Tart

I try the door again, ruining my little speech with a futile shove. “Can you please unlock this?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I want to explain to you where I’m coming from.”

I lean my forehead against the glass, suddenly tired, and say, “Please. Just unlock it, okay?”

He crosses the room and I give him plenty of space. Proximity is dangerous right now. Already I can feel the sick emptiness brought on by the phone call giving way to an urgent need to smell his skin. Once he’s got the door unlocked, he turns to me again. “I wish I could just tell you how hard this is,” he begins, but he interrupts himself in alarm. “God, your face is white—are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say tersely. “I’m fine.”

“Do you feel sick? You’re really pale.” He moves closer, and I back up.

“Look, don’t worry about me, okay? You’ve got a wife who obviously wants you back. I just don’t understand why you had to drag me—a total stranger—into your little domestic mess.” My voice rises on the last two words and my lower lip trembles slightly; I need to get the hell out while I can. One problem: he’s in front of the door.

He’s staring at me with a stunned expression, and then he gets a hold of himself and steps out of my way. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I mumble, and bolt.

That night, lying on my Pine-Sol-scented futon, watching as the occasional headlight sweeps ghostly shapes across my cracked ceiling, I think about Clay Parker. I think about his hands and the almost imperceptible half-moon scar on his left cheek. I immerse myself in elaborate recollections of his tongue sweeping across my clavicle; I play that moment over and over, like I used to do with my Saturday Night Fever 45, never tiring of the repetition.

I’m so paralyzed. I can’t pursue the guy with his desperate, grieving wife trailing after us all the time. And yet I can’t stop thinking about him: his gentle laughter, his easy way with cats, the dad who hit him and the mom who loves him more than anyone.

I think of our Freaks and Treats Tour, how exhilarated and young I felt. The roller coaster at the Boardwalk made my stomach drop in the same delicious, terrifying way it does now when I replay his tongue on my clavicle.

Infatuation. What a country.

It’s not just that he’s married. That’s part of it, yes, but there’s something else I can’t quite put my finger on.

God knows I’ve had affairs with married men. It never really bothered me before—at least, I told myself it didn’t. There was the fading underwear model in Calistoga, then Roger, a fellow massage slut at Lake Austin Spa. He kept trying to “release my tantric energy,” which meant I had to lie there forever while he performed the worst cunnilingus I’ve ever experienced. There was Jerry Moss, the professor with the Tom Waits voice. That one nagged at my conscience, not because he was married, but because it was the only time I’d ever cheated on someone myself.

That was how I rationalized it: in all but one case, they were the ones breaking their vows, not me. Cheating on Jonathan with Jerry was the only time in my vast decade of tartery that I actually betrayed someone’s trust. I have a peculiar moral code, yes, but I do have one. I told myself that the institution of marriage was, in itself, a scam, so it’s hard to get sentimentally attached to other people’s vows. It’s like asking a Marxist to give a shit when a capitalist goes bankrupt.

This time, with Clay, everything’s different. It’s quite sickening, really. I think about the moments before his wife burst through the door with all that sunlight behind her, when he and Medea and Sandy and I were all lying there peacefully, listening to crows cawing outside, watching dawn turn the windows and the skylight an electric blue. I wanted that moment. I wanted to keep it, live inside it again and again. And now I see somebody’s gotten there first.

I guess when you don’t really want the whole person, when you just want to borrow him for an illicit afternoon or two, an affair is easy. You never meet the woman you’ve borrowed him from and you forget about him soon enough, caught up in the next fleeting pleasure.

But when you really want him—or at least a chance to try him out—things change. You find yourself stammering incoherent, guilt-tainted speeches in record stores and shoving at doors you know are locked.

You find yourself studying the shadows on your ceiling, wishing he was studying them with you.

Oh. Bourgeois coupling crap. Good God, what have I gotten myself into?

