Chapter 26

CHAPTER

26

PRESENT

The remainder of November is hectic, spent meeting one-on-one with students to discuss their final papers and piecing together my dossier between classes. It’s dense work, breaking down every contribution I’ve made to Irving these past however many years, and to academia at large. Pages discuss at length my research, publications, the courses I’ve taught, my services to the school. A curriculum vitae detailing my work experience, the years of adjunct professorship while I worked on my Ph.D. at University of Notre Dame, the Fulbright award that took me back to England for six months to conduct research for my dissertation. It’s all very stale and methodical, but also deeply personal, in a way: my life’s achievements, stuffed into a manila envelope too flimsy to bear the weight.

I submit it for consideration on the first Monday in December, the last week of instruction before finals week. Letters of recommendation are submitted separately by the recommenders, so I have no idea what they say—not even Teddy’s, which Julien suggested I add after our work together on the gala. Teddy offers to let me peek at it, but it feels like cheating, so I decline. “Okay,” he says in a mock-concerned tone, leaning over his desk with his hand on the mouse, threatening to click send. “Just wait until you find out that I’ve told them all about that time you misattributed a Winston Churchill quote.”

“I’ve never quoted Winston Churchill.” I widen my eyes, feigning worry. “Or maybe I didn’t know I was quoting him.”

He shuts down the computer and straightens up, taking me by the hand and dragging me toward him in the privacy of our shared office. “‘It is a good thing for an uneducated man’—or woman—‘to read books of quotations,’” he recites, hooking his arms around my waist.

I arch a brow up at him. “Is that a suggestion?”

“No. That’s Churchill.”

He tugs my body flush against his, but we’re interrupted by my phone vibrating between us. I draw back just far enough to dig it out of my pocket to check who’s calling.

Izzy.

That’s weird. Save for a handful of texts, we haven’t spoken for the past month, so this is a little out of the blue. My knee-jerk reaction is to assume something’s wrong. “Sorry,” I say, slipping out of Teddy’s grasp, “one sec.” I swipe to answer, stepping out into the hall.

“What are you doing December fourteenth to nineteenth?” Izzy asks by way of greeting.

“I don’t exactly have my schedule in front of me,” I say slowly. “That’s right after finals week, so probably not much.” The board should have made their decision by next Friday, so that will be out of my hair by then.

“I’m planning a visit,” she explains. A keyboard clacks in the background. “My parents have been begging me to come home for the holidays the last couple years and I figure I might as well squeeze in a trip to see you while I’m at it.”

“Oh,” I say, my eyebrows raised. I don’t mean for it to sound disinterested or ungrateful, but it’s fairly short notice with everything else happening. Still, we haven’t seen each other in a few years. And no matter how long we go without talking, how long we spend apart, the moment we’re together again, it’s like nothing’s changed. Not unlike my friendship with Teddy, actually. We all adapted to spending time alone during our formative years, managing friendships through periodic visits and long-winded catch-ups. Everyone always says that homeschooling doesn’t prepare you for the real world, but maybe it does, at least in this regard: it prepares you for how disparate your lives are going to be.

“Unless that doesn’t work for you,” she says uncertainly. “We could always plan something separate. Maybe in the summer.”

“No, that should be fine. Sorry, zoned out there for a minute.”

Behind me, the door to the office cracks open, and I step out of the way. Teddy locks up and pockets his keys. We’re supposed to be headed for lunch. “Everything okay?” he asks in a low voice, meant only for me. I nod.

Izzy pounces at the faintest hint of a male voice in the background. “Who’s that?”

“That was Teddy. We’re just heading to lunch.”

“Teddy, huh?” she echoes, a little too curious. “So, care to share what’s going on there?”

“It’s a long story,” I say mildly. “Let’s just say we have a lot of catching up to do.”

The scholarship committee meets for a final time the Thursday before finals week to review applications for the spring. It’s always a little begrudging, this last meeting of the semester—more so than our usual meetings, that is. And then we don’t talk. We sit around the table in silence, scanning essays, sorting them into piles: No and Yes and Needs further review . We steal things out of each other’s piles. Voice when we’re particularly impressed by an applicant. Gary yawns wide, an empty can of Red Bull sitting atop a stack of rejections. Trina absently presses the butt of her pen against the table, a rhythmic click, click like a metronome.

“This one’s not bad,” I say, passing an essay for The Samuel Chase Scholarship across the table. “Gary, if you want to take a look—”

We review the submissions anonymously to prevent any biases creeping in, sticky notes slapped over the students’ names and ID numbers, but depending on the application requirements, we sometimes still get a rough sketch of the person behind the paper. In this case, it’s a pre-law student who mentioned a minor in political science in his introductory paragraph, so Gary will double-check to see whether it holds up to scrutiny.

I’ve never been overly fond of this whole process—passing judgment on students, deciding which are worthy of financial help and which are not, but someone has to do it. This year it feels ickier than normal, though. Or maybe I’m just more attuned to it because I can empathize: my dossier is up for review any day now. There’s another committee somewhere on this campus who are going to be judging my merits, my contributions to the school.

