Tenure Track (46 page)

Jane kept replaying his actions as she dressed for bed, but they still made no sense. Finally, she went downstairs, where he was huddled in his easy chair focused on his laptop screen, and asked if he was coming to bed. She was trying her best to sound cordial. “In a minute,” he replied, not looking up. “I’m just finishing some research.”

Taking her cordiality one step further, she walked towards him to offer a goodnight kiss. As she did, he defensively started to lower the laptop cover, as if to keep her from seeing what he was reading. She stopped, glared at him, and grabbed the laptop, which revealed an article entitled, “Curing Homosexuality Through Genetic Engineering.”

“
What are you doing?” she exploded. “Trying to find a cure for Dana?” The shouts from her voice carried upstairs to the twins’ rooms, where both were still awake.

“
I knew you’d judge me!” Mark said defensively. “Don’t you do that! I’m just trying to understand the causes of this thing. That’s just the way I think, you know that.”

Jane continued to rage. Rather than mellow her out, the wine emboldened. “No, I don’t know anything about how you think. I really can’t believe how you’re acting about this, Mark.”

“
Just give me some time,” he grimaced. “I just need some time to get a handle on this. Sorry if I don’t immediately go out and march in a gay pride parade! This is hard for me. Can’t you have a little understanding about that?”

“
No, I can’t,” she replied honestly. “Why does everything have to be about you? Your needs, your pain? You are so selfish!”

“
Don’t give me that!” he shouted back. “I have given everything to my kids. You can’t say that I haven’t. I was always there to share in everything they did. More than you ever were!”

“
What? So now it’s my fault that the kids are having problems? Because I wasn’t a stay-at-home mom?” Somehow in their conversation, a shift was occurring, as long-held, unspoken resentments towards one another manifested themselves. They were no longer talking about the children, but about themselves.

“
That’s not what I’m saying,” he spat through clenched teeth. “I’m saying I should have known! I should have seen!” He was beating his chest with a fist now. “They should have trusted me!”

She threw up her hands. “It’s still just all about you!”

He gave up trying to win sympathy from his wife. “Forget it. Sometimes you’re just so judgmental, Jane. You assume the worst of everyone. I’m going for a run.” He brushed past her and hurried out the door, eager to escapes his wife’s harangues.

Walking back upstairs, Jane noticed Dennis door’s ajar. Hearing voices in Dana’s room, she pressed her ear. Dana was softly crying, while Dennis was trying to comfort her with corny jokes. They had heard their parents argue before, but never like this. Jane left them alone and returned to her room, weeping softly for the pain that she and Mark were inflicting on their children. She also determined that, no matter what it took, she would find a way to do better.

In the days following Dana’s coming out, the teenager seemed more at ease than she had since hitting puberty. Her interactions with Mark returned to normal, but the tension between her parents only increased. There was a cold, silent barrier between the adults that seemed to have nothing to do with their daughter, though neither would begin a much-needed dialogue to get to the root of the problem.

For Jane, the stress at home seemed to be carrying over into work, compounding an already tense environment. Many of the faculty, especially the younger set, were outraged over Lewis’s tenure postponement, correctly interpreting it as a transparent political move more than a justified probation. Jane sensed icy stares and muted conversations as she passed through the hallways. Lewis himself took pains to avoid her whenever possible, only entering the department office as needed when she was out.

In the midst of this ice storm, Jane found herself alienating even potential allies. One afternoon, upon settling into her desk chair after a particularly tedious seminar that left her with a fierce tension headache, she recognized the familiar voices of Isobel and Perry discussing some Doris Day-Rock Hudson movie both had watched the previous night. As Jane walked over to close her half-opened door, she heard Perry comment, “You know, I could never figure out if Doris was a dyke herself or just Hollywood’s biggest fag hag. Personally, I think she was secretly one of the tribe.”

“
No, not Doris!” responded Isobel.

“
Honey, you’d be shocked at all the lesbos on screen,” Perry gushed. “I have a great book in my office called
Hollywood Lesbians.
Outs everybody; great dish. I’ll loan it to you. ”

“
Ooh, who’s in it?” Isobel asked, eagerly leaning forward to get the juicy details as Jane swung open her office door.

Listening to Perry’s words—words he had used many times before, regardless of audience—Jane felt her body stiffen in revulsion. She had always excused Perry’s use of gay slurs, but now when he talked about “the dykes,” he was referring to her baby. This lioness was not going to stand by and let her cub be denigrated, even by an old friend. Jane felt her face flush and her fists tighten as she resolved to no longer tolerate such behavior in her department.

“
Dr. Waters!” she said, raising her voice more than intended. Isobel and Perry both stopped and looked up suddenly, as did two graduate students standing in the office and a couple of undergrads milling about in the hallway. Jane eased her demeanor. “May I see you, please?”

“
Sure,” Perry replied, offering a puzzled glance in Isobel’s direction as she shrugged her shoulders back at him.

Jane shut the door behind him, but remained standing.

“
Is there a problem?” he asked innocently.

“
Yes, there is.” she said sternly, raising one finger in the air to make her point. “As of this moment, I don’t ever want to hear you using gay slurs on this campus again.”

Perry looked stunned, trying to figure out what he had
really
done to offend her.

“
If you do,” she warned, “I’ll report you for violating the university’s sexual harassment code as well as federal and state civil service laws for creating a hostile work environment.” With the seriousness of a drill sergeant, she concluded, “Do you understand?”

Perry was still flummoxed, but composed himself enough to ask calmly, “Can I still use the word ‘bitch”?”

Her eyes bore a hole right through him. “Don’t test me, Perry,” she hissed.

