Read The year She Fell for Free Online Page B

again, but the tape was old and wouldn’t stick. So I shoved the box back under a rafter and set a gilt picture frame on top of it.
    Mother had gone off to her room, so I took the books out to the screened porch. Out there on the wicker lounge, in the quiet of the afternoon, I started to open the 1990 book, but then I set it aside and took out 1988.
    1988 could be divided into two sections—Before Tom and After Tom. Before I met him, there were notes about class assignment, sorority functions, the occasional date. After I met him, however, almost every day had some jotting about some book we’d discussed or some restaurant we’d tried or some band we’d discovered.
    I backtracked and found that day in September that Tom entranced me by his voice alone.
    It was the first day of 20 th Century British Literature class. The professor was explaining the syllabus, and giving us our choice of papers about the poetry of W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, or W.B. Yeats, when he was interrupted.
    “Would you be saying then, professor, that Yeats is a British poet? By what measure?”
    He was sitting behind me in the theatre-style oval of seats rising up above the lecture podium. Ahead of me, a woman student straightened as he spoke, glanced back, and then fluffed her hair. I wasn’t about to turn my head and stare at him as she did, but that seductive Irish accent raised chills on the back of my neck. I didn’t have to look to know that he was beautiful.
    The professor peered sharply up at the rows of seats behind me. He must have known, from the accent of his questioner (more pronounced than usual, I learned later), where this digression was headed. “Yes, a British poet in the sense that Yeats came from what was a colony of Britain and wrote in English. And, you might recall, he was Protestant.”
    I couldn’t help it. Without even raising my hand and waiting to be called on, I said brightly, “Oh! Then I guess Robert Frost was a British poet too? After all, he came from what was once a colony of Britain , and wrote in English, and he was Protestant too.”
    As soon as I said it, I felt sandwiched between burning looks, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor. The professor was regarding me with blistering disapproval— later he gave me the only non-A I ever received in an English course, not that I’m implying a connection—and on the back of my head, I felt the warm gaze of the Irish student.
    He was waiting for me as I filed out into the crowded hallway.
    “Why Robert Frost?” he inquired.
    I got my breath back just in time to reply, “He just came to mind. He and Yeats corresponded about poetry. And besides, he was the only 20 th Century American poet I was absolutely sure was Protestant.”
    He smiled. “Let’s get some coffee. Are you free?”
    I wasn’t—my Scandinavian romanticism seminar was only minutes away—but for the first time in my life, skipping class seemed like the proper thing to do. “Of course,” I said, and that made the second time Tom led me astray. It wouldn’t be the last.
    I didn’t need any more reminders of how quickly and totally I’d fallen for him. So I set that book aside and opened 1990.
    It was a dispiriting year, to judge by my dreary recording of resumes sent out (seventy-two) and interview requests received (one). There was something oddly optimistic in my little notations— Matterskill NY K-3, Lewiston ME reading specialty , Las Vegas International Primary School— French fluency required, Seattle North special needs kindergarten . . . I was so open then, willing to go anywhere, teach anything, if they’d just give me the chance. I just wanted a chance to start my life up.
    The problem was, I’d graduated during the year the baby bust babies were turning six, which meant they were closing grade schools all over the country. There were no openings for K-3 teachers, especially brand new ones who hadn’t yet taught a single child to read. My friends—the smart ones who had