But the nice man at the wine store recommended this Italian merlot, and though she wasn’t a fan of trusting people without doing her own research, she had to acknowledge that this time, she simply was not an expert. Nor could she become one between the time Nobells invited her and now. So she swiped her credit card and hoped for the best. She didn’t love wine or any alcohol to begin with. It made her lightheaded too quickly and sometimes it flared up her rosacea, though that was unpredictable at best. If Cleo liked anything in life, it was to be in control, so whether it be wine or a skin condition, she did whatever she could to mitigate unpredictability. (The irony of her unplanned pregnancy was not lost on her. Maybe a therapist would tell her that part of her skipped the condom intentionally, so she had something, someone to call her own. Cleo wasn’t sure. Georgie probably had some thoughts too, but Cleo wasn’t interested in asking.)
His building was fancier than she expected, though she didn’t know why. Maybe it was his low-key professor vibe, which quelled his smarmier, flashier law-partner vibe. The doorman called up and announced her; then she was shown the elevator, and then Professor Nobells was opening the door to his rambling three-bedroom. He had books stacked upon books and a bunch of oil paintings that looked expensive. Cleo hadn’t taken Art History at Northwestern, but these paintings, in gilded frames and highlighted with overhead lights, reeked of wealth, and Cleo felt a little bit over her head. After retiring from the ballet, Cleo’s mom had painted for the love of it, to keep that part of her alive; though she had a following in Seattle, it wasn’t as if her works were commissioned by MoMA, and Cleo had never paid close enough attention to differentiate what set good art apart from great art. Georgie had taken most of her mom’s paintings when she, Cleo, and their grandmother packed up the house; Cleo had a few in a closet wrapped in Bubble Wrap.
“I brought wine,” she said, and she was already embarrassed. This wasn’t a date, for God’s sake! He was her teacher, and he was married with two children a little bit older than Lucas! “I didn’t know if you and your wife drink red, but here you are.”
The apartment smelled like butter and chicken and rosemary, and though Cleo didn’t wish for a man to cook for her in perpetuity, she was glad that for tonight, one had. She wondered what his wife was like, if she was as beautiful as he was, if she was as intelligent. She thought, despite her mildly palpable crush on Professor Nobells, that she could learn from both of them. How to negotiate a mortgage on a three-bedroom on the Upper West Side, how to cook a perfect chicken, how to raise kids in a world where it seemed like, soon enough, big tech would be able to implant chips in their brains.
Nobells ushered her into the kitchen, his hand on the small of her back.
“Oh, my wife, Amy, she’s away with the kids. Florida.” He pulled an apron over his head in one swift motion. “I’m sorry. Maybe I should have told you when I proposed this?”
Cleo felt blood rise to her cheeks, and she worried that he could see straight through her naivete. That she had quickly debated that this might be romantic, dismissed the idea as preposterous, only to discover that maybe it was. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that: it was one thing to stare at your professor from the third row while he lectured. It was another to be invited into his home under the guise of wise counsel and realize that he actually wanted to woo you.
Cleo reminded herself that he was married. And she wasn’t reckless. But he had gripped her shoulder outside of class and run his hand down her arm and palmed the small of her back just a minute ago, which sent an electric pulse up her spine.
Nobells uncorked the wine and reached for two crystal wineglasses he had at the ready. He poured them generous fills and then raised his glass, so Cleo followed, her head still spinning, her brain trying to keep up, her heart racing so quickly that it felt like it might explode inside her chest cavity. She wondered if he would say something suggestive, something even mildly romantic. She hoped not, not because she didn’t every once in a while fantasize about him kissing her from her seat in the third row, but because she knew this wasn’t how she wanted to be seen. Cleo McDougal was a serious person, a serious student, and she wanted to be treated as such. (She thought. Mostly.)
“To hoping my chicken is as good as I promised.” He grinned.
And she grinned too. “I can drink to that.”
They clinked their glasses, and then they did.
It wasn’t until years later, when Cleo had extricated herself from the messiness of the affair, that she had seen it for what it was. She had written it on her list, yes, but that was just the regret. The pain, the secrets, the shame, all of it. They had been careful. Meticulous. Because it was in both of their natures. Amy hadn’t ever caught them, and if she suspected anything, Cleo never heard.
Back then, she had blamed herself as much as she had blamed him. She could have left that night. She could have turned him down. She hadn’t gone there seeking anything physical, but she hadn’t gotten up and left when his motives became clear.
Even now, she understood that there was still plenty of blame to go around. She wasn’t one to shirk that. Never had been. But years later, her perspective had shifted. That it was never an equal decision, that he was her professor, that he was the one with the power and the advice and the recommendations, and though, yes, she was a consenting adult, what they both did was wrong. But what he did was more wrong. He knew she wanted a full-time position at his firm; he knew her grades were in his hands; he knew that by initiating the affair, he left Cleo with few good options. To spurn him in that moment in his kitchen meant she risked all of the above; to spurn him down the line meant the same. Cleo knew, in hindsight, that she probably should never have gone there in the first place, to that dinner, eaten his chicken, toasted with her wine. But like so many regrets, once you’d set those actions in motion, they felt impossible to undo.
Certainly back then, Nobells, once it started, seemed impossible to undo. And even now too.
Cleo stood and clasped her hands together, stretching her shoulders and rolling her neck. She had lost track of time, and her whole body, not just her head, ached with a dull throb. She reached into her bag, pulled out the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and splayed it on her desk.
MaryAnne’s ad had been an echo of her op-ed. A large-font headline about Cleo’s marred character, some lines about her ethics and her judgment and how she was a cheater. How cheaters shouldn’t run our government, how cheaters shouldn’t be our collective moral voice. (Cleo knew that MaryAnne walked it right up to the slander line, probably consulted with lawyers, probably could back it up with facts. MaryAnne was smart enough not to risk a lawsuit, and so was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.) Cleo ran her fingers over all the cheaters, then pressed her palms against the paper, its grit chalky on her fingertips.
The plan came together in her mind quickly, and she moved ahead, without consulting Gaby, without second-guessing herself. These were usually her best decisions—the ones that came from her gut. She knew this next step, hell, this next regret—undoing what she thought to be impossible—had to be big, to be a real reckoning, and she knew exactly the person who could help her.
She sat in her chair and cracked her knuckles. Grabbed her phone.
Cleo: Going to New York this weekend for something kind of top secret. Want to tag along? No questions until I say so.