Me:Getting ready to board, but what can I say, I’m a burlesque dancer on the side.
Henry:LOL Love you, and have a safe flight
I smile into my phone. Too bad I don’t have any pics from Fin de Siècle. Maybe Henry can come out to Charleston next Spring. I’m not afraid of that side of me anymore. He should see it, and he can meet Tyler.
35
The next week, I return to campus.
I pull up to the line of faculty spaces, honking as I cut off Brad McGregor’s red BMW a second before he takes my space. I smile and he scowls before hitting the accelerator and heading down the row to look for another reserved space. Patrick told me he didn’t pass the seminar, and Dean McGregor is not happy.
Gathering my satchel and jacket, I lock my car and intuitively reach for the jet necklace around my throat. I still do this fairly often since getting back from England. But now I’m wearing another necklace. Today, it’s a string of pearls Philip gave me on our thirteenth anniversary. We’d been in Indiana supporting Mom after her breast cancer diagnosis. I’d been sick with worry and had forgotten our anniversary date. But that night, just before we went to sleep in my childhood bedroom under my hideous 1980s-era pink canopy, Philip clasped it around myneck. I’d burst into tears, touched that, amid everything going on, he’d remembered.
“You’re back!” Sandra exclaims as she takes her bifocals off and turns down the volume on her MAGA podcast. From the computer, I see she’s finalizing the course schedules. I thank my lucky stars that Patrick assured me Brad won’t end up in any of my fall classes.
Her gaze skims down my emerald-green blouse, capris, and cranberry flats. “You look wonderful. You’re wearing colors again!”
“I am, Sandra.”
She tells me she’s been putting my campus letters outside my office door and then I turn the corner.
Oh dear.
A laundry basket of envelopes sits outside my office. I count Bill Rhodes’s twenty five letters reminding me about theFiscal Advisory Report. There are fifteen from Evie Caldwell demanding I change item ninein the report or her department will censor the English department. (Censor?Jeez. I don’t even remember what that means in university policies.) I stop reading at the tenth student letter complaining about Patrick taking over my class. I unlock my office door and put all the letters into the shredder.
Then I sit at my desk. Strangely, in spite of the laundry basket, it feels good to be back. I grouse about my job, but I love teaching. I remember again how lucky I am to get paid to talk to students about my favorite books.
I stare at the degrees hanging above my desk and my disorderly stacks of committee notes to be filed. I pick up the framed picture of Philip and me on our wedding day. Taking a deep breath, I refocus, determined to teach, write and learn. I will not lose any more chunks of my soul to campus politicsand administrative squabbles. Or to emotional vampires like Bill Rhodes.
After pouring a mug of coffee, I log into my Willoughby College campus account. I announce my return to email and send out my report. Then I open the faculty meeting’s agenda.
Drat...I’m up first.
I tap my fingers lightly on my cup.
I have one more letter to write.
Patrick and I walk into the packed faculty meeting. Throughout the lecture hall, conversations buzz about anticipated budget cuts and the latest leaked Rhodes-Caldwell letters. In this batch, Rhodes fantasized about her coming into his office wearing nothing but a toga and feeding him grapes. Gross. Soon, though, we retreat to our department teams and draw swords.
The administration sits at the front ready to hear faculty reports. Dean McGregor stiffens when he sees me; he leans over to whisper in the provost’s ear as she glances in my direction and nods coolly. President Hummel sits beside them in her power suit and splashy Jimmy Choos. With news of the second book and upcoming film, she offered me a course reduction and generous raise over the phone yesterday. Of course, I took it. The money will be nice, and I’ll have more time to work on the book. Still, I’m fully braced for more jealous colleagues to want my blood.
Betsy Byers projects the meeting agenda on the screen and records notes from the corner. Although she seems shy behind her curly hair and glasses, I second Patrick’s guess that she’s the leaker. It’s always the quiet ones...
Soon President Hummel stands and calls for the meeting to begin. All eyes are on me as I open my letter.
“In this moment, I’d like to share something more meaningful than theFiscal Advisory Report. All of us, myself included, have a history of arguing about low-stakes issues. Arguing is now the fabric of our campus existence. I’ve spent time far away this summer, and with my journey came perspective. You all know what happened to my husband, Philip. What happened to him could happen to any of us. Life is a beautiful and fragile gift. These turf wars and power struggles to wrest the most money for our own departments—it’s all meaningless in the end and not how we want to be remembered. In one of my favorite Victorian novels,Jane Eyre, Jane’s childhood friend Helen tells her, ‘Life appears to me too short to be nursing animosity or registering wrongs.’ I’m convinced that we can all do our jobs well, and that we can all be excellent scholars, teachers, mentors,andgenerous human beings. That’s all I have for now.”
Betsy types away in the minutes, pushing her glasses up on her nose.
I’m not sure what I expected, but definitely not this silence. The provost and president glance sideways at each other. My colleagues saynothing. Maybe this is a good sign. Did I just tip the scales for Willoughby College to be a kinder place?
“So where’s your report?” Bill Rhodes grunts.
“I emailed it to everyone this morning,” I say, logging out of my laptop and locating my car keys.
“It’s in your inbox,Bill,” Evie Caldwell snipes. “And it looks like your department already spent your allowance. So you’ll have to cut back on the cocktails at your post-structuralism conference in Venice. Weallsaw the receipts last year.”
Chuckles erupt throughout the hall.
