The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (ebook reader online txt) 📗

Then it did become more, a relationship. It was not wrong, they had believed, because it was love. Simple, pure, and theirs alone. Until it wasn’t. Discovered, shamed, and separated, he had felt adrift. He had known the one thing in life that brought him comfort was love, or sex, he wasn’t sure of the difference. And to him, it didn’t matter. He had found a niche. A place where he could rise, achieve, and not be himself. He had found the stage.

The teacher had also been the drama coach and theater director. She had chosen him to play the part of Macbeth, and he had done well. It felt natural to him, to assume a separate reality, become someone else. It was as though he had been waiting for this moment all his life.

Thinking back to all of this, after Claudia left, he wondered, for the thousandth time, what might his life have been like if he hadn’t followed this path, caught up in the dream of himself. What had he missed? Looking around, at his room, his space, this one place in the world that he felt at home, so much more than in any house he had lived in, even the house where he had lived with Clair and Devon, he burrowed deeper into his chair. Easing back, allowing the soft, buttery leather to enfold him, he remembered the first time he had come here. Newly hired, still finishing up his master’s degree, he immediately felt a sense of belonging, like no other time or place.

This room with its high windows, all new and modern, in such contrast to the rest of the college. His building was filled with music, dance, song. Walking in, at any time of day or evening, sounds of rehearsals, practice, and students’ voices, excited about their lives and changes to come. Opera, theater, jazz, hip hop, ballet, all were alive and vibrant in these halls. Here he belonged. A knock on the door startled him out of his reverie. He was afraid it was Claudia, returning.

‘Come in,’ he called, steeling himself for another round of argument. Walking to the door, he grabbed the handle just as the door swung open towards him.

‘Clair, what are you doing here? How did you get here?’ he asked, surprise causing his voice to rise, a note of panic ringing through. He knew she wasn’t supposed to drive, because of the effects of the chemotherapy and drugs. ‘And, wow, your hair!’

She stood in the filtered light coming from the high cut glass window, her skin pale and translucent. She had taken scissors to her hair, then a clipper, so that only stubbles ringed her perfectly shaped crown. Wearing a long, bulky knit pullover sweater, she looked like a waif, needing a hand out.

‘I couldn’t stay in the house,’ she replied, looking around his office as though seeing it for the first time. ‘I called a cab.’

‘Here, sit down,’ Adam said, walking to her, gently taking her arm, guiding her to a leather armchair pulled to the side of his desk.

He marveled at the lightness of her. She had no heft, no substance, as though already having passed over the horizon to beyond. He questioned his own reality. Who is she and if not Clair, then who am I? He shook this off, a mid-morning post-drunken delusion. Good God, man, get a grip, he told himself.

‘Can I get you some tea? Coffee? Whisky?’ he asked, pointing to the bottle on the desk.

‘No, I’m fine. I just had to get out of the house. I want to get into my office, you know, sort things out, and talk with Raj about coming back to work. She ran her hand across her scalp, feeling the sharp stubbles.

‘Oh, and yeah, the women in the support group advised me to go ahead and take it off, rather than wait for it to fall out in clumps. So, I used your clippers. Punk, huh?’

Shaking his head, ‘Punk it is. You have a great looking skull though.’

He felt taken aback. The thought of Clair returning to work so soon, ever, surprised him.

‘Are you sure, Clair?’ Adam asked, concern coloring his words. ‘What about your treatments? And I don’t know, just being here, after everything.’

Clair stood, walked over to the floor to ceiling bookshelf.

‘I don’t know how much everyone knows about what happened,’ she said, ‘but, I need – want – to try. I’m sure the gossip mill is on fire, but I don’t care. You know I’ve never paid attention to what anyone else thought about me. Or us, for that matter. Except for the few that matter to me, Raj, Emil, my students.’

Suddenly starving, he looked around for anything to eat. A package of saltine crackers sat on the edge of his desk, left over from a salad, who knew how long ago. Tearing the plastic off, he ate, greedily. Too late, he thought to ask Clair if she wanted one.

‘No, I’m fine. You must be hungry, though?’ she asked, eyes questioning, wondering.

‘Yeah, I don’t know why. Midday. Hard time of day for me.’

‘I’m OK. The treatments hit me hard the first few days then I start feeling better. I need to work. I need to not be in the house,’ she said, as she walked back over to the chair by his desk. Sitting, she folded her arms around herself.

‘And Ellerby, he thinks I should work too. Engage, you know, in my life. Keep busy, as much as I feel like. He said the chemo, it comes in waves. When you’re down, you’re really down, but in between, you have to get going again.’

The sound of heels clacking on linoleum broke through the silence between them.

‘Oh, sorry Adam, I didn’t know you had a student,’ Claudia said, standing in the half-opened door.

Clair turned in her chair, looking across her shoulder at Claudia.

‘Clair, oh my God, I didn’t know you were here. Are you OK?’ Claudia asked,