CHAPTER 11

The first day of school should be outlawed. It’s late September, the peak of a California Indian summer, and the earth is about to crack open, it’s so parched and overheated. Of course, Texas wasn’t exactly a mild climate, either, but at least there I was a student and, since students are granted permanent adolescent status, was therefore expected to show up in tattered cutoffs and slinky tank tops or tiny sundresses that left vast expanses of skin exposed—uniforms that eased the discomfort of stuffy confinement in idea-filled rooms. God, I miss being a student. Today it takes me well over an hour to get dressed, despite the fact that my wardrobe contains exactly six frantically purchased items to choose from. By the time I walk out the door, I’ve spent so much time with an old, melted eyeliner trying to add sophistication to my ill-fitting secondhand skirt-and-blouse ensemble that I look like a cross between Mary Poppins and Courtney Love.

Approaching my office, keys in hand, the crisis in confidence brought on by my sucky outfit gives way to a moment of speechless awe. There, printed in block letters across the glass panel on my office door is something I hadn’t anticipated: C. BLOOM. Right there, in plain sight. I’ve officially become official. I no longer skulk about in the hallways or set up camp in library nooks like all the nomadic students wandering here and there, looking lost and abandoned. No. My ship has a port, my port a name, and that name is C. BLOOM, Theater Arts Professor.

I stand there for a long moment, gazing at the letters. Then I reach out and trace the C with one finger, half afraid that it will smudge away under my touch.

“It’s a trip, huh?”

I turn to see a woman with dark hair and medieval eyes watching me. She looks about forty; she’s wearing a red wraparound skirt and a black T-shirt that says Runs with Scissors on it. “You must be Claudia,” she says, reaching out to shake hands.

“Yes.”

“I’m Mare Marquez. I teach dance. First time I saw my name on a door I couldn’t decide whether to cry with happiness or run the other way.”

I smile. I like this chick. She’s got turquoise rings on every finger and she looks like she’s never worn lipstick in her life. Her cheekbones are high, and her skin is the color of summer spent on beaches eating fresh fruit with brown fingers. “So which did you do?” I ask.

She laughs. “Neither. I just got out my keys and acted like I was born with my name on doors.”

“Good advice,” I say, and try my key. Miraculously, I choose the right one and it slides right in. “Hey. So far so good.”

“My office is down the hall, if you need anything,” she says. “Welcome.”

“Thanks.”

I slip inside and look around at the bare bookcases, the beige phone, the corkboard sprouting an assortment of brightly colored pushpins. I pull up the blinds and sunlight floods my wood-veneer desk and the sleek black computer. “So far so good,” I repeat in a whisper.

I pull out my roster and look at the names for my first class: Beginning Acting. Looks like an okay group. Couple of Brittanys, a Miranda, one Misty Waters (yikes), a handful of Waspy-sounding boys. Let’s see…class doesn’t start until ten-thirty. I’ve still got twenty minutes—plenty of time to figure out a lesson plan. I’ll just quickly check my e-mail, then get right to it.

TO: Claudia Bloom

FROM: Ziv Ackerman

SUBJECT: ccccclllllaaaaauuuuuddddddiiiiiaaaaa.

Oh, my God, dollface, I’m lost without you. Can’t believe stupid X (refuse to record despicable name here) forced you back to California—I blame everything on that prick. Now my apartment is barren, my outlook manic on good days, Kafkaesque otherwise. The refrigerator is so horrifyingly bachelory; none of your precious little curries or Trader Joe treats in there.

To top it off, new roomie moves in tomorrow, and he’s one hundred percent testosterone. I swear he eats boys like me for breakfast, washes us down with a swill of battery acid. He’s Transylvanian; his accent sends chills down my spine. Okay, okay, you know me too well—yes, he does look a little like Jude Law (okay, he’s a dead ringer—yum), but that doesn’t mean I’m going to put up with little hairs on the bathroom sink. It’ll either be a total nightmare or a dream come true. Any predictions, my Bloomie?

How I miss you. Tell me California’s crumbling into the sea, and you’re on your way back home to our little Texas nest. Mr. Transylvanian Jude Law is so out of here, I swear.

