Red Weather

15. Red Weather

96 15 RedWeather Neva met Will when she was twenty, a student in his political science class at the university. He did not notice her. On the few occasions when she put her hand up to answer questions, he never called on her, focusing, instead, on a handful of young men who sat in the first row and clustered around the lectern when class was over. Toward the end of the term, when Will asked them to hand in topics for their term papers, Neva tried for a week to catch his eye after class, but she always stood just outside the circle of male students, who talked about capitalism in high, excited voices. Sometimes Will would nod at one of them, “Right,” and sometimes he would resume lecture mode. He was young, still a graduate student, and very tall. When he spoke, the students standing nearest to him had to crane their necks to look up into his face. So she went to his office, knocking on the glass window of his door. When he opened it, he was laughing at something one of the students on his couch had said. He did not seem to recognize her. “I’m in your poli sci class—Critiques of Capitalism?” She said it as a question. “What can I do for you?” he asked, his eyes grazing her face, her breasts and legs, her feet in their rope sandals. “I wanted to talk to you about my paper—” “Nothing like waiting till the last minute.” He cut her off. “Topics are due tomorrow.” “I tried—” she started to say, then shook her head and turned to go. He looked at his watch. “I can give you fifteen minutes. Just a minute.” He closed the door. She heard more laughter and then the door opened and the two students from her class spilled out. They didn’t seem to notice her, even when one of them brushed against her as they headed down the hall. Will held the door open and gestured to a chair under the window. 97 There were mice where Will lived. Neva heard them in the walls when she slept over. She couldn’t actually sleep. She didn’t know how anyone did it, curl up next to a stranger and sleep, fall into that other world. Sex was different. She could hold back, contain her pleasure. Some nights he was impatient, so it didn’t matter. Will slept with his back to her, his legs crossed, the feet knotted together. He bunched the pillow into a hard knot under his head, and lay in a straight column on the far side of the bed. Neva could spread out her arms, turn over, curl up as much as she wanted. But she did not sleep. She had his full attention. For a month they spent most nights together , except Thursdays when he had his seminar and sometimes when he would call to say he was working too late to see her. Each time he said he would miss her . . . but. He would miss her but. The words trailed off, and Neva said, I have some work to do, anyway. The right response, she thought, to keep him close. She never called, though, to say she had to work late. Or that she was going out after her seminar. Yet she didn’t mind those nights. When she was around Will, she watched herself carefully, terrified of saying something foolish, asking questions instead of making statements. She wanted to win him. She didn’t want to do anything to drive him away. But the nights they weren’t together were a relief. She could lie in her bed and read. Her roommate subscribed to Glamour. She could lie in the bed and turn the pages, thinking about lipstick, the new pink shades, or cowl-necked sweaters. Will had been dismissive of her during that first meeting; she didn’t know when she caught his eye. When she picked up her paper, after the semester was over, he had made only a few comments and given her a B+, adding “Almost an A-.” But none of his comments suggested what she might have done for that A-. When she asked about the grade, he said, “If you want an A that bad, I can give you one. You didn’t strike me as that kind of student.” Neva was puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “What...