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Chapter 1
If one more person used the wordhegemonic, Allison Avery was going to scream.
After almost two full weeks of classes at Claymore University, she should be more adjusted to the quirks of graduate-level literature courses, but it still felt like…a lot.
Everyone seemed so much older, like Link with his suspenders and bowties themed for every class, and Kara, whose button-downs were so freshly pressed she could roll down a grassy hill and still not have a wrinkle. And they all had laptops (new shiny ones), and were typing away with a gusto Allison couldn’t muster while scribbling frantically into her notebook like some kind of Luddite as she missed every other word Professor Behi said.
When Allison had sat through the commencement address at her college graduation in May, listening to some politician whose name she should have known droning on about making the most of every opportunity, she’d let her mind drift to the fall, imagining herself in cute floral dresses, sitting in a snug corner of the library in a worn easy chair, listening raptly to professors wax poetic about Chaucer and Julian of Norwich and Boccaccio. She certainly hadn’t planned on being crammed into the same cramped desk/chair combos from undergradthat jabbed at her curves no matter how she angled herself. Nor letting her eyes burn until the wee hours of the morning, trying to make sense of two paragraphs of Jacques Derrida.
And never, ever,everhad she expected to be sitting across the discussion circle from Colin Benjamin. Her ex-boyfriend.
Colin, not surprisingly, had been the latest person to cause Allison’s brain to pucker by finding a way to workhegemonicinto a sentence. That was the only reason she was staring at him right now.
He slouched lower in his chair as their professor’s gaze shifted to a new raised hand. One of his spindly ankles sat upon his equally spindly knee—there was a reason she used to jokingly call him Ichabod Crane—revealing purple socks with the wordcats!scrawled around drawings of felines in various stages of stretching and sleeping.
Allison bit the inside of her cheek to keep from reacting. It should be illegal for Colin Benjamin to wear cute socks. Or do anything cute, for that matter. The only adjectives reserved for him should be words likeirritating, maddening, vexatious.
Behind glasses with thick, maroon frames, his hazel eyes slid toward her, and his hand reached for his dark blond hair. He kept the top long and the sides shaved, and despite all the gel that glued it back from his brow, Allison knew the strands were soft like silk.
The thought turned her stomach. To dismiss it, she thrust her arm into the air.
A smile warmed Professor Behi’s face. It sliced a good decade off the age suggested by the thick streaks of gray in her black hair and the crow’s feet etched deeply into the skin at the corners of her brown eyes. “Yes, Allison?”
Even from the safety of her desk, Allison’s cheeks burned, and her voice turned squeaky. “Professo—er—Isha—” They’d been instructed at orientation to call their professors by their first names.You’re peers now,the fourth-year graduate student had insisted, proudly, as if to remind everyone what a huge deal it was to be in one of the most prestigious Ph.D. programs in the country. Like Allison could ever forget.Her mom had framed the acceptance letter and hung it above the fireplace. She made guests stand in front of it and admire the creamy white paper for at least ten seconds, an icon to worship.
But when these “peers” could dismiss students from the program at their discretion, that equality seemed dubious at best. Allison would much rather call them professor and make the power dynamic transparent.
She cleared her throat. “This is probably a dumb question, but if Derrida was so concerned about accessing meaning in a text, why did he go out of his way to make his writing so…” Allison clamped down on her bottom lip, trying to figure out the right word. Of course, with twelve other people’s eyes on her—including Colin Benjamin’s bespectacled gaze—all thought had left her brain. “Impossible,” she finally muttered.
Colin lifted his hand to respond. Because of course he did. Colin Benjamin never missed the chance to challenge someone. Or hear the sound of his own voice.
Which, Allison hated to admit, was smooth and low and comforting. He would have made an excellent audio book narrator.
Before Professor Behi could acknowledge him, Ethan Windmore (to herself, Allison referred to him as Ethan Windbag) announced, “You’ve clearly missed the nuance of his theory.”
Though no one said a word, Allison could feel their collective desire to groan. The tension pressed against the dingy windowpanes, thickening the already stuffy air of a muggy September afternoon in New England. After four years as an undergrad at Brown University, Allison should have been used to the fact that autumn didn’t properly arrive in Providence, Rhode Island, until November. It made her miss the way the air in Northern Maine grew crisp as soon as school began.
Ethan leaned across his desk, causing his biceps to bulge against his T-shirt.He shouldnothave noticeable biceps,Allison decided. No one that obnoxious should be allowed such a vanity.
She’d hoped someone might come to her rescue, but the wholeclass had become mysteriously enraptured by whatever object was in closest proximity. Link was wiping the screen of his laptop like it was a windshield covered in bug carcasses. Kara smoothed out the faux-wood top of her desk. Alex and Mandy, the two other members of Allison’s cohort, both picked at their nails.
Allisonhatedattention. But with three minutes of class left, she was not in the mood for one of Ethan’s lectures. “I understand the nuance fine.” Lies.Derrida’s writing might as well have still been in French for all Allison could grasp of it. But hell would freeze over and pigs would fly and white dudes would admit they’re wrong before she’d reveal that she did not comprehend a lick of literary theory. “I guess I’m not impressed by writers who get off on obfuscation.”
Ethan gasped. The sound puffed Allison up with pride.
Professor Behi let out a musical laugh. “That seems like a good place to stop for today. Everyone, take Allison’s lead and for our next meeting consider why Derrida needs to make his work so”—she tossed Allison a grin—“impossible.”
People started to stand and snap shut their laptops, but Professor Behi clapped, returning the room to silence. “For you first-year students, teaching assistant positions have now been assigned. You can find a letter in your department mailbox about the course, your duties, etc. I apologize for the delay. A few last-minute shifts in course offerings resulted in some confusion.”
Allison’s heart galloped as she packed her bag. Finally, she’d find out if she’d been assigned to Professor Frances’s class, British Literature’s Greatest Hits: Pre-1800.
With her heart set on a career in medieval literature, a teaching assistantship with Professor Wendy Frances would be the ideal start. The woman was a genius. Her focus on modernizing the oldest of texts drew fire from traditionalists, but Allison knew this was the kind of academic work the world needed. Not criticism so dense it required a dictionary. Professor Frances’s work transcended academic lines. People read it for pleasure. And it got them interested in textsthat weren’t household names. She helped people find themselves in the books Allison loved.
It was exactly what Allison wanted to do. And two flights of stairs up, in the tiny little graduate mailroom within the cramped graduate student lounge, could be an envelope that would set her on that path.
The west stairwell of Haber Hall had no windows, and the lights flickered. A small shiver danced up her back as Allison climbed the steps. At the top of the last flight, she pushed into the brightly painted hallway of the English Department. Unlike the dour gray of the rest of Haber, the third floor was the yellow of a perfect stick of butter, warm and inviting. Colorful posters and pamphlets boasting details for literary conferences and writers’ workshops and indie movie releases and book launches speckled the space. Most of the professors’ office doors were open and the din of conversation and rapid typing bounced along the worn red rug.
Allison ducked into the grad lounge. An old couch, its brown leather mapped with fault lines, was pushed under the window opposite a small kitchenette, and a random assortment of tables cluttered the center of the room. Along the back wall, rows of mailboxes sat above a countertop that held a printer and a hodgepodge of office supplies, most of which no one had touched since 2006.
