Memories of You

Jon Campbell seemed too blunt and forthright to carry off some kind of sinister deception. Still, she could hardly dare to hope that the man truly had forgotten what happened between them twenty years ago in that dirty motel room.

Camilla lowered herself among the bubbles so the water came to her chin. She lifted a slim foot and touched the faucet with her toe, idly tracing the outlines of the gleaming brass.

Maybe, for once in her life, she was going to be lucky. Perhaps the tinted contact lenses, her nose surgery, darkened hair and a few more inches of height were going to be enough to disguise her real identity from Jon Campbell.

Briefly she wondered what the man was like, how he’d turned out after all these years.

He seemed similar in some ways to the boy she remembered, but there were subtle differences, as well. Jonathan Campbell now had a look of wealth and power, despite the casual air. He was obviously a man with a privileged background and enough money to do anything he wanted—even go back to college full-time if he chose.

In fact, he seemed to be everything the campus myths claimed her to be. Camilla smiled grimly at the irony, then sobered and reached out to run more hot water into the tub.

Regardless of what he’d become, he was a threat to Camilla, and she knew she had to get the man out of her life quickly to preserve her own safety.

Elton wandered into the room, licking his whiskered chops with satisfaction. He stood erect, with his front paws resting on the edge of the tub, and stared at her solemnly. Camilla blew a couple of soap bubbles into his face, making him blink.

She smiled sadly. “Too bad a professor can’t just walk out of a class the way her students do. Should I drop that creative-writing class, Elton?”

The cat watched her with his usual inscrutable expression.

“Oh, I know. You’re right, of course,” Camilla said. “Dr. Pritchard can hardly drop a class simply because…”

Because the professor happens to share some unpleasant and embarrassing sexual history with one of her students.

Camilla’s throat tightened with anxiety. Of course, she had the power to remove a student from her class, but in order to do that she’d need a good reason.

Maybe if the work was hard enough, the man would quit of his own accord. After all, he’d probably been away from college for more than twenty years, presumably doing a lot of rugged, outdoor work, if his callused hands were any indication. No doubt he was going to find it difficult to adjust to the daily grind of classes and homework.

Camilla’s spirits lifted a bit.

Maybe she could give out the individual research assignments a couple of weeks early, and find some way to make Campbell work harder than anybody else. But she’d have to do it soon—before he had a lot more opportunities to sit at the back of that room and study every detail of her face and body.

Camilla climbed from the tub, dried herself on a big green towel and slipped into a terry-cloth robe and slippers, then made her way to the kitchen with Elton at her heels. She brewed a pot of herbal tea, put a small frozen entrée into the microwave and spread her books out on the glass-topped table.

What assignment could she give Jon Campbell? It had to be something tedious enough to convince the poor man that he wasn’t really interested in completing a senior writing class.

Camilla put on her reading glasses and began to work. After a few minutes, the microwave beeped and she got up, carried the tray to the table, picked up a fork and ate without tasting the food.

A short while later Camilla returned to her problem.

Maybe an analysis of character development in Chaucer?

How about a comparison of editorial styles of seven major newspapers, or a definitive look at the American novel from Hawthorne to Updike…

The pages blurred in front of her eyes. Camilla took off her glasses and dropped her head into her hands, rubbing her temples wearily.

It was beginning to rain. She could hear the heavy drops flowing down the windowpanes, pattering on the floor of the balcony. The sound was seductive, almost mesmerizing, carrying her back through the years.

Back to 1977, and the terrible events of that early summer…

July 1977

IT’S RAINING AGAIN, but I’m so cold and dirty that I don’t care anymore. It’s weird how people are always so afraid of being caught in the rain, as if getting wet is the worst thing that can happen to them. I’ve spent the last three nights out in the rain, sitting in the ditch by the highway with a jacket over my head. My clothes are filthy, my hair’s all stringy and I haven’t eaten since…I can’t remember the last time I had anything to eat.

