Tenure Track (7 page)

Although there had never been any indication that Dana had a sexual relationship with Coach, Jane could not help wondering if their closeness was healthy.
Was it a dangerous attachment that could lead to something inappropriate? Was Coach grooming Dana for himself?
Whenever such thoughts passed through her mind, Jane would shake them off, convincing herself that she was transferring too much campus analysis onto her child. Still, such worries had influenced her eventual support of No Fraternization.

These concerns came back to her on the evening of that first day of fall classes. After dinner, Jane sat at her computer, trying to work on a journal article, but could not concentrate. Her thoughts kept jumping back and forth between various images and ideas.

Lewis Burns. I never would have thought. What was the girl’s name? Mandy Taylor. Research assistant. How could this have happened?

Coach Gibson. Highly respected. Dana worships him. Why isn’t she more interested in boys her own age?

Horndog Harry. Not one formal complaint in 40 years. “
Never
go into
his
office with the door shut.”

Jessica Hampton. “At least he won’t be able to give it to someone else.”
Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!

Unable to shake her mind free from such unpleasantness, Jane left the computer and poured herself another glass of wine. As the refreshing liquid ran down the back of her throat, she closed her eyes and listened to the familiar sounds of her daughter repeatedly shooting baskets.
Whoosh. Pow. . . Whoosh. Pow. . . Whoosh. Pow. . . Whoosh. Pow. . . Whoosh. Pow.

Chapter Four

Changing Seasons

One day after hiring Mandy, Lewis spotted Sheila Stevens checking her in-box in the faculty lounge near Isobel’s office. The poised Ph.D. with milk chocolate skin and the bearing of an ancient Egyptian queen looked slightly thinner and her usually long braids a bit shorter than when he had last seen her in May. Today must have been a good day, as she was using her cane instead of a walker. Dr. Stevens was such a private person that the only way colleagues could tell how she was doing was through personal observation. If anyone ever asked about her health, she just politely thanked them and replied that she was “Fine.” When others had first noticed signs of unusual changes in her physical movements, rumors swiftly circulated of a substance abuse problem. Had Isobel not peeked at the professor’s health insurance forms, no one in the department would have known that Dr. Stevens had multiple sclerosis. Her resignation as director of the Center for African American Studies had been a shocking admission of her deteriorating condition.

Standing before Lewis, the proud professor awkwardly leaned on her cane with one appendage while trying to retrieve her mail from its slot with the other. “Need a hand?” Lewis offered.

Dr. Stevens shot a look that went right through him. “No, thank you,” came the terse reply. Lewis gulped. The frail woman could intimidate anyone with just her eyes and voice. He struggled to recall that she was less than ten years older than him. Feeling like a first grader summoned to the principal’s office, he stammered, “Uhm, uh, Dr, Stevens, I-I need to ask you about a student.”

She looked at him sternly through lowered lids as if to say
I don’t have time to waste. Just spit it out
.

“
Amanda Taylor. She was a student of yours last—,” he began.

“
Yes, I know,” she interrupted through pursed lips.

“
Well, she applied for a job as my research assistant and put you down as a reference—”

Dr. Stevens continued looking through her mail as she replied in a firm but clipped cadence. “Yes, I know. Excellent student. Very hard-working. Inquisitive mind. I’m sure she will do a fine job for you.”

“
Uh, okay, good,” he replied. “Anything else I should know?”

Looking at him as if he had an I.Q. of 60, she explained, “Only three students earned A’s in my survey courses last year. She was one of them. That should tell you all you need to know.”

“
Yes, it should,” he replied, properly chastised.

She looked at him again with eyes that read
Well, what else do you want?

“
Uh, thank you,” he said, acknowledging that it was time to slink away.

The next day, he was surprised to hear Dr. Stevens’s voice calling from behind him in the hallway. He turned to see her standing with a pretty, somewhat heavyset young woman who looked to be biracial. The student was carrying a large stack of CDs.

“
Dr. Burns, this is Ms. Dejean, one of my students from the Center for African American Studies.” The girl with the tuft of loose brown curls and deep green eyes shifted the weight of the stack to extend a hand. “Ms. Dejean shares a domicile with Ms. Taylor, in case there is anything else you need to know about your new research assistant.”

“
Aah, you must be the roommate who told her about the job,” he said, dropping her hand before the CD stack could collapse.

“
Yessir,” Blanca Dejean said politely. “She’s really lookin’ forward to workin’ with ya.” That was a lie, but the girl knew better than to reveal her best friend’s real first impression of the professor. Lewis thought he detected a familiar New Orleans cadence in the girl’s accent. He started to ask about it when Dr. Stevens ended the conversation.

“
Right now we need to be going. Come, Ms. Dejean.” As soon as Dr. Stevens tapped her cane on the floor, she and her protégé were off again. Lewis stood alone for several minutes, trying to figure out the exact purpose of the introduction. He finally concluded that it had probably been Dr. Stevens’s subtle way of telling him that if he really wanted to know more about Mandy Taylor, he should ask someone else. Then again, she might just have been trying to help him out. He could never quite figure out the mysterious professor’s true intentions.

He was still mulling over his colleague’s behavior that evening as he entered the silent one-bedroom home he and Laura had purchased during their first year at the flagship. Laura had been gone for two months, yet he still could not get used to the household silence. The deathly quiet as he rose in the mornings and returned home in the evenings led to a new habit of leaving the television or radio on just for background noise. Still, he could never fully avoid the emptiness whenever his feet echoed across the hardwood floors.

Lately he wished he at least had a dog running around the house for companionship. Laura always said a pet would tie them down too much, and besides, she had complained, “dogs slobber too much.” Still, it always seemed somewhat un-American to him to not have a canine. He couldn’t recall one period growing up when the Burnses didn’t have at least two pets of some kind, including various adopted stray mutts, as well as untold numbers of wild creatures the boys constantly captured during their free-range explorations.

