The Weight of Words (The WORDS Series) (26 page)

“Look, you really should head in.”

I hefted my backpack onto my shoulder. “You’re right. I’m frigging frozen. Thanks for coming by. I enjoyed spending time with you.”

“Me too, poppet.”

“See ya tomorrow, sailor.” I backed away slowly.

“Bye.” His voice was little more than a whisper.

As he dropped onto the bench, I turned and slowly made my way down the paths behind the men’s residence. Looking back, I saw him lean forward, his head in his hands. I willed myself to keep walking.

The apartment was empty. Spared the task of lying about how I’d spent my afternoon, I went straight to my room, crawling into bed and eagerly tearing open the Chapters bag. Inside was a calendar, a large picture of Shakespeare’s face on the front cover. Daniel had removed the packaging and clipped a red marker to the top of the calendar. What an interesting gift.

I flipped it open. There was a reproduction of a piece of art on every page with the month’s calendar grid below. At the bottom of each page was a quoted reference from a Shakespearean play or poem. Daniel had marked some of the months with Post-it notes.

I turned to February, the first flagged page. Each of the days on the grid, starting with February second, was marked with a large red X. I smiled as understanding dawned on me, and I turned the page to March, which was also flagged. The reproduced art was a painting called
A Dance to The Music of Time
. On the calendar, the squares for Sunday the first and Monday the second each contained a giant red X. Three Shakespearean lines were written beneath the weeks of the calendar. They read:

“Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short
His folly and his time of sport.”
(The Rape of Lucrece)

Beside the lines, Daniel had written on a Post-it note:

Fuck! Slow doesn’t even begin to cover it!

I thought of him sitting at Chapters with his red marker and his Post-it notes. How adorable was he? He had lovely handwriting for a man, too.

I turned the page, excited to see what Shakespeare—and Daniel—would have to say for themselves in April. The painting was an 1885 portrait entitled
Antony and Cleopatra
. The Shakespearean quotation was from the play about the titular passionate lovers:

“The April’s in her eyes: it is love’s spring,
And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.”
(Antony and Cleopatra)

There was another Post-it message from Daniel:

I’ll be fucking cheerful on April 30th, believe me.

I laughed, absolutely giddy. This had to be the most ridiculous literary analysis he’d ever done. I loved it.

May was a month I was desperately looking forward to. The artwork was Titian’s
Venus and Adonis
, and again the Shakespearean quotation related to the figures in the painting:

“…kissing speaks with lustful language broken,
‘If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.’”
(Venus and Adonis)

I’d studied
Venus and Adonis
in high school. The painting depicted the section of the poem in which Venus had pulled Adonis down from a horse and was attempting to seduce him as they lay together in the woods.

I turned my attention to the Post-it note beside May’s quotation. Daniel had drawn a large red arrow pointing at the painting. Underneath it he had written:

This will be you and me in fifty-eight days.
I
don’t know about you, Aubrey, but
I
can’t fucking wait.

Chapter 17

Light and Lust

This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
For light and lust are deadly enemies…
(
The Rape of Lucrece
)

I L
AY
I
N
B
ED
T
HAT
N
IGHT
thinking over the events of the day and struggling to reconcile the roller coaster of emotions the afternoon had yielded. Tedium, happiness, grief, contentedness, yearning—the whole gamut. I was completely wiped. As annoying as the situation with Daniel was, it was temporary. In fifty-eight (soon to be fifty-seven) days, he’d be all mine and we’d be in the clear. This was my last thought before I finally drifted off to sleep.

I slept well. Too well—I snoozed straight through my alarm, only to wake and discover that I had twenty-five minutes to get ready for work. I sprang out of bed, dove in and out of the shower, then dashed about trying to find something appropriate to wear. In the end, I panicked and pulled on my black yoga pants and a plain white T-shirt, finishing with a thigh-length black and white belted sweater. It wasn’t an outfit I’d normally wear to work, but it would have to do.

I was almost out the door when I remembered I needed to do something of the utmost importance. I tore back to my room and opened my top dresser drawer to find the calendar. Opening it up to March, I took the red pen and drew a large red X through Tuesday, March third. Then I buried the calendar in the bottom of the drawer again before heading off to work.

I was launching into my morning routine and making myself my first cup of coffee when Dean Grant strode stormily out of his office.

“Would you mind pouring me one as well?” he asked. “Then come into my office. We need to talk.”

Oh, crap. Here we go.

What had Daniel and I been thinking the day before, gallivanting around the quad, playing kneesies and eye-groping each other in the library, hugging under the gatehouse, all under the potentially watchful eyes of his father? I should have remembered the proximity of the library and Northrop Frye Hall. Which way did Dean Grant’s office windows face again? I hadn’t even considered that. I was so stupid.

