Memoir in the Making: A May-December Romance (3 page)

“Caleb! So nice to see you!”

“Yeah, it is. Sorry I didn’t take your class this semester.”

“Nonsense. There are much better teachers to take up your time.” She leaned back toward her computer and closed out of the document, saving her any possible embarrassment. Turning back to Caleb, Meredith waited for him to let her know why he was there. “What are you taking this semester?”

“Medieval lit.”

“That’s supposed to be an excellent class. Linda put a lot of thought into it. Her design of the class structure is most interesting.”

“Yeah…” he answered, and Meredith realized she had gone on a bit of a rant.

“What else?”

“Short stories, with Sam Campbell.”

“Good, good.”

“The rest are just required courses. I can’t take anymore lit classes next semester. I’ve already overloaded on them as is.”

“Tough when you find something you like, isn’t it?” she said with a smile and cocked her head to the side. Her hair fell over her shoulder, and she had an urge to sweep it back, but she ignored it. Caleb was a good student, one she had liked and seen a lot of potential in, but he still hadn’t given her a reason for dropping by.

Caleb shuffled his feet on the ground, and Meredith realized he was probably uncomfortable. Remembering after a second that he had never been comfortable one on one with her or any other professor for that matter, she leaned back in her chair and tried to make him more at ease.

“Was there something I could do for you?”

“Yeah! I was hoping to get my final paper back from last semester. You said we could stop by—”

“I have it.” Meredith turned her chair around to look at the filing cabinets along the far side of her wall. She stood up, her hips swaying as she steadied herself in her heels, and grabbed the second drawer down. ENGL 367-02 was written across the file. Inside were different manila folders for each assignment. Grabbing the one marked final, Meredith walked back to her chair and flipped through it until she found Caleb’s.

“Here you are,” she said, handing it to him.

“Thanks.”

He shuffled his feet again, and she expected him to leave in the next few seconds. He had what he wanted, and while he was one of her favorite students, Caleb was shy around anyone with authority. Swallowing, Meredith waited for him to make his next move.

“I guess I should get going,” he said, pointing his thumb in the direction of the door.

Meredith grinned. “All right. Don’t be a stranger. My door is always open.”

He muttered something Meredith missed and headed out with his backpack in his hands, stuffing the paper into the largest opening as soon as he stood up.
He always was shy,
she thought and smirked again. Turning back to her computer, Meredith debated pulling up her writing again. She’d taken a risk and almost been caught. Instead, she opened up a new document and typed out her lesson plan for the next Tuesday, thinking it was better to get ahead while she could than be behind when she couldn’t afford it.

The second knock at her door startled her. Turning in her chair, Meredith looked up to find Ainsley Jacobs standing in her doorway with a sour look on her face. Furrowing her brow, she motioned for Ainsley to come in and focused only on her.

“Everything all right, Ainsley?”

“Yeah. I was just reading through your syllabus and had a question.”

“You could have emailed.”

Ainsley shrugged. “I was still on campus.”

“Ah. Well, what’s your question?”

“I’ve never taken a memoir class before.”

“I’m aware. I’m the only one who teaches them here and you have not been my student before this semester.” Meredith tried to lighten the mood but felt her attempt was scuttled.

“How—how personal does it have to get?”

Meredith rubbed her lips together and took in the full image of Ainsley sitting in the wooden chair in her office. She looked frightened but not enough to be hiding some serious tragedy. Meredith had seen that before, had dealt with it before. She let out a quick breath and reached forward, setting her hand on Ainsley’s arm.

“As personal as you want it to be. Memoir isn’t about writing out your darkest secrets. It’s about expressing a moment in the past with literary creative license. It’s about adding creativity to a story already made. Each story is going to be told from one perspective or another, and so that changes the mood of it.”

“Right…so whatever I want it to be.”

“Basically. You do have to follow the guidelines of the assignment, but as personal as you want to make it or as impersonal as you want to make it. Although, if you wanted impersonal, you might have gone with the autobiography course next semester.”

“I’ll think about that.”