Ciao, my Chica,

Ziv

Ah, Ziv. A soft, weepy sigh escapes me before I can stop it. Remember how I told you about the law student I moved in with and subsequently fell for when I got to Texas? That’s Ziv. He’s very sexy in a Johnny Depp, pierced-nipple, can talk about Nabokov until three in the morning sort of way. Lucky for me, he hasn’t slept with a girl since prom night back in Chattanooga, and so we became best friends. After Jonathan moved to New York with Rain, I limped back to my old room at Ziv’s—a drafty little hovel I hadn’t lived in for years. I only stayed there about four months, but it was precisely the right place to nurse my torn heart and battered ego. Ziv can dish on enemies with an almost pathological fervor; he also doesn’t tolerate moping beyond a set statute of limitations (about four minutes). At that point he scoops you up, pours his rich, velvety espresso down your throat and then he drags you off to glamorous bars where he magically convinces the hunkiest men on the premises to flirt with you until you feel you can go on.

Staring at the screen, I feel a distinct pang of homesickness, thinking of the quirky little apartment we shared on and off during my decade in Austin. I remember the sound of the train from my window, the glass-and-marble shower, the wicked, bitter tricks he and I planned to play on Jonathan—pranks we’d never really try, but oh how we savored our plots. Once we spent two hours detailing how we’d humiliate him at the premiere of his new play: we dreamed up everything from Ex-Lax in his cocktails to announcements over the loudspeaker of his most intimate measurements. Everything about life with Ziv suddenly seems golden: the sound of his espresso machine whirring to life in the morning, his appearance on the edge of my bed, serving me delicate little eggshell-size cups full of deep, dark magic, his eyes already gleaming with the buzz from his first double of the day.

I hit Reply and let my fingers fly across the keyboard.

TO: Ziv Ackerman

FROM: Claudia Bloom

SUBJECT: Man, you don’t even know…

…how much I miss you. So far I’ve managed to incinerate X’s bus, become hopelessly entangled with a yurt-dwelling sex machine (married—help—murderous wife still attached at the hip) and am on the verge of losing my job as we speak due to hopelessly frumpy fashion funk. Ziiiiiv. Where is my life? Now am desperately trying to pull off teacher thing and have zero idea how to proceed. Please advise.

My eyes wander down the screen dreamily; when I notice the numbers there, they set off a screeching siren of alarm in my brain. Oh, my God. Ten forty-three? How? How did that—?

Happen. Jesus. Okay, breathe. Where is class? Grab roster, paper, pen (teachers always have paper and pen, right?). No—wait. Grab snazzy fake-leather binder with notepad given to self at new-faculty orientation. There. Much better. Now: bag, pencil, coffee cup, um…should have syllabus, but no one really has those on the first day, do they? Think, Claudia, think: will create effortless and convincing excuse about missing syllabus, or better yet, not mention at all and let them think this is How We Do Things in College. Lipstick? No time. Will get all over teeth. Hair poofing out in back? Hell, it is. Oh, well, just don’t turn around. Never want students looking at ass, anyway.

I sprint down the hall and turn a corner at breakneck speed. Looking for room 812…let’s see…690…692…turn another corner, still running, and whack. Sudden impact: coffee explodes, snazzy fake-leather binder propels across hall, scattering rosters in all directions. Looking up, I see a small, dark-haired woman recovering her balance, and I realize I’ve fallen flat on my ass. Get up, Claudia. Christ. I scramble to my feet and a burst of ridiculous, self-conscious laughter erupts from my throat; when I see the look on the woman’s face I ineptly disguise my nervous giggles as a coughing fit. She’s got a handkerchief out now and she’s violently jabbing at the fist-size splotch of coffee spread amoebalike across the breast of her snow-white blouse.

“I am so sorry—I didn’t even see you,” I stammer, hovering awkwardly as she continues to scowl and scrub at the stain. “Can I help? Do you need some water or something?”

