TUESDAY TALES - SOMEONE LIKE YOU 3

 

This is the third installment from my new book, which is in editing now, called "Someone Like  You." This piece focuses on Professor Mark Garrett, giving some of his story. 

Remember that the other authors will be joining Tuesday Tales again come September. So please read my excerpt and leave a comment and remember to return in September when we will have the full house of all authors posting again! 

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Professor Mark Garrett hated sitting alone at university functions. Ever since his wife, Nancy, passed away, he was forced to participate on his own. Friends had been kind. He’d been invited to many homes of other professors for dinner and fixed up with a multitude of single women.

While colleagues and their spouses thought nothing of Mark dating students, even undergrads, he drew the line at mixing with those enrolled at the University. He’d worked hard to establish a stellar reputation and would do nothing to tarnish it, especially for a roll in the hay. Undergrads, even grad students were off limits for dating. It was a hard and fast rule for him.

It seemed all the professors and their mates knew of various and sundry single women who would be perfect matches for him. Never mind that some of them lived in Michigan or California and were simply visiting.

Each time he was attentive but distant and made an excuse to leave early. Throwing himself into his work had earned him the prize promotion to head of the English department. He also served as advisor to the new doctoral students. Keeping busy, working so hard he simply fell in bed and was asleep instantly, proved to be the most efficient way to deal with his loss.

Still, during the night he’d reach for Nancy only to wake up to emptiness – a stark reminder of his loss. It had been almost five years now. He’d given himself many lectures that it was time to start over, to begin a new chapter of his life. He put his energies into work and tried to ignore his loneliness. He clung to a romantic, if childish, notion that when the right woman came along, he’d snap out of his depression, spring into action and find his happily-ever-after. He never shared that idea with his friends for fear of being called a fool. Still, he clung to it, waiting, but growing more impatient with each passing year.

After the ceremony, he returned to his old office to pick up his briefcase, filled to bulging, with student papers to read for the school literary magazine. On the desk sat a slim volume of poetry titled, From Frost to Wordsworth. Hmm, he stopped. Those were two of his favorites.

He wondered who it belonged to, so he opened the cover to see if there was a name inside. There was more than a name, an inscription:

 

       Charlotte –

      Merry Christmas.

      L.,

     Corey

 

Corey? Must be Corey Anderson. Corey was not a common name and to find two in a town as small as Willow Falls would be unlikely. Could Charlotte be his girlfriend? Probably. Mark smiled. He’d given Nancy a volume of poetry when she was in college. It tickled him to see this as a romantic gift so many years later. He wondered who this person, Charlotte, could be? Certainly, no one in any of his classes. He would have remembered such a pretty name.

He closed the book. A twinge of envy shot up his spine. Young Corey Anderson had a girl he liked enough to buy poetry for, and Mark had no one.

“It’s my own fault,” Mark said aloud to himself. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Talking to

 himself when no one was around. Not a good sign. He’d better find someone, so he could 

talk to a real person. He retrieved his briefcase went out and shut the door. He didn’t lock it, 

figuring Charlotte, whoever she was, would come back when she realized she’d forgotten 

the book. 

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