Page 69 of Even If the Sky is Falling
ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO BETTER
DENISE WILLIAMS
1
Piper
Friday Evening, Edison, Iowa
Hale’s breath was hot against the back of my neck, his voice on the razor’s edge of a groan. “You’re better at chemistry than me.” His nose slid to my nape, sending a delicious kind of tingle down my spine. “You’re better at biology. I don’t think I’ll ever truly best you in the classroom.”
I shivered as he placed my palms on the smooth surface of the podium and then stroked his hands back up my arms, his unexpectedly soft skin leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake.
Staring out at the empty lecture hall, I couldn’t see his face, but the hard planes of his chest pressed behind me, and he ground his length against my backside. “You’re the smartest person on campus.” His lips grazed my ear as he continued the slow grind, driving me to the edge. “And I’m going to make the smartest person on campus come so hard, she forgets basic addition.”
I parted my lips, whether to moan or to prove I could recite the quadratic equation even in this quivering state, I wasn’t sure. But his hand was dipping lower and his voice was in my ear again, palm pressed against my back, guiding me to bend lower as his fingers dipped between my thighs. The empty auditorium was in front of me as he worked my body, the rows and rows of gray seats the only witness to my unraveling. Hale’s low voice was a tease and a promise as my climax began to crest. “You’re the best, Piper. The best.”
Ding.
The ancient elevator’s echoing alert pulled me from the fantasy I’d had since I was eighteen, the first time I outperformed Hale Edison III on an exam and realized the intense thrill I felt at his cool expression, poorly hiding his astonishment. I’d mostly outgrown my need to prove myself through academic achievement, though being in this building again took me back to the days of believing the only way I could make my family proud was to become a doctor, to become the best doctor. I grew up in the real world, though. I knew as a Black woman, I’d see hurdles every step of the way and there would be a lot of people making sure those hurdles were hard to get over. I’d arrived at Edison University ready to fight. On the first day of classes, I knew he was the one I had to best. That was before the fantasy started, the fantasy no man had ever lived up to.
The elevator creaked as it began its descent toward the basement and I questioned if it was safe. Being late to the awards ceremony where you were being honored because you got stuck in an elevator during a misguided attempt to relive your college days wasn’t the best way to make a splash in the alumni newsletter.
The building smelled the same. I hadn’t been inside West Hall in at least fifteen years but the memories of lab reports and exams, of complaining about our professors in hushed voices, and then begging those same professors for letters of recommendations, it all swept over me with a single inhale. Well, those memories along with the thigh-clenching, belly-dipping fantasy of my college rival earning an A-plus in G-spot stimulation. I bit the side of my lip and pushed the thought away. I’d get plenty of real-life Hale Edison III this weekend and nothing about it would be pleasurable.
The car bounced a little on arrival at the basement level and I made a mental note to take the stairs on the way up. The fluorescent lights overhead cast industrial gray walls in a slightly green tint. Built in the fifties, the walls still had bomb shelter signage from the Cold War. The institutional gray of the painted concrete-lined hallway was the furthest thing from a comfortable homelike color, but that’s what it had been. I’d found my passion and my calling in that basement. I’d felt more myself in that basement competing with Hale than I did anywhere else. Now I dragged a manicured fingernail along the cinderblock walls.
On a bulletin board, the poster for the Alumni Awards Banquet was pinned next to a reminder about lab safety and a flyer with missing fringed pieces along the bottom advertising a roommate needed. I fiddled with one of the pieces at the bottom that included a phone number and email address. Hale’s face on the Alumni Awards poster looked on. Dr. Hale Edison III, BS Biology and Biochemistry ’08. Foster Award for Alumni Excellence. It was the top award given to alums and I swallowed my bitterness that Edison was receiving it before me. My face was next to his. Piper Drake, BS Biology and Education ’09. Edison Award for Young Alumni Excellence. The second most prestigious award an alum, at least a young alum, could win.
