I was too shell-shocked to respond.
Fortunately, Frederick seemed to recover his wits faster than I did. Or maybe he had never lost them in the first place. Though he didn’t correct her, either.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice strained. His eyes never left my face. “Cassie likes this shirt. I will take one in every color.”
TWELVE
Letter from Mr. Frederick J. Fitzwilliam to Miss Esmeralda Jameson, dated November 7
Dear Esmeralda,
I am in receipt of your most recent correspondence. As a rule, I am loath to repeat myself, as doing so is generally a waste of time. However, your latest missive shows me I have no choice.
As I have said multiple times before, to both you and my mother: I do not believe a marriage in which one partner is an unwilling participant would be a happy one. Additionally, since my last letter to you, I have developed feelings for someone else. I doubt anything will come of them for a variety of reasons I will not bore you with. Either way, you deserve far more than marriage to a man who pines for someone else. I will not sentence you to a life of that kind of misery.
It has been over one hundred years since we last spoke in person, but I remember you not only as a reasonable woman but also as an admirably independent one. You cannot possibly want an arranged marriage to a man who doesn’t love you. Please help me convince our parents this plot of theirs is the mother of all bad ideas.
With kind regards,
Frederick J. Fitzwilliam
ART TEACHER WANTED FOR UPPER SCHOOL—HARMONY ACADEMY
Harmony Academy, a K–12 coeducational private school located in Evanston, Illinois, dedicated to fostering moral integrity, intellectual vitality, and compassion among our diverse student body, seeks an art teacher for its Upper School. Position to begin in the fall semester. Qualified applicants will have a BA in an art discipline from an accredited university, 1–3 years of experience teaching fine arts in an educational setting, and excellent references. MFA strongly preferred. Working artists are especially encouraged to apply.
The ideal candidate will, through their professional history and art portfolio, demonstrate sincere commitment to Harmony Academy’s above-stated values. For consideration, please email your CV, cover letter, and portfolio to Cressida Marks, Harmony Academy Head of School.
I stared at the Harmony Academy job description, trying to decide what to do with it.
Ordinarily, I would just delete it—the way I deleted all emails from my alma mater’s career office. A one hundred percent rejection rate from all Younker-referred jobs I’d applied for my first two years post-MFA had taught me that continuing to beat my head against that particular wall wasn’t worth my time.
But I was feeling good. I’d spent most of the day in the studio working on my project for the art exhibition. It was exciting how quickly it started coming together once I realized the found object materials needed for it were wrinkled cellophane and Christmas-colored tinsel glued together with epoxy. The piece’s working title was Manor House on a Lake, and though I was seldom satisfied with my oil paintings I felt this project represented some of the best work I’d done in years. The cellophane-and-tinsel mixture emerging from the canvas made the water look like a three-dimensional neon-colored fever dream—and in a good way.
Overall, I thought Manor House on a Lake—by marrying traditional paints and modern synthetic materials—was at once classic and postmodern. It was the perfect subversion of the exhibition’s Contemporary Society theme.
It had been a while since I could truthfully say I liked what I was creating.
So, yes. In general, I was feeling optimistic.
Optimistic enough that I decided I might as well apply for this Harmony Academy job. I couldn’t see a downside. The worst thing that could happen would be I wouldn’t get the job—but I was basically a professional at not getting jobs. Given everything else that was happening, that near-constant voice in the back of my head that told me I was doomed to fail was easier than usual to ignore.
A good old-fashioned rejection letter might be just the thing to get me to stop ruminating on what had happened with Frederick at Nordstrom the other day. To stop thinking about the feel of his solid, broad chest beneath my fingertips. To stop reliving his raveling composure as I touched him.
Yeah. Maybe applying to Harmony Academy was exactly what I needed.
Determined, I pulled up the last cover letter I’d written for a teaching position and gave it a quick once-over. My job situation hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d applied to a job like this one, so updating it took less than ten minutes.
Before I could talk myself out of doing it, I emailed the cover letter, my CV, and photographs of several recent projects—including an in-progress shot of Manor House on a Lake—to Cressida Marks, Harmony Academy’s head of school.
There. Done.
With that out of the way, hopefully I’d be able to dedicate the rest of the evening to drawing and mindless television.
I leaned back against the black leather couch, where my sketchpad rested beside me. Before finding out about the Harmony Academy job I’d been half watching an old Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode on Frederick’s new flatscreen television, letting it play in the background as I drew. I’d seen this episode already—in the days since finding out Frederick was a vampire, I’d binged most of the first two seasons—but it was comfortable background noise, helping me focus as I thought through some final fiddly details to Manor House.
“May I join you?”
I startled at the sound of Frederick’s deep voice, accidentally jostling my notepad off the couch with my knee. It fell with a loud rustling of pages, landing upside down on the floor.
I hadn’t even heard him enter the room.
In fact, before now, I hadn’t seen him at all since our shopping trip a couple days earlier. Part of me suspected he’d been intentionally keeping his distance after that moment we’d shared outside the dressing room. But I couldn’t let myself think about that. I wasn’t ready to admit to myself that I had enjoyed touching him as much as I did.
Or that it had even happened at all.
He was looking directly at me with a laser-sharp gaze, wearing one of the sweaters we’d picked out at Nordstrom. The pale green pullover perfectly accentuated his broad chest, and the dark-wash jeans fit him just as well.
I swallowed and fumbled for my notepad, willing my suddenly racing heart to slow. Could he hear my heart beating? The way his eyes flicked down to my chest before quickly shifting back up to my face made me wonder.
“Of course you can join me,” I mumbled to the floor. I motioned to the spot next to me on the couch without looking at him.