He left the office quietly and mouthed to Isobel that he would fill her in later. Despite his snarky response, Perry got the message. He knew Jane well enough to know she was serious, though he still could not figure out why.

Jane sat at her desk feeling adrift and isolated as a cold shiver ran up her spine. She hugged herself, fighting back the urge to cry. She needed a friend to talk to. She could not talk to Perry or Mark. Gary might be understanding, but he would approach her feelings from the perspective of a psychological researcher. She was in no mood to serve as a test case for Dr. Jones’s theories on parental and adolescent behavior, however well regarded they might be.

She glanced at the clock. With about 20 minutes to kill before another meeting, she had just enough time to deliver some welcome news and perhaps obtain a little advice in return.

Lewis’s graduate seminar on historical theory had just let out, but he found himself unable to escape questions from brown-nosing would-be academics. Ever since learning about his probation, he had found himself despising everything associated with the university, including these eager students. He so wanted to warn them that all their practiced intellectualism would be for naught if they made one personal mistake that ran afoul of the bureaucracy. Rather than burst their bubble, he pretended to listen with rapt attention to their analyses while mentally counting the minutes until Spring Break’s small respite from the suffocating sanctimony.

Waiting patiently in the line of sycophants was Kyle Foster, the budding southern historian who had won grad student immortality by calling Lewis a “dumbass prick,” a modern-day Preston Brooks defending his southern honor. Kyle waited patiently until the other students had finished talking. As he started to approach, Lewis caught a glimpse of Jane Roardan walking down the hallway towards Sheila Stevens’s office. Unable to gracefully flee the scene, he stared intently at the student, pretending not to notice the object of his disdain passing by.

Despite Lewis’s fake stare, he had difficulty focusing on Kyle’s words. Finally, they broke through, as Lewis heard, “So I won’t be ‘round much next year.” Shaken from his stare, he learned that the young man had secured a teaching position for the following year at a junior college in Georgia, not far from his family. Kyle would continue to work on his dissertation while teaching basic introductory courses, although apparently a Ph.D. was not required for the position. He made it sound like a dream job. Lewis had never even heard of the small town where the school was located.

“
Yeah, it’s a pretty hick place, kinda isolated,” Kyle admitted, “but I got people down thar, and it’s close to the folks. ‘Couldn’t ask for much more’n that.” Lewis shook hands with the beaming young man and wished him well. A few months earlier, Lewis might have been disappointed, thinking that the young man with such great potential would be wasting his talents at a community college. But now he felt genuinely glad for Kyle, who might still become the great southern historian that he held the potential to become, but only if it fit in with his personal plans. Kyle would never again be far from his people. That was his destiny, and it would make him happy.
Not so long ago,
Lewis thought,
I knew what my destiny was. Now I don’t know anything.

Jane had barely noticed Lewis in the hallway as she rushed to Sheila’s office. Dr. Stevens was crammed behind her desk, examining a newly released biography of Madame C.J. Walker. “Excuse me,” Jane said, barely knocking as she entered through the already half-opened door. “I hate to bother you, but I have some good news!”

Sheila carefully removed her reading glasses, keeping the book open as she waited for Jane to continue.

“
We’ve secured a new office for you,” Jane announced, “Blake’s old one. It’ll need a few more modifications, but the door frame is already within ADA standards. You can be in by the end of the semester, if you’d like.”

Dr. Stevens offered a cautious nod of approval. “Fine. Thank you,” she responded succinctly.

Jane was a bit disappointed, though not surprised, by her colleague’s lack of enthusiasm. “Uhm, well, I just thought you’d like to know.” She began to turn, but paused, hoping there still might be a chance to segue into the real purpose for her visit.

“
Is there something else you would like to say?” Dr. Stevens asked impatiently.

“
Yes,” Jane declared, determined not to lose her nerve in bringing up a personal subject. “I know you don’t like to talk about your personal life, but . . . uhm. . . . I thought your experiences might help me with an issue I’m having at home.”

Sheila leaned her chin into one hand, curious as to what might possibly come next. “Well. . . . uhm,” the unusually tongue-tied Chair sputtered. “It seems . . . my daughter, uhm, well, she thinks she might be a lesbian.”

More stares.

“
I know you don’t like to talk about your personal life,” Jane repeated. “And I don’t mean to pry, but . . . uh, anyway, if you have any advice to offer, I would be most appreciative.”

Dr. Stevens fought back the urge to smirk at her colleague’s false assumption, though she sympathized with Jane’s personal difficulties. Clasping her hands thoughtfully, Sheila observed, “I believe you and I have both had many students and colleagues of the homosexual orientation, Dr. Roardan. You are probably as experienced as I in dealing with these situations, but if I were to have a child facing this challenge, I would hope to remember my Golden Rule.”

Jane nodded slowly, realizing that her assumptions about Dr. Stevens’s orientation may have been inaccurate. Her advice, however, was well-founded.

Summer Break

As late as two weeks before the beginning of the fall semester, neither Lewis nor Mandy would acknowledge the great elephant in the room known as their future relationship. Secretly, Lewis hoped that they could just continue seeing each other, testing the boundaries of the administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” agreement with the faculty. But he wasn’t sure if that was what Mandy wanted.

On day ten of the countdown to fall semester, he began to interpret signs of an answer. Mandy only had two days left on her internship and had already told him that the interns would be going out the last night to celebrate. Then she planned to spend a few days with her parents. He decided to surprise her on the next-to-last day of work by picking her up at the capitol. His summer classes were over, so he had some extra time to kill. He roamed around the majestic corridors like any regular tourist, admiring marble statues of great state heroes before finding his way to Senator Rick Benedict’s stately office. As he approached the room, he saw Mandy standing in the hallway among several other young people, listening intently and taking notes from a tall man whose back was to him.