“Do you like being his TA?”
“God no,” she said. “I was supposed to be Dr. Smith’s TA, but something got screwed up in the registar, and here I am, with the all-mighty Dr. Evans himself.”
I could relate. “They put my work-study in the library,” I said.
“Not bad. Could be worse.” She opened the door, holding it for me. I went through. “Could be janitorial work.”
“They wouldn’t do that.” I paused, “Would they?”
She laughed and shoved my shoulder. “Of course not. But they will stick you in the food court, which, believe me, iswayworse than organizing by the Dewey Decimal System.”
The sun was bright, beaming down from a clear sky. My mother had moved here a year ago, which was why I had applied to Las Vegas University, or LVU, in the first place. While I welcomed the change from the snow in Tehachapi, it only took seconds before it felt like my skin was tanning into leather here. We sat down at a park bench and table under a tree. I grabbed my water from my shoulder-bag, and Jessica eyed the strange designs on the bag with the scrutiny of a scientist.
“Is that—”
“My dad’s old bag,” I explained. I quickly latched the buckle and shoved it away before she could say anything. “Good luck charm. Gotta keep it in the family.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I remember you saying that in the Meet and Greet,” she said. “Anyway, a lot of us like to meet at the Ego Trip on Fremont Street. Maybe go to the casino afterward. You should come next time.”
Legal drinking was something that I could only officially do in between orientation and the start of the semester. To avoid the banter I knew would come from bartenders and bouncers and servers alike, for the ultimate birthday in Las Vegas, I had declined the first invitation to go out with the graduate students. They already thought I didn’t belong in the group. I didn’t need them to know that I had literally turned twenty-one that day.
But this time, I could go.
“Maybe,” I said. Many of the doctoral students were in their thirties and didn’t have the time to get to know me, nor cared to, unless it was part of an outing with the rest of the cohort. And I wanted to be accepted. “Yes,” I corrected.
“Cool,” she said. “We’ve been wanting to get to know this mysterious student from the mountains.”
She said it like Tehachapi was some unknown entity, when it was only a couple hundred miles away.
“It didn’t seem like anyone cared,” I said. During orientation, I had been asked if I was in the wrong room by multiple incoming graduate students, and when I said I was in the doctoral program, their jaws dropped. One professor had even laughed at me.
Which was why I needed to win the Crossing Collaborations Contest. It meant more than getting my name published next to a professor’s. It meant proving to everyone that I was meant to be there. It meant proving to Dad that I could do this, like he always wanted to.
“It’s a lot of talk,” she said, “Who knows who. Who has been published where. Who is sucking who to get an extra class. In the end, you just need to get published in a placeyourespect. Getting hired whereyouwant to be hired. Not what anyone else thinks.”
The hiring season seemed like a faraway fantasy, but publication?Oasis, LVU’s newly established academic journal, was good. Enough. Respectable, I guessed. Whoever won the Crossing Collaborations Contest would have their article published in the journal. I didn’t really care about the journal, but I was doing the contest to prove that I was supposed to be in the program with everyone else.
Because honestly? It always felt like no one took me seriously. Only Dad, and he wasn’t taking classes with me anymore.
“The Crossing Collaborations Contest,” I asked. “Are you submitting?”
“Of course,” Jessica said. “Dr. Smith promised to work with me last year. We have a meeting on it soon. Are you asking Dr. Evans to team up?”
“That’s the idea.” I stroked my shoulder bag’s strap, the original synthetic band sewn to a seat belt by Mom years ago, then both straps sewn to a piece of leather by me last year. “He’s the only one left in the department.”
“He’s the only one who doesn’t participate.” She leaned on the table. Her gaze drifted, and I followed it: the undergrads falling off of the slackline between a set of nearby trees.
“But you said he’s up for tenure,” I said. She turned towards me. “Maybe he’ll have to do it this year. You know. Seal the deal.”
“That’s a good point,” she said. “I would bring that up when you go to his office hours.”
Damn. I realized I hadn’t taken a syllabus with me when we were in the class. There was no need to take the handout if I wasn’t his TA. “Do you know when his office hours are scheduled?” I asked.
“Like now.”
I jumped up from the seat, swinging my bag into my grip. “Thanks for the chat. Gotta run!”
I darted across the patchy grass, in and out of the concrete, making my way towards the Department of Humanities, stuck in the Liberal Arts and Culture Building. It was a structure with harsh lines, like an old vision of the future, smashing together the humanities, social sciences, art studio, art history, cultural studies, and literature department. Our floor was the fourth, though some graduate students had to share offices on the third.