When Ainsley looked up, her dark eyes were brighter than they had been. Meredith briefly wondered what secret Ainsley didn’t want shared but dismissed it quickly. It wasn’t her job to pry—it was her job to just be there.

“Is that all you were worried about?” Meredith asked.

“Yeah. Just had me thinking.”

“I hope it didn’t worry you too much. When I grade, I don’t grade on the events but on the creativity of the writing and on the quality of the writing itself. It’s not my job to judge your stories.”

“Good to know.”

Meredith smiled again and turned her body in her chair with one toe planted neatly on the ground. Ainsley looked like an average college student with short sleeve shirt and jeans on, especially with the backpack planted at her feet, but there was something else unmistakable about her. It’s what drew Meredith to her. She was older than she seemed—not in age perhaps but in attitude.

“There’s a potluck for majors and minors every semester. Have you been to one before?” Meredith asked, not knowing why she was even bringing it up.

“I haven’t, actually. I’ve wanted to go, but it always conflicted with something else. That and I didn’t officially declare my major until the end of last year.”

“Are you going to this semesters?”

“When is it?”

“October third.”

Meredith watched as Ainsley pulled up her phone and scrolled through the calendar. She made a noise with her teeth and lips before looking up at Meredith. Meredith’s stomach fluttered to life with nerves.

“I think I can make that work.”

“Good. I think it’ll be a good experience for you.”

“Probably would.”

Ainsley looked back up at Meredith, and any trepidation she’d had earlier was completely gone. Meredith was glad to see she was far more relaxed, more at ease than she had seen her in their whole day of acquaintanceship.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Don’t want to keep you,” Ainsley said and stood, slinging her backpack over her shoulder again.

Meredith stood and mirrored Ainsley’s position. She pressed a hand to her arm and smiled. “My door is always open if you need anything. Just drop on by, even if you think it is a silly question.”

“Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ainsley left, and Meredith sat back down, her fingers warm and tingly from where she’d held onto Ainsley’s arm. Shaking her head, she turned back to her computer and scolded herself. She shouldn’t touch Ainsley—it would only encourage Ainsley, and it would only encourage her.

Chapter Three

The beat of the music reverberated around in her chest. The thump thump keeping time with her steps as she walked closer to the house they all called The Loft. Adam was right by her side, dressed in tight jeans and halfway-unbuttoned shirt, revealing his bare chest with hardly any hair on it. He had insisted Ainsley wear something sexier than what she’d had on when he picked her up. So her shirt was low enough she felt her boobs were about to fall out. She’d managed to insist on keeping her jeans to at least be somewhat comfortable.

People were already pouring in and out of the two-story house in the center of the block. Ainsley and Adam walked up to the door and were greeted by one of the host’s boyfriends. He held out his hand for the five dollars to add to the pot for the alcohol. Handing the money over, they were let inside to the sea of people. 

The girls who lived in the house had set up a pole in the middle of the dance floor. A few other girls were dancing around it and on it. Ainsley watched for a few seconds before being dragged to the kitchen. Adam placed a red cup filled with something in her hand, and she took a sip, quite enjoying the concoction. They made their way through the kitchen into the garage where more games were set up but where there were also free couches. They sat down in the back room of the garage where a black light was nailed to the ceiling.

Ainsley felt subconscious. Her low-cut shirt was black, and everywhere on it a piece of lint shone brightly in the lighting, pointing out every flaw. She drank the alcohol, hoping it would hit her sooner rather than later and she would stop caring. Adam had his arm wrapped around her, and as soon as her cup was empty, he got up to get them each another.

Sitting semi-alone on the couch was not her idea of a party, but Ainsley needed to be drunker in order to socialize. She was not an extrovert like Adam, and much to his chagrin, he would get her drunk before leaving her side for any great length of time. When he came back, he had another man in tow with him. Ainsley’s stomach dropped, and she was afraid the worst was about to happen.

“Look who I found!” Adam roared over the music.

Looking up and down the man in front of her, Ainsley grinned. It was good to see him and bad to see him with Adam at the same time. Their history of relationship was not the best. She stood up and wrapped her arms around Cody, squeezing him tight.

