“I’ll tellyou one thing. If these have any impact on me keeping ENG2, I’m raising hell.” Professor Davenport pops a tiny blue lid off a gray tube of lead, dumping a piece into his palm as he readies himself to refill his mechanical pencil. “World literature is the only thing keeping me tethered to this soulless job.”
I snort. “Soulless job?”
He eyes me over the top of his dark-rimmed glasses, flinching slightly when his lead snaps. Allen dumps another piece out, stuffing it into the pencil successfully this time. “Freshman,” he says simply, the singular word clearly defining the terms of his soullessness. “All I do is reprint syllabi, and repeat the reading assignment. Every class, every week, the whole semester.” He clicks, and asharpened tip emerges. “And I can’t tell you how many dead family members there are on finals day.”
A chuckle bursts from somewhere in my belly. Allen’s comment is true, but it reminds me of a little inside joke I have with Cade. Without fail, there are always a handful of students who either did not prepare or did not remember the final, and inevitably send an email that their grandmother, aunt, cousin’s best friend’s sister, a friend of a best friend’s mom—whatever—passed away, and theymustreschedule their final.
It’s so expected at this point that a few years back, we started joking about it. Cade was wearing a navy blue pullover and gray hush puppies, and that was when he wore tortoise shell frames. They complimented his sapphire eyes so well, but the sepia frames he wears now are just as complimentary. He’d pushed the frames up his head, into his hair, and gripped the bridge of his nose like an angry parent who just discovered nail polish on the lacquered furniture, he groaned so loud I got turned on. Privately, of course. “Should we place our bets?”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“How many grandmothers are taking their final breath right now?” he asked, deadpan, face expressionless as he nudged his glasses back down.
I spat coffee across my keyboard. “Mercer,” I’d said, “unexpected student burn. I love it.”
He sighed. “I just hate that they lie. I’d much more respect the truth, even if it was,hey Professor Mercer, I chose to watch The Bachelor all semester instead of study, and now Ineed three days to binge the text book so I can walk away from this class with a C- to keep my dad happy enough to pay my cell phone bill.”
Seeing the somewhat playful, sarcastic, teasing side of Cade was monumental. It taught me that he has walls and they are indeed up. It got me thinking about all the other things I’d like about Cade, if I only knew them. If he only opened up. Shared more. Allowed himself to connect to others. Allowed himself to chase the version of himself he truly wants to be.
In the present, I bump fists with Professor Davenport, ensuring him that he does have a soul, and that he won’t lose World Lit. “And if for some reason I get ENG2, I’ll switch you.”
He nods, his swathe of dusty chestnut hair a complete mess as always. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Stepping out of Professor Davenport’s office—where I was killing time as I wait for Cade’s first class—I come face to face with Eli, who almost seems to be looking for someone.
“There you are.”
I knew it.
I clear my throat and let my head bob slightly, acknowledging that we are indeed running into one another at the place where we (still) both work. “Here I am. What’s up?”
His face scrunches up, and he drags his hand over his hair, which has too much product and too little style. “Why do you sound annoyed when you talk to me?”
I shrug and peer around him, down to my office doorthat now stands ajar when moments ago, it was closed. Cade is here, I know he is, because he always comes on campus eternities early. But now he’s in our space, and after last night, I’m quite literally aching to see him. To put a line in the water and get a feel for his temperament today.
But Eli steps to the side, clouding my vision. “Have lunch with me. Let’s catch up.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
A smirk tugs at the edge of his lips, and I have to take a private breath through my nostrils and out my mouth twice so I don’t aggressively vomit. “Worried what may happen?” His voice is low, and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand tall, like if you see a spider near you or when there’s that familiar tingle in your lower lip when you have a stomach ache.
“No. But I do want to be clear. I won’t be spending time with you that is not related to the English department or this university. That’s… over.”
Eli begins arguing, or at least I guess he is, but I’m tuned out because Tara Shae slips out of our office, and tugs our door closed, locking it with her universal key.
So Cadeisn’tin there. Disappointment settles at the base of my spine like a heavy knot I can’t undo. I catch Tara’s gaze as she clicks past us in her little heels, and she understands easily, coming to my side, linking her arm with mine. Eli’s eyes drop to where her long fingers stroke up my forearm.
“There you are,” she says, her tone soft like rose petals, sweet like sugar. It’s her flirty voice, and I know this because I’ve listened to her use it on men at the bar time and time again. Tara and I are friends, and it’s never been more than that, which I really like. “Hello Dr. Morton,” she greets with a Vanna White smile. “We have to be going.” And with that, she saves me from yet another uncomfortable situation with Eli Morton, self-appointed department god, but known to me and my circle as,my asshole ex.
“Why couldn’t he stay wherever he was,” Tara sighs as she steadies herself using my arm, using her other hand to feed fingers through her red hair, fixing it. That leads to me stroking a hand through my own hair.I wonder where Cade is?
“Because the devil feeds off young, naive souls, Tara, you know this,” I deadpan, nodding to a student who finger waves at me as we pass. “Who are you primping for?”
She stops, and unlinks her arm from mine so she can smear her sweaty palms down her little pencil skirt. “Jesse Makris, the very handsome history professor.”
Tara wants to be married. She wants kids. And she’s been on the hunt to get what she wants for the last few years. I respect her voracity, and her ability to move on when things hit the rocks. She dated another professor a few years ago, and they broke up shortly after I was hired. I remember thinking they couldn’t have dated all that long, because I saw her out on a date not a week after. I’dthen heard through the grapevine that she’d been dating that other professor for a few years.
A person who knows what they want and goes for it, despite the heartaches in between. I respect that. I relate to it, and still do.
