I flop against the cheap leather couch, alcohol buzzing around my brain as I remind myself it's only 4pm. I had my last final this morning and a bunch of guys invited me to their "garden party". I hadn't been going to go, I actually made a call first, but there was no answer. So much for having loads of time on her hands. I'm beginning to think Professor Mills wasn't being serious when she told me how I could make up the credit for her class. It was probably some sick joke. It wouldn't be the first time I'd been toyed with by someone who said they would help me. So, after leaving a weird voice message, I called after the guys and jumped in the back of a pickup to go get wasted.
And now I'm at this party with people I don't really know, they're cool though, being fed cheap beer and roll ups that are definitely not just tobacco, being fondled by some football hunk, feeling about as awesome as I ever feel about life, and I'm literally about to go inside with him when my phone rings. I feel it vibrating in my pocket and suddenly I kind of like that I have an excuse to get away from this guy. I jump up from the couch on this rundown little porch and stagger into the street.
"Hello?" I slur into the phone.
"Miss Swan?"
Damn it! I should really make a habit of checking the caller ID.
"Shit, Professor Mills," I try to say, though I'm having some trouble with my words.
"Miss Swan, are you alright?"
"Yeah, totally fine, just, uhm, a lil' sick…" I fumble around with the lie and I know she's not buying it.
"Miss Swan, you seem to be utterly inebriated. Where are you?"
I look back at the house. I actually have no idea.
"Party," I admit, sounding embarrassingly ashamed of myself. She makes a sound, like "hm", and I'm in love with it and I almost tell her but then a car zooms past, inches from my face, and before I know it I'm on my ass in the road, the world a swaying blur in front of my eyes.
"Miss Swan! What on earth was that?"
"Car…" I say. She seems to be moving now, she sounds really worried.
"S'okay, I'm fine," I tell her.
"Nonsense. By the sounds of things you almost became roadkill just then. Miss Swan, I want you to put me on speaker and then pull up the GPS on your phone so you can tell me where you are."
I do as she says, reciting my location like a child. She tells me she's getting in her car, and that I should get off the street. I slump onto the sidewalk, barely aware of what's happening. I feel like she shows up immediately. To my surprise, she's wearing loose linen slacks with a black and white aztec type pattern, a tight black tank top, and flats.
"You're tiny," I exclaim. She laughs behind her sunglasses.
"Judging me by my stature now? Come on, Miss Swan, get in the car."
She drives a black porsche, she has the top down. I'm impressed.
"Sorry," I say as I collapse into the seat. She makes a face.
"Miss Swan, are you high?" she asks. I don't really see the point in denying it.
I settle for a quiet, "Maybe," and she drives. I'm vaguely aware that she's driving away from campus. We must be going to her place. I kind of wish I was sober.
"Why did you come get me?" I ask suddenly. My drunkenness makes me much more talkative than usual. "You hardly know me. I would have been fine."
"I was worried about you," she says. "You sounded, and you are, incredibly drunk. It would not be safe for you to be alone."
"I've been this drunk lots of times," I slur.
"You say that as if it makes things better. Miss Swan, you need to take care of yourself. You are not even 21."
"Boy, you really did read my file. At least you know when my birthday is now." I stumble through the sentences, trying to sound sassy. I'm nearly 21. I deserve to be 21. I've had to look after myself since I can remember, I have more of a right to drink than most people over the legal age.
Professor Mills sighs, but she doesn't seem mad. She looks at me through her sunglasses.
"Do try to remain conscious," she requests. I laugh. Because she made a joke, she's teasing me, we're in a totally bizarre situation and I'm totally hammered and she's driving me to her house and making jokes to pass the time.
"I'll do my best," I say. I feel a little queasy, but she's actually a great driver. Fast, but effortlessly so. I hope this won't be the only time she drives me. As if she can read my mind, she reaches into the backseat and grabs a folded shopping bag, one of the glossy card ones you get from really fancy stores. She shakes it open and hands it to me.
"So you don't throw up in my car," she explains. I'm already retching into the bag, totally mortified, but very impressed at her forsight.