“Looking for a roommate, Drake?” The voice was low, but not like the whisper I fantasized about. It was a voice that sounded like a smirk looked. He didn’t used to sound like that, though. He used to barely speak at all unless it was to goad me.
On the first day of college, I’d raised my hand first, prepared to show the roomful of who I assumed to be entitled rich kids that the girl here on scholarship could cut it. More than that, I could best them all. Despite my hand in the air, waiting to answer the question about taxonomic rank and provide relevant examples, the professor’s gaze swept over me to call on a bewildered-looking boy whose hand wasn’t up.Mr. Edison. Good to see you, and clearly your family legacy of academic excellence continues. Do you have the answer?I wished my roommate was with me in the class—at that point, she was the only person I had any kind of relationship with and what I would have given to have been able to share an eye roll with someone.
Now, all these years later the university founder’s great-grandson strode toward me in a tailored gray suit, his hair just long enough to need sweeping from his face and his brown eyes dancing. “I know you decided not to become a physician, and educators are woefully undercompensated, but surely you could do a little better than this.” He tapped a finger on the edge of the flyer where the apartment was described asclose to campusandmostly not bad.
“Edison.” It had always taken a split second to reconcile my immediate annoyance with him, the fantasies of how his bare chest might feel under my fingers and my grudging respect for his academic abilities. He’d known the answer in that first biology class, but the examples hadn’t been as good as mine. At least in my opinion. “Don’t you have some puppies to be sacrificing to the gods of career success and haircare products?”
His smirk shifted into a grin, the shape of his smile still so familiar all these years later, and a low chuckle escaped his lips. “I have people to do that for me now, Drake.” He leaned against the bulletin board at an angle such that his photo from the poster hung over his real-life shoulder. The smile in print looked plastic, if not devastatingly attractive. The man in front of me looked human and only a little like he’d be good at bending me over a lecture podium. “Who has the free time to do their own sacrificing anymore?”
“Not you. Congratulations, by the way.” The words were sour in my mouth. Yes, I’d googled him and read that he was one of the youngest and most talented physicians making waves with medical innovation and, yes, his work to tackle maternal morbidity for women of color was laudable, impressive even. But our relationship was cemented on day one when he became the personification of my urge to prove to anyone watching that I deserved my spot at Edison University. I don’t think he even noticed me that day, but he did once I made it my mission to outperform him.
“Thank you. And to you. I read about your advocacy for increased accessibility in STEM education.” He nodded toward the poster behind him before looking back to me. “We’ve come a long way since first-year bio.”
“I suppose so.” The building was quiet, which was to be expected for a Friday evening. I’d been pleasantly surprised when the side door was still unlocked and I could visit my old academic home before heading to the ceremony. A handler from the Alumni Association had offered to escort me, but I begged off. I didn’t want to have to schmooze in this building. I wanted time to remember and reflect on how far I’d come. I’d hoped to do that alone. “What are you doing here?” I tried to make the question casual, but it came off slightly accusatory.
“Don’t worry. I’m not here looking for an apartment. I won’t fight you for this one.” He crossed his arms across his chest, which—dammit—was more developed now than in college, and his stupid muscles bunched under the jacket. He snagged one of the dangling corners of the flyer and handed it to me.
“That razor-sharp wit is still intact, I see.” I fought the urge to cross my own arms, and instead slid my palms down the front of my dress, a red fitted number I’d made my best friend photograph me in from every angle.
“It is.” I didn’t miss the way his eyes followed my movement. “It’s what you always liked about me.” He grinned again, a wolfish expression he probably thought was cute. “That I’m witty and I’m a gracious winner.”
“It happened so rarely. It’s hard to remember if you were gracious about it.”
“You didn’t always win, Drake.”
I gave him my sweetest smile, my teacher smile that, when used correctly with a certain kind of man, drove him nuts. It was condescending as hell but it felt appropriate for Hale Edison III in the biology department hallway. “No onealwayswins. I just usually bestedyou.”
“You know—” The rest of his sentence was lost in the deafening alarm that blared from the speakers.
