Duly Noted

Gemma worked the cardboard sleeve of her cup up and down, making a rhythmic drum on the marble table. She had chosen a seat near the window so she could watch for him. Choosing this coffee shop was strategic on her part. There was something about the high ceiling, the black and white penny-tiled floor, and the chairs that looked right out of a Parisian patisserie that evoked exactly the right level of laid-back prestige.

Her ask was big. She tried not to let that knowledge hit her stomach for fear of the knots it would create. Gemma’s book proposal—a theoretical look at where paranoia begins and how it manifests—had sold more than a month ago. She hadn’t written a single word of it yet even though the $20,000 advance had already been deposited into her bank account. The fact that the publisher loved the idea, and offered that amount of money, had caught Gemma by such surprise she had almost canceled her class the afternoon she got the call from the acquisitions editor, just to have time to process it.

But she hadn't canceled class. She’d love to tell herself she had held class—regardless of how keyed up she felt—because she’s the ultimate professional, and despite the university’s focus on her research agenda, she feels an immense duty to her students. In reality, she hadn't canceled for one reason only: Chloe. And though she couldn’t bear Chloe’s judgmental face while she lectured, she preferred that to the nasty Tweets she’d post in Gemma’s absence. Gemma once had to cancel class because she was rushed off campus in an ambulance with kidney stones. When she checked her Twitter feed from her hospital bed hours later, she saw Chloe had tweeted: Apparently my education is entirely dependent on how much water my professor drinks #highered.

Gemma was so upset about the tweet she hadn’t stopped to wonder how Chloe even knew why she was in the hospital. Gemma hadn't even known what was happening until after hours of testing in the ER.

And yet Chloe was in two of Gemma’s grad level courses this semester, which meant Gemma saw her every Monday and Tuesday. Gemma always breathed a sigh of relief after Tuesday’s class because, as she told her husband, she was at the farthest point away from seeing her again.

Yesterday’s class was no different. Gemma’s stomach clenched when she turned away from the slide projected behind her to face the students and saw Chloe’s hand raised, her face twisted in a sour expression to which Gemma had developed a Pavlovian response. “Yes, Chloe?” Gemma said, holding her breath.

“You have a typo on the third slide,” she said with a mild laugh.

“Ah,” Gemma said, her fingers turning cold. “Noted.”

She would see Chloe later this afternoon in class, too. Gemma had stayed up half the night double-checking her slides. Yet she knew Chloe was lightning—she never struck the exact same way twice. So while on class days Gemma typically found her mind searching for every possible criticism Chloe could lob, she didn’t have time for that today. She had the big ask ahead of her.

Her eyes darted back and forth across the panoramic window that wrapped around the corner of the shop, giving her a vantage point no matter where he may choose to park. This should be a thrilling day for her. She was meeting the leading neuro psychiatrist in the region; she was only able to arrange it because he was already in town for his own annual medical checkup. Her ask was simple but big: she needed him to serve as a consultant on her book. She should have gotten this agreement before she sent her proposal to the publisher. Or, at the moment she was offered an advance to produce the manuscript in six months. Or before she set up the separate bank account to accept the advance. There were so many steps she took to accept that advance—even writing down the new account and routing numbers in her little black notebook—without first verifying that Dr. Davidson would help her.

With that thought, she jumped slightly in her seat. She hadn’t yet gotten out her notebook and a pen. Not knowing how much time Dr. Davidson would give her, she knew every second counted. Pushing the cardboard sleeve back up her coffee cup with one hand, she reached down to the leather bag by her feet. She unzipped the bag, peered in, and knew instantly—the notebook wasn’t there. But still she looked, batting folders, books and loose papers back and forth with rising panic. She soon moved to the side pockets, which were far too small to hold the notebook, furiously unzipping and rezipping them.

As her hands continued the same motions over and over inside her satchel, her mind was flooded with every word written inside the missing book. The 55 times she wrote, “I will lose this baby weight,” a manifestation technique her college roommate swore by. Her to-do lists, including shopping lists that almost always included “condoms.” Her prescription number for the medication to help with post partum depression. Notes from class. And, she recalled with a feeling so painful her eyes snapped shut, a writing exercise her therapist had suggested to help her overcome her anxiety about Chloe. She brought one hand up from the depths of her bag to press into her chest when she remembered the pages upon pages of examples of how Chloe had upset her.

She was suddenly very still. Her head was hung, her eyes were closed, and she was forcing herself to breathe. Yes, she said to herself, what’s in that notebook is deeply personal, but there’s no reason to panic until I know where it is. And, as if dawn streaking its brightness across the sky, Gemma awakened with an unshakeable awareness of where that notebook was: still in the classroom.

