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Sometimes the universe tests you the most when you're close to a new chapter.
~ Uknown
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Paying close attention to my hand-drawn map, I step off the T and begin making my way past the Graduate building of Arts and Sciences while sliding the apple I'd bought prior to hopping on the train into my messenger bag. I try not to look around too much to appear like I know where the hell I am going, but lets be honest... Just like any new kid at school, I'm too tempted to look around and take in the massive structure that is the Tsai Performance Center.
As I stare up at the beautiful building towering above me I am transported back to two years prior when I performed a pas de deux with Casen as part of a benefit Gala here. The Gala was for one of our fellow dancers who'd been injured in a car accident and who's dance career had be subsequently ended. I visualize Casen leaning against the grainy stone smoking a cigarette and smiling down at me while I chow down on a bagel and guzzle a coffee. I'm laughing at something he's saying, which is no surprise. At that point in our friendship, I was sort of considering whether we should take things further. Though my momentary lapse in judgement was quickly righted at the after party that evening when he left with not one, but two, of our co-workers. I quickly learned he preferred his women in multiples and seeing as I didn't have a second head, we weren't going to happen. Two weeks later he moved into mine and Emma's new apartment to fill the spare room.
I shake my head and blink causing the visual to evaporate on the wind. Right. I'm on a mission: Get to the English Department in one piece and without sticking out like a sore thumb. I look at my hand drawn map again before quickly shoving it into my skirt pocket: go straight, turn to the left and it's third building over. As I walk, my mind wanders again and I berate myself for my silly map. I wouldn't have cared so much about knowing the ends and outs if it was fall because there would be a multitude of new students on campus, but seeing as it was January and most other students had time to get used to the campus I felt like the odd woman out.
I transferred to Boston University last year after taking night classes at a community college for a year and a half. I'd deferred for the first half of the year when I was given more roles than I could handle in the middle of my sixth season with the ballet company. I had high hopes at the time of finally getting the promotion I knew I deserved and possibly even some more prominent roles, but after a fall out with our Director during Nutcracker I called and spoke to an Advisor and convinced them to let me attend spring term at BU. Promptly resigning from my position with BSB.
While lost in my thoughts I bump into someone, sending loose papers and books tumbling to the ground. I wince as one lands on my foot.
"Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry," comes a panicked voice. " I wasn't paying attention at all. Oh, my... shit." A petite girl with auburn hair tucked into a neat bun scrambles to tack down all of her papers without meeting my eyes. She manages quite skillfully considering she's wearing a gray pencil skirt with red heels and a loose blouse that's tucked in... or was tucked until she reached to grab a paper that threatened to escape.
"No, no, it was equally my fault. I wasn't paying attention either," I explain while stepping on a stack of loose papers to keep them from flying. I quickly gather them up along with a book on romantic literature and straighten to my full height. She blinks up at me as she stands.
"Here," I offer the papers and book to her and give her an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that."
She takes the papers and shoves them into multiple folders. Then grabs the book while still eyeing me. I suddenly realized I have no friends here and an opportunity to make one just fell in my lap, quite literatelly.
"I'm Ali," I offer my hand. The girl looks up and her dark ocean blue eyes meet my brown ones as she cautiously gives me the once over. When she finally concedes I won't bite, she replies.
"Fai," She sticks out her hand and smiles, "Fai Hathaway".
I look up and noticed I was about to walk past the English department and turn back to Fai, "Do you need any help?" I point to the books she's holding.
She peers at the building, then at her full arms and lastly back to me, "Well, if you wouldn't mind?"
I smile, "Not at all." I quickly take three books from her arms, and she sighs in relief. We ascend the steps to the building, passing through students who are entering and exiting; As I continually chant the lecture hall number in my head for my class so I don't forget it.