It’s been a couple of days at least, but the hunger pangs have mostly passed. I’m dizzy a lot of the time and I still feel like throwing up whenever I remember what happened.

My knife didn’t help me a bit when he finally came to my room. He just laughed and snatched it from me like it was some kind of toy. When I tried to fight back, he hit me so hard that I could feel my nose breaking. The taste of blood in my throat sickened me almost as much as the things he was doing to me.

I can’t bear to think about the things he did. I won’t think about it. I won’t…

After he was finished, he rolled over and fell asleep. I got up, found the knife on the floor and jammed it as far as I could into his chest. He shouted and thrashed around, clutching at the knife handle. I don’t know if I killed him, but I hope so. I didn’t stay long enough to find out, I just grabbed some clothes and money and ran away.

My mother was passed out in the living room when I left. She never even knew what happened.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. After what he did to me, nothing matters anymore. It doesn’t matter what I do.

But I have to eat if I want to stay alive, so I’ll probably get to the city and start selling myself on the street. I’ll have to find some way to get cleaned up first, though. Nobody would pay to have sex with a girl who looks the way I do right now. It’s been two weeks since I ran away, and I haven’t seen a mirror for a long time so I don’t know if my nose has started to heal. It doesn’t hurt quite so much anymore, but I think it’s still pretty swollen.

I’m kind of scared at the thought of being a prostitute. Until he did what he did, I’d never even… nobody had ever touched me before. But now it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I just have to find some way to get a little money. I have to clean myself up and wash my hair, and find some clothes somewhere.

The sky is starting to lighten, and the sun will be rising soon. Meadowlarks are singing on the prairie all around me. They sound almost crazed with happiness. It’s amazing how the dawn can still be so clean and beautiful when it shines down on a world as ugly as this.

I’m sitting on a piece of cardboard in a wide, grassy ditch, and I’m stiff and cold, sore all over. I’d give anything to have a hot meal and a bath. A hot bath would be the most wonderful thing in the world.

Maybe I can flag down one of the semitrailers that keep passing on the highway, and get to the city that way. But people are such busybodies. The driver will want to know where I came from. He’ll take me to the police and they’ll either put me in jail for murder or send me back home.

Home.

God, what a laugh. I’ll die before I go back there. But I don’t know what else to do, and I’m so scared. I’m really scared. The mist is clearing and I can see for a little way down the ditch. There’s a man over there by the intersection. He must have stopped sometime during the night. He’s got his motorcycle pulled off the highway, and he’s been camping in a little tent. Now he’s up and moving around. He’s got a portable stove set up on some rocks. I can smell bacon frying.

Oh, Lord, it smells so good! I think he’s brewing coffee, too. Maybe a guy on a motorcycle won’t be so likely to call the cops.

Before I can lose my nerve, I get up and begin walking down the ditch toward him. It’s funny, I’m putting one foot in front of the other but I’m not sure if I’m still upright. The world is spinning, and all of a sudden there’s sky where the ground is supposed to be.

I feel somebody kneeling beside me, lifting me. Now I can see a face. It’s not really a man at all, just a boy not much older than me. He’s got blue eyes and thick brown hair, and he looks so nice….

SHE LOOKED BLANKLY at the streaming window. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped at them with the back of her hand, then fumbled in her pocket for a wad of tissues.

Finally, she pushed the books aside, stumbled into her living room and curled on the couch, hugging her knees. She switched on the television and let waves of brightly coloured images wash over her, drowning the painful memories in gusts of canned laughter.

NEXT MORNING, Camilla crossed the campus and went into the arts building. She bypassed her office and headed straight for the large theater where she taught freshman English.

Ninety-six students were registered this term, practically an impossible number. She sighed when she looked up at the tiered rows of seats filled with anxious young people.

While they stared down at her in hushed stillness, she moved across the front of the room, set her books on the desk and found the class list.

“Good morning. My name is Dr. Pritchard.”

There was a nervous murmur of greeting.