She slowly zipped her bag, gingerly stood, walked cautiously to the bathroom, quietly closed and locked the stall door, gently knelt in front of the toilet and violently vomited until nothing—not even a droplet of stomach fluid—was left.

When she was done, she reached up to flush the toilet, and then sat cross-legged with her back against the stall door. Her breathing was erratic, her mouth tasted foul, and her forehead was clammy. She had to get through this meeting. Her new bank account—the one with $20,000 dollars sitting in it—was insistent. Her editor was insistent. Her hopes at tenure were insistent. She could not leave this coffee shop until she got Dr. Davidson to sign the memorandum of understanding her publisher’s legal team had given her. Which meant, she could not race back to campus and retrieve the notebook much before her students would be arriving for class.

She peeled herself off the floor, washed her hands, smoothed her hair, adjusted her posture in a way she hoped would cover her sunken feeling, and opened the door of the bathroom to see Dr. Davidson standing by the entrance of the shop looking at his watch.

Though it wasn’t the introduction she was hoping for, nor the level of confidence she wanted to project, she succeeded in getting Dr. Davidson to sign the legal document. He seemed neither all that surprised, nor all that flattered, by the ask, and Gemma realized she may have been just one more in a long line of academics seeking a similar partnership. And while her husband would be frustrated when he learned she threw in half of her advance to sweeten the deal, she was so relieved to have his wet signature on that piece of paper between them that she would have happily given him the full twenty grand to get the hell out of the shop and on her way to campus.

As she drove, Gemma’s hands shook despite their grip on the steering wheel. Her mind was as relieved by the agreement with Dr. Davidson as it was panicked by the thought of her notebook being anywhere other than the small shelf on the lectern in her classroom. Anyone could have taken it. Dr. Radford, who lectured in there just after her. The janitor. Any of the dozens of students who had been in and out of the room in the past 24 hours. And she knew the first thing anyone would do: open it to see whose it was. They would see Gemma’s name, clear as day, followed by the pressured and panicked writing of a woman who clearly suppresses a great deal, hides too much away, so much so that it can’t help but flood out of her and onto the pages between two stiff, black covers sealed with the snap of a strap.

As she screeched into campus parking, unhooked her seatbelt, grabbed her bag, and sprinted toward the building, she was sure the students she was racing past could hear her heartbeat. No one has your notebook, she whispered to herself over and over until her fingers wrapped around the handle of her classroom door. With a vigorous pull, it swung open and she lunged into the room.

Her eyes narrowed on the lectern and she could see it, her little black notebook, neatly tucked away on the shelf just as she had left it the day before. She rushed toward it, but as she reached the podium, she glimpsed a presence from the corner of her eye. Her head whipped around to see someone sitting up on the fourth row of the stadium-style room. Gemma struggled against her surging adrenaline to force her eyes to focus: it was Chloe.

“Oh!” Gemma caught her breath. “Hey there. You’re early.”

Chloe put down her pencil and looked at Gemma. “Yeah,” she said so quietly Gemma almost didn’t hear her follow up: “That okay?”

Gemma was taken by the tone in which Chloe asked, one of worry rather than defiance.

“Of course,” Gemma said, her voice softened by Chloe’s subtle show of vulnerability.

“I just couldn’t be at home, Dr. Sinclair,” Chloe said, her head lowered. “My step dad is a real asshole.”

Gemma swallowed hard. She’d never seen Chloe like this. Even though Chloe was above her—sitting high in the stadium, while Gemma was four large steps below—they felt on the same level for a moment. Gemma finally broke the silence. “You’re welcome to this room anytime,” she smiled. “But you may have to suffer through Dean Radford’s abnormal psych lecture.”

Chloe scrunched her nose in disgust, an expression she usually reserved for Gemma. But this was about another professor, so Gemma laughed. “You might also try the Student Union,” Gemma said over her shoulder as she walked back to the lectern to grab the notebook. Her fingers curled around it as she looked back up to see Chloe doodling on some loose-leaf paper. She felt compelled to keep their dialogue going. “How long have you been in here anyway?” Gemma asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Chloe shrugged and glanced at her phone. “Maybe an hour or so.”

“Ah,” Gemma said, cradling the notebook maternally to her chest. “I’m surprised you weren’t bored.”

“Nah,” Chloe said. Her eyes shifted down, just a hair, and then back up to meet Gemma’s gaze. “I had something really good to read.”