“She was no one,” I said. And that was the truth. What I felt for Lisa was not romantic, but allyship, and guilt. A painful remorse for what we had agreed to do, what I had done to her. Dr. Smith tilted her head, beckoning further explanation, but I gave no response.
Besides, I had someone else on my mind. A different woman.
“I’ll figure it out one of these days,” she said. “Just you wait.”
I ignored the empty threat. “You were at orientation,” I said. “Tell me about Mara Slate.”
“Mara,” Dr. Smith said, glancing at the ceiling. “Mara, Mara. She’s young. Very young. My guess is that she’ll drop out after the first semester.”
Mara had said she was in the doctoral program, which likely meant that this wasn’t her first experience with graduate school. There was a good chance that she had her master’s degree already, and yet Dr. Smith doubted her.
“You have little faith in her,” I said.
“I believe she will do well, but not now. Someone as young as that? She’s still figuring out who she is. She could get through half of the curriculum and realize that she never wanted to study the humanities in the first place.”
There was some truth to that. It had taken me years to find my place, and even now, I sometimes doubted it. At moments like this. Talking with pretentious professors like Dr. Smith. She was more tolerable than most, and yet, she still made me wonder why I had chosen this career, this university.
Dr. Smith added, “She asked me to work with her for the Crossing Collaborations Contest.” I leaned in closer. A curious expression came over Dr. Smith’s face at my change in stature. “I said no, of course. I already agreed to work with Jessica. Jessica and I will write something better than any duo in this hell hole.”
I didn’t doubt that Jessica was intelligent. But I did question Dr. Smith’s judgment on Mara. Dr. Smith declining Mara’s request, only made doing the contest with Mara more appealing. To shut Dr. Smith down for a while, to show her that Mara, the young woman she doubted, was far better than she could have expected. Dr. Smith hadn’t seen the fervor resonating through Mara’s words. Her raw ambition. Her angry vehemence. What we rarely truly came across in our daily interactions.
“The contest is about working together,” Dr. Smith said. “It’s not about going against your student. It’s about crossing boundaries, making connections, sharing intrigue.”
“Get to the point,” I said.
“In the Crossing Collaborations Contest, you can’t use these poor students to steal their ideas. You have to forge and createwiththem.”
She was referring to the fact that since we had both started teaching at Las Vegas University, I had published countless opposing articles to my students. Students I was supposed to help, to push towards success. And I did, though in my own way. Publishing opposition papers to prove to them where their arguments were flawed was a tactic that I used frequently, a tactic that some professors criticized, while others applauded. It made it so that my reputation was one that many students tried to avoid.
Nonetheless, I found it invigorating to prove others wrong.
Still, I knew what Dr. Smith was getting at. “It’s you against me,” I said. “Professors against professors.”
“I never thought it’d be us,” she said, “Well, you, anyway. Since you’re not the best with students.”
What Dr. Smith failed to realize was that it wasn’t about having the best rapport with students. It was about getting them to think critically, to think harder, deeper, to push themselves beyond their limits. It was one of the reasons I was drawn to the career; you always found a new object, a new text, a new pet to destroy.
“You’re too ruthless with them,” she said.
With the graduate students, I was cold, calculating, always making sure they knew how frivolous this path was. A career in academia was extremely hard to obtain. I was never one for pep talks, and I planned on never giving one. Some students appreciated that.
“The staff can’t deny that I push the students to greatness,” I said.
“You’re right,” she said. “But let’s get back to the contest.” She leaned back in the seat. “This contest could make or break us both. Don’t quit on me because youhaveto write that opposing paper. You wouldn’t want to let me win, would you?”
It was unlikely that we would both be offered tenure, and amusing that Dr. Smith saw the contest as a challenge between us.
But another challenge crossed my mind.
Let’s be honest, Dr. Evans. You need this as much as I do, Mara’s voice coursed through my head. That blazing desire, hungry for the fight, wanting desperately to capture what could be hers, if only I would give her the chance.For your own sake. Or you can kiss this office goodbye.
It must mean something to you.
Mara was right about that. My position as professor, being offered tenure, would mean that I had reached my goal, to prove that I knew better than I once did. I could not be deceived again, not by humanistic arguments, not by vain hesitations, not by misleading gestures. Achieving tenure would mean I could read it all: human, art, lover, enemy. What difference did it make?
Besides, working with a student, someone like Mara, was the reason I found academia exciting. Finding faults in the reasoning of others. Showing them how to stay focused on the lack of truth.
I stood, giving her the signal to leave. “Competition is always welcome,” I said.
