1
Chloe Woodward
Writing Fiction
Hidden
“I’m a cliché, Oscar.” Ellie was lying face down on her bed, a pint of chocolate ice cream and sheets of scribbled piano music were spread around her. Her blue sheets and pillow cases were stained with tears and old makeup. Oscar, her overweight calico cat, jumped onto her bed and began to lap up the melted remains of the pity party. “Hey, stop it.” She sat up and threw the pint into the trash bin across the room. “I’m serious though.” She picked him up and held him like a baby. “Who falls in love with their professor, and expects it to go well?” She grabbed his paw and pointed it at herself, imitating a high pitched voice, one that she thought he might have, “You do, Ellie. You do.”
***
It was between the looks in Music Composition and the notes passed in secret, her love had grown for Eric. He was perfect. His short groomed black hair and glasses were what first attracted her to him. That, and his six foot frame. He dwarfed her. Eric also gave off the aura of being intelligent, which he had to be to have a PhD. But you knew by simply looking at him that he was smarter than you. She envied that. She had always struggled to be book smart.He had tried to help her grades in her other courses, history of the piano and music theory, but it didn’t matter how much she studied – she neverreceived above a C plus.
He always dressed so well too. A black tie and dress shoesevery day. She had always been attracted towell-dressed men. If a man owned a suit, it was likely Ellie had thought about him in bed.She could see the outline of his six pack whenever he stretched to reach something off of the white board. Not even Eric’s age bothered her, she knew that fifteen years her senior was old enough to be her uncle, maybe even a wayward father, but she didn’t care. She loved him, regardless of the warnings her mother gave her. She was just thankful to have met him.
One night they had spent the evening talking about Bridgehaven, Eric had described his job there as an afterthought to the university, “No one realized that a music professor could make a good addition to an engineering school until I convinced them.” He had winked over his glass of merlot. Ellie loved when he did that. It was like he was alluding to some secret between the two of them, letting her in on something special to share.
***
Oscar twisted in her arms and jumped to the ground.
“I know, I don’t want to be around me either. I’m a mess.”
She got up and looked at herself in the mirror. Her blonde hair was in a partial bun, one that she had put in two days before. Her white tank top had a stain in the middle where her fourth pint of chocolate ice cream had dripped last night. She was wearing what she lovingly referred to as laundry day panties that were a grandma-approved beige, and her legs desperately needed to be shaved a week ago. She slowly touched around her green eyes, which were swollen from crying. Her laptop alerted her from across the room. It was him.
Ellie,
If this deal is going to work I need your song by Friday. It’s that or start coming to class. I’m not going to give you anymore chances.
Thanks,
Professor Dalton
***
“Wow,” she said, tears were streaming down her face. She opened the door to leave his office. “You’re such a bitch.”
“Maybe,” he offered, “but I’m a bitch who’s going to be your professor for the rest of the semester, regardless of our relationship status.” She turned around, indignant.
“Like hell you are.”
“I’m serious. Add/drop and withdrawal dates have already passed. If you don’t want an F for your GPA you’re still going to have to work with me, there’s too much of the semester left for you to stop showing up, and someone will get suspicious when you still pass my class.”
“What, you want me to sit in your classes every Tuesday and Thursday and watch as you wink and flirt with Sandy-Fuck-Me-Sullivan? No. I can’t.” Her tears were replaced with anger.
“Ellie. I’m serious.”
“So am I! I’ll fail your class before I see you again.” She turned her back to him.
“Ellie,” he softened, “you don’t need another hit to your GPA. I know you want graduate school. I have an idea.” Ellie started to tap her foot, still facing away. It seemed like he had thought a lot about what would happen when they broke up, it made her nauseous. “Write me a song. Write me a song about the pain you’re in right now. Put your heart and soul into it, and if I like it, you pass for the semester. It’s a big enough project that you wouldn’t have to come in or do one more assignment for the last eight weeks.” Ellie stopped tapping. “I promise.”
“Are you kidding me? You want me to open my heart to you once again, only to have you relish the pain I’m in? I won’t.”
“I’ll give you an A. I know that you need one.”
“Gee, thanks. You’re such a dick, you know that?” She sighed and looked down at her feet.She’d always hated her feet. “I get to write whatever I want?” He nodded. “I can call you whatever I want? I can curse you and belittle you? You’re just going to judge it on quality?”
“I just want you to pass and for us to go our separate ways.”
“Fine.” She slammed the door.
***
“Fucker,” she said as she closed her laptop. She mocked him, “Thanks, Professor Dalton.” She raised her hands above her head and yelled, “It’s Professor Dalton.” Oscar scrambled to get out of the room. She smiled sadly, “It scares me too, buddy.”
She grabbed the piano sheets off of her bed and stuffed them into her backpack. “I need to go write this song, Oscar, but I’ll be back to give you dinner.” She walked through her apartment and looked at the several pizza boxes around the sofa. “Maybe we’ll have a vegetable tonight.”
Oscar meowed as she opened the door.
“What?” Shit, pants. “Thanks bud.” She walked back into her room and grabbed her Eeyore pajama pants out of the dirty clothes hamper. “Does this look scream post-breakup, or what?”
Ellie headed to her red Honda she hadn’t seen in weeks.
***
“I hate you with every fiber of my being…” Stop it. Ellie continued to sing, “I wish you would jump off a cliff…” I hate myself. Why is this so hard? “You make me want to vomit every time I look at you…”
If I play this chord, I can introduce my chorus to it, but I don’t have a chorus so that’s great. She looked in front of her where all the notes from class laid on the grand piano. She was in the practice room that the university provided for students who played instruments that were too big to have in their dorms or apartments. She needed to pick a rhythm pattern, but everything that she spoke didn’t match what she wanted. It just didn’t feel right. Everything was sad, everything was hateful, everything was woeful, or everything made her want to vomit from its sappy tone. I’m not writing him a song about how much I miss him, or how much I loved him, but I don’t want to write about how much I hate him, either. Even though I do.
