Woman In Irish Linen Shirt

The horizon is white. Half of the down duvet in the bedroom was folded, Miss Pande’s legs were hidden in the duvet, and her head was resting on my knees. I carefully dried her wet hair with a towel.

She has her own rhetoric about this, it seems that no matter what kind of hair dryer will damage the hair, and even if it is wiped with a towel, it must follow the same direction. She is usually so busy, where would she have time to do such time-consuming daily care, I have the right to treat her as a coquettish, and do not refute, just do it silently.

I also smelled of her shower gel. The scent dripped into the shirt, with a sense of intimacy. I touched her half-dry hair and asked softly, "Should I dry it for a while?"

"It doesn't make sense." Miss Pande turned over, her eyes half closed. "Even if you fall asleep, you will get up again in an hour. It will be as uncomfortable as HIIT and will last all day. I don't want it."

Her wonderful metaphor resonated with me. My thumb stroked her face and said, "You are the boss, it doesn't matter if you go later."

"I also hope..." Miss Pan De stretched her waist, curled up into a ball, and slowly helped me sit up. "There is an important meeting in the morning, and I have to visit new customers. You want to take a day off. Fake?"

I nodded sincerely: "I think."

She moved her eyebrows, her smile was a little tired: "But?"

I don't know why, as soon as I noticed her exhaustion, I started wandering again. Miss Pan De and I looked at each other, and immediately realized my deep meaning, half complaining and half affectionately looking over, and said: "Don't look at me like that..."

"You said the same yesterday." I leaned over.

"No, no, no." She pushed me away with little effort, "I must go out before ten o'clock. Do you want to wear my clothes to work?"

"I prepared myself." I circled her.

Miss Pan De moved and sighed softly, without struggling.

I pulled my hair aside and kissed the skin behind her ear. Even the sound of her breathing was changed by me, my heart trembled involuntarily, but restrained without any movement.

I took a slow breath. With the chin resting on her shoulder, only the small half of Miss Pande's face can be seen from me. With her eyes closed, her skin is delicate and she has the luster after the years have settled. She hid a few hints of honey in the corners of her mouth, following the full curvature of her lips, flowing to me again.

I said, "I am not dating anyone now."

Her voice was light and fluttering: "Neither do I."

"Yeah." I responded coolly, but couldn't stop laughing.

Miss Pan De turned a little sideways, but because she was too close, she couldn't see my whole picture. She just glanced at my eyes: "What do you mean by ‘um’?"

"It means it literally. The eleventh letter in English, the king, the key, and ‘um’." I found myself rhyming, "It’s just that I’m satisfied or something."

"For I am not dating other people?" She pointed out indifferently.

I rubbed my forehead on her shoulder and answered dullly, holding my arms tighter.

I'm really not good at taking the initiative to mention this kind of thing. I usually ask me to come out and criticize which colleague is the limit of my ability. In the sentence "yes" or "no", the only thing I am willing to say is to notify others to get promoted. Job news. How can I talk about it? I am not afraid of seeing other people's reactions, nor am I afraid of her refusal-I just don't know how to say this to Miss Pande.

Or maybe I have both.

I am afraid that she will respond negatively, and I am afraid that she will bluntly refuse.

Miss Pan De was very tolerant of shaking my head and shaking my head when I suddenly became childish. She didn't seem to be impatient at all, on the contrary, she shook my arm together. She held me tightly around her elbows, and the two were like elementary school students who were sitting on the bus together during an outing.

But nothing was left in the ear. Whether it’s the twitter discussion or the sound of a diesel engine working like a half sip of diesel, they are all left in Gensokyo. What swayed from side to side was not the childlike joy of cheering on the outing, but Miss Pan De, who had been waiting for a long time and accommodating me.

At the moment when her childlike innocence became apparent, she treated me differently from others.

What am I afraid of?

I stopped. Miss Pan De really stopped her shaking back and forth, although I couldn't see her eyes, I felt a familiar breath from her determination. Like a frequent visitor on the dean’s list, sitting on a bench on campus after the whole night, waiting for the first class: the gym that ran past is often connected, the party drunks dangling, and the 800 pages of reading, Liberal arts students leaving from the library. She opened her bench.

This bench is called safety.

"You—" I swallowed, "What major did you major in in college?"

Miss Pan De froze and did not speak. I was at a loss for what to do in the silence, but I hugged her tighter: Will it hurt her? I subconsciously let go, but Miss Pande hugged my arm. I felt her laughter in my chest before my ears.

Miss Pan De's shoulders trembled slightly and said, "I am studying literature. I have chosen many journalism courses for my undergraduate."

This time it was my turn to be stunned: "Uh. Cool! But... Is your Ph.D. multi-professional?"

"Perhaps." She hid a little tease in her smile, paused, and then said, "I am a PhD in comparative literature. I do comparative literature and art."

