A Mangled Affair
I was disappointed to learn that I’d need a science credit to earn my degree at Boston University, but the lady in the registrar’s office assured me that I’d be in for a big surprise if I enrolled in a specific Geology class. I had no idea what she meant until a week later, when I met my professor.
THIS IS A SIX-PART STORY BASED ON REAL EVENTS
Originally published November 2021 on nicolejeffords.com
Part I: A Mangled Affair
Image: Joshua Hoehne
Image: Reynaldo Rivera
I had a crazy college history, going to three different schools before I finally graduated as a “mature student” many years after most of my peers had their degrees. Part of the reason for this is that I got sick with hepatitus on a junior year abroad program, had to go home and quarantine for a month, and lost an entire semester. The other reason is I fell in love and basically dropped out of school. For most of my twenties, I traveled around the world with my then husband, an arts photographer, and the lack of a degree didn’t seem to matter very much. But now I was on my own, a single mother and writer, and I needed that very important credential to move forward in life.
I was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the time, so obviously Boston University would be the easiest place to go. They had a decent writing program and I decided to put in an application. However, I neglected to say I’d never actually graduated college; I hoped, perhaps, we might skip that little detail.
At that point, I’d already written quite a number of short stories and had had several poems published in quarterlies and journals. I was confident. I’d been trained for a profession as a writer for years and I knew I was good. So I sent my portfolio over to George Starbuck, a poet who was then head of the writing program, and almost immediately heard back with a request to come see him.
He was a kind, witty, uncomfortable sort of person. “Well, Nicole,” he said, beaming at me, “I love your work and we have room for another fiction writer on the program, so you could start right away.” It was early September, beginning of the term.
“Great, wonderful!” I said, truly thrilled.
But then it came out that I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree. “You can take every course you want on the program,” Starbuck said, “but we can’t make it official unless you get your B.A.”
I was disappointed, but not surprised. Starbuck spoke to the powers-that-be and I went straight to the registrar to enroll for my missing semester. However, when they looked at my transcript, there was another problem. All the credits from my last college (Barnard), transferred, but I needed one additional course, and, to my dismay, it had to be a science course. I was no good at math. (On the top of my college transcript, it said WITHOUT MATH PREP in big red letters.) And I stank at science, not numerate enough to function well in a lab. And why would a wannabe writer need a science course anyway?
The registrar smiled understandingly. She jabbed her finger at a course in the catalogue, and said: “Here’s what you take. It’s perfect for people like you.”
I looked where she pointed: Geology. My face must’ve fallen a mile.
“Uh huh,” she said. “Just you wait. You’re in for a big surprise.”
It wasn’t till I entered the lecture hall a week later that I understood what she meant.
Part II: A Mangled Affair
I can’t pretend that I didn’t have something bordering on arrogance when it came to having to take a geology course just to get the goddamn credit. I was older (not quite thirty), a single mom, and I didn’t have time for that sort of BS. But I had no choice. If I wanted to graduate, I’d have to learn about plate tectonics, rocks, earth.
The class was held at night. The first time I went it was cold out, so I threw an old white fur coat I had inherited from my mother over my shoulders and sauntered into the lecture hall, taking a seat in the back. I didn’t look at the lecturer straight off, but I heard his voice -- warm, gruff, humorous -- and realized the whole class was laughing at something he’d said. When I finally settled myself and looked up, I saw a slim, handsome, middle-aged man in jeans and tan work boots pacing back and forth at the front of the hall. He had unruly blond hair, one cowlicky piece standing up like a flame at the crown of his head. His pants were rolled unevenly: I caught a glimpse of red sock that for some reason made me want to swoon. He looked more like someone who worked on a ranch in Montana than a college professor.
The lecture hall was crowded -- this guy was popular! -- and I decided to move to the front at the break so I could hear better. I found a seat in the front row and opened the book I was reading, Middlemarch by George Eliot. The lecturer was standing right next to my desk. He had written a mathematical equation on the board, and nervously I asked just how much math would be required for this course.
He looked at me (his eyes seemed to look right through me) and laughed. “What you see there,” he gestured toward the board, “is all the math you’re gonna get.” Then he pointed at my book. “But if you can get through a novel like that, you can get through anything.”
The remark seemed to set up a private little understanding between us.
I was older, closer to his age than most of the other students, and had already been through quite a lot in my life. From the look of his face, slightly battered, creases and worry lines marching across his cheeks, I could see he’d been through a lot, too. When I looked up his name in the catalogue, something I’d neglected to do earlier, I learned it was Dabney Withers Caldwell, which made a little bell go off way at the back of my head. It took a while for me to figure it out, but eventually I realized that Dabney Withers, my red-socked professor, was the son of famed southern writer, Erskine Caldwell. And with that piece of information, my fascination with the man soared.