***
“Well, I – I love you,” she said quietly. “And I broke up with Josh today, so we can be together. Like a real couple.” She watched the color drain from his face. “Like you said we would.”
“Ellie.” He sat back in his chair and exhaled, covering his face briefly.
“What? I don’t understand why you’re so upset by that,” she started to raise her voice. “You’re the one who brought the idea up.” Ellie crossed her arms.
“Yeah, because I didn’t actually think you’d do it,” he said and stood up. “You loved Josh; you were with him for two years for fuck’s sake.”
She had been in love with Josh since her first year in college. They had met on orientation night, and spent every day together since. He was skinny, a skateboarder, and was only coming to college because his parents were making him. Regularly, he’d pass out drunk from the Budweiser he’d steal from his roommate’s refrigerator. He was the opposite of Eric.
Ellie got up and tried to put her arms around him. “I know that, but he’s not you.”
“Ellie please,” he placed her arms at her side, “I’m serious. I’m not ready for this. I’m a professor.”
“Not ready? Do you think I was ready to fall in love with an underpaid professor at a school I was about to ditch in a semester anyway?”
“You were never going to leave this school.”
“What?”
“You were never going to leave Bridgehaven, just like you were never going to leave Josh. That’s not who you are, Ellie. You’re not exciting, you’re not spontaneous, you’re not unexpected.” Ellie backed away from him, each sentence was like a physical blow. “You were just a good lay,” he said, looking up at her with pain is his eyes. “And I never thought you would have the guts to make it more than that. I counted on it. I’m sorry.”
Ellie looked at him, a storm was starting to brew inside her.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He looked back up at her, surprised. “Wipe that stupid fucking look off your face like I’ve never yelled at you before.”
“Ellie,” he walked over and put his hands on her shoulders, “I’m serious. I don’t want this. I could lose my job if anyone found out. And as underpaid as it is, I like it.” You like it because you fuck your students. “So, in all honesty,” he sat down, “you’re just not worth it.”
***
She rested her head on the piano keys. I’m never going to get this done. I’m going to have to go to class and see him flirt with Stacey Sullivan. She’s such a bitch. She played Chop Sticks repeatedly until Mary Had a Little Lamb became a less obnoxious option.
She lifted her head and peaked over the top board of the piano at the clock, she had been there for three hours. His office was just down the hall. Ellie pushed back the piano bench and creeped out of the room, peaking at his door from behind the door frame. His door was open, but she couldn’t see him.
“Hey,” she yelled quickly while jumping back into the practice room. She waited, but there wasn’t a response. She stuck her head out and looked again. He’s not here. She sprinted down the hallway, her Eeyore pajamas sliding down her hips, causing her to hold them as she ran. She closed his door quietly.
His room was the same as it always was, disheveled. There was a stack of papers that he had yet to grade, in a bin next to the mini bookcase littered with books, two of which were titled SHEET MUSIC FOR DUMMIES and A PIANIST’S PLIGHT. Yeah, I sure have a fucking plight right now. She continued to look around the room. She didn’t even know why she was in here, but she felt like it was making her feel better. His Mac was sitting next to a cup of coffee, and for a moment she imagined herself loosening the screws on his desk, so when he came back he would sit down and that would be the end of his precious computer. But, unfortunately she had more pride than that. Instead, she began to look through his desk. Not enough pride for this, though. Maybe she could find a password or something and submit an A for the semester into the system. She opened the right bottom drawer and saw a pile of underwear. Panties?
There were at least ten. Were they hers? No, she would have noticed that many missing. She riffled through the pile with a pencil from his desk. At the bottom of the pile she saw her black lace cheekies that she wore the first night they had hooked up. She had been so hungover in the morning that when he suggested that she wear just his sweatpants to her apartment, she happily obliged. She had forgotten about them. She held them in her hand, and looked at them. She grinned and put them in her back pocket. Ellie left his office and made her way back to the grand piano; she no longer cared if he saw her.
***
Friday morning Ellie came into the office of Professor Dalton and placed an eight-by-eleven yellow envelope on his desk. She had washed her hair, shaved her legs, and was wearing her normal jeans and blouse that made her feel pretty. It had taken her thirty minutes after leaving his office to write the lyrics, and another hour to come up with the piano melody and harmony. Inside the envelope was her recording of the song, printed sheet music, and printed lyrics. On top of the envelope was a purple sticky note that read: “I hope you like it; I really do.” It was a bluesy piano piece that had come out of her soul.
Hidden
You know it’s really easy to hide
But while you were lying I looked inside
I thought about all the things you say
How it would’ve been easy to walk away
I could’ve lied to myself and lied to you
Said this song was worth all you put me through
Yes, I’m gonna leave you and go
But I think there’s one thing you should know
Baby I know your secret
I knew you liked lingerie, but not that you keep it
You know it’s really easy to hide
But while you were lying I looked inside
I could’ve lied to myself and lied to you
Said this song was worth all you put me through
Yes, I’m gonna leave you and go
But I think there’s one thing you should know
Baby I know your secret
I knew you liked lingerie, but not that you keep it
She smiled as she left his office, walking like she had just set a bomb off behind her. She didn’t care if he liked the song or if he failed her. Everything was going to be okay. She had Oscar, and her mom. Josh wasn’t talking to her anymore, but she knew that she had fucked up and wouldn’t have wanted to speak to him if he had done what she had. She got in her car as Professor Dalton entered the building. They connected eyes and he looked like he wanted to say something. Ellie winked and shut her car door, ready to drive away from a man that she had let deceive her for too long.