but neither I nor anyone else in the class had a chance to get a word in with motormouth running.
Buchman talked about “The Stranger.” He said, “Not that, by the way, the English translation can even come close to the French…” and Harrison nodded in agreement. Buchman called Camus “superb” and made the “okay” symbol with his thumb and forefinger as he said it. I wondered if vomiting would cost me an A. An airheaded girl in our class, Vicki, stared at Brian the whole time, cocking her head to the side like an attentive terrier. Brian wasn’t bad-looking. But what a phony.
Harrison didn’t look at me once. I felt miserable.
When the class ended, Brian and the professor were still talking. Neither of them glanced up as I went out.
I left in a foul mood.
I walked toward the Square, and it looked like everyone on campus was having fun. Two people in down jackets pitched a Frisbee back and forth. A gaggle of fraternity guys was horsing around with a lumbering Saint Bernard. A girl and her boyfriend were fake-fighting in front of the library.
In my dorm hallway, I smiled when two girls from my floor passed me, but they kept talking and didn’t smile back. That was embarrassing. I opened my door, dropped my books on my dresser and climbed into bed.
I lay there for maybe half an hour in a fetal position, racked with malaise. It was almost a month into the semester, and already, everyone had crystallized into groups.
I listened to the end of a branch scrape repeatedly against my dorm-room window.
The phone rang.
“Carrie?” a voice asked. “It’s Professor Harrison.”
“Hi.” I sat up.
“I just was wondering if you’d be up for dinner tonight. I know you probably have plans…”
Something inside me seized. A one-on-one dinner? Would this count as a date, or just a discussion? Would there be other students there? What had inspired this? How should I act? What if I said something stupid? At least I had already read half of the books on the syllabus, so I could hold my own in that respect. Besides, Harrison had enjoyed talking to me that first time, right? I shouldn’t be nervous.
“Sure,” I said. My voice probably cracked.
“What kind of food do you like?”
“Uh, whatever you want.”
He laughed. “You ever eaten Moroccan?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll do Moroccan.”
He seemed to like it when I hadn’t tried something. I would soon learn that. He liked being a teacher.
I hung up and thought about what to wear. I didn’t know if you were supposed to look good for a man who was asking you to dinner but who was a respected elder and not someone who could potentially have a romantic interest in you. I didn’t really know how to look good, anyway. Looking good involves trying to look just like everyone else, and I don’t spend a lot of time looking at everyone else. I pulled on a blouse that I’d worn to a formal dinner with my father a year earlier. I did have an adult-type wool coat. I trotted down the stairs, glad to be joining the other people who had somewhere to be. A chilly wind blew. I felt excited and nervous at the same time.
I waited on the lawn. Harrison wasn’t there yet. I gazed back at my dorm. It looked like a three-story Colonial house. Several of the lights were on. They represented people who were stuck inside, not about to step into the thrilling unknown.
Professor Harrison’s car was so small that I didn’t realize it was there for the first few seconds. I guess Harrison didn’t notice me at first, either, because he peered in his rearview mirror for a second before realizing I was walking toward him. He got out, came around and opened the door for me. It wasn’t necessary, but it was a nice gesture. “Hello,” he said.
“Hi.”
I climbed inside, and he threw the door closed. It was incredibly warm inside. The heat was blowing full force. He walked around the front of the car, illuminated for a second by his own headlights.
Harrison slid inside. “Any preference?” he asked, playing with the radio dial.
“Whatever you—” I started, and then became aware that maybe I was being too passive. I’d already let him pick the food. “Classical?”
Harrison found a classical station, and I sneaked a peek at his profile. He had a softly curving nose, and a pleasant expression on his face. We talked about composers. He knew a lot about their lives, even more than he knew about their music. I’m always impressed when someone is well-versed in a topic that has nothing to do with their main discipline. It shouldn’t be so unusual, but when one keeps meeting person after person who doesn’t have any academic passions, to find someone well-versed in three or four really is a miracle. We talked about Edvard Grieg, whom I’d always been a little fascinated with. Harrison noted that he’d entered the conservatory around the same age that I’d entered college. The two of us talked about him for a half hour. Everything I knew, he knew.
We parked in a small lot behind the restaurant. Inside, it was dark but alive with people. When the waiter came up to us, Harrison said, “Back room.” The waiter escorted us through a doorway full of burgundy beads. The back room was small, the walls covered in fuzzy red felt. None of the four tables was occupied. “Hope you don’t mind,” Harrison said to me. “I like privacy.”
“Me, too.”
“I wouldn’t want students to see us and think I’m playing favorites,” he said.
“You don’t take them all out to dinner?”
He winked. “Only the best and brightest.”
I looked down at my menu. There was a gold tassel hanging from it.
“It’s too bad you’re not old enough to drink,” he said. “They have this sweet kind of red wine here…”
My eyes glossed over the list of entrées but didn’t really take anything in.
“Do you like sweet things?” he asked. I nodded. The waiter filled our water glasses, and David ordered a Coke for me and a glass of red wine for himself.
But when his wine came, he held it out to me. “Try?”
I hesitated, then took a sip. It was sharp and sweet at the same time. “It’s good,” I said.
David took a sip. He was actually putting his lips where mine had just been, and it was a little exciting. He held the glass out for me again. The waiter returned as I was drinking it, and a look passed between him and David, but neither said anything.
After David took the glass back, he rested his chin on his hands and stared at me for a minute. “It looks good on you,” he said.
“What does?”
“The wine. It turned your lips red.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I picked the menu up again. It was odd that he could stare at me without feeling embarrassed.
He only stopped staring when the waiter came to take our orders. David asked if I’d decided, and I said I hadn’t, and he asked if I minded him ordering for me because he knew some things I should try.
After the waiter left, he said, “So, what do you really think of our class?”
“I like it,” I said. “I like the way you incorporated our own writing—”
“No,” he said. “Not the curriculum, the students.”
“Oh. I guess…they’re fine.”
“What about Vicki?”
I shrugged. “She seems nice.”
“Tell me what you really think.”
“Well—”