"Are you psychic?" I ask her. She laughs.
"No, Miss Swan," she says, seemingly unphased by my copious vomiting, "but I have been drunk and high before."
I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand. "Really? I thought you were a robot, just like all other teachers," I say. She rolls her eyes.
"It's not as uncommon a belief as you might think."
"How old are you?" I ask. She's pulling into her drive, she waits until the car's stopped before she answers.
"I am twenty-nine. But I will be thirty before you are twenty-one."
"Do you still get drunk?"
"Yes," she says simply. "Now, do you think you can make it to the door without help?"
She picks up her purse and takes the shopping bag from my lap, tying it and dropping it neatly in her garbage can as if bags of puke are something she deals with on a regular basis. I'm still leaning on the car; she comes back and puts an arm firmly around my waist. I let her half walk, half carry me to her door; she props me against the wall while she unlocks it, then helps me inside.
I look around, my drunkenness making me unashamedly nosy. Her house is big, neat, and modern. It's not very personal, not as empty as her office but still pretty bare. No photographs, no trinkets… There are paintings on the walls, though, and there's a plant in the foyer. She leads the way to the kitchen, sits me down at the table, and fetches me a glass of water along with a basin in case I need to throw up again. To my delight, she then pops open a beer for herself and sits down opposite me, watching me with interest.
"Professor Mills?" I ask.
She takes a swig of beer. "You can call me Regina, if you like. What's up?"
"Regina," I say slowly, savouring her first name, loving that I have permission to use it. She waits for me to continue. "Regina, do you like me?"
She seems surprised, but then she smiles. "Yes, Miss Swan-"
"Wait," I interrupt. "If I'm calling you Regina, you have to call me Emma."
"Okay, Emma. Yes. I like you."
I grin from ear to ear. Her approval makes me foolishly brave.
"And do you think I'm pretty?"
She narrows her eyes, but then her expression softens into comfort and she smiles at me again. She seems to decide that it's only awkward if she makes it so. I don't know if it's the alcohol, or maybe the weed, but she seems way more at ease than she did a couple of weeks ago in her office. She's not nervous, she seems to know exactly how to handle me. Maybe it helps that she's on home turf.
"Yes, Emma. You're beautiful," she tells me. "But you and I both know better than to judge people by their appearance."
I attempt to roll my eyes; I end up kind of wobbling on the chair. "I think you're pretty too," I tell her. She chuckles.
"Thank you. Drink some more of your water, please."
I do as she says.
"We will have to have this conversation again when you are sober, but you called me this morning, and your… demeanor, also suggests that you have finished your finals?"
I nod.
"In that case, if you are amenable, perhaps our first meeting could be on Saturday. Unless you would rather keep your weekends for yourself?"
"Saturday's fine," I say, trying not to sound too eager. "Why didn't you answer your phone earlier?" Being drunk makes me childish; I blurt out the question as if she should have no life, as if she should spend all her time waiting by the phone for me to call.
For the first time, she looks worried. She seems to see through everything I say.
"I was.. I didn't have my phone," she says. "Did… Were you upset that I didn't answer?"
"No," I say quickly. She digs into my mind with her eyes. "Okay, fine, I… I thought maybe you hadn't meant it. That you'd take me places and stuff. Or that you changed your mind. I thought maybe you didn't want me to call you after all. But that's stupid. I never answer my phone half the time, it doesn't mean anything, I was just-"
"Emma." She uses my name to stop me. I love the way it sounds coming from her mouth.
"Sometimes we let our insecurities run away with us. It's not stupid. It's human."
I make a face. "I was pretty stupid today."
Regina (I love calling her that in my mind, too) looks at her beer, then back at me.
"I'm not going to pretend I approve of your actions today. But they are just that, your actions, and I can't criticise them either. I'm glad you answered your phone, and that you let me take care of you. And you weren't stupid. You felt something, something I am certain was about far more than some professor, and you acted on your feelings. That's not wrong. Acting on your feelings is right."
