Sweet relief washed over me, and I had to stop. I caught Clarity's arm again. She swung back to face me, and I took a deep breath. I needed to tell her the truth about Libby. I needed her to know there was a difference between the drunken, foolhardy mistake I had made as an angry first-year professor, and the moment we had just shared.
Clarity stamped her heel against the sidewalk. "I can't stand when people are hypocrites. For a second there, I thought Libby was going to pretend that everyone on campus hasn't heard the rumors about her."
"What rumors?" I choked.
"She seduced some poor sap of a professor when she was a freshman, then bragged all around campus that they were in love. No one ever saw her imaginary boyfriend. No one believes it was anything more than her trying to prove her worth through sex." Clarity spun and walked towards her father's house.
"Don't you feel bad for her?" I asked.
Clarity shook her head. "I feel bad for the professor dumb enough to fall for her cheap seduction. That's where the honor code is important. It's supposed to stop less discerning people from making stupid mistakes."
I reached out but let her keep walking. I had held on to my shame for two years, but I had never gotten angry at myself until that moment. Sure, I was stinging from being discredited as a journalist, and I was self-medicating my frustration with too much alcohol, but I had never heard it wrapped up so succinctly. I had been stupid and fallen for something cheap and meaningless.
Clarity slowed and our steps fell into sync. "You don't think I'm stupid and undiscerning, do you?" she asked.
My head was reeling. "I think you're probably a lot smarter than me." It was on the tip of my tongue to confess my terrible mistake, but her sweet smile made me swallow hard. "And I think you shouldn't compromise any of that ever again."
She nodded and looked down to shuffle her feet. "I know. It won't happen again. I understand that I'm just your student and there won't be anything more between us. Besides," she brushed a hand over her nose and sniffed, "the women you date are probably a lot more interesting than me."
I shook my head. "Clarity, I'm not seeing anyone right now. I know men are supposed to juggle half a dozen women a week, but that's not me."
"This isn't me, either. I don't go around lying to security guards and kissing people under campus trees. Can we just blame it on the full moon and forget about it?"
She was right. I couldn't burden her with my confession about Libby. Clarity didn't deserve to have me heaping any more of my problems on her. I needed to reign myself in, get myself under control, like I should have been from the first moment I realized who she was.
It felt good to put myself back on the right path, but as we walked up the front steps and stood on the porch of her father's house, I felt a dull ache. Of course the only woman who made me laugh, made me forget myself for long wonderful moments, had to be completely off-limits.
She handed me back my tuxedo jacket and gave me a brave smile. "Goodnight, Professor Bauer."
"Goodnight," I said. I walked down the steps and felt like I was falling. Clarity could never know how I felt about her, and that realization was a painful, gaping void in my heart.
Chapter Nine
Clarity
Nine was an awkward number to fit around our long, oak dining room table. After shifting each plate setting three times, I settled on my father at the head of the table and four people on either side.
"Where are you going to sit?" he asked, peeking in the door from the kitchen.
"On your right hand side. Don't worry, we won't mistake you for any form of royalty," I joked.
"People are more likely to mistake me for the maid in this apron," my father responded. "Oh, hold on, that's my oven timer!"
He rushed back into the kitchen. I chuckled and walked around the long table again, polishing wine glasses with a white towel. The center of the table was scattered with dried, pressed leaves in deep autumn colors. Cream-colored taper candles waited in silver candleholders, and brass trivets waited for the bowls and platters of our Thanksgiving feast.
I had even broken down and put up the silly decals my father had purchased for our windows. I skipped the goofy, smiling turkeys and artfully arranged the stick-on acorns, gourds, and leaves. I looked around with satisfaction; everything looked great.
More than the decorations, the house was filled with the sounds and smells of cooking. My father had gotten up early in the morning to wrestle the giant turkey into the oven. I heard him whistling as I walked into the steamy kitchen.
"Dad! What are you trying to do, kill yourself?" I ran around the kitchen island and pulled a wooden spoon from his hand.
My father stood next to the oven and laughed. "I can mash potatoes with my left hand. It doesn't necessitate a lot of finesse."
"Then I can handle mashing the potatoes while you finish basting the
turkey. You don't need to be trying to do both at the same time." I traded out the wooden spoon for our silver masher and put the heavy crockery bowl on the lower kitchen table.
"Make sure you add plenty of butter and milk and maybe a little garlic," my dad reminded me.