Instant Love (17 page)

As Christina leaned forward to embrace Bill, Kong hurled himself at the sliding door, savage noises splitting from his throat. He sounds like a monster, she thought, and held Bill even tighter, then looked around him at Kong and smirked.

THE DAY AFTER
she started dating Bill Stoner—and everyone knew exactly when it started; they showed up at the monthly faculty reading series together, and Christina was wearing lipstick—people started treating her differently. She didn’t mind it one bit. She didn’t care if people thought she was sleeping with him to secure a position in the department (She and Bill had never once talked about her career. They had never once talked about her future at the university. They discussed only her thesis, a study of transcendentalism in the books of Louisa May Alcott. Bill was a huge Emerson fan and collected first editions of his books). Nor did she care if they thought she was seeing him because he was filthy rich from his books. (The first was still his most successful, a noisy novel called
Hanover’s Last Stand,
about a harried husband removed from the life of his children by a controlling wife. He eventually stands up for himself and his independence as a man and takes his children with him on a wild cross-country ride, at the end of which he asks the children to choose between him and his wife. “Do you want a simple or complex life?” he said. “Have I not taught you to roar?” It became wildly successful after its embrace by the men’s movement in the ’80s. An only slightly more politically correct film version was made of it, where the wife joins them at the end of the trip, and she and the children embrace in the mountains as the sun sets behind them. The eye contact between the husband and the wife tells the viewer that there will not have to be a decision. They can work together for the sake of the children. Nick Nolte got an Academy-Award nomination for best actor, and there was also a nod for best adaptation. Christina saw it once in a feminist film-theory class during her undergrad days. Several of her classmates hurled objects—pens, wadded-up paper, and a tampon—at the video monitor as the credits rolled. Christina was embarrassed to wipe away a few tears at the end of the film, and kept her head down as she walked out of class.) And she didn’t care if they thought she was impressed with his fame (a frequent talk-show guest, Bill reportedly played golf with Charlie Rose whenever he was in town).

She didn’t care because she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong. After so many years in academia, four years of undergrad, a misdirected master’s in philosophy, four years of teaching at a private high school (sullen rich kids on better drugs than she’d had at their age), one year of culinary school, and then this seemingly endless foray into a Ph.D. program in English, she’d had enough crushes on older teachers—all unrequited for a variety of reasons, but mostly related to a long-term, long-distance boyfriend and a brief and highly unflattering lesbian relationship that haunted her through her early postgraduate years—to realize when she’d finally hit the fantasy jackpot. He could have been poor, untenured, and working at a small state school, but as long as he had wisdom and passion about his work, she’d be smitten, and Bill was well known as a top lecturer and an inspirational advisor. Rumor was, he had been thanked in the foreword of more academic books than anyone else in the history of the state of California. He’s the grand prize, she thought.

So she ignored the comments of her colleagues, at the weekly gathering of the PhDrinking Club (Apparently even in our thirties we still need a club as an excuse to drink, she thought, but she went anyway), little nudges when they complained about tenured professors, for example, followed by a dramatic hand clamp on the mouth and someone whispering, “This isn’t going to get back to Stoner, is it?” Her best friend at the school, Mandy, an associate professor in linguistics, had started adding the phrase “between you and me” as a preface to most of their conversations. Christina never knew how to respond, so she didn’t bother. Sometimes she told him what other people said, the gossip, the criticism, because she wanted someone to share it with, and as the man in her life, he was the best choice.

And they had become immediately close; so many things about him soothed her: his low, warming voice, his tan skin, lined in ways that made him seem more interesting, the way he rubbed one shoulder when he had his arm around her, reassuring her that this was exactly where he wanted to be. It was as if he had no intention of ever letting her go, and it was like that right from the beginning. I’m his prize, too, she thought. So even though they had been dating only a few months, how could she resist when he invited her to his home up north for the summer? It was rash, certainly, and yet she said yes before she had the time to say no, a fact she had considered daily since she had agreed to go. But then she would think about having the time and space to work on her thesis and to do yoga, plus there was land, so much land he promised, a vineyard, a swimming pool, a hot tub (this was said with raised eyebrows because sometimes he was a little dirty), fresh air, trees, clear skies, dry hot days and cool nights, so many stars you wouldn’t believe, and, of course, lots of wildlife, and there could be only one answer.

“
I
’
VE PICKED OUT
two rooms from which you can choose,” said Bill. They entered down a long, dim hallway, lit only by a skylight that showed a bright blue sky and one slender branch of a fir tree across the corner of it. There were four doors in the hallway, two on each side. “Now I know it’s going to be a tough choice.” He started laughing, the only noise in the silent house. He laughed so hard, he had to stop walking, and he leaned against the wall for a moment. Then he wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I find it so amusing. It’s not.” He pointed to the first door.

On the outside there was a small, painted wooden sign that said “May Sarton.” Across the hall, on the facing door, there was another sign, which read “Edith Wharton.”

“This house used to be owned by a couple, two women,” he said. “It was originally supposed to be a bed-and-breakfast for women only, but my understanding is it turned into some sort of feminist-empowerment camp. So each room is named for a different female writer.” He cleared his throat. “I just find it funny, being surrounded by all these women.”

“I suppose it is a little funny,” said Christina. (She might have laughed. She couldn’t remember a few weeks later when she told the story to Mandy. Mandy had said, appalled, gasping, “Oh, my god! What did you say?” Christina told her she had said nothing, simply raised her eyebrows, and, “You know, gave him a look.”)

