I figure we’ve made progress today. “That would be great. I can read them this weekend.”

  “I’d love to hear what you think.”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  I’m relieved when we get up to leave. We walk back to campus together, and Evan is very quiet.

  Not that that’s unusual.

  We reach our office, and we both stand there inside the door. I’m not sure why. It’s just that neither of us move. We look at each other, and I’m hit again with another one of those waves of attraction.

  He really is unjustly good-looking. I really like the square lines of his face. How deep his eyes are—like they’re full of thoughts he never shares. I like the solid line of his shoulders under his suit jacket. I like how I have to look up to him, but he’s not so tall that it feels like he’s on a different floor of the building.

  My skin flushes, and a pressure clenches in my chest, between my legs.

  It’s the most ridiculous thing, but I really want to touch him. I want him to touch me. He’s got really good hands. Lean and graceful.

  I imagine those hands touching me. Those eyes looking down on me in bed.

  That body without any clothes.

  I swallow hard.

  “Thank you for talking to me,” he says. Jennifer was right from the beginning. The man is very polite.

  “You’re welcome. I’m glad you were interested.”

  “I’ll send you those chapters.”

  “I’ll read them this weekend.” I clench my hands at my sides. I’m not going to touch him, no matter how much I want to. I really want to take the lapels of his jacket in my hands. I want to stroke his short hair with my fingers.