After a run-in with her ex didnāt go as planned, the author feared sheād lost her looks. (Photo: Susan Shapiro)
I was alarmed to see him at the cocktail party. We hadnāt spoken in thirty years. I thought heād moved out of town. As a student in his graduate class, Iād idolized him. My heart knotted in my chest, as if I was still his cute anxious coed. I was glad Iād had my dark hair dyed back to its original chestnut brown that afternoon, and I was wearing my flattering black silk dress and Prada heels. At least I looked good. Desperately wanting to end our animosity, I walked over. He was balder, older, more distinguished.
āGood to see you,ā I said, my hand trembling. He didnāt answer, staring like I was a stranger. Iād read he had a wife, kids, had won awards in our field. I assumed he knew I was now a married teacher, too. āItās Susan.ā I waited for my name and face to jar his recollection. āYour former student.ā He smiled vaguely, then turned away to talk to the person behind me.
Humiliated and confused, I looked around for the ladiesā room. Ā He must have been seventy now. Did he have Alzheimerās, or was I the one whose memory was addled? I felt flushed; what a horrible time for another hot flash. I spied my husband talking to friends near the bar and I prayed he hadnāt caught the snub. I feared Iād exaggerated my amorous relationship with my professor in my head. Iād often pictured us having a heart-to-heart, reminiscing. Or arguing and having it out. Iād obviously overestimated my place in his romantic lexicon. Of all the conflicting scenarios Iād envisioned for three decades, Iād never considered he wouldnāt remember me.
In the bathroom mirror, I stared at the marionette lines around my mouth, the puffiness over my once chiseled cheekbones. Was there one moment when a woman knew sheād lost her youth and beauty? Ā At fifty, I thought Iād remained attractive. Yet I was no longer the head-turner heād once called āhis gorgeous, luscious muse.ā Had I changed that much? I wanted to shout: But you were the one who discovered me, believed in me, drew stars in the margins of my rough drafts, the way I edited my studentsā papers now.
Thereād been lots of screwing around at the urban university where weād met in the ā80s. It was decades before Ivy League colleges banned all faculty and undergraduates from sexual relationships and front pages chronicled a Stanford University pupil suing the mentor sheād been dating for harassment and rape. But our affair wasnāt abusive, or just a fling. Neither of us expected to fall in love.Ā
The author as a 20-year-old New York University student, posing with a friend in Greenwich Village. (Photo: Susan Shapiro)
Back in 1981, as an overeager grad student, I thrusted out my hand at orientation, āItās an honor to meet you,ā Iād said. āPlanning to finish your Ph.D. by the end of the mixer?ā he asked. Heād obviously seen my application, knew I was only twenty, having skipped two grades. He wrestled his hand free from my grip. He was academically dashing, in a beige jacket and corduroys. He had piercing brown eyes. I didnāt want him to leave. āWhy? Are you threatened by fast women?ā Iād asked, not catching my double entendre.
āI canāt wait for your class.ā I fished out my schedule from my purse to show him, with my school ID. āIām a poetry major.ā
āI know,ā he said. āIām the one who accepted you.ā
āYou are? Wow. How amazing, the first person I meet is the one who took me.ā
āHow amazing, Iām in the place where I teach,ā he said. āMust be fate.ā
āTotal kismet,ā Iād answered, fresh off the Midwest bus, missing his sarcasm.
I was a tall, thin-skinned girl with size nine and a half feet. But in the big city, I soon lost weight, donned thick black mascara and eyeliner to highlight my dark orbs, along with lower-cut, tighter black clothes and spikier shoes. I could tell he noticed. At a holiday party he threw at his place, heād pointed to my heels and flirtatiously joked, āYouāre trying to tower over me.ā I took them off to help clean up afterwards. Then we sat on the wooden floor of his dusty one-bedroom, drinking cheap Chardonnay from paper cups, with me chattering anxiously. Ā
āYou talk too much, too loud, too quickly,ā he cut me off. Noticing me blush, heād said, āDonāt be nervous, weāre not having an affair or anything.ā Could he tell I wanted to? Did he? He seemed single, lonely, attracted to me. Showing up at his every office hour, Iād hand him stacks of my poetry. āJust one.ā Heād unleash his full, throaty laugh, marking my pages with squiggles and arrows. āYou have too many words, not enough music.ā I loved how he spoke.
āIām falling for you,ā I blurted out.
āI would never date a student,ā he said. I was crushed. Until he added, āIf only I werenāt your teacher.ā Hope! He introduced me to his colleagues as āa talented newcomer.ā When he asked what I thought of his early drafts, I was honored. Finishing my degree, he recommended me for a coveted magazine position. Ā
The evening of my graduation, free of academic roles, he took me to dinner to celebrate, saying how beautiful I was, confessing his feelings. Finally we kissed. It was awkward and scary. But switching from protĆ©gĆ©e to girlfriend, I felt special. He said I was the only former student heād ever touched. I believed him.
