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“If it helps,” Allison said, “Sophie’s never home. She’s got this new, awesome life.” She wrung her hands. “Sometimes it feels like there’s no room for me in it.”
She wanted to believe she’d admitted that only to one-up his confession, but it had been the look in his eyes that had done it. Their gentleness coaxed words from her lips like the Pied Piper lured rats and children with his instrument.
He tapped her hip with his toe. “Hey, you’ve got a pretty awesome new life, too. I know we don’t know each other well”—he winked (anotherfuckingwink, was he serious?)—“but something tells me you never used to go out on Saturday nights unless you were dragged by one of your friends. And yet here you are. Of your own free will.”
“I’m pretty sure these gatherings are compulsory.” She grinned, hoping it hid how much the truth of his words hurt. She didn’t want to be seen that way, as a hermit content to never venture into the world.But she liked what she had. Her life made sense. “I just don’t understand why things have to change.”
Colin rocked his empty glass at her. “Time for a refill.” He knocked a hand on her knee as he stood. “You know, just because things look different doesn’t mean they’re gone.”
As she watched his lanky form duck into the kitchen, Allison wondered if he might be talking about more than her friendships.
Chapter 14
“I can’t wait until we start teaching first-year English and have our own offices,” Link said, wrinkling his nose. “This place smells like week-old burritos.”
“I found the culprit.” Colin tapped the trash can in the far corner of the study room with his toe.
Holding her breath, Allison grabbed the edge of the gray plastic bin and dropped it outside the door. She didn’t dare glance inside.
“We’re still going to be dealing with other people’s… smells,” Ethan pointed out as he kicked closed the door. “It’s not like we won’t be doubling and tripling up.”
Colin shrugged. “The devil you know.”
It was Tuesday evening and the four of them were meeting up to finalize their presentation for Literary Theory next week. The irony of the fact that she’d been paired with three men (one of them the biggest theory dudebro on campus) to introduce feminist theory had not been lost on Allison.
Once they’d installed themselves around the square table at the center of the room, Allison unfolded a handout from her binder and smoothed it across the chipped Formica. “Okay. It looks like we havetwenty minutes to do two things: define feminist theory and identify points of controversy within it.”
“Honestly, this is so simple it’s a joke.” Ethan hadn’t bothered unpacking his bag. The only things in front of him were his water bottle and his phone, which he scrolled through without looking up. “Feminist theory is hardly sophisticated, which is probably why so many people gravitate toward it.” He shook a fist idly in the air. “Women rock. Woo.”
“Wow.” Allison glanced at Colin and Link, failing to suppress the scorn in her voice or her face. “Looks like Ethan doesn’t need us for this.”
He lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “She said it. Not me.” Then he yawned.Yawned.
“What’s your brilliant plan, then? I doubt Behi is going to accept ‘Woo, women rock’ as our presentation.” She pantomimed his earlier gesture with as much vitriol as she could muster.
“We talk about Butler, Irigaray, De Beauvoir, done.”
“Dude,” Link said, shaking his head, “that list’s a little bald, don’t you think?”
“What about Roxane Gay, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Julia Serano?” Allison counted each one off on her fingers.
“We’re doing race theory later. And queer theory too.” He shot a look at Link, the one gay, Black man in the room.
Link deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for not punching Ethan in his already crooked nose. Allison wouldn’t have been able to restrain herself if he’d looked at her with that much subtext.
She banged her palm flat against the table to get his attention through the titanium-thick exoskeleton that was his ego. “First of all, you might want to check your white masculinity. It’s leaking all over the place in here. Secondly, obviously Butler and Irigaray and De Beauvoir are important, but you can’t talk about feminism without considering the importance of intersectionality.”
Ethan lifted his hands off the table. “Why do you care? You have no interest in the complexities of theory anyway. You’re all into literature.”
“The point ofliterarytheory is to apply it toliteraryworks,” Colin said. “No?”
“For a literature person, maybe.” Every time Ethan said the wordliteratureit sounded more grotesque. As if he’d eaten something rotten and accidentally swallowed it. “I’m more interested in pure theory. In its many intricacies.”
“But isn’t that exactly what someone like Roxane Gay is exploring?” Allison asked.
Ethan rolled his eyes. “You only want to talk about Gay because she writes on fatness.”
Allison had to sit on her hands to keep from doing something she’d regret. “What doesthatmean?”
