Play "Misty" for me

I stared at her for a moment, glancing down at her calico dress and tennis shoes, trying to remember what one says to an unwanted advance.

"Destiny, huh? What is this 'destiny' thing? Do you really believe in that stuff? Wait. Of course you do. Otherwise you wouldn't be in here, would you?" I was vacillating between amusement and irritation.

But Diane was up on her swollen feet, backing toward the door with a shocked look on her face, sweating, trembling. "I shouldn't have come. I thought you would understand."

I stood up too. "Look," I said, trying to pacify her; "You don't know me at all. I'm just your philosophy teacher. Nothing is 'intended.' Relax. We'll talk again soon." Jesus, I thought. I'm creating an unwanted future.

She lurched out the door, lumbered up the incline away from the patio outside my office. I stood at the door and watched her monumental flanks pound the hillside, amazed by the extent of my own prejudice.

Diane was not in class the next day. I went over the seating chart to verify the legitimacy of her presence. There she was: Diane, third from the left in the next-to-last row.

There was a note in my box from her, though. "Thanks for telling me that we'll talk again soon. I am really looking forward to it. When would be a good time for you? Call me. Diane."

I ignored the apocalyptic note. She was in my office the next morning. "Why didn't you call me?" she demanded. "That wasn't very nice. Here I was kind enough to leave you a note and you didn't respond to it. What kind of a friendship is that?"

"Diane, we're not friends. You are a student in my class. I'm perfectly willing to meet with you during my office hours, as with any of my students." I manufactured as much robotic detachment as I could. It didn't work.

"I'm not just any student and you know that, silly." She then shoved me slightly in a kind of conspiratorial way that made me cringe. "You can pretend all you want that there's not something special between us, but it won't do any good."

We were suddenly frozen in a state of imbalance. Neither of us said anything. I looked around to see if there was anything I could use as a weapon and found only books and a few small statues I keep on my desk. I had a sudden urge to stab her with the thin figure from Kenya.

"Look," she said, "I know you're busy right now and don't have time for me. That's OK. Let's wait until tomorrow. I'll come by about 10 with coffee and we'll have a good chat." And she was gone.

I stared at the bookshelf for a moment. The room felt haunted, as if tinged with dread. I called the counselor's office and asked if anybody knew a "Diane Weintraub," and if there was any record on her. There was nothing, except that she was a sophomore, majoring in English. Maybe she was specializing in Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft. Maybe she'd just gotten carried away with her studies. When I walked to the parking lot that afternoon, she was waiting for me at my car. "How did you know which one was my car?" I demanded.

"I told the business office that you had told me to leave a book in your car and they described it to me," she said enthusiastically, as if I would be pleased with her ingenuity.

"Listen, Diane, I'm in a real hurry to get to the post office. I'll see you tomorrow, OK?" This was serious. I wondered if the yellow pages listed security services for stalked middle-aged men?

She looked perturbed and muttered, "Why are you always trying to get rid of me? Why don't you just accept our destiny, that we are meant to be together?"

Next Page: Cornered and attacked in my office

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