"Are you an English major?" I ask Fai who would be looking at her feet if she could see them. I didn't quite understand why she was so shy, she was quite beautiful and fashionably dressed. Perhaps she's just shy upon initially meeting people or maybe she was just worried about falling in her fashionista heels with her arms full. I decide it must be the latter.
"Yes, second year, you?" She looks over flashing me a confident smile. Definitely the latter.
"Same," I say, "Though it's my first semester at BU." That sounded a little more self assured than it felt. Maybe all that time talking to the mirror worked. Well, talking to myself...
"Oh, Cool." She says holding the door open with her foot and nodding her head for me to go first.
Once inside I look down the hall, taking in my surroundings. Students make their way to classrooms along the corridor, most with their heads down typing away on cell phones. Technology does wonders for the wanna-be-invisible. No need to worry about that anymore.
"Second floor," Fai says making her way towards the staircase and I follow.
"Are you from Boston originally?" She asks and it's obvious why; I don't have a Bostonian accent.
"No, San Francisco." I smile at her as we reach the second floor, "You?"
"Born and Raised," She flashes me a proud smile that I can't blame her for, Boston's an amazing city.
She walks into a room halfway down the hall and I follow. Sitting down the two books she still has and taking the three I have to place them on top.
"There," She sighs, looking content that they've made their way back to where they belong, and honestly, happy to be rid of them. Then she turns to me, "What class are you heading to?"
"English 220," I reply as I mosey back out the door. It's a basic level class, but I'd changed my mind on the direction I wanted to go with my degree so I have a few classes to get caught up on. She follows and closes the door behind her before we head back towards the stairs.
"First floor, lecture hall three, I can show you." She tucks in her blouse and straightens her skirt as we head back the way we came. As we make our way down the stairs two boys pass us and say hello. I giggle when Fai greets them as "Gentlemen".
It's college for God sakes. There cannot possibly be any real gentlemen here.
Right?
Minutes later we walked into Lecture hall three. Fai smiles at me in a welcoming way before waltzing towards the front. While I can appreciate her go get 'em attitude, I'm not much for the spray zone so I take a seat more towards the middle hoping I'll blend in better as other students begin to filter in and claim their seats.
Once seated I shuffle through my messenger bag and pull out my English book along with my apple and set it on the corner of my desk. I don't plan to eat it in class, but I don't want it to get bruised in my bag.
"D! No way! We get you in our class again this semester? Right on!" A skater type boy says enthusiastically as a spunky redhead enters the room wearing skinny jeans with a beautiful cream knit sweater and black High-heeled, knee-high boots.
She flashes the boy a flirtatious smile and bats her thick eyelashes, "Of course, did you think I'd leave you hanging?" Then she gives him a high five before her hazel colored gaze lands on me. I turn around, not wanting to be rude.
"Anyone sitting here?" Her voice chimes a moment later.
I peer up to find her standing by the chair beside mine and realize she's a little older than I assumed. She doesn't quite have the fresh baby face most younger college students always seem to have and looks like maybe she's closer to her mid-twenties, like me.
"No." I shake my head and motion for her to sit.
"Awesome, I'm Deanne," She says, plunking her bag on the chair and holding out her hand.
"Ali," I say taking her hand. Her shake is rather stern and authoritative and I give her a tentative smile.
"Be right back." She say's holding up a pear. I watch curiously as she chassés up to the front of the room and places the pear on the podium before turning and walking away. She is greeted by a few other students and it's obvious she's quite popular. Why on earth she chose to sit by me is beyond my comprehension.
I turn back to my messenger bag and take out my notepad and pen, placing them on top of my Lit book. I'm sitting in Professor Melanie Gunther's classroom. Ready to learn my fill of literary and critical analysis of historical events and imagination through poetry, fiction and film. I have prepared as much as possible and even gone so far as to read up on Professor Gunther's biography so I'd know what piques her interest to possibly stay on her good side.
Deanne slides back into the seat beside me. "This should be interesting," She mumbles.
