Barefoot: A Novel

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At quarter to twelve, Feed Your Head was packed. Packed! Brenda realized how removed she had been from the student body of Champion University. She knew twelve students out of six thousand. She’d been teaching for nearly an entire school year and she’d never once eaten on campus. And no wonder. She paid twelve- fifty for a soggy tuna sub, fruit salad, and a bottle of water. She wandered past a bunch of girl-women watching a soap opera as she searched for Suzanne Atela. It took a few minutes to find her because Brenda was, of course, looking for a woman alone. Dr. Atela was not alone, however. She was sitting at a table with Bil Franklin and Amrita.

Brenda nearly turned and ran—it would have been easy to get lost in the crowd—but Amrita saw her and frowned. She nudged Dr. Atela, and Dr.

Atela turned and drew Brenda over to the table with a steady, disapproving gaze over the top of her glasses. Bil Franklin was wearing a blue seersucker suit and a bow tie. With his waxed mustache, he looked old-fashioned and ridiculous, like a carnival barker. His attention was glued to the soap opera, showing on a screen over Atela’s head.

As Brenda approached the table, her bowels did a twisty thing that made her think she might need a bathroom. She eased down in a molded plastic chair next to Atela.

“Hi,” she said. “Amrita. Dr. Franklin. I didn’t realize this was a meet—”

Suzanne Atela sliced through the air with her arm and checked her slim, gold watch. “I have a lunch at Picholine in an hour,” she said. Her voice was so taut there was no trace of her accent. “I’l get right to the point. There are some indelicate rumors circulating about you, Dr. Lyndon.”

“Rumors?” Brenda said. “About me?”

Amrita clucked and made eyes. Brenda regarded the girl. Her long black hair was parted in the middle and combed slick against her head; it was gathered in a schoolmarm’s bun at the nape of her neck. Her skin was grayish, and she wore red lipstick, the same crimson as her fingernails.

She was wearing jeans and a yel ow Juicy Couture hooded sweatshirt. She did not look so different from the rest of Champion’s students, and yet she stood out, not because of her culture, but because of the intensity with which she pursued her education. She had missed five classes, which was enough for Brenda to fail her for the semester. What did I do to you? Brenda thought. You wanted teaching and teaching you got. I engaged you, I took your points, I showered you with praise. What more did you want?

Bil Franklin cleared his throat, and then, with difficulty it seemed, he ripped his attention away from the TV. “We’re talking about more than just rumors, Suzanne,” he said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be wasting our time. Or Dr. Lyndon’s time.”

“Quite right, Dr. Franklin,” Suzanne Atela said.

For some reason, the TV above Dr. Atela’s head snagged Brenda’s attention. On the screen was Brenda’s student Kel y Moore, her purple hair spiked like a Muppet. So this was Love Another Day. Kel y Moore’s character kissed a man twice her age, then there was a struggle, a slap. She escaped the man and ran out of the room, flinging the door closed.

Amrita reached into her ornately embroidered silk book bag and pul ed out her midterm paper, which had copious notes and exclamations of praise from Brenda in blue pen, and an A at the top.

“We know what’s going on with you and Walsh,” Amrita said. “Everybody knows. It’s disgusting.”

Dr. Atela removed her harlequin glasses and placed them on the sticky Formica table with a sigh. Brenda took a yoga breath. She was prepared for this, wasn’t she? She had lived through this scene in her mind a thousand times in the last three weeks. And yet, the word “disgusting” threw her.

“Disgusting” was the teacher who became impregnated by her seventh-grade student. Walsh was a year older than Brenda; a relationship between them was natural. Except he was her student. So it was wrong. It was indelicate, as Atela had said, unwise, a bad decision. It was against university rules. But it was not disgusting. Brenda was so busy thinking this through that she didn’t say a word, and after a number of seconds had passed, this seemed like a bril iant strategy. Don’t even dignify the accusation with a response.

“Dr. Lyndon?” Suzanne Atela said.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brenda said.

“We understand, Dr. Lyndon, that you’ve been having improper relations with one of your students.”

“I saw you with him downtown,” Bil Franklin said. “At the beginning of the semester. One of the things I noticed—in addition to your obvious attraction to one another—was that he paid the bil . The reason why faculty are forbidden from dating students is because of the power differential.

He buys you drinks, you give him grades . . .”

“What are you suggesting?” Brenda said. “I’m sorry, I don’t . . .”

“I real y respected you,” Amrita said. She fingered the zipper of her sweatshirt, unzipped it an inch, zipped it back up. Up, down, up, down. She was nervous. Brenda should capitalize on that fact, but she didn’t know how. “I loved your class. I thought, final y, a real teacher, someone young, someone I could relate to.” Here, Amrita’s voice wavered. “But then it turns out that you’re the impostor—and not so innocent. You’re having a . . .

thing with Walsh. You gave him an A plus on his paper!”

Brenda stared at her inedible lunch. She wanted to dump the bottle of water over Amrita’s head. You little snot! she thought . Is that why you’re doing this? Because I gave him the grade he deserved? Or because you yourself are in love with him? She wanted to smash the tuna sub into Bil Franklin’s face. He had shown his true colors that night at the Cupping Room. Sitting at the end of the bar, getting drunk, waiting to prey on any young woman—or man—who came in unescorted. Uncle Pervy— that was disgusting. And then there was Dr. Atela. She was the worst of the three because Brenda could see that beneath the somber concern and measured disapproval, she enjoyed watching Brenda suffer. If they were in ancient Rome, Atela would have thrown Brenda to the lions and applauded at the sport of it. But why? Because Brenda was young? Because she was a good teacher? Was Suzanne Atela jealous of Brenda? Did she feel threatened? Another department head might have emitted disappointment, but Suzanne Atela’s face conveyed resignation, as though she’d known al