“I’ve never taught a class before.”

“They’re students. You’re a teacher. They’ll do what you tell them to do.”

“So you mean I should top them?”

“Young people respond well to authority. Either they submit to it or rebel against it. Sounds like a win-win, non?”

“You realize this is the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Nora had said. “Me teaching college freshmen how to write. You understand this is insane.”

“It’s only a writing class,” he said. “Not even you could get yourself in trouble teaching grammar to terrified teenagers.”

“Have you met me?”

“Don’t fuck any of them.”

“You forget who you’re talking to.”

“Fine. Don’t fuck all of them.”

She’d agreed to teach the class and save Dean Howell’s ass on the one condition—no new clients. She hadn’t told Kingsley she was quitting yet. She’d talk to Søren first and let him know that while he was in Syria, she’d be slowly dismantling her new life so she could go back to her old one. Going back to Søren was something Kingsley would understand. He’d be happy for them. Happy for himself, too. She knew he missed the old days of their friendship and their threesomes and their late-night drinking binges as much as she missed the old days of their romance. It was all up to her. She could do it. She should do it.

And she would do it.

Today. Right after she finished up this class she’d agreed to teach.

Right after.

The second after.

She wouldn’t dally one minute. She would go to the rectory and hand Søren her collar, the collar that she’d put in her handbag that very morning before she’d left. Then she’d call Kingsley and put in her four months’ notice. The day Søren came back from Syria would be the day Mistress Nora died once and for all.

Story over.

The end.

Nora parked her car in the faculty lot and with help from a student, she found her building. Five minutes late—her students would have to get used to that—she walked into the classroom.

“Hello,” she said as she strode through the door. “My name is Nora Sutherlin, and I’m a New York Times bestselling author of lots of dirty books. I know you were expecting a nature writer to be teaching this class, but I’m afraid he’s had a medical emergency. I realize I’m not what you signed up for, but in my defense, my books are full of natural behavior. And quite a bit of unnatural behavior so I wouldn’t recommend reading them unless you actually want to learn something. If you have a problem with me teaching your class, there’s the door. I’m sure you can find an Add/Drop form in the registrar’s office. Also, I’m hungover so if I behave oddly, please forgive me. Why does this class meet so fucking early in the day?”

She rubbed her forehead.

“It’s one in the afternoon,” an intrepid student said.

“What’s your point?” Nora asked. No one answered. “You’re all college students so if at least half of you aren’t hungover by our next class, I’ll be very disappointed in today’s new breed of college freshmen. Bad behavior is not only allowed in this class, it is encouraged. Your final grade may depend on it.”

She ignored the stares of her students as she walked to the marker board, picked up a black marker and wrote on the board, “Did Oedipus overreact?”

“Professor Sutherlin?” came a girl’s tentative voice.

Nora spun around with the marker in her hand.

“Ms. Sutherlin,” Nora said. “I’m not really a professor, and I would feel weird about being called that. I also answer to Nora or Mistress Nora. I might even answer to Professor Nora, but I’m not sure. Did you have a question?”

“Are you going to take attendance or anything?”

“Do I look like the sort of woman who takes attendance?”

The girl opened her mouth but nothing came out.

“If you’re supposed to be here and you’re not, say ‘I’m not here.’ Anyone?” Nora asked.

No one said anything.

“There,” Nora said. “Attendance taken. What’s your name?”

“Geri.”

“Great. Geri. You’re in charge of reminding me I have to do something right after class. Before class is over say ‘Ms. Sutherlin, go do the thing you have to do and don’t be a pussy.’ Can you do that?”

“I can do that.”

“Wonderful. Grand. Fabulous. Now, I suppose you all should introduce yourselves. I don’t really care about your names, however. As hungover as I am, I probably won’t remember them. So instead go around the circle,” she said, waving her marker to draw a circle in the air. “Tell me your favorite story. Of the written fiction variety. I’ll start. As I said, I’m Nora Sutherlin. My favorite book is Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. It’s the book from whence we receive the word masochism, which is what me agreeing to teach this class is a prime example of. Now your turn.”

Nora rested her head on the podium. Her head pounded. Her eyes ached. The bright fluorescent lighting wasn’t doing her any favors.

And her students were so...fucking...boring...

“I’m Katie from Long Island. I loved The Awakening by Kate Chopin.”

“Ah, yes,” Nora said, not raising her head from the podium. “The book where a woman forced to choose between a shitty boyfriend and a shitty husband picks suicide by drowning because for adult women there’s only three viable paths in life to chose from—be a wife and mother, be a whore, or be dead. Try A Doll’s House by Ibsen instead. Much more cheerful. Next?”

“I’m Ahmed from Brooklyn. I loved Lord of the Rings.”

“That’s better,” Nora said. “Who needs books with fully formed female characters in them? Or, well, any female characters in them, for that matter. Women just drag a book down, don’t they? All that talking talking feelings feelings. Boring, right? Next.”

“My name’s Raquel, with a Q. I’m from Cambridge, you know, outside of Boston.”

“We know,” Nora said.

“Um... I loved Crime & Punishment by Dostoyevsky.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“What?”

“That’s not your favorite book. That’s no one’s favorite book. Down in his cold Russian grave, Dostoyevsky just rolled what’s left of his eyes. Stop trying to impress us. Tell the truth, Raquel with a Q.”

“Okay, well... I really like The Bridges of Madison Country.”

“That I can believe. Next.”

The next student spoke.

“I guess if I had to pick it would be ‘The Gift of the Magi’ by O. Henry.”

Nora looked up from her podium and scanned the faces of her students.

“Who said that?”

She saw a tentative hand go up and she looked at the hand. Then she looked at whom the hand belonged to and found herself unable to stop looking at the face that belonged to the hand that belonged to the student who had said ‘The Gift of the Magi’ was his favorite story.

Mister Magi had the proverbial big brown eyes, but as she looked into them she saw tiny flecks of warm yellow surrounding the irises. Looking into his eyes was a treasure hunt and she’d struck gold. His hair gleamed a warm blond in the morning summer sunlight. The kid needed a haircut. Yet she felt this nearly irrepressible urge to put her nose to his hair and smell it. He looked like summer with his bright face and bright smile and tan skin. Did he smell like it, too?

His was a handsome face, sweetly handsome, the sort of handsome that drew people in instead of scaring people off. A strong jaw, strong nose, strong neck, broad shoulders in his royal blue T-shirt that said Kentucky across the front in white letters. Around his neck he wore a cluster of hemp necklaces, a little silver cross hanging off one and lying in the hollow of this throat. He looked innocent, as if she’d shocked him and he’d just discovered he liked being shocked.

“Your favorite story is ‘The Gift of the Magi’?” she asked once she’d recovered her powers of speech.

“Well...yeah,” he said with a touch of Southern drawl. “It’s the most beautiful love story I’ve ever read.”