Free Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend by Robert James Waller

temporary lightness he’d felt after finishing a good set of exams was dissipating as he thought about Jellie Braden. He was
     getting angry at her for going to England, for just bloody taking off and leaving him there to mourn her absence.
    Irrational? Of course it was irrational. He had no right to anything other than what he already had when it came to her, which
     was nothing. She’s sitting in Kennedy now, he thought, waiting for TWA to take her lovely body and equally lovely soul onto
     nine months of new experiences and different people. Maybe she was right, maybe her absence would do it, get him cooled off
     and refocused on something other than her.
    Then he started to waffle: “Come back, come back, Jellie Braden. I need to look at you one more time, just one. I want to
     continue the conversation we started. I want to hear more of how you feel about me and for us to get the air cleared.” But
     the mail doesn’t come on Sundays, and James Lee Braden HI had taken his wife on to foreign pleasures, leaving Michael Tillman
     foundering in his wake.
    As he passed by the provost’s office, a janitor had the door propped open while emptying wastebaskets. Michael glanced inside.
     Clarice Berenson, the provost’s secretary, stared at a computer screen. The office was empty except for her.
    They went back a ways, Clarice and Michael. She’d come home to Cedar Bend from New York when her gynecologist husband dumped
     her for a psychiatric nurse. After the bad scene with her former husband she had a negative attitude toward men overall. But
     she and Michael got together occasionally, and they flew pretty close to the sun when they were rolling.
    Clarice was into serious opera and worked part-time on an M.A. in Spanish, and that along with her job kept her busy. But
     now and then she liked to shake it real hard. That’s where Michael came in, and their schedules seemed to work in perfect
     sync when it came to getting crazy.
    Clarice looked up, grinning. “Well, it’s the campus rebel with no apparent cause. How you doin’, Michael?”
    “Not bad. Just turned in my grades and resting on my oars. How about you, Clarice?”
    “Since the provost-sir flew off to Los Angeles about two hours ago, things have picked up quite a bit. I’m just shutting down.
     Want to have a beer?”
    “Better than that, how about beer and dinner?”
    “Now you’re talking, Michael. We could even take it up another level and go jump around at Beano’s tonight. Bobby’s Blues
     Band is playing there, starting at nine. It’ll be end-of-the-semester nuts, but that suits me just fine.”
    “You’re on. But first I need to clean up a bit. Say, about seven? Go down to Rossetti’s for pasta, then over to Beano’s for
     the fun?”
    “Perfect. I’ll pick you up, I think it’s my turn to drive.”
    “Okay, see you in a little while.”
    Michael started drinking beer when he got home. Sat on the Shadow with a Beck’s dark in his hand and John Coltrane on the
     tape deck. Malachi stood up and put his paws on Michael’s leg. He rubbed Malachi’s ears while the music played, thinking about
     Jellie Bra-den flying through the darkness away from him. But those kinds of thoughts weren’t fair to Clarice, he decided,
     and two more beers got him away from his loneliness and into the evening… kind of.
    Clarice was not Jellie Braden when it came to looks. On the other hand, that was also a little unfair, since to Michael’s
     way of thinking nobody compared with Jellie along that dimension. But Clarice had that same indefinable quality we lump under
     “class,” and she was more than just presentable. And, just as important, she was not on her way to London.
    Clarice knocked on his door at ten to seven while he was pulling on a white cotton turtleneck that worked pretty well with
     faded jeans. She came in and got a beer from the fridge. He padded around barefoot, looking for a clean pair of boot socks.
     When he carried his boots