To ease his loneliness in Laura’s absence, Lewis had gleefully resorted to some of his old bachelor habits. The house was more cluttered without his wife’s presence, though nothing like the health code violation of a dorm room he had shared in college. He was now old enough to appreciate clutter
sans
filth. He ate more fast food and drank more cheap beer. His main indulgence had become action movies, a viewing habit he had largely given up after marrying. Now he frequently escaped the silent household to reconnect with his inner 14-year-old, delighting in every violent, juvenile, gross-out guy flick released for the fanboy crowd. He had even invested in cable television for the first time, just to expand his viewing options.

This evening, like most others, he immediately flipped on the television, not even bothering to notice what was on, before peeling off his preppy duds and flopping down on the couch clad only in gym shorts. As he lay there cooling off with a glass of ice water, atop a blue afghan that had been a wedding gift from Laura’s favorite aunt, he took a moment to stare at the stained glass window that served as his spiritual guide.

It was one of the things that had sold him on the historic house during their first tour. Along the outer wall of the living room stood a large stained-glass window portraying a ray of sunshine coming down from the heavens across a field of sheep. Prominently flying across the ray of light was a white dove with an olive branch in its beak. It was a beautiful design, marked by skilled craftsmanship, most likely from an old church.

The realtor had known nothing about the window’s origins. Her best guess had been that someone remodeling the house discovered it at a local antique shop and installed it as a decorative touch. Laura had quietly pointed out the anachronism of having a 1920s western shotgun home with what looked like a Tiffany-style stained glass window more popular in the northeast around 1900. “Its eclectic,” Lewis had whispered back, wondering to himself:
Think we’ll have bad karma for stealing a church window?

Despite the anachronism, they had taken the house, window and all. Throughout the years they had sunk a small fortune into new pipes, rewiring, insulation and other maintenance typical of an older home, but Lewis had always refused to touch that window. He never told his proudly agnostic wife, but whenever he was feeling down or worried, he looked to the window for a sense of hope, as if its spiritual origins were still giving off some kind of comforting vibe. Lewis was not sure what he believed about the powers of God, but he knew he believed in the powers of
the window
.

Now, after turning on noise and seeking relief from the heat, he dutifully followed his final evening ritual of staring at the window. He was never quiet sure if he could call what he did “mediating,” but somehow the act achieved the same purpose as a more traditional prayer—centering his being for just a moment. Upon completion of his ritual, he picked up ten pages of materials that had been ferreted out of the presidential library, carefully Xeroxed, and left in his mailbox by Mandy Taylor. He could already tell this girl was going to prove a great asset to his career.

On Labor Day weekend Lewis met his wife at a quiet little Nantucket bed and breakfast where the ocean breezes were already turning crisp with the impending autumn season. Lewis found the weather a nice respite from the lingering summer heat back home, even though a constant rain prevented them from enjoying much of the scenery. Laura spent part of the weekend reading galleys from her latest book, insisting her editor needed them by Tuesday morning. Lewis passed the time by finishing a Geronimo biography he was supposed to review. Sitting separately across the room, each to their own reading, Lewis could not help but feel that the chill from the air was leaking inside. They did spend some quality time together, satisfying the conjugal requirements of the visit, but the acts seemed to be more like routine exercises than erotic adventures.

On Sunday night, Lewis awoke in the wee hours of the morning to realize that Laura was out of bed, sitting on the couch. The lights remained off, but he could tell by the sounds of quiet sniffles that she was crying. Unsure what to do, he lay in bed and pretended to still be asleep until she lay back down. They continued this charade of rest until dawn.

The next morning they sat at breakfast in near silence, each pretending to read a section of the
New York Times.
Lewis was unsure what to say or do. Finally, as she reached for a pat of butter, he placed a hand over hers and asked if everything was all right, noting that he could tell she did not sleep well the previous night. She assured him that she was just stressed out about the book. He decided to change the subject to their future outings. They were scheduled to see each other again at an October conference, then she would come down to visit him over Thanksgiving, and he would meet her for Christmas at her parent’s house. “What about New Year’s?” he asked.

“
What about it?” she replied blankly.

He had been mulling over an idea for a few weeks. Now seemed as good a time as any to propose it, hoping the plan might cheer her up. “How about if we ring in the New Year in New York City? I know how much you love the city. We could get a room overlooking Times Square, maybe take in a show, fancy dinner, some ice skating, the works.”

She leaned over and kissed him squarely on the mouth. “I love it. ‘Sounds wonderful!” she responded, sounding at ease for the first time that weekend. After breakfast, they retreated to their room to enjoy the bed until checkout time.

By mid-September the campus had settled into its regular fall rhythms of life. Greek rush was in full swing, Saturdays were completely given over to football games, and it was still ridiculously hot. Finally the first semi-cool day since spring arrived, beckoning Lewis to eat his lunch outside under a tree. Munching on a turkey sandwich, he fiddled with his newly upgraded cell phone. Thanks to the wonders of e-mail, he was able to communicate with his wife almost daily, yet the technophobe in him prevented an upgrade of their ancient cell phones until Laura insisted. Growing increasingly frustrated by his lack of progress with the gadget, he was about to give up when he spotted Mandy and Blanca walking by, books in hand. “Amanda!” he shouted with a wave.

She silently waved back. In the few weeks since she had been working for him, they had settled into an easy routine. She rather enjoyed the research and he continued to be impressed with the volume of notes she produced. They rarely ever saw one another, communicating largely through brief e-mails or notes left in one of his boxes. The arrangement worked well for both of them.