Tenure Track (11 page)

“
Maybe we could,” she agreed.

Dennis wanted them to see the latest installment of an ongoing oral history Web project the twins were producing about Mark’s mother, whom they called “Bubbe.” Jane was pleased to see the children making a valuable contribution to the historical record, as they linked their pieces to the site of the Holocaust Museum.

On this night, Dennis wanted to show his parents a bit he was finishing on how his grandparents met. Over the summer he and Dana had interviewed 90-year-old Bubbe sitting beside the outdoor pool of her Florida retirement community. Once a tall girl, Bubbe was now bent by osteoporosis and arthritis, but her eyes were still clear and her voice—thick with the dialect of her Eastern European upbringing—authoritative. The teenaged directors interspersed her narrative with stock historical images and photographs of their grandparents. Jane stifled a laugh as Bubbe passed along her generational view of romance.

“How long had you and Zayde known each other when you got married?” Dana’s off-camera voice asked near the end of the video.

“Mmm, I think six weeks. . . . It was a different time,” Bubbe explained. “Things moved faster than today.”

“
But you fell in love quickly?” the teenager pressed.

Bubbe held a bemused look on her face, reflecting her grandchild’s innocence. “I suppose. Not like love today. You young people, you look for romance, the hearts, the flowers. The ‘soulmates.’ Ach! Then you get divorced! We were more practical in my day. Your Zayde, I could tell, he was a
mensch,
a good man. Not handsome, not at all, but a hard worker. I could tell he would make a good, solid husband. He no bring flowers every day, but he took good care of us, provided for his family, raised a good boy. He no beat me, no drink too much. Yes, this I loved. He was a
mensch
!”

As the video ended, Dennis told his parents, “I want to go back in and add a little music in a couple of places.”

“
Oh, I don’t think it needs music,” Jane assessed. “The power of the words speaks for itself. The images you added were great.”

“
Tell Dana. She gathered all that stuff. I just did the technical part,” he insisted.

Outside, Jane could hear her daughter’s usual evening cadence.
Whoosh. Pow. . . Whoosh. Pow.

Mental note,
she told herself,
compliment Dana.

It was a reminder quickly forgotten, as was usually the case when it came to acknowledging her daughter’s talents.

Later, after the twins had retired to their respective rooms to look for ways to avoid sleep, Jane and Mark made love as two people who had known each other intimately for three decades. By this point in their relationship, little was new to learn, as they had explored every inch of one another many times over. By the time Jane had finally given into Mark’s persistent attempts at courtship some two years into their friendship, she had surprisingly found him to be the best lover she had ever had, perhaps because they fell in love long before they fell into bed. He was also the only lover she had ever had who intentionally tried to make her laugh in bed, an excellent quality for a relationship that had lasted as long as theirs. On one anniversary he had surprised her by wearing a genital stocking that looked like Groucho Marx and played “Here Comes the Bride” when touched. Periodically, throughout the years, he would bring out “Groucho” to make her giggle. She could not recall the last time the musical stocking had made an appearance.

Now, after joining together in perfect sync, they lay next to one another for several moments, just enjoying the closeness of their naked upper-middle-aged bodies. Mark was his most attractive when naked. His face always looked younger than his years, but his unclothed physique looked at least 20 years younger. Jane often joked about being married to Dorian Grey, the literary character who never aged.

Sometimes she felt a twinge of envy, knowing that she was not nearly as well-preserved. She had managed to keep her weight under control through careful diet and regular walking, but she knew she had grown a bit soft in the middle and other important parts had fallen victim to gravity. Mark certainly did not care about her crags and sags. After all these years, he still found every soft, supple inch of his wife’s body desirable. Lying next to her now, he gently outlined the curve of her figure with his fingertips, as if studying it for the first time.

It was often in these most intimate of moments that Jane felt she could express anything to him, her feelings as bare as their skin. “You know,” she began, “when Sheila and I were talking about this policy regarding professors and students—“

“
You’re not going to talk about school right now, are you?” Mark asked, somewhat annoyed by the interruption of their afterglow with shop talk. They usually had an understanding not to bring the university into their bedroom.

“
Well, this isn’t really about school,” she explained. “The conversation just made me wonder: have you ever?”

He looked genuinely confused. “Ever what?”

“
Dated a student?” After all this time, she had never asked him that question, mainly because she had never been willing to answer it herself. But the recent flood of memories made her suddenly eager to find out. Neither had ever shared much information about their past relationships. Mark always said that whatever happened before they got together should not matter, so he preferred not to know. The only information she had ever been able to glean about his past relationships came from Bubbe, who referred to his college girlfriend as “the
nogoodnik
” who drove her son into the Peace Corps. Mark never added any information other than to say with an annoyed eye roll that the woman was not as bad as his mother implied.

With all of her recent inquiries into the personal lives of others, Jane now desired to know more, but Mark was less forthcoming than Sheila. He gave her a puzzled look before pointing out, “The Math department is not exactly teeming with hot chicks looking to sleep their way to a better grade.” He had already stopped his outlining and now lay flat on his back, clearly perturbed by the line of questioning.

She ignored his change in mood and pressed on, trying to adopt a teasing tone. “I don’t mean Math majors, just any student. Not even necessarily one that ever took a class from you. Maybe just a harmless flirtation in the library stacks?”

Now her usually mild-mannered husband was really getting annoyed. “Are you asking if I’ve ever been unfaithful to you? Because I haven’t. Ever.”

The conversation had suddenly taken an unexpectedly ugly turn. She certainly had not intended to accuse him of anything. Trying to lighten the mood, she cajoled, “Come on, that’s not what I meant. I was talking about before we got together. Way back when you had that cute mustache and the bushy hair. You were pretty hot in those tight bell-bottomed jeans.”

