The Legend of Nice Women

In Paula’s first class of fall semester, a teenager slouched in the front row and fiddled with his iPhone. When he raised his eyes to the clock on the wall, she noticed the angle of his nose was like Evan’s, with the bump where it met the forehead, his complexion fair too. But his lips were narrow and his cheeks round. He was not her old lover, she knew that, and her heart stopped lurching. Evan was her age, sixty. Still, Evan’s genes and features, his cousins, actual and imagined, lived here and there in the world.

The boy stooped to pick up his pencil from the floor and asked, “Is there extra credit?”

“No.” She smiled and pointed to the syllabus. She explained, again, that there was no extra credit, but that their two lowest test scores would be dropped.

She continued to lecture on the voyage of the Argo, the escape of Icarus and Daedalus, the flight of Perseus on winged Pegasus and his catching sight of Andromeda chained to the cliff. She was teaching students about odysseys, successful and failed. In sunny climes and fair weather; in Poseidon-prompted storms and under Zeus-driven thunderbolts; through thwartings, blockades, famines; past many-headed monsters, bone-covered cliffs, hideous whirlpools.

Outside the tall windows of the classroom, cars were squeezing into parking spaces; life continued. She had received an email that morning from Evan’s sister, who felt Paula should know—Evan died of cancer last week in Bosnia.

He was happily married, his sister had written, and his children grown up.

When Paula finished the class, and the other students had filed out, the boy came up to her and said, “It’s just that in my ethnic studies and philosophy classes, teachers give extra credit, and I wanted to make sure in this class.” He slid his arm into the wrong sleeve of his jacket, pulled it out, and tried again.

“Of course,” she said in a noncommittal way. He really was not Evan. Evan of the sweet mouth, sweet words, sweet soul. “I completely understand. You’re right to check.”

The boy smiled and loped away carefree, as if she had given him a present.

________

She remembered the times she and Evan made love, remembered stretching on her bed beside him in December thirty years earlier. “I woke up this morning thinking it was eight, but it was only six. More sleep.” She yawned and traced a star on his shoulder. “All the snow made it seem light. The albedo effect.”

He nuzzled her neck and murmured, “I love it when you talk libido.”

She sat straight up. “I have to submit my forms to the Graduate School today. Yuck.”

“We still have time before you go.” His head lay on the pillow, hair tousled, forehead smooth, a sheen on his upper lip.

God, she loved being in graduate school, discussing Shakespeare, making love with Evan Jordan Kovanich. Evan, Evan, Evan. He of the rumbling low voice and high ethics. She moved her finger across his arched forehead, his beautiful forehead, the bump on his nose, the eye sockets, and down his cheek. She kissed his earlobe. “Here we are, warm in our bed, with the snow soft and fluffy outside.”

“Slippery and dangerous.” He drew the blanket higher up to his eyes and spoke in a child’s voice. “And all the wild animals out there. Dwagons!”

“No dragons, only unicorns.”

He shook his head.

She pursed her lips and rose to the challenge of elaboration. “Unicorns with beautiful manes and beautiful voices.”

“I never heard about their voices.”

“It makes sense that such beautiful creatures would sing beautifully.”

“Now they’re singers?”

“Opera. Italian opera. Verdi.” She ran her finger along his jaw. “Don’t laugh at me,” she said.

Desmond jumped on her bed and meowed. He nuzzled Evan’s hand. Evan petted him, and Desmond sprang on her foot, tagged it, and leaped off the bed. Evan turned to her and kissed her on the lips. She expected the two of them to be together until the...