I pick up the paper that Goodman just set in the Yes pile, scanning over the contents. Scholarship recipients are generally decided by consensus, though the opinions of committee members who work in the relevant department tend to hold a bit more weight. This one’s a critical essay submitted for The Lizette Woodworth Reese Award. A critical analysis of some work or another by Sylvia Plath. I’m inclined to trust Goodman’s opinion, seeing as poetry isn’t my expertise. I add a star to the sticky note and toss it back into the pile.

Julien emails me the Sunday before finals week to let me know that I have a meeting scheduled with the tenure advisory com mittee that Wednesday. I’ll admit it’s a little unorthodox for them to meet with you face-to-face, he notes in the body of the email, but all this means is that they likely have some questions they want to ask you, and that they haven’t ruled you out yet. Try to think of it like a job interview. Best foot forward and all that.

There’s no two ways around it: it’s downright intimidating, being interviewed by a panel of your would-be peers. The advisory committee comprises twelve tenured professors, tasked with providing guidance to the president on the granting of tenure. I spot a handful of familiar faces when I step into the classroom, but most of them I only know in passing. Andrew Greene in a cranberry sweater. Henry Nguyen, a lanky biology professor with ink-black hair and a permanent glower. Wendy McAllister from the Communications Department, who gives me a smile and a half nod. She can’t be all that much older than I am, her auburn curls cascading over an infinity scarf.

At least there’s no bench at this tribunal. We’re gathered in a classroom in the Franklin Complex, the committee members seated around a U-shaped table arrangement and a trigonometry problem still scribbled on the whiteboard. Teddy walked me to the room, but they asked him to wait outside. I take a seat at one of the ends, but there’s no escaping the twelve faces pointed at me.

“Good afternoon, Clara.” Andrew shuffles the papers in front of him. Looks like he’s going to be leading this interrogation. “Let’s not waste any time getting to the heart of the matter. I’m sure we’re all ready to get on with our holiday break.”

A couple committee members chuckle under their breath. I give a curt nod. Ready to get this over with.

“You come with an enthusiastic recommendation from Julien Zabini, Michael Jeong”—he lifts the corner on the paper in front of him, double-checking something underneath—“as well as a number of your colleagues on the scholarship committee.” The page flaps back down. “Your dossier is more or less satisfactory. The problem, unfortunately, lies not in what you have to recommend you, but in your relatively young career. I can’t help feeling this application is a little rushed.”

Henry Nguyen nods his agreement, more to himself than to anyone else in the room, because his eyes remained fixed on the page in front of him. They all have papers in front of them. Notes.

“Julien suggested that I apply for tenure early,” I explain.

Andrew scratches his brow with the eraser of his pencil as he flicks through the papers. “It’s not un heard of. But you have to understand that it’s made tricky by your lack of prior experience, save this brief position while you were in grad school—assistant professor?” He glances up for confirmation and I nod. “I also wanted to ask you about your high school education. It’s listed here as a charter school. Does that mean it was private?”

“More like independent study,” I say.

One of the older professors clears phlegm from his throat. “I think we can all agree that a homeschooled education is often—” He looks to his colleagues for input, though no one is forthcoming. “Well, it’s often a little subpar. There’s no curriculum, and the parents are incapable of imparting information to their children that they don’t fully understand themselves.”

“My homeschooling program was accredited,” I explain, a little irked. I can’t quite believe I’m still arguing this, after all these years, with everything else I’ve accomplished. “My mom had a degree in early childhood education. Not to mention I graduated from University of Maryland summa cum laude , I hold a doctorate from Notre Dame, my research has been published in the Tudor Quarterly Review —”

“It’s no matter,” Andrew interrupts with a wave of his hand. “More just a curiosity. There was also a question about one of your recommenders—Theodore Harrison?”

“What about him?”

“He’s visiting, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but we worked together on the gala subcommittee, which I highlighted in my—”

“But you knew each other prior,” Andrew interrupts.

“Yes,” I say, hesitant. I’m not sure where this is going.

“For how long?”

I glance at the other committee members like someone might rescue me from this odd line of questioning. As soon as Wendy McAllister meets my gaze, her blue eyes flick downward, and she pretends to scribble something on the paper in front of her. “Does it matter?”

Andrew holds up a hand, placating. “Curiosity.”

An unfortunate side effect of the rumors floating around campus. “Seventeen years.”

“There are… concerns,” a steely-haired woman from the Engineering Department offers up, “about impartiality in your department, or a lack thereof. I understand the pair of you are sharing an office.”

“Julien Zabini makes those decisions,” I say, looking around at all of them. “You’re not implying that Julien is biased.”

“We’re not implying anything,” Andrew says. “We’re simply trying to sort out the facts.”

This, I realize, must be the reason they called me here. Not to talk about my lack of previous work experience or the fact that I was homeschooled, once upon a time. All that was pretense.