Alas, I was more comfortable in his classroom than his bedroom. I was smoking, toking, and drinking more, which bothered him. He didnāt like my proud label of āraging feminist,ā or that the job heād found me took priority. He hated my new short haircut, saying it was ātoo butch,ā as if changing my appearance was a personal affront. āYouāre too controlling,ā I argued. Iād imagined us as Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. Were we closer to Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath?
He thought preparing a Thanksgiving party together would be sexy. I hated cooking. āI canāt make a turkey,ā I complained to my Jewish mother. Ā She had a surprise meal for 10 delivered. I was delighted. Ā He found it intrusive, emasculating. āYouāre too close to your family, thereās no room in your life for a man,ā he accused, citing my long daily calls and frequent Michigan visits.
Then one day he announced, āI won a year fellowship to Israel. Will you come?ā
I was flattered. āBut I canāt afford it.ā
āIāll pay for everything.ā
āI have a job. I canāt gallivant around the world as an appendage to a guy.ā Ā
āWell, we could get married,ā he said.
āWhat? Now?ā I adored him, but the idea was overwhelming. Ā
He seemed wounded by my cold response. At 23, I had to establish myself. At 43, he needed to settle down. He stopped speaking to me. When he wouldnāt return my calls, I was grief stricken. Breakups were bad enough, but this fissure ousted me from my new life and crowd. I was petrified Iād be blacklisted by the publishing world. I feared Iād screwed everything up. Haunted, I finally tried therapy.
For the next decade, I struggled with work and love. Eventually I dated other poets (broke, depressed), novelists (less broke, egotistic, depressed), journalists (broke, manic, depressed), lawyers, doctors and MBAās (rich, happy but so boring they depressed me.) Ā At 29, I met Charlie in a group of TV/film guys Ā (less broke, funnier about their depression). Ā
I looked hot that fall, having exercised back to my ideal 128 weight. Though Charlie was smitten, yet more commitment-phobic than I was. It took two years to coerce him to meet my parents. He schlepped Gusās Dills on the plane for my folks, smelling like pickle juice. Not a fan of his own momās domestic skills, he was entranced by my momās overstuffed fridge, flattered she had tuna salad ā his favorite ā waiting for him. When I turned 35, I gave him an ultimatum. He finally slipped a diamond engagement ring on my finger. Ā Seeing it, my mom ran upstairs to get my late grandmotherās diamond earrings, saved for her only daughter.
āBut I donāt have pierced ears,ā I told her.
āI have a great idea. You can add the stones to your ring!ā she insisted. Oh no. I recalled my old professorās warning that my family was too interdependent. Now my maternal figure ā and my dead Grandma ā were crowding the most important jewel a man could ever give me. I sheepishly asked Charlie.
āFine by me,ā Charlie said, shrugging. āMy sister helped pick the ring out. My brother-in-lawās loaning me money for our apartment. My dadās a judge who wants to marry us. My relatives are all over us too. Itās kind of sweet.ā
Fifteen years later, back at the soiree, I grabbed Charlie, who hated parties, whispering his favorite question. āCan we go home?ā
āWhatās wrong?ā he asked in the taxi. Ā
āSomething bizarre happened.ā I was ashamed. āI saw my ex. The professor.ā
āHe was there? Really? Which one was he?ā Ā
āHe didnāt recognize me.ā I was near tears. My ex was so exalted in my mind, but Iād meant nothing to him.
āThat guy in the brown blazer glaring at me? Now I know why! Of course he knew who you were. Youāre the exact same as when I met you.ā My husband laughed. āHas anyone from your past ever not recognized you?ā
āYou just love me,ā I mumbled into his collar.
āOh, he knew exactly who you were, alright.ā
I was thrilled to think my old flame remembered me. Maybe I didnāt look so different three decades later, after all. Even if I did, I was lucky to have maintained married lust. My husband didnāt mind me without makeup, a dress size or two higher. (āAll he notices about your body is how often you offer it to him,ā my married male shrink opined.) Ā I still worshipped poetry and prose, not Botox and plastic surgery. I was healthy, taught well, did charity to knock the edge off my narcissism, recalling the poet George Herbertās line āliving well is the best revenge.ā
Iād hoped to tell my old flame that heād changed my life for the better, inspiring me to teach. (And to push my husband into becoming a professor, too.) Iād wanted to apologize, not sure if Iād been immature back then, or just in my twenties. The downside of teachers dating students was the complex power balance. It took intense therapy to unravel what happened, and for me to be able to marry, twelve years after our split. Ā
Yet if my ex was still angry, I decided, that meant Iād been important to him, too. Ā He was never a Svengali, seducing an innocent rube. I wasnāt victimized. If he was drawn to my youthful looks, I was lured by his experience and career, which I wound up usurping. For a second, the scenario made me proud of my lasting sexual power. Iād wanted him, had him, and hurt him worse than heād hurt me ā if he couldnāt even say hello after this long. Ā Ā
This story inspired Susan Shapiro's new novel, "What's Never Said,ā available now on Amazon.Ā
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