“Maybe I’m too influenced by movies.”
I nibbled delicately at my spinach torta, smarting a little from the bread comment.
“You’ve proved yourself a hundred ways, Ross. Not everybody who went to sea could have learned the things you’ve learned. Not by far. It’s not nothing.”
Ross smiled at me. He was so sweet and appealing. Why, I asked myself, not for the first time, had I never fallen for Ross?
“So, you probably think I’m just looking for something to worry about.”
“That’s incorrect, Ross,” I said. “I don’t think probably. I most definitely think you’re just looking for something to worry about.”
I thought of something then that the war journalist Sebastian Junger had said, basically reinforcing what Ross was worried about. I didn’t know which of his books he was referencing but he told a reporter, “You know, it’s said you’re not a man until you’ve done something really difficult. And war is very difficult.” He said that going to war gives young males a chance to find a peer group and purpose to their lives. That’s important in a society where a lot of young men don’t have either. He also told an interviewer something like that ours was the first culture in history to “actively discourage an intelligent conversation about what manhood should require of men.”
It was all enlightening and well reasoned. It was all, also, all about men.
“It was Johnson,” I told Ross now, as it had just occurred to me, “who said that about war and the sea.”
“Somebody from Wisconsin? The people who make the baby lotion?” I stared at him. “Reenie, you are so easy! I know who you mean. I know who Samuel Johnson was. I do have two brain cells to rub together.” He added, “I also know that it’s fucked up for me to worry because I’m not fucked up. Maybe it’s the tank I’m swimming in. Maybe I think that I’d be more able to understand fucked-up people if I were similarly fucked.”
“And who says that first-world problems are silly?” I said. “Come on. Let’s talk about Felicity now so I can have the excuse to have two tiramisus.”
As Ross talked, I got a clearer picture of how the bomb was going off with the news about Felicity. After all, it involved not only faculty but a former student: one of the victims, Cary Church, was an economics professor.
Ross said that before he went further, he wasn’t sure that he wanted his name used in the article, not at all sure about his knowledge of the reactions of faculty members and maybe even if he was only to speak in general terms about personality change—which was one of the subjects we were going to discuss, given that the Felicity we knew, or thought we knew, didn’t seem to fit the accustomed demographic either for a woman who sold sex or a woman who did murder.
“So,” I said, “you’re going to be an expert on something and publish papers on that something and you want to be anonymous talking about it here? Maybe this is your sea voyage, Ross.”
“Well, that’s pretty manipulative, Reenie!”
“I have my own special talents.”
“But I do have some other information too,” he said, studying the remains of his entrée. “We should finish up here and go back to the inn.” For an instant, I thought he might be making a pass at me, but he was simply worried that we might be overheard here, also. As he settled the bill, Ross gamely put away most of my neglected Caesar salad and all but one bite of my tiramisu. Finally, I chided him that this was not really a social event—not that we shouldn’t have a social event, I hastened to add.
Back we went to the bed-and-breakfast inn where he was staying. I didn’t have to ask why he wasn’t at his parents’ in Sheboygan. He didn’t feel comfortable in the parlor so we went up to his room. It was comfortable and clean and spacious, with itsown little seating area, very girlie, like an explosion in a gingham factory (I pictured Ivy’s grimace). There was a gorgeous unobstructed view of Lake Michigan. I’d heard that the breakfasts were spectacular, and the proprietor had offered to let me join Ross in the morning, one more reason that I might never again fit into a size six. Or a size eight.
Once we were settled, Ross said, “People are afraid of being, well, outed.”
Why would Felicity talk about these guys? I wondered; that made no sense. But Ross meant “outed” by their association with her in connection with the murders. “She had a fair number of... of dates who were faculty or staff. High-profile people. Cary Church was a respected guy. When other instructors found out he was dead, some people literally canceled their classes...”
“Imagine that! And just because their colleague was murdered!”
“Come on, Reenie. When you hear that the bridge you drive over every day collapsed, the second thing you think is, oh, those poor people.” He got up and paced a bit, then took out two bottles of Pellegrino from the room’s minifridge, which held no wine, no ginger ale, only fizzy water and an unopened carton of cream, presumably for coffee and tea. Not exactly generous at the price they charged! “They thought, sure, that could have been me. The talk was that this woman was a businesswoman. She might have a heart of glass, but she was dynamite... I shouldn’t say this.” Russ peered through his water bottle.
“You can say it. This part can be off the record.”
“It sounds disrespectful to women.”
“It’s not the sexual rating that bothers me. She was never icy,” I said.
“You knew her in a different context. Maybe she changed. I mean, clearly, she changed if she did this.”
“It could be a misunderstanding.”
“It’s probably not. I only know this from criminal psychology, but if they charge you, there’s usually a good reason.”
That was just what my mother had said.
“Ross, you said she might have changed. You’re an expert on this...”