Part III: A Mangled Affair
Image: Walter Randlehoff
I began to live for my once-a-week class with the handsome professor. Every lecture, I’d sit in the front row, right by where he stood, and at the break we’d have a little nod and hello and perhaps an exchange about whatever book I was reading. I’d soak in the details of his face and hair and clothing, how he looked, how his voice sounded, and live off those impressions for the rest of the week. I had a bona fide crush; being in the presence of Dabney Withers Caldwell was all I could think about.
The rest of my life at that time was busy, but boyfriend-less. I studied, wrote, took care of my daughter, hung out with friends. One of those friends was a young woman named Madeleine Voticky, the younger sister of an old high school acquaintance. She was very attractive, tall, lanky, with soft brown hair and long, thick eyelashes. Like me, she was a single mom -- her little boy was named Lukas and he was about the same age as my daughter, Jofka. She had an ex-husband, too, Jerome Kleinfeld who had moved from New York City to be near his son in Cambridge. Madeleine and I had “rediscovered” one another once we found out we were living in the same city. We enjoyed doing the same things -- tooling around town in search of adventure, shopping for clothes, going to playgrounds and parties, gossiping about people and trying to figure out their stories. We could spend hours in each other's company. And we quickly began to do that, two besties in similar circumstances who never ran out of things to say to one another.
So it’s not surprising that Madeleine and I took to stalking my geology professor. We learned where he lived and drove to the suburbs to stake out his house, which had a respectable brick and ivy exterior, but offered no secrets. Wanting to know exactly what the draw was, Madeleine hired a babysitter and came to class one evening, taking a seat in the back. “Well, I sort of get it,” she told me later. “He has an interesting face and it’s probably kind of fun to flirt with him.”
And flirt we did. I always sat in the same seat in the front row, and he’d swivel away from the board and our eyes would meet and we’d both turn all different shades of scarlet.
One night he gave a lecture drunk. He stood up in front of the class, speech slurred, uttering words that made no sense and writing a bunch of gibberish on the blackboard. One by one, students left the hall. I left fairly soon as well, not wanting to witness more of poor Dabney’s humiliation. But now I knew he had a problem with alcohol, just like I did. And that felt like a definite bond between us.
Part IV: A Mangled Affair
Image: Yura Forra
Truly the best part of my crush on handsome geology professor Dabney Withers Caldwell was tooling around town, chasing after him with my best friend Madeleine, who was always up for adventure. Although the movie hadn’t come out yet, we pictured ourselves as Thelma and Louise, following whatever crazy whim possessed us and not worrying about the risk. And so we’d stick our kids in the back seat of one of our cars and go searching for fun, whether that was at a party or yard sale or even a joint shopping trip to a supermarket.
One weekend, Madeleine’s ex husband Jerome came over to my house with his son, Lukas, whom he was taking care of for the day. This was the first time I’d ever been with him and I felt slightly uneasy as I was really Madeleine’s friend. He was a nice enough guy, early thirties, dark-haired, intelligent, a little reserved. We took the kids to a wintry beach where they ran around while we sat, huddled in our thick coats, talking, talking, talking. That was what got me about Jerome: we communicated easily, never running out of things to say, always on the same wave-length. For most of my life, I’d been shy with men, getting drunk in order to loosen myself up enough to interact with them; but with Jerome communication was effortless -- I was as comfortable with him as I was with his ex, Madeleine. In fact, we had such a good time that we planned another event with the kids. I wasn’t in the slightest attracted to Jerome. He wasn’t my type, too formal, too buttoned-up, but I enjoyed his company and was glad to have a male friend.
Madeleine knew about the friendship and it was fine with her. She herself didn’t get along with Jerome, but felt strongly that it was good for her son to see the adults in his life in harmony with one another. Thus she encouraged the connection between Jerome and me.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if you two started going out,” she said. “You’re both always talking about books, so I could totally see that.”
She might see that, but I couldn’t. As I said, Jerome was fun to speak to, but simply not my type. In fact, his skinny body kind of repulsed me. One night he asked me out to dinner and I accepted gladly enough. It would be the first time we were together without kids and I didn’t think twice about it. But, as things turned out, maybe I should have.