"What should be interesting?" I ask only mildly interested as I watch more students enter the classroom and take their seats. People actually put an effort into their appearance this morning with it being the first day of the semester, I'll be interested to see how long it lasts.
"The new professor vs. the female population." Deanne giggles.
"New professor?" I ask. She now has my full attention. According to Mrs. Gunther's biography, she's been at BU for eight years.
Deanne turns towards me and raises an eyebrow, "You didn't check your email this morning, did you?"
I thought back to this morning and quickly ran through my morning routine. I wasn't used to that being a part of my typical routine and it hadn't exactly been on my to-do list I made last night so no, no I didn't. I pull out my iPhone and frown when I see my emails haven't automatically updated.
"Forget it," Deanne says and I can sense the smile in her voice, "Let me just fill you in."
I look up at her feeling completely out of my element and not so prepared. This is really going to screw up my day, I can sense it.
"You're new here, aren't you?" Well, clearly I was not fooling one Ms Deanne fierce-y-red-head.
"Yeah," I feel the blood rush to my face.
"No problem." She winks and continues nonchalantly, "So there's this Historical and Romanticism Professor that guest lectures here every so often and he recently came on as full time staff. Anyhow, Professor Gunther had to take a medical leave last minute so he will be the professor for this class now and he's quite dreamy. All of the girls go a little, well, psycho over him quite frankly." Her eyes widen as she finishes.
I just cock an eyebrow at her. A Handsome professor? Yeah, right. They are all at least 50 and perpetually gray from immature students causing them to age prematurely. Or so I thought... And not that there's anything wrong with being gray. I'm sure at some point in my life I'll appreciate a silver fox, but I don't think I'm there yet. Then again, Mcsteamy IS quite the looker.
"Shame, I was looking forward to having Professor Gunther." I state looking forward as a door opens to the front of the room. To be honest, I'm more concerned about the fact that I don't feel prepared for this class anymore and not being prepared tends to give me anxiety and anxiety tends to lead to panic attacks.
Deanne chuckles, "Oh, you just wait.. you'll forget about that in about five seconds..."
I try to grin enthusiastically as my stomach turns queasy.
Within milliseconds my world slows to a crawl as a figure appears in the doorway and walks through the frame out into the light. The synapses in my brain seem to start cracking out loud and star-burst of light make their way into the edges of my vision.
The man standing before the room is entirely sure of himself with a defined air of authority about him, standing to his full height which I'm positive is 6 ' 4. He's wearing what appear to be a pair of dark brown Bruno Magli loafers, which I only know because my cousin regularly wears a similar pair. His sandstone colored dress pants are perfectly tailored to his medium build and his cream cashmere cardigan hugs the white button up dress shirt underneath just enough to still show off his toned arms and chest. His skin is flawless and his hair is most definitely not perpetually gray. He appears to be in his mid-thirties and his dark chestnut locks are clean cut, yet disheveled in that cool kind of way as his piercing blue eyes scan the room taking in the shocked faces (or what I assume are shocked faces considering the new found silence is deafening).
His deep voice glides like pure silk over the class as he speaks, "Good morning class, this is English 220 The Historical Imagination. And before you ask, no I am clearly not Mrs. Melanie Gunther. I'm Professor Henry Davenport and I will be taking over Professor Gunther's class and lectures for the foreseeable future. Any questions?"
The one thing that continually runs through my head as his voice rings in my ears and his figure goes fuzzy around the edges is, this isn't possible.
As I reach to grasp the edges of my desk my fingertips hit something and all too late my brain registers that it was my apple that has now tumbled off knocking the seat in front of me loudly before thudding to the floor.
I freeze utterly petrified as 30 sets of eyes turn to look at me, Including the caribbean blue ones that have sent my brain hay-wire and not because of his Greek god-like stature and looks, but because this is not the first time I've ever laid eyes on Mr. Henry Davenport.
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End of chapter song:
Stolen Roses by Karen Elson