“Look at it from an outside perspective,” Henry Nguyen pipes up. “You’re a favorite of Julien’s. An adjunct professor from Carnegie Mellon applies for a visiting scholar position that would typically be granted to someone a little more”—he waffles his head back and forth—“established. And you have—excuse the pun—but you have history. You have to admit, the sharing an office together, working on the same committee, it all looks a little odd.”

“Not to mention your sister being enrolled in one of his classes,” someone says.

“The committee is open to any faculty members who are willing to dedicate their time,” I say. “And my sister signed up for classes like everyone else. I doubt she even checked beforehand to see who the instructor was.” I’m not bothering to hide it now—I’m annoyed. This is a waste of my time. And frankly a little insulting to everyone involved. “I don’t really understand what you’re implying. Do you really think I asked Julien to give him a job? Assign us to the same office?”

The room falls silent. Okay, so maybe that’s exactly what they’re implying. I huff.

“Our goal here is to clear the air,” Andrew says. “It might look one way from the outside, but I’d hope that your inside perspective might clear a few things up.”

“I had no idea that Professor Harrison had applied for the visiting position, and if I had, I wouldn’t have vouched for him.” It sounds harsh, but it’s also the truth—had Julien somehow found out we knew each other and asked my opinion on the matter, I would’ve been more likely at the time to try to dissuade him. “Julien never mentioned him by name until after I found out we were going to be sharing an office.”

I do everything in my power to keep my temper in check for the remainder of the meeting, but by the time they shoo me out of the room to leave them to their deliberations, some of my anger must show on my face, because Teddy takes one look at me and furrows his brow. “How’d it go?”

“Not great.” While we make our way down the hall, I do my best to summarize everything in undertone.

“It’s just faculty gossip,” Teddy says as soon as I’ve finished. We make our way through the quad, the dormant grass dusted with frost like confectioner’s sugar. A bitter cold clings to the air and silver clouds overhead threaten more snow. “They’re bored. Nothing’s going to come of it. And the tenure advisory board doesn’t even have the authority to reprimand Julien, certainly not at any school I’ve worked for.”

I am worried about Julien. He’s one of the few allies I’ve had at this school, and I fully intend to tell him about this meeting. But I am also, selfishly, worried about more than that. “What about you?” I ask.

Teddy stops walking, a confused laugh escaping him. “What about me?”

I hesitate a few paces ahead, my arms folded to fend off the cold. “There’s no way you’re going to get approved for another semester. Not if word gets out—”

“So I find a position somewhere else,” he says, tossing up his hands. His intensity catches me off guard. “I’ll teach at a community college if I have to.”

I wait for him to add or we run away to Edinburgh, to really drive the point home, but he seems to know better. “Don’t you realize what we’re doing?” My voice cracks, but I’m determined to make him see reason. “We’re doing what we always swore we wouldn’t do. We’re letting this dictate our decisions; you’re talking about quitting your job for me, moving away from Pittsburgh and your mom’s restaurant, giving up all these things that you wouldn’t give up if it wasn’t for—” I break off. Frustrated tears are welling in my eyes, stinging in the cold. “I’m terrified of you waking up one day and resenting me because you gave up too much.”

“I’m talking about doing those things because I want to,” he says. “Not because you’re asking. You haven’t asked.”

“You’re right,” I say, stressing the words. “I haven’t.” It sounds a little more heartless than I intended, but I need to say it. I need him to know that I’m not asking any of this of him. I want him to stay. So badly that my chest hurts, a fist squeezing around my heart. But I can’t voice that, because as soon as I do, I’ve tipped the scales. He’ll be making a decision for us, not for him. And I can’t stand the thought of it—an imagined argument, five or ten years from now, that culminates in I wish I never quit that job for you.

I wish we didn’t get so caught up in the moment.

I wish we never met.

The muscles in his face draw tight, masklike, though not with any discernible emotion. “What, so now you don’t want me here?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He blinks before ripping his gaze from mine. “You know, you mentioned once that you enjoy history because humans haven’t changed all that much. You said that like it’s a good thing.” He pauses, like he’s waiting for me to recollect, but it’s not like I’d be inclined to forget. I’ve built a whole career out of my love for history. “I agree that people haven’t changed,” he continues. “People don’t change, really. But I think that’s one of the worst things about us. Here we are, with entire histories at our fingertips, answers to all your questions only a Google search away, but the reality is that people never learn a goddamn thing.”

I don’t know what to say to that, but I can’t quite bear to look at him, so I stare across the quad, arms folded. The campus is largely abandoned this late into finals week, save the intermittent straggler, darting from one building to the next to escape the cold.

I feel Teddy’s eyes on me, looking for some reaction. “We fucked this up once before and I’m pretty sure we both regretted it,” he says slowly. “I have no interest in repeating my mistakes.”

“Neither do I,” I whisper.

He nods to himself, staring somewhere just beyond my shoulder. “Right. Okay.” He exhales through his nose. “Take your time to think it over.” Despite his best efforts to maintain composure, the soft sadness in his voice is utterly devastating. “You turned me away once. I’m not going to rush you to do it again.”

And with that, he walks away.