Patricia Gaffney by Mad Dash Page A

him, Elizabeth scared people because they didn’t trust her. She spooked them. Something predatory about her expressionless face, the way her eyes never seemed to blink…
    Last term, over the bowed heads of 130 students taking the Western Civilization final, she’d trained that stare on Andrew. Or maybe she hadn’t. They were helping Tim proctor the exam, Elizabeth in front of the lecture hall, Andrew in back. She’d sat on the edge of the table by the lectern, slouching, both hands gripping the table edge, while she swung one crossed leg back and forth, back and forth. Surely he couldn’t hear it from that distance, but it seemed real, the soft shush of nylon on nylon. He’d heard rumors about her, that she’d slept with Richard Weldon, she slept with students, she was a lesbian, but he always dismissed school gossip; nothing was more unreliable. Still, an aura of sexual catastrophe seemed to hang over her, and Andrew surprised himself by being as attracted to it as he was repelled. She’d lifted her head from the open book on her lap and looked at him. He didn’t turn and glance behind him, but only because he was in the last row, there was no one behind him. Is she looking at me? Her heavy-lidded eyes were like eyes in a painting, omnidirectional; perhaps everyone in the room imagined she was looking at him. Or her. Andrew stared back, captured, only looking away from her eyes to look at the slow, swinging leg, the slight muscular flare of calf rubbing its twin in that agonizingly suggestive rhythm. Are you looking at me?
    He never knew. After that he watched her surreptitiously, searching for a hint of interest, flirtation, awareness. But if anything she was sharper with him than before the lecture-hall incident. She’d sniff her breath out or raise one fatal eyebrow at any mild suggestion of his in a faculty meeting. She’d slump lower in her chair and cross her hands over her stomach, as if he disgusted her.
    Now she pushed her tray away. “Yes, I heard something quite interesting. I heard you’re on your own these days.”
    He hid his surprise by blotting a drop of spilled milk with his napkin. “Oh? Who told you that?” No one knew but Tim. No—Dash must’ve told her friend Maureen by now, and Maureen’s ex-husband taught in the English department. So everyone knew.
    “Is it true?” Elizabeth folded her arms and looked directly into his eyes.
    He hated exposure, his private life on display. “It’s temporary. Just a…” He coughed. “Blip.”
    “Want to go to a wedding this weekend? My ex-stepfather’s marrying a teenager.”
    He stared.
    “Or close enough.” Her red lips curled cynically. “The flower girl’s their love child.”
    “Your ex-stepfather? So—your mother…”
    “She won’t be there. She’s in Seattle with her new husband. Number three. Numero tres , I should say—his name’s Carlos. So? Do you want to go?”
    “Em, well, it sounds…” He assumed she was serious. Her waiting smile turned sardonic when he hesitated, but he couldn’t picture it, his mind went gray imagining himself at a family wedding with Elizabeth O’Neal. “But, em, sorry, I don’t think I can make it this weekend. Sounds interesting, though. Perhaps if you’d asked me a bit sooner—”
    “I didn’t know you were available sooner.” She looked him straight in the eye again. It made him reevaluate the things she said, search for double entendres. He began to apologize again, but she cut him off. “Relax, Andrew.” Her voice dipped low with disdain. “You didn’t break my heart.” Behind the dismissal and the contempt, though, he thought he could see a much younger woman. Maybe one who’d learned how to hide hurt or neglect behind a sneer.
    “Call me sometime,” she said in a kinder voice. “A sympathetic ear.” She had long, dark, wavy hair she always wore down, a style incongruous with the sober, black-wearing rest of her; too feminine, too obviously provocative. She smiled,