At that he finally snickered, easing the tension. “Well, as hot as I was back in those days, I never banged a co-ed,” he confessed, feigning a disappointed expression. “Never even got one to bat an eyelash at me.”

“
Aaww,” she replied in mock sympathy. “Well, I guess their loss was just my gain.” She kissed him lightly on the lips, fully anticipating the return question from him, but it never came. As soon as she kissed him, he looked at the clock, noted the late hour and hopped up to take a shower, leaving his wife to contemplate her response to the unanswered question.

Midterm Evaluations

Laura responded as Lewis had anticipated to the cell-phone photos Mandy had taken: a simple “cute” comment and nothing more. After several requests, she finally sent a photo of herself, a professional-looking shot of her leaning against a tree, the wind gently blowing her hair. The image was as close as he would get to her until after midterms.

The conference where they planned to rendezvous coincided with Parents’ Weekend, highlighted by one of the U’s biggest football games of the year against another undefeated powerhouse. Lewis was glad to have an excuse to escape from the campus mayhem. A few days before the conference, he saw his efficient, yet elusive, research assistant standing at the department copier, dressed in cut-off shorts and a football jersey. “Hi. Is that for me?” he asked.

“
Oh, hi,” she smiled, barely looking up from her task. “Yeah. I was gonna bring it up in a bit.”

Lewis offered to wait, since he had a few moments to spare. Standing there idly, with no one else around, he thought he should at least try to be friendly. “So, are your parents coming this weekend?”

“
My mom and stepdad,” she answered blankly. “They never miss a chance to come down and schmooze.”

“
Schmooze?”

“
Oh, yeah,” she said, dismissively. “There’s always lots of big wigs down Parents’ Weekend. No biggie. But we’ll have some fun, go to the game, probably do some shoppin’ and stuff. What ‘bout you? Goin’ to the game?”

“
No, I’m meeting my wife at a history conference in Washington,” he explained.

“
DC? Cool. I love that town.” She rattled off an impressive list of the city’s sites, noting with enthusiasm specific details of memorials and museums, including a powerful childhood memory of seeing the damaged Pentagon just two months after the 9-11 bombing, the ripped shell of the building still in clear view. Realizing how young she had been during that seminal event made Lewis feel very old.

“
Then there’s the zoo. That’s my favorite,” she chirped.

“
You know,” he realized, “I’ve been to Washington numerous times, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to the zoo. I usually just stick to museums and archives.”

She looked at him as if he had just grown a second head. “You’ve never been to the National Zoo? Oh, how lame!”

He shook his head, feeling as if he had committed a cultural sin
.

“
Ya gotta go,” she insisted. “Take a break from all that serious stuff. Make sure ya see the pandas. The last time I was there they didn’t have any, but I think they got some new ones.” He promised to keep the pandas in mind.

The copier continued to hum as she flipped and duplicated pages from a book. He could have retreated to the lounge, but instead stood glued to the doorway. He had barely ever spoken with Mandy other than their initial interview and the cell phone lesson, but he always found himself inexplicably lifted by her presence. She had a spark about her, a light that came from being young, bright and full of expectation for the future. He had recognized that spark in a few students over the years, but there was something extra special about this one. He could not resist wanting to know more about her.

“
So,” he asked hesitantly, “do you have any brothers or sisters?”

She looked at him a little strangely, surprised that he would ask such a personal question. “Two stepsisters, but they’re a lot older’n me. You?”

“
Two brothers.” He wanted to tell her about his odd family, perhaps impress her by revealing his famous younger brother’s identity, but stopped himself. This was his chance to find out about
her
. “Uhm, is your dad coming down, too?” he asked.

For the first time since he had known her, Mandy visibly frowned in his presence. He had asked too much.

“
I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I shouldn’t ask such questions. My bad. None of my business.”

She simply nodded in agreement, and handed him a stack of papers. “Here ya go! Enjoy your trip, and don’t forget about the zoo.” With that, the spark flitted out of the room.

The following weekend he arrived at the conference hotel a few hours before Laura. He was standing in the lobby mingling with various historians from around the country when the heads of every male in the room seemed to turn in unison as she made her entrance into the grand foyer. One paunchy military historian leaned over to Lewis and whispered, “You know, every man in this room secretly has a crush on your wife.” Dr. Burns smiled, knowing that while these men enjoyed their crush, the gorgeous object of their desire belonged to him alone. She might dance with others, but would always leave the ball with him, as it had been since the day she had surprisingly asked him out after a grad-school happy hour.

Spotting her husband, Laura crossed the room and gave him a quick peck on the cheek and a light hug. Moments later, after helping deliver her bags to their room, Lewis swept her up in his arms for a more proper greeting. The envious reactions of the other men downstairs had increased Lewis’s ardor. He longed to reclaim possession of his wife. Knowing she really wanted to hear the keynote speaker at the opening banquet, he worked quickly, pulling away at clothing to plant his seed before they prepared to head back downstairs. She did not seem to mind the speed with which he worked. As they walked into the banquet hall shortly thereafter, his wife looking more radiant than ever, Lewis smiled smugly as he once again watched the admiring eyes of other men fall upon her.
I’ve marked my territory.

As soon as the banquet was over, Lewis ushered his wife back upstairs for another conjugal interlude, this time with less urgency. As soon as they were done and she had showered, Laura whipped out her laptop to review notes for the next day’s paper presentation. Lewis did likewise, although he would have preferred a little more relaxation time before diving back into work. It dawned on him that between socializing with others and having sex, they had barely spoken to one another all evening. They corresponded often via technology, but he thought they should take advantage of their face time.