Somewhere down the hallway, a door slams. At the seminar table, Gregg Akers cracks his knuckles one at a time and Jenny drags her eraser back and forth over the thesis statement she just can’t get right. My eyes drift to the windows and spot something red. Squinting, I see a balloon, its string caught on a bare branch of the maple tree. It floats in the breeze, knocking against leaves and bark. Where would a balloon even come from? I stare at it for what feels like a long time, so focused I don’t even blink.
Then Mr. Strane’s knee touches my bare thigh, right below the hemline of my skirt. With his eyes still on the poem and the tip of his pen following the lines, his knee nestles against me. I freeze, possum-dead. At the seminar table, nine heads bow in concentration. Out the window, a red balloon hangs limp from a tree limb.
At first I assume he doesn’t realize, that he thinks my leg is the desk or the side of the chair. I wait for him to recognize what he’s done, to see where his knee drifted and whisper a quick “sorry” and shift away, but his knee stays pressed into me. When I try to be polite and inch away, he moves with me.
“I think we’re very similar, Nessa,” he whispers. “I can tell from the way you write that you’re a dark romantic like me. You like dark things.”
Shielded by the desk, he reaches down and pats my knee gently, gingerly, the way you might pet a dog before you’re sure it won’t turn mean and bite you. I don’t bite him. I don’t move. I don’t even breathe. He keeps writing notes on the poem while his other hand strokes my knee and my mind slips out of me. It brushes up against the ceiling so I can see myself from above—hunched shoulders, thousand-yard stare, bright red hair.
Then class is over. He moves away from me, the spot on my knee cold where his hand has left it, and the room is all motion and sound, zippers zipping and textbooks slamming shut and laughter and words and no one knowing what took place right in front of them.
“Looking forward to the next one,” Mr. Strane says. He hands me the marked-up poem as though everything’s normal, like what he did never happened.
The nine other students pack up their things and leave the classroom to carry on with their lives, to practices and rehearsals and club meetings. I leave the room, too, but I’m not part of them. They’re the same, but I’m changed. I’m unhuman now. Untethered. While they walk across campus, earthbound and ordinary, I soar, trailing a maple-red comet tail. I’m no longer myself; I am no one. I’m a red balloon caught in the boughs of a tree. I’m nothing at all.
2017
I’m at work, staring out across the hotel lobby, when I receive a text from Ira. My body goes rigid as I watch the push alerts pile up on my phone screen, his contact still labeled DON’T DO IT from our last breakup.
How are you doing?
I’ve been thinking about you.
Would you be up for a drink?
I don’t touch the phone; I don’t want him to know I’ve seen the texts, but as I give restaurant recommendations and call in reservations, telling every guest it’s my pleasure to serve them, my absolute pleasure, a little fire kindles in my belly. Three months have passed since Ira said we needed to end it once and for all, and I’ve been good this time. No walking by his apartment building hoping to catch him outside, no calls, no texts—not even drunken ones. This, I think, is my reward for all that self-control.
After two hours, I respond, I’m ok. A drink might be nice. He replies right away: Are you working? I’m with friends eating dinner now. Could stay out and meet you after your shift. My hands tremble while I send a single thumbs-up emoji, as though I can’t be bothered to type out “sounds good.”
When I leave the hotel at eleven thirty, he’s outside leaning against the valet podium, shoulders hunched as he stares down at his phone. Immediately, I notice the changes in him, his shorter hair and trendy clothes, skinny black pants and a denim jacket with holes in the elbows. He jumps when he sees me, slips his phone into his back pocket.
“Sorry it took so long to leave,” I say. “Busy night.” I stand holding my bag in both hands, not knowing how to greet him, what’s allowed.
“It’s fine, only been here a few minutes. You look good.”
“I look the same,” I say.
“Well, you’ve always looked good.” He holds out an arm, offering a hug, but I shake my head. He’s being too nice. If he wanted to get back together, he’d be guarded and skittish like me.
“You look very . . .” I search for the right word. “Hip.” I mean it as a jab, but Ira just laughs and thanks me, his voice sincere.
We go to a new bar with distressed wood tables and metal chairs, a five-page beer menu organized by style, then country of origin, then alcohol volume. As we step inside, I scan the room, checking each head of long blond hair for Taylor Birch, though I’m not sure I’d recognize her even if she appeared right in front of me. The past couple weeks, I’ll see women on the street I’m certain are her, but every time it’s only a stranger with a face that isn’t even close.
“Vanessa?” Ira touches my shoulder, startles me as though I’ve forgotten he’s there. “You ok?”
I nod and give a thin smile, grab an empty chair.
When the server comes around and starts to rattle off recommendations, I interrupt. “This is too overwhelming. Just bring me whatever and I’ll like it.” I mean it as a joke, but it comes out harsh; Ira gives the server a look, like I’m sorry for her.
“We could have gone somewhere else,” he says to me.
“This is fine.”
“It seems like you hate it here.”
“I hate everywhere.”
The server brings the beers—some dark, wine-smelling thing in a goblet for Ira and, for me, a can of Miller Lite.
“Do you want a glass,” the server asks, “or can you manage?”
“Oh, I can manage.” I smile and point to the can, my best attempt at charming. The server just turns to the next table.
Ira gives me a long look. “Are you doing ok? Tell me the truth.”
I shrug, take a drink. “Sure.”
“I saw the Facebook post.”
With my fingernail, I flick the pull tab on the beer. Click-click-click. “What Facebook post?”
He frowns. “The one about Strane. Have you really not seen it? Last I checked, it’s been shared something like two thousand times.”
“Oh, right. That.” It’s actually up to almost three thousand shares, though the activity has died down. I take another swallow, flip through the beer menu.
Softly, Ira says, “I’ve been worrying about you.”
“You shouldn’t. I’m fine.”
“Have you talked to him since it came out?”
I smack the menu shut. “Nope.”
Ira studies me. “Really?”
“Really.”
He asks if I think Strane will be fired and I lift my shoulders between swallows. How should I know? He asks if I’ve thought about reaching out to Taylor and I don’t answer, just flick the pull tab, the click-click-click now a boing-boing-boing echo through the half-empty can.
“I know how hard this must be for you,” he says, “but it could be an opportunity, right? To make peace with it and move on.”