“Okay,” she says, shaking my shoulders like it’ll stir up some optimism lurking deep down. “Give me the pitch.”
I plaster on my fakest smile. “Dear Billings faculty. Thank you for lowering yourselves enough to meet. You honor us poor plebeians with your presence.”
Inez meets my pleased expression with one of disappointment. “Take this seriously, Quinn. If this initiative passes…”
She trails off and starts worrying her lip between her teeth. I hear what she’s not saying. What we’ve both said in anger plenty of times. That if Billings keeps getting worse, we’ll leave. There are dozens of universities we could move to—thousands if we’re willing to leave Boston—all with non-toxic work environments.There are plenty of professors who are kind, welcoming, and collaborative. They just don’t come to Billings.
But she wouldn’t actually leave, just like I didn’t mean it last week when I declared I was leaving after a biology professor mansplained how internships work. This is our home. Even the thought of her leaving—of me being left behind again while she moves on to something better—stirs a panic low in my stomach.
“Fine, I’ll be serious,” I say, rolling my head from side to side. “First, I’d like to thank the faculty senate for making time for us today. I’m excited by the prospect of taking on this internship course for the summer. As you know from my original presentation”—which they approved and then handed over to Dr. Lewis like I hadn’t meant it for me to begin with—“I have extensive experience related to internship courses. Paired with my Italian fluency and familiarity with Rome, I feel confident in my ability to serve the students’ needs.
“However, I’m worried about what I’ll come back to at the end of the summer. In my opinion, the need for me to step in at the last minute demonstrates that your planned initiative will lead to nothing but issues for the students down the road. Since this situation clearly demonstrates what staff bring to campus, I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking this role, only for a rule to be passed a few months later that would cut me and any other employee on campus off from potential ways to help students.”
Not a full ultimatum, but the threat is clear. Drop the initiative, or cancel the class that the students have already planned their schedules around. Despite my issues with the professors, I can admit the Billings faculty cares deeply for their students. I just have to hope they love them more than they hate us.
The thought of this not going my way makes me sick to my stomach. My entire career has been spent prioritizing my students, and I know there are some in the class who need it to graduate. But this decision to split the campus in half—to preventany sort of collaboration or growth—will hurt all the students at Billings, so I have to risk it.
But god, a summer in Rome sounds incredible. A chance to return to my favorite place in the world, home to all my best childhood memories. Three months of fresh tomatoes from the market you can eat like an apple, of perfectly churned gelato and chatting with baristas over the bar while sipping sublime espresso. And getting paid for it. How is that not the dream?
Before Inez can give me notes, the door at the top of the auditorium swings open, and we both tense. No one shows up to these meetings early. We thought we’d have time to run through everything and troubleshooting any technical issues, and we’re only a minute in.
When Colton Miller’s tall, lean figure slips in and closes the door, my whole body relaxes, like he’s an even more effective form of Valium.
Okay, so noteveryprofessor is the enemy.
When my other best friend was offered a tenure-track position at Billings a year ago, I was torn. The idea of having him close again made my heart soar, but I was worried that the culture on campus would poison our friendship. But like with everything else in his life, Colton refuses to be cowed, rolling his eyes whenever I tell him to meet me off campus for coffee or fixing his signature scowl on his face when I try to push him behind a bush to hide from a professor walking toward us.
I’m not going to sacrifice nearly a decade and a half of friendship because they all have sticks up their asses.
It’s been magical having him back with me this year. Then came the request for him to join the Rome program. Yes, not one, butbothof my closest friends are going on this trip. I finally got Colton back after a decade of him traveling between Rome and Chicago, getting his PhD and becoming Roman history’s new golden boy. I don’t want to surrender him back to his one great love, at least not without me being there, too.
Colton’s never been one to give out his smiles easily, so when he spots us at the front of the auditorium, all we get is a small quirk of his lips.
It’s still bizarre having him on campus after he only existed within my six-inch phone screen for so long. My fingers tingle with the desire to reach out and touch him, to prove to myself he isn’t a figment of my imagination.
“How are you two feeling?” he asks, all somber gravity.
Inez gusts out a breath. “Like I’m gonna be sick.”
“It’ll be okay,” I say, reaching across the podium to squeeze her hand as the two of us seamlessly shift between consoler and consoled.
Inez has terrible anxiety over presentations, which, sadly for her, make up a decent third of the work she does at Billings. We spent half of grad school coming up with coping mechanisms. It works well when she’s doing low-key pre-departure orientations with a handful of students, but standing up in front of a group that’s rooting for you to fail is a whole other beast.
Colton jerks his head toward me. “And how areyoufeeling?”
“Like you aren’t supposed to be here,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and shaking my head at him. “Did I dream that extensive conversation about how you should stay away so people don’t think you’re siding with the staff?”
He turns so he’s leaning his side on the podium, facing me fully. My eyes skim over him without permission. The past decade has been kind to him. He’s always been cute in a scraggly hair, metal-band-shirts-that-were-too-big sort of way. But this isn’t the eighteen-year-old Colton Miller I met the first week of freshman year, all sarcasm and scowls to cover his fear of not fitting in at our expensive private college. This isn’t even twenty-two-year-old Colton, nervous smiles and held-back tears when I dropped him off at the airport, both of us emotional over the fact that we wouldn’t see each other for a full year. We had no idea that one year would turn into ten.
I watched the changes play out virtually. The way his shoulders continued to broaden. The new haircut that showed off his jaw, the lines of his face sharpening until you could cut yourself on them. The confidence that grew in his eyes as he proved himself again and again. But it was muted, like looking at a picture of St. Peter’s Basilica so often that you assumed you’d be unaffected in person, only to find yourself bowled over by its grandeur. I’m sure the impact will wear off eventually—it has to, right?—but even a year later, seeing him in person hits me like a Mack truck.
My eyes can’t stop clocking all those changes, across his chest and to his forearms, cruelly exposed by his rolled-up sleeves. I rip my gaze away.
Yes, he’s grown up. Doesn’t mean I need to notice it this much.
“I seem to recall a lecture from you,” he says, his head tilting side to side, “but I don’t know if I’d call it a conversation.”
“They’ll see you supporting me and then they’ll hate you and you won’t get tenure and all the hard work you’ve put in will be for nothing and I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hate myself, Colton. You’ve met me. I’m awesome.”
