Page 2 of I Still Love You (Citation Needed)

I watched her walk away before wheeling my chair to the elevator and going to my room. There was still one more person I wanted to chat with before I went to bed.

Chapter Two

I’m sorry I can’t get to the conference,” Grace said through the camera. “I have so much to do this weekend.”

I waved a hand, dismissing my mentor’s anxiety. “Don’t worry. I’m glad we’re going to have dinner together.”

Grace had been the reason I had come to Lacock to get my PhD over a decade ago. She and I had collaborated often since her research focused on accessibility and aging. We had met after we both had testified in front of congress in hopes of improving the Americans With Disabilities Act requirements. We hadn’t been successful that time, but it started a friendship that still shaped much of my life. It had been Grace who suggested that I get my PhD, so the mediocre, abled, white men who ruled the world would take me seriously. It made sense to go to the university she worked at. She became my dissertation advisor and mentor. Now she was a regular collaborator, and she had been right. The PhD had increased my ability to get new legislation passed. It was directly responsible for getting me this job leading the WorldWiki Foundation.

“How was it seeing Mason again?” she asked with an eyebrow raised.

We had discussed the inevitability of interacting with him. I had decided to come to the conference a few days ago, once the rumors of my being hired started making the rounds. The WorldWiki Foundation board felt I should be here since it was less than three hours from where I lived. I didn’t have an excuse to say no. It was part of the job to be at conferences like this when possible.

“He was surprised to see me,” I told her.

Grace raised her eyebrows. “Nobody told him you were coming?”

I winced, feeling guilty for setting it up to surprise him. “I may have told Lizbeth not to mention my name to anyone. She mentioned that her co-chair was in the middle of the tenure process, which isn’t going well.”

Grace shut her eyes and let out a deep sigh. “Yep, it’s not going very well for him at all.”

I leaned closer to my camera and raised an eyebrow. “Why is he distracted by the tenure process? Shouldn’t he be done and waiting for the final decision? Isn’t Lois taking care of him?”

My tone was snarky and playful. Mason had stayed in academia for the job security that came with tenure. His mentor was the president of the university. It should have been a slam dunk for him.

Grace’s jaw dropped. “Oh shit, you don’t know! He may not get tenure.”

I sat back in my chair, torn for a moment between my desire to hear about Mason’s struggles and the guilt that I hadn’t been here to support him. This evaporated quickly. He had pushed me away, and it had been nearly a decade since I was his partner. “Are you serious?” I asked. “After all of this, he may not even get it?”

Grace nodded. “You know how he gets, Penny. Lois moved the goal post, but I fought for him in the department committee. I, unfortunately, was in the minority. It’s been with the campus tenure committee and rumors are flying.”

She was right. I knew how he was. Mason put everyone’s needs ahead of his own. He wanted to work at Lacock State because it wasn’t a heavy research college. That allowed him to focus on being the best teacher he could be. That’s what brought him joy. What started as a wonderful part of his personality eventually became a problem. I thought I could inspire him to want more. I should have known it was futile as soon as he told me why he had picked Lacock State for his PhD.

“My grandparents live in the next town,” he had told me over coffee on our first real date. “I want to be close to them, and this school is the closest.”

We had known each other for a couple of weeks at that point. It had taken us so long to go on this date because we had to find a place that I could enter. One simple step meant everything to me and too many cafes and restaurants had them. I was thrilled that he had found this little cafe for us. The coffee was good and nobody seemed to know it was here. It became a favorite place to work, with few distractions.

“You’re lucky to still have living grandparents,” I said. My own had passed away years before.

Mason had nodded as he took a sip of coffee. “I’ll stay in the area as long as they’re alive. They’re the only family I have left.”

I smiled at the time, loving how important his family was to him. Years later, as graduation loomed and we had to start looking for jobs, he had the same reason to stay in Lacock.

“I’m not leaving until my grandparents have passed on,” he said, his face red with anger.

“You don’t have to work and live right on top of them to stay close,” I said, my stomach tight with my own anger and anxiety. “There are countless schools within an hour of Lacock. All of them would allow you to become an expert in your field.”

Mason shook his head and shut down. That wasn’t what he wanted. It may have not been the reason we had broken up, but this disagreement had chipped away at our relationship and made it easier for him to be persuaded to break off our engagement.

“Let me guess,” I said to Grace. “Lois wants Lacock State to be a research university now that she’s president. Mason’s putting his students’ needs above his own?”

Grace let out a deep sigh. “He’s published articles, but he’s like the second or third author. In some cases, he’s way down the list. He has to be the first author if he wants it to count in his tenure packet.”

I nodded, remembering how academia worked. Professors and researchers were expected to build their expertise in their chosen field over the first part of their career. They were expected to either be the only author or the first one listed in books and articles they published. The first listed author was the one who typically did the most work. Once you got tenure, you could step back and let others take the lead. Eventually, you would serve the role of mentor to those who were starting their careers. Then you might not be listed at the top of the author list, or you may even be the last author, as a thank you for your mentorship.

Mason’s problem was that he was still in the first decade of his career. In grad school, he had let others take credit for his work to advance their careers. I thought he did it assuming they would reciprocate in some way, but by the time we broke up, I was sure it was him sabotaging his chances at success. He insisted he didn’t care about research because Lacock State was college that focused on teaching. He hadn’t changed as quickly as he needed for Lois’s new plans.

“I’ll tell you more when we have dinner,” Grace said. “I think decisions will be made tomorrow.”