“Anyway, these aren’t the rooms I had in mind for you. Those are my daughters’ rooms. For when they come to visit.” He said this enthusiastically, as if it might actually happen, though Christina knew that that wasn’t likely. Maggie and Holly, the mysterious daughters, hiding out on the East Coast, ignored their father most of the time. Even when he was in New York, they refused to meet him for lunch, or even coffee. He had confided this to her, moaned it into her shoulder late one night after a wine tasting that had gone awry. (He had bought two merlots and a burgundy, and then they had expertly drained them at his house, pulling out one bottle after another, as if their thirst were an illness.)

“They’re grown now, they have their own lives, I understand. But a coffee? A fucking coffee?” He rarely cursed. It had shocked Christina, and she had pulled his head closer to her, stroked his head and neck with her hands, rubbed him tenderly. It was exciting to her, to see his sadness. She hadn’t known it existed within him.

“It is my one failure,” he said.

“Nothing about you is a failure. You’re without reproach.” She believed it, too.

He walked down the hall, and pointed. “I think you should choose between these two.”

“Virginia Woolf” and “Louisa May Alcott.”

“I thought either should inspire you,” he said.

She opened the door to the “Virginia Woolf” room. Inside, there was a small, sturdy desk, with two small drawers, and a high-backed wooden chair that slid neatly underneath it. The walls were painted a deep red color, and they were blank except for a framed picture of Kong at play, his tongue happily hanging from his mouth, hanging squarely above the desk. There was a sliding screen door that opened out to a small trellis-covered patio, and a set of stairs that led up to a hot tub. Vines hanging from the trellis framed the screen door. A room of one’s own, indeed, she thought.

“What do you think?” he said.

“I love it,” she said, and she did. It was quiet, the light was fine, and the hanging vines made her feel like she was still in the middle of nature. It would be great for yoga in the mornings, too. She just needed some sort of reading chair, and a stereo for her relaxation tapes, and it would be perfect.

“Well, don’t make up your mind before you see your other option.” They walked to the other room, and Bill pushed open the door with a grand sweep. Inside was a sun-filled space, twice the size of the first room, painted a creamy yellow. There were two huge windows on one side, plus another screen door, and the ceiling was encased almost entirely in skylight; the room felt almost entirely transparent. There was a wide, antique desk with a full set of drawers, and a bookshelf next to it, each row full of thick, hardcover books except for an empty one, which was clearly earmarked for Christina’s books. An oversized leather chair—its golden brown leather seemed like a pool of butter in the direct sunlight—sat in the corner next to a small entertainment center, complete with stereo system, television set, and DVD player. A stack of yoga DVDs perched on top of the television set. She picked one up and looked at the cover.

“I just bought a bunch, I didn’t know what you liked,” offered Bill.

Christina paused, read for a moment, and then said, “No, these are fine.” She looked up at him, bewildered, and then she burst into a smile. “God, of course. They’re perfect. This is amazing. No one has ever done anything like this for me before.” She hugged him, kissed him so fiercely that their lips emitted a joint smacking sound.

“And you can see my workspace over there,” he said, pointing through the screen to an alcove jutting out from the house on the property. It ended next to a cherry tree. Kong paced beneath it. “So we can be near each other without, you know, being near each other. But we’ll always know where the other person is. So we don’t get lonely.”

“Alone but together,” she said.

“Never far apart,” said Bill.

“
THE TIBETAN MASTIFF
is an exceptional breed,” said Bill, his voice lowered even further, into what Christina recognized as the voice he used when giving lectures or readings. They were walking through the woods that filled out his property to the peak of the mountain. “They were bred for centuries as guard dogs, yet are still considered quite primitive because there aren’t that many of them in existence. The female mastiff can breed only once a year, usually in the fall.”

Christina ducked under a tree branch and felt cobwebs brush onto her forehead. She wiped them off with her hand, then rubbed it on her jeans.

Bill continued. “They simply haven’t had the chance to evolve in ways that other dogs have, and yet they’re highly intelligent and independent. So yes, they’re difficult to train, but I think Kong is worth it. He makes me feel safe—there are mountain lions in these woods, and they will attack. And I’ve always felt a distinct connection with him. I appreciate the challenge he presents, I suppose. But there can be but one king of the mountain, eh, Kong?”

“He’s calm out here,” said Christina. “This is the best I’ve seen him behave since I’ve gotten here.”

“He’s great on the leash,” said Bill. “And I think he likes the idea of protecting us. That’s half the reason I got him, because of the mountain lions.”

“Could he take a mountain lion?”

“Absolutely. And they’re all over the place.”

“Good to know,” said Christina.

They walked another ten minutes, Bill pointing out madrona and manzanita trees along the way, with their slick skin underneath the peeling skin, and various promontories where Kong insisted on stopping and surveying the woods. In fact he stopped frequently along the way, at a stray crackle of branches or a rustle in nearby bushes. It was a little tiresome, but Christina played along.

Finally the trees became shorter and sparser, and Bill announced that they were nearing the top. He directed Christina to turn and when she did she saw another mountain range, clear as day, facing them, and another one, hazier, to the south.

“It’s beautiful,” said Christina, beaming.

“I wanted to show you something.” He carefully put his arm, slightly damp with sweat, around her and gently guided her north. “Do you see that, there?” He pointed.

“What?” She squinted.

“All those solar panels? That’s Robin Williams’s house.”

“Really? Robin Williams. Huh. I enjoyed him in
Awakenings
.”

“So did I,” said Bill. “And the other one, where he dresses up like an old woman.”

“
Mrs. Doubtfire,
” said Christina.

“Yes, that’s it! Fine work in that film.”

They stared at Robin Williams’s house silently for a minute, then continued up the peak. As they broke through a closed-in patch of bushes, thorny branches scratching against their shoulders and arms, Bill burst through labored breaths, “We made it.”