I walked stiffly through the university gates at a quarter past midnight, carrying myself with a cervine vigilance. The campus was dark, deserted. A swampy heat straddled the night, miserably humid from the rain that morning, the grass still moist and dewy with drops. I told my dad that I was staying at Milan’s. It was strange to admit, but I was fidgeting with excitement. Every step I took vibrated with a cool, bright rage. I felt like I was shifting the ground beneath me.
Heathrow Hall sat apart from the main buildings, down a series of steps that dropped at a gentle decline. I’d never needed to go there before—besides the grand hall, it housed miscellaneous undergraduate administrative offices, including the president’s.
I was following the winding path when a tall figure came toward me. I froze but then saw it was Edgar from Milken’s workshop wearing a black shirt with the words “JEWISH STUDENTS SAY NOT IN MY NAME” in hot-pink letters.
“I didn’t know you were Jewish!” I said.
He joined me on the stone path. “What?”
“I said I didn’t know you were Jewish.”
“Oh.”
We stared at each other.
“Are you going to the thing?” he asked.
“Yeah, at Heathrow?”
He nodded and we walked together. Because I didn’t know what to say, I asked, “How’s your novel about the Afghan women going?”
“Not good. I had a girl from Azerbaijan in my last workshop. She said she thought I shouldn’t be writing about Afghan women.”
“What does Azerbaijan have to do with Afghanistan?”
“I don’t know.” He met my eyes uncomfortably. “But she was a woman of color and I didn’t want to do anything offensive so I stopped working on it.”
I knew he was speaking to me as a woman of color, but honestly I couldn’t keep up with everyone who was a person of color now. I studied him under the lantern light, his floppy brown hair, sad green eyes. He was definitely white.
I patted him on the back. “You can tell her that a Black woman who has nothing to do with Afghanistan gave you permission to write your novel.”
He didn’t laugh though I was joking. “Okay, but I don’t think she’ll buy it. Hey, you were in Professor Ford’s workshop this semester, right?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “It’s fucked what they did to her and the other professors. I never got a chance to take her class.”
“She’s amazing.” I’d sent her an email yesterday saying I’d heard the news, that I was incensed on her behalf. Of course, it bounced back since I’d sent it to her university email.
“Who’re you taking in the fall? I think I’m stuck with Milken again.”
“I’m not coming back in the fall.”
Edgar turned those sad green eyes on me. “Whoa, why not?”
“Money.”
Nodding gravely, “It’s terrible, the whole money thing. We should really go back to a barter system.”
Across the lawn, I noticed an encampment. “Decoy tents,” Edgar explained. “To confuse the cops.”
When we reached Heathrow, an old, grim-looking building with flickering lantern sconces, there were about twenty people standing outside. Most were reporters. I recognized one from the student newspaper, but the others looked older, in their thirties, like real journalists.
As we passed, one of them asked, “What’s going on?”
I looked at Edgar, not knowing if we were allowed to speak. The scale of my lostness sliced through me. How in over my head I was.
“Nothing yet,” Edgar said. “But stick around and you’ll see.”
