Page 28 of Bad Professor

“You know. He’s sweet to her, and it’s gross.”

Was Carlos ever sweet to me? Maybe at the beginning. He was a good husband for most of our marriage, and always a good father. I don’t like to think of how that good husband could betray me like that, because that makes me angry and my therapist told me there’s no sense creating anger in myself.

Dexter left me a note. That was sweet.

I need to get him out of my mind. I made up my mind not to text him, to let this stay where it belongs—as a fun night. It got me back to thinking of myself as a woman, let me feel things that I thought I lost. But it was one night.

I don’t think I’m ready for more.

“I’m okay with your dad being happy with Heidi,” I admit to Jordan. “He’s changed and maybe he thinks being sweet is what she wants.”

“Didn’t you want him to be sweet?”

I walked right into that one. “I had a different relationship with him than he does with Heidi. So I can’t really compare it because he is a different person now.”

“I wish he was sweet to you.”

“He didn’t need to be because you’re sweet to me. You and your sister.”

“Jade is not sweet. Do you know what she said to me?” As I listen to Jordan’s sisterly complaints, I can’t help but think of how Dexter was sweet to me.

And it was very nice.

15

Dexter

September is, quite possibly the best time of the year.

There’s always been something about the start of a school year that gets me excited. It’s a new start; a fresh start.

A start that will not involve me getting involved with one of my students.

Last year at this time, I said the same thing to myself. I made it three weeks before Maura Lu sat in the front seat of my Great Female Voices in Literature class and smiled at me. It was a third-year course—she was perfectly legal.

I smiled back.

But I didn’t do anything. When she showed up at my door for office hours wearing a short skirt with bare legs despite the autumn chill, I did glance at her legs but did nothing. There was no flirtation. I didn’t really smile because Maura wasn’t a great writer. Or even understood the premise of the course.

Maybe that’s the problem. The women I’ve gotten involved with showed a passion for the subjects I was teaching. They showed promise. Maura didn’t, and even though she was offering—she came right out and invited me for a drink to discuss Lucy Foley’s new thriller—I said no thank you.

Lucy Foley writes good books, but she wasn’t exactly the great voice I was discussing in class.

But what it comes down to, is that I didn’t take that step. I kept the barrier between teacher and student intact for an entire semester. And even though I may have hooked up after final exams with Colleen Rames, who wrote a brilliant thesis on the rise of romantic comedy, technically she had finished the course and was no longer my student. We were celebrating, and if one thing led to the other, the school year was over and I was no longer her teacher.

No one knew about Colleen. I didn’t even tell Max, because I don’t kiss and talk about it.

Unless, of course, I’m on the verge of getting fired for it.

So I can do this.

On the first day of school, I wear my favourite jeans. I button my second favourite shirt - light blue with a faint pink and purple plaid because it goes perfectly with the tie—purple and covered with gold rings.

I point to my reflection in the mirror. “One ring to rule us all. Keep it in your pants.”

I can do this. It’s a class on the fantasy genre in literature. There probably won’t even be three women in the class.

I shouldn’t say that. Women read fantasy too.

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