“It’s not coming out—I think I’m burned.”

“Burned. Ohhh. I’m such an idiot. Listen, let me help—do you need some ice?”

“Forget it,” she says. “Just—forget it.” She stands there in her crisp, formerly perfect outfit: navy blue skirt, neutral stockings, suede pumps, freshly ironed blouse, her dark hair impeccably smooth and silky; the stain looks so out of place, it has the same childishly comic effect as a mustache drawn on a supermodel. I stifle another giggle.

She studies me for a moment. Surprise, recognition, and then—what? Irritation? Rage? They all register in her eyes in rapid succession. She strides away from me abruptly, as if it’s my face, not my coffee, that’s burned her.

Weird, I think. Well, shit, she can hardly hate me just for bumping into her, whoever she is. Hopefully she’s a traveling book rep and I’ll never see her again. I look at my watch. Aargh—10:50. I’ll be fired.

Please, please, God—I’ll never ask for anything again—just let me get through this day.

Striding into the black-box theater, I force my face into a semblance of confidence. The chattering gives way to a deafening silence, and I feel fifty eyes on me, inducing a powerful sense of vertigo.

“Hello, class. My name’s Claudia Bloom. Any questions?” Delete. Delete. You’re supposed to actually teach something before you ask for—wait. Someone’s got a hand up. Okay, here we go; this is easy. A girl sporting a wild tuft of indigo hair is looking at me with cranky indolence. “Yes?”

“Wasn’t this class supposed to start, like, half an hour ago?”

“Every day but the first day.” Twenty-five bewildered faces look at one another skeptically. “Acting is all about waiting. Timing. Patience tempered by instinct. It’s about grueling hours spent hovering between worlds. You people—you’re the ones who stuck it out. I like to know who my hard-core actors are, right from the get-go. I can really only focus on a select few.”

“Half the class left already,” a boy in overalls offers. “Some of them went to Westby’s office.”

“You see. You think they’re going to make it? Huh? If they can’t stand a measly twenty-something minutes waiting for their instructor, you think they’re going to tough it out when their agent hasn’t called in months? You think they’ll have the stamina for those long hours of nervous fidgeting when they’ve got a couple lines in act one, scene one, and they don’t have their big deathbed soliloquy until act three, scene four? If they have to go running to the dean’s office whenever things don’t go precisely as planned, you think they’ll tolerate the wild, passionate life of the thespian and all of its incumbent bull—”

“Oh, Claudia.” I spin around and Ruth Westby, the department chair, is watching me from the doorway. “You are here.”

“Yes. Of course I am,” I answer innocently.

A bony, middle-aged woman in enormous pink glasses files in with a handful of disgruntled others in tow. “Well, she wasn’t here,” the woman tells Ruth. “She must have just—”

“It’s fine, Ruth,” I say. “It’s an exercise I like to do on the first day. Nothing to worry about.”

She hesitates for a second; her dark eyes linger on my face, and I feel my stomach knotting up painfully. Then she nods and smiles pleasantly. “Happy first day, then.”

She disappears. And suddenly it’s just me. And them. With no lesson plan. The woman in pink glasses is staring me down like a babysitter who just watched her ward tell a bald-faced lie to the clueless mother. “All right, then. Let’s see. Why don’t we start by learning each other’s names?”

“Where’s the syllabus?” Pink Glasses asks.

“Syllabus?”

“Yeah. You know. Piece of paper. Says what we can expect, how to get an A, all that. Frankly, I’m just shopping around.”

“I see.” There’s an awkward moment of silence. I clear my throat. “Well, frankly, I don’t offer a syllabus until after the first week. So, as I was saying—”

“Why not?” Pink Glasses again. She reminds me of a praying mantis, folded at hard angles into the too-small chair. Her real eyebrows have been completely plucked, and she’s painted new ones into high arches above the rims of her glasses, Wicked Witch style; she would be terrifying if she weren’t so annoying.

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