The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes

Author:James Hynes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312287719
Publisher: Picador

On the street, in the freezing dark, Nelson hurried away from Pandemonium. His hands shook as he tried to pull on his gloves, and he dropped one on the pavement. He stooped for it, and someone spoke his name in a plummy voice that sent a shiver of pleasure down his spine.

“Nelson,” said Miranda.

He stood, his breath misting in a great cloud. Miranda DeLaTour came out of a darkened doorway wrapped in her coat, the belt tight around her narrow waist. As Nelson stood speechless, she plucked at the sleeve of his parka, rubbing the bright orange polyester with the slender fingers of her leather glove. Her nose wrinkled as if against an awful smell.

“You’re not wearing this to the airport, are you?” she asked. She lifted her bright hazel eyes to him, and he felt a charge run through him to the tip of his finger.

“Do you have anything presentable to wear?” she said.

“Um . . .” Nelson’s interview suit, the one his wife had bought for him in graduate school, had been sold several years ago to pay for diapers. All he had left were the dress shoes that went with it.

“First impressions, Nelson,” Miranda said. “We’re wooing these candidates as much as they’re wooing us. Do you have to be anywhere right now?”

In Nelson’s head, the image of his wife and daughters seated around the dining room table, knives and forks in their hands, winked out as if a plug had been pulled. In the darkness a meatloaf sprouted wings and flew away.

“No,” he said. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

On their way across the Quad to her car, Miranda and Nelson passed Vita scurrying through the cold with her head down. For a moment Nelson thought he might escape notice, but Vita glanced up and nearly stumbled, her jaw hanging open at the sight of Nelson and Miranda together. Nelson’s ears burned; he felt guiltier in front of Vita than he had felt lying about his dinner. He gave her a weak smile and kept going. Miranda glanced at him, her eyes unreadable in the dark between street lamps.

In her Miata on the way to the mall Miranda rested her trim, gloved hand on the gleaming knob of the gearshift and maneuvered through traffic like a Formula One driver. Pursing her lips, she dashed from traffic light to traffic light, working the shift with precise, vigorous strokes of her arm, racing the Miata under each light just as it turned red. Nelson’s seat was pushed back as far as it would go. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, the engine thrumming just beyond his knees, the pavement rushing by inches below his backside. He glanced sidelong at Miranda, and she wrenched back on the stick and floored the accelerator. Nelson was pressed deliciously deeper into his leather seat. He felt a tingling in his loins.

“Do you really mean to champion Vita Deonne for tenure?” Miranda said over the finely tuned engine. The light of passing street lamps flashed over her face.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.