Part V: A Mangled Affair
Image: Wim Van T’Einde
Image: Taisiia Shestopal
I had no interest in Jerome Kleinfeld, skinny, talky ex husband of my close friend Madeleine, and yet I slept with him anyway. How on earth did that happen? Easy as falling off a log. We had dinner, a few drinks, a long intimate conversation about the state of our lives, the dearth of romance, and voila, next thing I knew I was in his arms and we were kissing. He’s not a very good kisser, I remember thinking, and yet I let him continue. That was the puzzle about me. I’d be with guys I wasn’t attracted to, almost as if it were a kind of punishment for something I didn’t understand.
In fact, what I understood was this: it was easier to get drunk and have sex with the various men I went out with than to fight them off. That was the way it was with Jerome. I didn’t want him to go on kissing me, but I somehow didn’t have the guts or strength of character to tell him to stop. The sex with him was indifferent. We were together one night and then I never saw him again.
This was after a month or so of hanging out with him and our children. I truly regretted the physical involvement with him, but in the general scheme of things it didn’t seem to matter that much as we had no real emotional interest in one another. What had happened was nothing but a brief, uninspiring roll in the hay.
I figured the event would be quickly forgotten, and Jerome and I would continue with our friendship intact. But I was wrong. Jerome went straight from my bed to his ex, my good friend Madeleine, telling her he and I had begun an affair. He did this to get back at her for all the woes of their erstwhile marriage and divorce, using me as a pawn.
Once he had told her about our lacklustre night in bed, he dropped me like a handful of change, but -- here’s the moral of the story -- she dropped me as well. For my stupid little indiscretion, I lost two friends.
And I lost the good buddy with whom I’d tootled around town in search of fun and adventure, the person in whom I’d confided all my secrets, particularly those pertaining to geology professor, Dabney Withers Caldwell. From here on in I was on my own.
Part VI: A Mangled Affair
Image: Marten Newhall
Image: Tito La Star
I lost an important friendship because of a stupid indiscretion. Now I felt bereft, alone and friendless in the world, without anyone to watch my back. But I still had my crush on the geology professor; suddenly it seemed that my sole purpose in life was to find a way to connect with him.
We were at exam time, and so I studied my ass off to get an A in the course. For some reason, the professor proctored the exam instead of a TA, standing right in front of my desk as I struggled to concentrate on writing down correct answers. Although this totally rattled me, I took it as a sign that Dabney Withers was as interested in forming a relationship with me as I was with him. The only problem was that the course was over and I would never see him again.
Impossible! I had been living for this man for an entire semester, and my life would be over if I never got to see him again. Without thinking, I set up an appointment with him to discuss the exam, although I already knew I’d gotten an A and there was nothing to discuss. I suppose what I really wanted to do was confess my love for him. In the twenty-four hours before the appointment, I got my hair done, planned the clothes I would wear, obsessed with girlfriends about the upcoming event, and wrote notes to myself about what I would say. The appointment was set for three o’clock on a weekday afternoon. At noon that same day, I started drinking. By two o’clock, I was shitfaced.
But I intended to drive to the professor’s office at B.U. anyway. I went down to the street, visibly inebriated, and started fumbling with the keys to my car. “Uh uh!” a voice shouted behind me. It was one of my neighbors, a small, feisty lesbian who grabbed the keys from my hand, and growled, “Honey, if you think I’m gonna let you drive a car in your intoxicated condition, you’re wrong!”
I must've practically crumpled on the sidewalk, because the neighbor relented a little and said she would find someone to drive me. The someone turned out to be seventeen-year-old Frankie Dolan, a pimply boy who owned an ancient, long-finned automobile, and lived in the gloomy, shuttered Dolan house that no one was ever allowed to enter. I have only a vague memory of Frankie grinning in the mirror as he drove me down Storrow Drive in his archaic vehicle. I lay flattened in the back seat, a smeary-faced young woman, too drunk to even formulate words. I don’t remember arriving at the B.U. campus and wending my way to the professor’s office. God only knows how I even found the right door. But I know I saw Dabney Withers and I know I must’ve sloppily told him I loved him and I know he must’ve answered me back.
But whatever he said to me at the time will forever remain a mystery. I was in an alcoholic blackout, although I didn’t understand what that was.
I had been enamored of this man for four months and here’s where it ended: in a blurry conversation that I couldn’t piece together for the life of me. All that was left were a few disjointed images: Dabney Wither’s face, his hand on my arm, a clutch of papers on his desk. I didn’t see him again after that encounter. And now, almost forty years later, what remains is a mangled memory of a well-known man I had a crush on and the shame of allowing alcohol to distort my thoughts and senses to the point where everything was dimmed down, clouded over, gone.