I can't react.

I don’t know how long it took, and I asked, "So it only took you four years to get your PhD?"

"That's it."

"Doctor of Comparative Literature?"

"Correct."

"At Harvard?"

Miss Pan De finally became dissatisfied with my rigid question. Her nails scraped lightly on my forearms: "Am I so like a business school student?"

"No, no, I didn't mean that." I laughed for no reason. "It's just, um, I believe you've heard it countless times-but you are really excellent."

Her voice was a little slouched: "Yes, I know, a 30-year-old partner from a liberal arts background, and so on."

I laughed, leaned on her shoulder, and said, "No!"

Miss Pan De has no good intentions: "Let me hear what unique insights Dr. Li can have?"

"Oh." I sighed, "It's really useful to hear you say that."

Because I don’t work in the academic system, the consulting industry relies on my background and less academic qualifications, and the hero of the Internet company does not ask where I am. Apart from the year I graduated, I have hardly been called that.

"Quickly make up." Miss Pande said, "Don't delay, you only have five seconds."

I heard her talking and laughing more vigorously, almost choking myself. She seemed to be a little angry, and I leaned over to look at her, but Miss Pande turned her head. Originally, we were so close, it was difficult to see each other's looks. At this moment, there was no standard for reference, and I became more worried.

But she let me lean on again.

I got closer to her and said, "Your dean at the time was Dr. Damrosh, right?"

She turned around and looked at me, with no expression, just said: "He is still the head of the department now."

I nodded. Miss Pan De did not answer any more, she must be waiting for the following.

"You know I have a Bachelor of Arts degree. One of my classmates, in the same direction as you-she finally went to Yale-was very popular with the intended tutor, but the person who made the decision was the head of the department. She tried no less than five ways , To show how qualified you are as a candidate. Really, in my memory, there is no one who is as difficult to flatter as Dr. Damrosh.

"He doesn't look at the collections, he doesn't read the grade points, and the publications are basically nonexistent. I felt that the dozen or so people admitted to Harvard's comparative literature every year must have been donated." I rushed. Before she could react, she immediately added, "Can anyone really get into his blue eyes?"

She was noncommittal and fell back, leaning against me.

"So we decided to help her." I said, "Of course, according to the single logic at the time, we all felt that the problem was identity. If she is a minority group that needs accessible parking spaces, or at least she A little bit of'sky' or'berg' in her last name, such suffixes, have a higher chance of admission. But she can't. She really can tell from the photo, name and resume that she is very typical WASP."

Miss Pan De squinted her eyes: "Do you still have this time?"

"Are you so lucky to have dated me only now?" I smiled.

"Hmm..." Her hand scratched at the end of her eyes, "You are indeed different from what I imagined."

"Why is it different?"

"I haven't heard your opinion so far." She changed her conversation, "Did you do anything?"

"Oh. Yes." I touched her arm. "At that time, I was already favored by my mentor. As a well-known'nothing to be a lady', I gave it to that person as the representative of the Betty Friedan Equality Association. The head of the department wrote a complaint letter."

"I didn't know Betty was an alumnus of your school." Miss Pande hesitated, "Do you even have an association named after her?"

"No." I was silent for a moment deliberately, "I made up that association for the sake of justice."

Miss Pan De frowned: "You used to be good or bad!"

I laughed: "That was the last bad thing I did so far. Really!"

And I am only one of the accomplices. The person involved, Lao Bai, even helped me make an association logo to help me abuse.

--wrong. It seems that she is Zhou?

"Have you received a reply?" Miss Pande put her chin in one hand.

"I got it." I lowered my eyes. "In fact, he didn't look at the quantified index. On the contrary, my classmate's published works and grade points satisfied him. Dr. Damrosh decided to put her on the waiting list. It’s because in the second email he received, she wrote the screenwriter of "Lost in Tokyo" as Sophia Copra. Copra, that’s the Copula function—"

"Oh." Miss Pande took a breath.

"So he often does this? The word cleanliness?"

"Well... it depends on how you look at this kind of clerical error." Miss Pan De seems to be considering her wording. "It can't be said to be'literal cleanliness', that's too ugly. But accuracy is true for people doing literary research. Is very important..."

I paused: "He won't be your mentor, will he?"

"No." Although she denied it, her expression was very hesitant, as if she couldn't bear to see others embarrassed, "But, because I graduated a year earlier-let's say, I leave for Dr. Damrosh I was very impressed. In fact, we sent emails to each other a while ago."

I was stunned and laughed: "Yes, you are indeed like the kind of social master who keeps in touch with everyone after ten years of graduation."

Miss Pan De sat up, no longer leaning on me: "Is this your unique opinion? What is good about me?"

It's over.