I try to take in her words. Again, I wish I was sober. I want to take in everything, soak up every moment of this woman who has to be miles and miles out of my league. This has to be a one off, a once in a lifetime chance to get to know this person, and I'm missing it. I want to tell her somehow, tell her how much I want to get to know her, to be her friend, even. It's not all about sex, although I'm insanely attracted to her. It's about something deeper, about the way she makes me feel. Right now, I actually feel safe. I can't remember the last time I felt that way. Maybe I never have. But with her I feel like I matter, like she really cares about me, like I'm not alone.
"I think, in general, people are often far too worried about acting on their feelings, about expressing themselves honestly. For a long time, I was. I did what was expected, what I thought I should do, and somehow I lost track of everything I wanted. I became a person I despised- But I must be boring you. Oh, Emma, you're hardly even awake," she says, embarrassed that she continued her speech so long. I want to tell her to keep going, that I want to hear everything, even though I have no idea how she could possibly be anything that could be despised. But words fail me. I slump back in my chair. At least I finished my water. I look at the glass with pride.
"You need to sleep this off," Regina tells me. "But I don't want you to be alone. Will your roommate be home?"
I shake my head, somehow very glad that M is staying over at her boyfriend's place. Regina pauses, but only for a second. She knew she might have to ask this.
"Would you mind staying here?"
I struggle to hold myself back; my instinct is to scream with delight.
"Is that okay?"
"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't."
She stands and helps me towards what turns out to be the bathroom. Ever the mind reader. Or bladder reader, in this case. She leaves me to it; when I come out she's washed my glass, finished her beer, recycled the bottle (I spy her colour coordinated recycling bins), and fetched a t-shirt and sleep shorts which she is now hugging to her chest. She seems small again, as if confessing too much of herself has made her intimidating outer appearance fade away.
She leads the way upstairs, and into what I deduce to be her bedroom. She hands me the clothes, then goes into an ensuite bathroom and returns with a new toothbrush.
"I'm going to get you another glass of water. I'll sleep on the couch, I just don't think you should be alone."
I look at the couch at the side of the room. It seems large and comfortable, but I can't kick her out of her bed!
"I should sleep on the couch," I say, still having trouble forming sentences.
"No," she says firmly. "Bed."
I feel like a child, but I nod in acceptance. She goes to get the water, I put on the pyjamas she's given me. They smell like her. I wonder if I'm already dreaming. I perch on the edge of the bed and wait for her to come back. I try to hurry her up with my mind. If this is a dream or hallucination or something, I should be able to control it. She doesn't take long, but I can't decide if my thoughts had any effect.
She puts the water on the nightstand then comes and sits beside me.
"This feels very strange," she says to me.
"You've never taken a student to bed before?" I ask, waggling my eyebrows. She practically lifts me into the bed and tucks me under the sheets. She keeps her bedroom cool; I like it, it means I can snuggle in the blankets without getting too hot.
"I have not," she tells me, smoothing down the sheet beside me. I realise this is the first time I have ever been tucked into bed, at least that I remember. Maybe I was when I was a baby, too, but this is different, anyway. I smile up at her. If I were controlling the dream, she would kiss me now. She doesn't.
"Will you talk to me a bit more?" I ask. I can feel myself falling asleep and I know it's a strange question, but I also know we passed inappropriate hours ago and this might be my only chance. I don't want to give up the sound of her voice. It all feels so intimate, so private, I want to wrap up every moment and hold them close to my heart.
She settles on the couch, picking up the book and her glasses from the armrest. She tucks her legs under her; I hope she can't see how intently I am watching her.
"What about?"
I sink deeper into the bed. Her bed. It's amazingly comfortable.
"Why did you really stop being a mayor?" I ask.
She laughs loudly. "That really bothers you, huh?" I wait for her to answer. My breathing is slowing, I know I'm going to fall asleep. She can tell. "I'm afraid it's too personal a story for right now. But ask me again someday, and I'll tell you."
I don't say anything else, I almost fall asleep, but I remember something at the last moment.
"Thank you," I mumble.
"You're very welcome."
And that's the last thing I hear before I drift off into oblivion.