I poured him his coffee and grabbed my own cup, pulling his office door open with my foot. I placed his coffee on the desk blotter, trying to disguise the shaking of my hand.

“Thank you, Aubrey. Have a seat, won’t you?” He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk, taking a gulp of his coffee before tossing his reading glasses on the desk and leaning forward to look at me over his clasped hands.

“I’m guessing you don’t know why I’ve called you in here?”

“Um, I’m not entirely sure, sir, no.”

This was not sounding good at all.

“Something dreadful was brought to my attention yesterday.”

Brought
to his attention? I looked at the window. It faced south, across Queen’s Park. He wouldn’t have seen us sitting in front of the library or walking toward the gatehouse. Someone else had reported us!

He sighed deeply and looked at his watch. “The university has experienced the loss of a St. Mike’s student over Reading Week.”

Wait—what was he saying? Oh my God, he was talking about Mary!

“Yes, I heard about this yesterday.” I recovered quickly from my shock. “My morning class is at St. Mike’s on Tuesdays. It’s all everyone was talking about,” I fibbed.

“Oh, so you
do
know?” Dean Grant asked, his eyebrows arching in surprise.

“Yes. Sorry, it didn’t occur to me you’d need to talk to me about it. I actually knew Mary. She was in one of my classes—in my tutorial group, in fact. She was a lovely girl.” Then, for good measure, I added, “It’s Daniel’s class.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. This is more than a passing occurrence for you, then. And she was in Daniel’s class, you say? I’m surprised he didn’t mention it.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know,” I said, fabricating on the spot. “He missed class on Monday. Professor Brown told us he was under the weather.” Was it only two days ago that Daniel had met me at the Gardiner? It seemed like eons ago.

“I didn’t realize he’d been off on Monday. I haven’t spoken to him since the weekend,” he said, giving me a pointed look. I tried to maintain a blank expression.

Nothing to see here, Dean Grant. Move along
.

“I imagine Martin would have contacted him regardless,” he said. “Anyway, we don’t know how many Victoria students will be impacted by her passing, so would you send an email to the residence dons and student leadership groups to remind them that we have counseling available through Student Services?”

“Of course. I’ll get on that right away.” I started to stand up.

“And, Aubrey? How is everything going with you?” he asked.

This was a conspicuously vague question.

“Great, sir. Never been better.” I smiled confidently, moving toward the door.

“I’m happy to hear that,” he replied, a contemplative expression on his face.

I pulled his door closed behind me, leaning against it with an enormous sigh of relief, though I suspected it would be short-lived. How on earth would I make it through the next fifty-seven days in one piece if one day of subterfuge had already made me a nervous wreck?

After work, I headed straight to University College, happy to be early for class so I could secure a seat in the second row on the other side of the room. Students filed in one by one, some looking like they’d heard about Mary, some clearly oblivious.

Julie finally dashed in, moving down the row to sit beside me, her eyebrow raised saucily. “Well, well, well, couldn’t stay away from the candy dish, eh?” she asked.

I brushed off her suggestive comment with a quick subject change. “Hey, did you get my messages? Where’ve you been?”

“Oh, man, I’ve been so bogged down with school work. I got nothing done over the break. I had to hide in the library and knock off an art history paper. I’m so exhausted.” Professor Brown and Daniel’s arrival interrupted her complaints. “Holy mofo, check out Mr. Shmexy. He got his hair cut. He’s been holding out on us,” she whispered in my ear.

She was right. Dr. Hobo, it seemed, was on a sabbatical. Daniel looked spectacular. He was wearing the same black jeans he’d worn the day before, this time pairing them with a fabulously soft-looking tan sweater, a white T-shirt peeking out above the neckline. The kicker though? The footwear. I didn’t know a lot about shoes, but I knew what I liked. These shoes—which may have been boots, it was hard to tell—looked to be of the Italian variety and the kind that made a lovely authoritative clipping sound when you walked.

Authoritative
. Yes, please…

“He shaved too,” Julie said. “Man, he cleans up well. He looks fucktacular, don’t you think?”

She nudged me.

“Hmm?” I was still imagining the sound of his shoes.

“Daniel! He puts the
edible
in incredible, don’t you think?”

“Yes, fine, he looks fine,” I stammered, remembering that as far as she knew, I hadn’t seen him since before Reading Week.

Daniel took his seat, and Professor Brown quickly called the class to order, casting his eyes around the room somberly. “Ladies and gentlemen, I received some sad news on Monday night.”