Okay … I say.
I was talking to this guy, she says. And he asked me about my dissertation advisor, about what I study. I told him, and he told me he had this guy I’d heard about.
She says: I’d heard about, like it holds within it more than the words mean.
She says: I told him I’d heard he was an ass to girls.
Okay … I say.
It’s just … Her shoulders are red again and she grabs hold of the hair behind her ears and starts to twist it.
I heard the guy was creepy, and I told him, she says. And he told me that wasn’t a thing, that he’s sort of a flirt but it’s all fine because the guy has a kid.
I laugh then, though probably I shouldn’t.
The office that we’re in is small and the books on the shelf behind her were all written by another, much older man who teaches here, who has tenure, who isn’t ever here.
I was just so pissed off, she says. Like he didn’t care, you know? Like a guy being an asshole to girls is fine with him.
I both do and don’t know. She’s ten years younger than me and, if this were me, when this was me, if I had spoken to this guy, I would have thought about it for weeks, for months, but I would not ever have recounted the experience out loud to someone else. I would have decided not to like this guy right after. I would have noted to myself that we would not be friends. I would have been quietly embarrassed by my sensitivity and discomfort. I would have felt very small and very sad throughout.
I tried to push him on it, she says. And he shut me down.
She is doughy, sweet and soft, and I want to tell her everything will be okay and to just not think about this. I don’t want to be one more person telling her what she says doesn’t matter, but I’m also not sure it does.
I called a friend of mine who goes to another college where he used to adjunct. She says her friend’s friend said he tried to kiss her during office hours.
Another of their friends was his babysitter, she says. And he tried to kiss her too. Asshole, she says, more to herself than me.
I think I’m supposed to only listen, but she’s stopped talking now and looks at me.
That sucks, I say.
I don’t want to tell her it’s expected. I don’t want to tell her that this is how things are, although it is.
It’s tricky, I say.
This was wrong, and I almost tell her that I’m sorry.
My friend says, she says, he shouldn’t be allowed to teach.
Can I help? I say. Do you want to tell me his name?
She says it and I think a minute and then place him, his perfectly shaven face, his short, squat frame. This man has health insurance from this job—a temporary appointment, but more solid than my own, and I wonder briefly if this is how I might take his job from him.
He didn’t do anything to me, she says. I’ve never talked to him.
I think of all the stories that I heard when I was a grad student, how we only ever whispered about them later, how embarrassed I was that none of them belonged to me.
Do you know anyone who has experience of this firsthand? I say.
The women in his class don’t like him.
I’m not sure— I say.
Never mind, she says.
I don’t want— I start.
How can I help? I say.
I just wanted to say to someone how awful it feels.
It sucks, I say, for the three thousandth time.
Why did that kid think it was okay?
I don’t know, I say.
If someone that you know knows more, you guys should tell someone, I say.
She nods, her shoulders red, folding her coat on her lap, waiting for me.
I am someone she has told.
Let me think about this, I say. Email me, I say, if there’s any way at all you think that I might help.
* * *
After my class, I find Melissa, who is older, whip smart, head of the department. She somehow willed herself into this job, which feels miraculous still now. She gave me this job. Each semester, I email to ask her if I can teach the next semester, and each semester she gets right back to me and says Yes, of course; I’ll find something.
Come in, she says. She’s always here. She holds extended office hours always. When I was a student here I came to see her once a week.
How’s class? she says.
I want to tell her about the thing with my student, but I’m not sure what I’d say, what there even is to tell her.
I’m tired, I say.
They need so much, she says.
I think of all the emails that I wrote her when I was a student, asking her for coffee, but really, asking her to tell me I could do this, it was worth it, I was special, everything would be okay.
How are you? I say to her. I think about how I’ve maybe never asked her this and how awful I’ve been for not asking. I’ve asked her this, but never wanted or expected a response.
She smiles. She has a thin-lipped, wry, large-eyes-closing-at-the-corners smile.
She has red, curly hair, tied up, but loose, random wisps around her face.
She looks down at her hands. Her fingernails are dark blue and she has a large black opal ring on her right middle finger. She wears a dark blue turtleneck and black pants. She smiles again, but this time her lips fold in toward her teeth.
When she looks up the smile’s gone.
My fucking dog is dying, she says.
I cross my legs and clasp my hands around my knee. I’m sorry, I say.
She shakes her head.
You’re the first person today to ask me how I am, so now you’re paying for it. She’s twenty, she says. Old, she says. Ancient for a dog. She looks at me and lets out a sort of laugh. I understand that she’s a dog and I’m not supposed to be so sad.
She works harder than any other person in this program. She writes the most letters of recommendation, the longest comments on student papers, theses. The day I defended my dissertation she took me out for coffee and put her hand on my hand and told me she was proud of me.
She’s the longest-lasting relationship I’ve ever had.
She’s fifty-something, I think, maybe early sixties, never married.
She has cancer, she says, arthritis. All the bad things, she says and laughs again. She’s really fucking old.
I still have my coat on and I unzip it slowly so she doesn’t think I want to leave her.
The vet wanted me to put her down two weeks ago, she says.
She looks past me toward the door and I look out the window so she doesn’t have to worry she might look me in the eye.
I’m torturing her because I can’t fathom coming home and her not being there.
* * *
The next morning I sleep past my alarm again, but then run the distance that I want to run and then have to shower and change after the children are awake.
Mommy, yells the four-year-old as she stands in the bathroom and I shower. Mommy, she calls, can you wipe?
She has pooped and hates to wash her hands so always asks someone else to wipe so she can skip that step.
I lean out of the shower and get a piece of toilet paper and I wipe her. She kisses my wet cheek, then makes a face and stares at me, her face hard.
You’re all wet, she says.
* * *
My mom calls early on that Sunday morning. It’s the first I’ve heard from her since the bankruptcy. We haven’t been to Florida since the four-year-old was a baby. Three months before our second baby was born, I told my parents we needed to stop talking, and they were hurt and sad.