The Moons of Jupiter - Alice Munro [44]
She heard him lock the door.
She had two ways of looking at him, all in the moment it took him to appear in the doorway of the supply room, then pull that door nearly shut, so they were almost in the dark. First, she saw him as if it was a year ago, and he was someone who had nothing to do with her. Ted Makkavala, the science teacher, not in the war, though he was under forty; he did have a wife and three children, and perhaps he had a heart murmur, or something like that; he did look tired. A tall, slightly stooping, dark-haired, dark-skinned man, with an irritable, humorous expression, eyes both tired and bright. It could be supposed he had a similar sighting of her, standing there looking irresolute and alarmed, with her coat over her arm and her boots in her hand, since she had thought it unwise to leave them in the teachers’ cloakroom. There was a moment’s chance they would not be able to make the switch, to see each other differently; they wouldn’t remember how the crossover was managed or grace wouldn’t be granted them, and if that could be so, what were they doing in this place?
As he drew the door shut she saw him again, the side of his face and the slant of the cheekbones, a marvelous, polished, Tartarish slant; she perceived the act of drawing the door closed as stealthy and ruthless, and she knew there was no chance in the world they would not make the switch. It was already made.
Then, as usual. Licks and pressures, tongues and bodies, teasing and hurting and comforting. Invitations, attentions. She used to wonder, in her days with Paul, if the whole thing could be a fraud, an Emperor’s clothes sort of thing, if nobody really felt what they pretended, and certainly she and Paul did not. There had been a dreadful air of apology and constraint and embarrassment about the whole business, the worst of it being the moans and endearments and reassurances they had to offer. But no, it wasn’t a fraud, it was all true, it surpassed everything; and the signs that it could happen—the locked eyes, the shiver along the spine, all that elemental foolishness—those were true, too.
“How many other people know about this?” she said to Ted. “Oh, not very many, maybe a dozen or so.”
“It’ll never catch on, I don’t suppose.”
“Well. It’ll never be popular with the masses.”
The space between the shelves was narrow. There was so much breakable equipment. And why had she not had sense enough to put down her boots and her coat? The truth was she had not expected so much or such purposeful embracing. She had thought he wanted to tell her something.
He opened the door slightly, to give them a bit more light. He took her boots from her and set them outside the door. Then he took her coat. But instead of setting it down outside he was opening it out and spreading it on the bare boards of the floor. The first time she had seen him do something like that was last spring. In the cold, still-leafless woods he had taken off his windbreaker and spread it inadequately on the ground. She had been powerfully moved by this simple preparatory act, by the way he spread the jacket open and patted it down, without any questions, any doubts or hurry. She had not been sure, until he did that, what was going to happen. Such a gentle, steady, fatalistic look he had. She was stirred by the memory as he knelt in this narrow space and spread out her coat. At the same time she was thinking: if he wants to do it now, does it mean he can’t come on Wednesday? Wednesday night was when they regularly met, in the church after Frances’ choir practice. Frances would stay on in the church, playing the organ, until everyone had gone home. At about