"No, of course not!" I hurriedly said, "What I want to say is—that is—you know, you have made breakthroughs in such an unpopular profession, but you let go of those achievements and don’t treat your past efforts as It is the burden of life. Entering a new industry, engaging in a completely different job, and achieving very beautiful results, I think this is a very remarkable thing. The most important thing is that you are very brave."

"Is that so?" Her voice was a little small, "Thank you, Yao."

"You're welcome. But why do you say that?"

"You didn't question my professionalism." Miss Pan De said, "Every time people know that I am from a liberal arts background, they always like...Always like to express their ‘higher education whiteism’."

I dumbly said: "This term is very beautiful. Did you edit it now?"

She nodded: "But at least it's very appropriate."

"I can understand." I didn't say anything to reassure Dakong. "I majored in art history as an undergraduate. But I didn't even include it in my resume."

"A classmate in the art history course?"

"South Asian literature." I said, "Unexpectedly!"

Miss Pan De smiled somewhat surprised: "South Asian literature?"

"But I only took one semester of class." I explained before she misunderstood, "Up to now I have only read four chapters of Ramayana, so I may not be able to discuss the development of Indian literature with you immediately. Noble topics like history."

Miss Pan De thoughtfully touched her chin: "May I know the name of your classmate?"

"Annette White." I said, "She is teaching in California now."

Miss Pan De took a breath. I know that she must have heard of Lao Bai’s name to make this reaction. Sure enough, after a while, she said: "I know her. I have read all her non-fiction works. She did not come to Harvard because of Harvard’s loss. ."

"So now you agree that your department chair has a quirk of text cleanliness?" I asked.

She glanced at me: "These are two different things."

The sky is already bright. We are still talking about gossip, and there is not much time left for me. But Miss Pan De didn't mean to urge her at all. Her hair was 70% to 80% dry, only the tail and the depth of the hair still accumulated night water. I was in a daze, but today I really don't want to go to work.

But even if I escaped from the meeting and alienated my post at the last minute-I can never stay here alone.

Miss Pan De is going to be busy after all.

However, she had no consciousness of getting ready to go. In Miss Pan De’s slightly tired voice, there was another clue of greed. Her voice spread in my ears, making me reluctant to break free: "Frankly speaking, I don’t have any white friends who are particularly close to each other. But you and Annette—you even talked about such sharp topics during the admission process. I think you must be very close?"

I choked out: "——Yes."

I smiled after speaking.

Miss Pan De immediately understood the overtones: "I rarely contact you now?"

"Yes. I..." I said, trying to pick good words, "I'm the kind of very ‘independent’ friend."

She moved a little away, turned around, shook my hand and said, "I believe that people's friendship can last forever."

I didn't look at her: "Does family affection too?"

"It depends on the specific person." She patted the back of my hand like comforting, "Sometimes distance is also a sense of security. If one day, the environment where I am also makes you feel safe, I will be very willing Listen to you talk about everything you wish to confide in."

I looked up at her.

Miss Pende kissed me.

"But it's hard to tell if this is something to be thankful for..." she said slowly, "I mean we are only dating now."

I recalled myself as an undergraduate: "You won't like me."

"You don't know what I was like before." She squinted her eyes.

"But I know I like the way you are now." I said.

She might not have expected that when I spoke so bluntly, she froze for a moment, smiled and said, "I'm very happy."

Miss Pande slowly began to say: "Now the lines are very short. I have two classmates who know Annette directly, and Annette knows you. Assuming that Pioneer Valley could not be saved that time, but she just came to Boston to find you. Play, if my classmates and I meet you again..."

I can't help but laugh.

"Hey!" Miss Pande patted my arm, "Why are you smiling again? I'm talking seriously."

"You know," I said, "We have more than two dozen people in common on LinkedIn, but we don't need to travel that far."

"Half of them are my colleagues, half are customers, and they are all people I know after work." She looked at me and said with a little emotion, "Forget it. You don't understand at all."

I pretended to think and said, "I understand that you like me. You like me too, don't you? Especially me now?"

"Of course I like you." Miss Pande looked at me, "Why do you doubt this?"

Her slight emotions have faded.

As if nothing could shake her mind, her essence: Miss Pan De and her safe bench.

I said, "Can you just date me?"

She paused: "You said, it's like an exclusive dating relationship?"

"Yes." I answered very quickly, but in a small voice.

Seems lack of confidence.

"I'm willing." She laughed. "You just wanted to say this in the first place?"

She saw it.

I force myself to be calm: "Uh, uh, not really. I just want to get to know you."

"In..." Miss Pan De's teasing can be seen everywhere, "The morning of the working day?

I lowered my head: "Okay. I just wanted to ask you this in the beginning."

She held my right hand with both hands, arched her body slightly, caught my drooping gaze, and said, "Do you feel better then? Now we are dating one-on-one."

I suddenly felt like an awkward middle school student. I muffled: "Yeah."

"come over."

I leaned over.

Her hug is so warm.