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“Rumors are sweeping the school.” Erica hurried into the room, her arms spread dramatically. “Is it true?TheLincoln Atwood is coming to be your Real World Specialist?”
“So I hear.” Grace ate another piece of chocolate and offered some to Erica, who shook her head.
“You don’t seem especially thrilled.” Erica sat down at one of the student desks.
“Considering Spruce blindsided me with this news, I’m not,” Grace grumbled. “I teach poetry and Shakespeare, not contemporary male literature about anti-hero journeys into darkness. I don’t even know what Lincoln Atwood is planning to teach or why he’s doing it. Did he just think it’d be fun?”
“I heard he refused the stipend and told Spruce to put it back into the program funds,” Erica remarked. “Maybe he has good intentions and wants to help the kids out.”
“Doubtful.” Grace tapped a pen on the desk and frowned. “As far as I know, he was the top of his class at Princeton, but he’s never taught before…in fact, that’s one of histhings, right? Experience over academia. He’s a manly man Hemingway type who goes off and runs with the bulls and climbs mountains before writing his books. According to his mythology, he didn’t need to study writing because he was born with genius.”
Erica eyed her speculatively. “Have you read his books?”
“One, when I was taking a contemporary lit course in college. It was about what I expected.” Grace tossed the crumpled chocolate wrapper into the trash. “I mean, obviously the man can write. But his themes are all so dark and testosterone-driven about these tortured men going up against nature and each other. Women are just peripheral in Lincoln Atwood’s world. And his style is so spare and bleak…no poetry, no metaphor, no nuance. Noheart. It’s like he doesn’t know how to feel. How am I supposed to teach with a man like that?”
“Well, based on his publicity photos, he’ll at least be easy on the eyes,” Erica said unhelpfully.
Grace tsked. “That makes it even worse. Good-looking men are full of themselves. He’s probably a rampallian. A scoundrel. A sanctimonious pirate.”
“I assure you…” a deep male voice flowed into the room like hot water over a polished hardwood floor, “…he most definitely is.”
Grace’s heart almost stopped. She swiveled to face the door and found herself staring right at Handsome Devil from Lou’s Diner.
Or rather, she realized with a growing sense of dread,TheLincoln Atwood.
