I watched Phoebe more than I watched the sisters. I gave up on finding Ben. And though I now sound jaded and neutral when I recount this day, I cannot overstate how much it meant to me then. Because it meant that I was part of something just by being myself. My mission was existence. To get married, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to have a large, loving family of young ones. To have a house with a living large enough for a blackboard so that I could home-school my children. Even then the prospect of home-schooling frightened me more than anything else I could think of, but it delighted me to think of other young mothers wanting the same for their children, so that I might ask them for help. I might collaborate. My children need not live a friendless existence.
(Which was what I'd endured.)
The Langleys finished their speech on female submission. I can't recall the exact words; their message was a cold wash on my face, a sweet scent. I only imagined submitting to someone like Ben. It was pure in my case. I did not care about the others -- not even for Phoebe, who seemed caught in a trace state even after the Langleys gave up the stage to thunderous applause -- but I wanted to aspire to that ideal because I knew it would make me feel attractive. Phoebe seemed so dazed that I had to help her get up. She was wired again, once on two feet. She ran from me and to the friends she'd spoken to before, discussing and parsing the speech with a pair of Californian twins whose accents made me think of sin and the beach. They might have gone toward the stage to try to catch the Langley sisters, but they were caught in such a thick knot of women, they gave up, vowing to try later. And though Phoebe left me to stand on my own, I did not mind. And I still looked around the room for Ben, if only to prove that he was not a mere figment of my imagination. I stood until the entire chapel cleared and I was alone with Dean Harper, who waited for the Langleys to exit the stage so that he could pelt them with a hundred thousand questions about their book. They were gracious and smiling after every question. Olivia even touched the professor's arm in a friendly gesture, which took me aback.
Then, the professor was gone, too, and the Langley sisters bent down next to the stage to pick up their handbags. Without thinking, I left my pew and approached them.
I love your mission, I said.
I made sure to stand as far away from them as I could manage without seeming rude. Their energy was palpable; it intimidated me. Olivia and Marie both displayed their fluorescent smiles, but this made me more uneasy, even though they appeared sincere.
It's not our mission, Olivia -- or Marie? -- said.
It's yours., Marie -- or Olivia -- said. You know that this is important or else you would not have come.
We stood for am moment excited from nothing. And then Olivia saw something -- someone -- behind me and screamed.
She screamed for Ben. I barely heard him behind me. His feet were tentative even in the building with the loudest floor in the university.
In a moment, he stood between them again. He wore a pair of pressed slacks and a shirt. I noticed his shoes. I did not look up at his face.
Are you a freshman? they asked.
Sophomore.
Olivia put her hands over her mouth with exaggerated exaltation. Oh, Ben, she said.
Marie smiled. It looks like Vernier College has a lot to offer you, she told him. By way of explanation, Olivia told me that Ben was a transfer from Liberty – Vernier had a better sound design program, Olivia said. She wasn’t above a little bragging – she made it clear that Ben was too good for the Falwell institution.
He can do God’s work here, Olivia said. He’s working on studying Handel and Bach’s sacred canons. (They laughed.) You even write some yourself, don’t you, Ben?
Ben and I looked up at each other, and I smiled at him directly. He returned it, bashful and precious.
I love canons, I said.
Ben smiled.
You must come to the Vernier’s first symphony concert, he said. I’m arranging vespers for strings.
Oh, those were the vespers. So hauntingly low they made echoes in my shoulder, and my joints burst from the feeling of them. That was Ben. I saw him and I knew him intimately as if I made him bare. That was a chilling thought.
(The song of songs, which is Solomon's.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.)
I’ll be there, I said. I did not mention knowing him or that I was a violist. We did not meet when we practiced for the first time as an orchestra – I wondered if Ben was watching after all, whether this was an elaborate way to catch me lying. To expose me for the glittering snake that I was.
I don’t know if it was my imagination, but Olivia and Marie felt tense and a little less steady as we all stood together. One of us had to leave, so I turned and left. Olivia – or Marie’s – intense laughter warmed the empty chapel. If I caught the door, I would not have to hear Ben speak familiarly. My covetousness was more intense than I could have imagined. When I reached my room twenty minutes later, I went straight to bed, convinced that I’d escape this like a sick dream. Something that could be cured with two tablets, water, and twenty minutes of a Beethoven cello-piano sonata.
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