Susan's Choice

Love

Next week Dave brought the coffee. They drank them in the stuffed armchairs and she quizzed him. "So, tell me the lecture. Thirty-second summary. Go." He stuttered and stumbled referring to his notes and getting lost. She interrupted, crawling across the space between the chairs so she could kneel before him and cover his notes with her hand. "Don't read your notes, just tell me. You know you look a lot better when you look right at me instead of looking at the ground?"

He looked better? What exactly did that mean? Did she like his looks or was she coaching him on his presentation skills? The question kept him occupied through the four-hour chemistry lab that followed. He took a bathroom break and studied his face in the mirror. Not much to like, he thought. A small man, hardly taller than Susan, with rounded shoulders, greasy black hair and pale, pockmarked skin, untouched by sun or weather.

She brought the coffee the week after and, as he followed her down the last row of books, he heard her gasp. "Wow! A coffee table! Did you bring that here?"

"Yeah. Is it okay? I don't want to take over your space."

"No, it's our space, silly, and I love it!" Their shoulders touched as they gazed at the scene like lovers moving into their first apartment.

"Okay, work time. Dave's special report on English 101, The Novel. And what is your last name by the way sir?"

"Umm, Knight."

"Well alright, Professor Knight, tell us what we heard. Thirty seconds. Go!"

He was improving, he thought, as he fought to keep his eyes on her face instead of the ground, and enunciate clearly and slowly instead of his usual mumble. He used limited hand gestures and picked out words for emphasis. The content of the lecture was easy— he'd made good notes and reviewed them in his head while they walked to the library.

"Professor Knight," she said rising from her chair, "You are a very authoritative source. I am deeply impressed. Thank you!" She crossed the floor towards him and stuck out a skinny arm to shake hands.

Her hand felt small and soft. Instinctively Dave used both hands, holding hers gently between them as he might a small bird. "You're welcome," he intoned, speaking in presentation mode and holding her eyes.

The study space improved. He brought a rug and then two mismatched lamps from his parent's house. They studied there nearly every day.

One day they arrived and he saw a sports jacket draped over his chair. Susan was hopping up and down, clapping her hands like a child at Christmas. "Try it on! Wear it with blue jeans! You'll look like a prof!" She grabbed the lapels to adjust them and stood back, studying the effect. "Perfect!"

Together they headed to the men's washroom, the nearest spot with a mirror. She waited outside while he cased the joint, looking around the main room and under every toilet stall before pronouncing it clear of occupants.

She joined him inside and took up a position behind him, looking over his shoulder at the image. "Oh my prince! Soon you'll be a big important doctor and won't have time for me and my little English class."

They were silenced by her declaration. "Jeez, getting ahead of myself! Come on, study buddy! Work time!" She led him back to their spot.

How, he thought, could this beautiful girl not have a boyfriend? He had studied her potential suitors, tall, broad-shouldered young men and found himself wanting. He envied their easy banter and felt lost at their literary allusions. He watched them look at Susan and then back at him. Sometimes their stares were a challenge, other times a rueful acknowledgement. Todd, the only member of her coterie whose name he could remember, nodded at him once with a brotherly smile. Good for you, he seemed to say.

But still he couldn't believe his good fortune.

He began to test her affections, arriving early to the English class and sitting in odd corners of the lecture hall. He'd wait for her to arrive, breathless and late, and he'd look out of the corner of his eye as she searched for him. Then his heart would rise in his chest as he watched her shuffle past a row of friends, forcing them out of their seats one by one to let her by until at last she reached the seat next to him which she would then appropriate as if it belonged to her, which it did. And as if he belonged to her, which he certainly did.

They began lowering boundaries between each other, the way they imagined experienced lovers would do. Only she could sip from his coffee cup, peruse his medical texts or lay a notebook on his lap. And only he could drape an arm over her shoulders or rummage through her briefcase for a pen. She would save a seat for him by crossing a leg over it and when he arrived at the seat he'd lift that leg into his lap and stroke the attached foot.

They spent hours together in the library. She was a hard worker and read constantly. He had perused a pop psychology book on body language and, with new-found expertise, observed that the slant of her hips and the way she crossed her legs were signs that she was subconsciously allying herself with him.

He was learning to draw. He sketched Susan as she read. His first efforts were blocky and crude engineering studies, unrecognizable. But he progressed, learning the proportions of the female form, the longer necks and narrow shoulders. Their bodies, it seemed, were centred in their hips, and the knowledge improved his likenesses.

But Susan's face was difficult. He struggled with the furniture of it, the size of her eyes and cheekbones, the shadow of her nose. Her mouth eluded him. The slightest change in the line between her lips transformed a quiet smile into a painful grimace.

Dave rose from his chair and stood behind the slouching form of the woman he loved. "Chem lab," he trilled. She raised her face to him and he kissed her on the cheek. In his mind he replayed the moment as he walked to the lab. Susan had blessed him with a warm smile, one of the finger-wiggling waves they had begun to use with each other and an admonition to work hard. Yes, he was required to work hard. He was building a career for the two of them.