ever had when she’d been an undergraduate.
She took the deep steps two at a time, stopping when she heard a man’s voice. “Lindsay! Lindsay Foxe! Wait a minute. Stop!”
She wasn’t about to stop. Once she was inside, she unwrapped the scarf around her neck and lower face, not wanting to turn but knowing he would come after her, knowing as she stood there that she’d have to look at him, face him.
There was Dr. Gruska, breathing heavily, his tweeds covered with a Burberry coat, coming toward her.
She forced herself to remain perfectly still. Students were all around. It was warm. She was safe.
He hadn’t changed. Of course it had been only four years, but still, she’d expected him to be sporting more white in his hair, more wrinkles on his neck. He looked just the same, only now he must be in his mid-fifties. Old enough to be her father.
“Lindsay,” he said, smiling, stopping in front of her. He held out his hands to her but she didn’t move. He dropped them. He rushed into hurried, intense speech. “I have tried to find you but you don’t have a listed number. I’ve tried so hard. I even saw your friend Gayle Werth some time ago and she gave me your phone number, but she got it wrong.”
He stood there, now in front of her, looking for the world like a hopeful aging puppy. He pulled the expensive fox fur hat from his head and stripped off his expensive leather gloves.
“How are you, Dr. Gruska?”
“Oh, things go along here, but there are changes, horrible changes. Now that my profession has debunked Freud, philistine unenlightened fools that they are, I find I must accommodate myself to approaches of which I do not approve. Can you imagine—it is expected now that a psychologist deal not with the root causes of an illness but only with the aberrant symptoms! The idiots call it eclectic therapy or survival therapy or reality therapy to make it sound legitimate. It’s absurd, and then there’s all this drug nonsense to control people but not understand them. I am considering private practice since my colleagues are so shallow, but what I have always preferred is dealing with bright students. They, I have always found, grasp the truth of things, and Freud is unvarnished truth.”
“How unfortunate for you, Dr. Gruska. I trust your father is well?” Old Dr. Gruska, from what Lindsay had heard about him, was reminiscent of the robber barons of the last century. He was still chairman of the board of the Northwestern New York Bank and ruled all with his iron hand, including his only son, Dr. Gruska the Younger. His “ doctor” handle had been conferred in the late seventies by Northwestern University. On that day he had become Dr. Gruska the Elder to all and sundry.
“Oh, yes, my dear father, Dr. Gruska, is in top form. He’s nearly eighty, you know, but a man of great stamina and fortitude. I still cherish his guidance. If Dr. Gruska knew you, he would send his love, I know. I’ve spoken of you so often to him. Please, let me buy you a cup of coffee. It’s so cold today and I didn’t want to come in, but I’m so glad I did. Come, Lindsay, I want to speak to you, I must speak to you. There is so much for us to discuss, for me to share with you.”
She forced herself to look at him with clear unafraid eyes. She remembered her father and her heels. She’d won then. No intimidation. Never again. And she said, smiling slightly, “No, thank you, Dr. Gruska. I’m in a rush right now. It was nice to see you again.”
“No! Wait, you must give me your address, your phone number!”
There were at least six Columbia students within three feet of them. Lindsay shook her head. “I don’t think so, Dr. Gruska. Why would you want my phone number anyway?” She wished immediately that she hadn’t asked, for his show of uncertainty was replaced by a confidence that startled her with its arrogance. “So,” he said slowly, stroking his jaw, “you are still afraid of men, I see.”
She felt the deep corrosive fear. She held herself steady, still smiling at him. “It’s none of your business, Dr. Gruska.”
He leaned toward her, touching her arm. “Oh, but it is, Miss Foxe. I see now that you’re a model, that you’re known only as Eden. My dear father, Dr. Gruska, finds you immensely attractive. As I said, I’ve told him all about you. I’ve enjoyed seeing all the photos of you as well, but I know what they hide. They change you and you are willing to be changed, to be concealed, to be viewed as another woman, one who is not real. Even your name, Eden—ah, the beginning, the innocence, the purity—it is not you, but just another device to hide you from the world, from yourself. You must let me—” He broke off, as if realizing his words weren’t achieving the effect he wished, for her face was pale and set. Oddly, there was rage in her eyes, not fear. He continued, his voice gentle now, “I do not mean to distress you. It has been a very long time since your brother-in-law—well, since that traumatic time in Paris. So very long ago. If only you would let me help you. I can, you know, professionally as a doctor, and as a friend, a friend who is also a man who would take care of you, protect you, understand you.”
A student bumped against her and absently apologized. Lindsay said, her voice as cold as the air just beyond the library doors, “You’re an old man, Dr. Gruska. I don’t like you. I didn’t like you when I was a senior and forced to take your class. I think Freud is full of shit and I think you’re contemptible to remind me of a time that was very painful for me.”
He didn’t move. He smiled and Lindsay felt sick to her stomach. “I know it is painful, my sweet girl. Sometimes we must suffer pain to be cured of our illnesses. Come with me, Lindsay. Come with me now.”
He held out his hand to her. She stared down at his hand, then back to his face.
She wanted to strike him. She wanted to pound him into pulp. He was soft; he was old. She could grind him down easily. She wanted to run. She could taste her fear, raw and nasty in her mouth. She continued to look at him, hoping he couldn’t see the fear, hoping he didn’t know how scared she was. “Perhaps you can become a behavioral scientist and try to intimidate rats. Good-bye, sir.” She was out of the library and skipping quickly down the wide stairs.
He called her name out twice before she was lost in a congested mass of students.
“What’s the matter, Eden? Dammit, talk to me.”
Taylor took her upper arms in his hands and lightly shook her. “Something happened today. Don’t you know I can see every emotion that streaks through you? Talk to me.”
He’d caught her so soon after the run-in with Dr. Gruska. Just two hours, and she still felt threatened, wanting to hunker down in the corner of her living room and come to grips with what had happened. Deep inside her, pressing against the fear, was her elation at how she’d responded to Gruska. She’d faced him down. Still, there was all the darkness, the pounding emptiness. She wanted no one to see her like this, but here he was.
“No, don’t shake your head at me. It’s been four days since I met you but I can tell something is very wrong.” He frowned, released her, and said easily, changing his tone, his expression, his approach, “Can I brew you a cup of tea?”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
He’d verified a very useful fact, he thought as he put on her red potbellied kettle to boil. She responded to lightness, to matter-of-fact calm. Threats made her draw away even more. A raised voice sent her scurrying away, at least her mind, her attention.
“What kind of tea? Good old Lipton?”
“Yes, fine.”
“Lemon? Milk?”
“Just lemon.”
Two words at a time, he thought a few minutes later as he poured the boiling water over the tea bag. Go easy, very easy, and slowly. What the devil had happened?
He carried her tea into the living room, Lindsay trailing behind him. He set it down on the coffee table, scooting aside several of her novels to clear a space. One book fell onto the floor, but she didn’t seem to notice.
He sat down in one of the easy chairs opposite her and said nothing.
Lindsay sipped the tea. She looked at him over the rim of her cup. He wasn’t pushing now. He wasn’t doing anything.
She was immensely reassured, she could handle things now, and said, “I was at Columbia today, at the library. I was going to look up some articles for a friend of mine. I ran into this professor I’d had in my senior year,