“So good to see you,” she said into his ear. “Last year, huh?”

“Oh yeah!” he answered and took a large swig from his own cup.

Adam handed hers back over, and Ainsley downed half of it in three gulps. Her gaze never left Cody or Adam. She was trying to figure out what was going to happen, but of course, she already knew. They would go home tonight, fuck, fuck again, and then maybe the next week would be great. After that week was up, all hell would break loose again, they would be yelling and screaming, and it would be torture for her.

She knocked back the rest of her drink and nodded to the beer pong table. “I’m going to put my name on the board to play. Either of you want your names on it?”

“Nah,” Adam said. “I want to dance.”

She barely waited for Cody’s response before walking away and leaving them on their own. She didn’t want to deal with them for as long as possible. At least with beer pong she would get drunk quickly because she sucked at playing. Scratching her name on the board with chalk, Ainsley stood by and watched, cheering on the underdog each game until it was her turn. Every once in a while people would stop by and say hello, catching up with her from summer, but most of her time was spent in solitude.

When she finally got to one end of the plywood board that was their game board, she was ready. Her match was against another student named Kevin. Rubbing the ping-pong ball between her fingers, she aimed and threw—missing the red cups on the other side by a mile.
This is not going to be a good game
, she thought. Within a few minutes, Adam and Cody were behind her, cheering her on. She managed to knock out three of the ten cups before all of hers were gone.

After chugging all her cups, Ainsley swung around the table and drank the rest of her competitors. He leaned her against the post in the center of the garage, a hand on her side, as she drank the rest of her beer from the game. His face was awfully close to hers, and Ainsley froze, not quite sure what to do.

Luckily Cody came over and wrapped an arm around her, glaring at Kevin. Ainsley walked with him, putting a hand around his back as she chugged the last of her beer and put the cup back on the table for the next game. That had been a narrow escape—no one except those at Crossroads, a few close friends and family knew she swung the other way.

Letting out a breath, Ainsley thanked Cody and then begged him off to get another drink for herself. She didn’t look back as she headed toward the kitchen for a new cup and refill. Once she got inside the house, the heat hit her. Bodies swam everywhere in front of her, knocking up the sweaty and musty smell in the house. Reaching for the bottle of rum, Ainsley poured it into a new cup, nearly filling it two-thirds of the way before she stopped and added coke to it.

She stumbled back out to the garage, the mixture of beer and hard liquor from earlier making her stomach twist. Her head spun, and she couldn’t see straight. Adam was sitting on the couch with Cody in his lap, mouths locked onto one another and tongues down each other’s throats. Ainsley rolled her eyes and walked over to them, plopping down on the couch before chugging back the drink she had just made. The fact that the strength of the alcohol didn’t make a dent on her taste buds should have told her something, but she ignored the niggling feeling in the back of her mind and listened intently to the sounds Cody and Adam were making.

Ainsley hated when Cody showed up at parties they were at. It meant she was left by herself while the other two got wrapped up in each other. She could slip out and they wouldn’t even notice. Sending a quick look to Adam, who had his eyes shut, Ainsley got back up and went to the kitchen. She made one more drink, chugged it, and then left the house, waving goodbye to their bouncer. Walking down the road in the middle of the night while intoxicated was not her smartest idea in the world, but it was the only way she was going to get home.

#

Meredith had the windows down in her car as she drove home from her weekly meeting at the bar with a group of other writers. Sometimes they wrote, but mostly they talked about writing and drank a few good ones. They were the few people who knew her only by her pen name, and it always took her a few minutes to realize when they called out K. P. they meant her. Of course they all knew it was a pen name, but she let them call her that for the sake of saving her identity.

The clock ticked over to midnight, and she sighed. She’d been at the bar longer than usual. Three drinks down had caused a buzz in her head, and she downed a couple glasses of water before getting into her car. One of her cohorts had been kind enough to stay, and Meredith had felt the urge to bring the woman home. It had been so long since she’d been with someone, and it could prove to be a nice distraction from Ainsley.