Elaine laughed, a light trill in her throat. “I am sure we are lucky to have you.”
“Mark is doing a Sawyer Scholars lecture for Fall Fest,” Stephen said.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” Elaine said, but I felt annoyed, as if Stephen were trying to prove I wasn’t a liability. “You know I gave the very first one.”
Stephen offered to help put the flowers in water and Elaine steered him toward the kitchen. He turned, mouthingBe right back, and was gone.
The Friedmans were of an era when academics still had, relative to their surroundings, money to spend and social standing to match. The house, with its rooms opening onto more rooms through French doors of wavy-glassed panels, felt almost ostentatious. Artifacts from research trips crowded bookshelves and low side tables and hung from the walls: rugs and bowls and masks of broad, plaintive faces pining for escape. I stationed myself in a corner, a long, carved stick topped with a straw tassel like a flaccid broom at my back. Clusters of Sawyer’s best and brightest filled the room. I recognized some faces and occupied myself guessing at the home departments of those I didn’t. Nearest me, a group of mendebated the last election. While their generic dress was hard to place (dark jeans, wrinkled Oxfords), the ubiquitous beards gave them away immediately as sociologists. Another male-only crew inspected an enormous, framed map hanging above a rolltop desk: political scientists (dressed like the sociologists, but clean shaven). To their right, a professor of film studies (hair dyed with purple streaks, thigh-high black boots) clinked glasses with an economist (clean, classic, old money). Given the Friedmans’ own department, a healthy number of guests sported chunky but tasteful jewelry (the women of anthropology) or T-shirts (the men). As I gloated in the corner judging everyone, I knew that I, too, could be easily pegged as an English professor: white, gay.
I headed toward the kitchen. Caterers buzzed over serving plates lining the long stretch of countertop. Stephen and Elaine were gone. The young staff were dressed in white shirts and pressed black pants. I recognized the name of the catering company printed on a satchel slumped on the floor, and it explained the presence of Latinos in Sawyer; they were down from Cleveland. I apologized for intruding and moved from a side door into what must have been an addition to the original house: a wide glass-walled room, two steps down, abutting the backyard. While the yard lay browning and dry, awaiting the first snow of the season, the sunroom brimmed with life, gargantuan yellow-green plants and rows of engorged, spiked succulents. The warmth of the room had a disorienting effect, out of sync with the season. I found a cooler of Robert’s home brews and grabbed one. It was labeled with a piece of tape sharpied in the neat blocky print of an older generation.August IPA.
For me, work functions were like poker night: Show up, shuffle things around like you know what you’re doing, and accept yourlosses. I scanned, trying to figure out where to place myself. Safie was talking with Loren and Eugene, her landlords. I was about to join them when Colin pulled me into an adjacent group: It was him, Priya, and two of the bearded sociologists—a skinny one with bad posture and a short one. The skinny one was going on about the failings of qualitative research. The short one nodded along in vigorous assent, a pained expression on his face, like he needed everyone to know he agreed. “Qualitative research has its merits, of course,” the skinny one said, “but in practice, begs for rigor.” Academics never fail to disappoint with a lack of range. A conversation among more than two inevitably turns to our own sorry lots in life, circling the drain of our profession, the suck of it irresistible: complaints about the administration, complaints about students, and lamentations about the declining state of the field. Whichever field the participants belong to is presented as the most in decline; today it was sociology.
“But isn’t methodological diversity good for a field?” Priya asked.
The skinny sociologist was ramping up, his beard damp with beer and dismay, continuing as if Priya hadn’t even spoken. “How are we supposed to interest our students in statistical methods when our own colleagues can’t perform a basic linear regression?”
“I can see where you’re coming from,” Colin said. “In the humanities there’s a skepticism about science that really doesn’t serve us well. Sometimes I feel like our fixation with the literary will make us obsolete.”
Priya pushed back in. “Are you saying English should abandon the study of literature?”
“Of course not,” Colin said.
“Literature has its place,” the skinny one said. “But you’re not going to solve, say, the immigrant problem with literature.”
At this, Safie turned from Loren and Eugene. “Who said anything about an immigrant problem?”
The skinny sociologist stammered, and the short one looked away, trying to distance himself. “It’s just an example.”
“An example of what?”
He cleared his throat, eyes lighting on Priya. “Of the need for replicable measures of social problems.” His voice had risen an octave.
“A funny example to go to,” Safie said, and then turned from him. “Who needs a refill?” She took Priya by the arm, guiding her toward the kitchen. Colin excused us and we followed.
“Wow,” I said. “Social scientists really know how to have a good time.”
Priya let out a whoosh of relief. “Thank you for that.”
“Immigrant problem? Seriously? Write your irrelevant articles and leave us out of it.” Safie lifted a bottle of wine to inspect. “Something to dull the memory?”
Just then someone popped a head in. It was Elizabeth Chen. She’d cut her hair shorter since I’d seen her last, blunt at her chin, framing cheeks rosy with the warmth of the house. “Oh. Wrong room. Hello everyone.” She wiggled her fingers and disappeared.
After a long enough moment had passed, Colin said, “Divorce is looking good on her.”
“No more Hal?” Safie said.
“No more Hal,” Colin said. “It’s officially over.”
“What happened?” Safie asked. “Did he take up with another student?”
“Elizabeth was Hal’s student?” asked Priya.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t remember hearing that.”
Safie grunted. “She was a grad student at Rice while Hal was there. And the only reason she wasn’t his student is because the school found out about the relationship and took Hal off her committee.”
“Is that how they ended up here?” I asked.
