I don’t, I say, know many women who took many classes with male professors after their first year. There were maybe four male professors we knew we could trust. I know at least three women who slept with the professors whose classes they took. I know one woman got her short story sent to a fancy publication by her married professor after that.
She looks at me. I’ve said this all out loud.
This was consensual, I say.
Do you believe that? she says.
No, I say. But I’m not them.
It’s literature, I say. Art, I say. Sex and beauty are a part of it. Let’s get— I say. I just wanted you to know the stuff I heard about this guy. I didn’t want to not say anything in case there are more things later on.
I feel awful and ungrateful.
There are some really wonderful professors up here, I say. I name some of them. This place has done so much for me, I say.
Can you come back next week? she says.
She has to go and I have to get back to work for an afternoon meeting about nothing.
Sure, I say.
Before I leave, she looks like she might grab hold of my arm but doesn’t. It’s okay, she says. It’s good to cry.
I wipe my nose with my sleeve and then I’m embarrassed.
I nod.
I know, I say. I shake my head and laugh.
At work, my eyes are puffy but no one says a thing about it. I’m done teaching for the day and, briefly, Kayla comes into the empty classroom where I’ve hidden to work and tells me about her day. A lot of girls don’t like her and there’ve been rumors spread about her, a litany of Facebook posts that she took screenshots of and the assistant principal had to ask the girls to take them down.
Stupid jealous bitches, she says. She picks at her fingers.
It feels worth saying that she’s beautiful. Lips and eyes and cheekbones. Perfect, dark-brown skin. She wears a wrap around her hair this day and positions and then repositions it as she talks and looks past me toward the door.
They need to just take care of their own selves, she says.
I nod.
I want to tell her not to endanger herself, to stay steady. I feel completely ill equipped and don’t think anger in this instance is an out-of-hand response. But she’s been suspended twice this year for fighting and if she’s suspended one more time, she’ll get kicked out.
You have to take care of yourself, I say.
* * *
Two days later I get an email from the office for equality and affirmative action at the university asking if I have time to come in. I google the woman who sent the email and find out she’s a lawyer. When I left the dean’s office, I had been under the impression that nothing would happen until we spoke again. I email back quickly and give this woman dates and times when I can sneak out of work and come up to see her. Tomorrow morning, then, she confirms.
I draft an email to Melissa but don’t send it. I don’t want to bother her with more of other people’s worry. I figure I can always find her afterward.
I think, my whole run, about how to dress for this meeting. I wear all black, pants and long-sleeved shirt, afraid somehow to show any skin. I’m nervous waiting for her to come out of her office when it’s time for our meeting. She doesn’t come out. Instead, she stays seated at her desk and the receptionist tells me it’s my turn to go in.
Do you know why you’re here? the woman asks me.
I think so, I say. My hands start shaking.
You okay? she says.
I’m an adjunct, I say. I shouldn’t be so scared and want to tell her what I know and I’m relieved somehow that something’s being done.
If anyone tries to retaliate against you, she says, you can file a complaint.
So, while I’m unemployed and out this paltry salary that keeps us afloat, I will come up here and cry to her and she will write it down.
Do you want to start? she says, after a back-and-forth about my not being under investigation, after my saying I do have some information about behavior that is questionable.
I have specific questions, she says. But why don’t you go first.
I tell her the same thing I told the dean just days ago. She asks me for names but I won’t give them to her. She repeats back to me, a friend of your student’s friend, and I nod and she types and I feel dumb.
Is that all? she says.
Maybe, then, it’s nothing, I think. Maybe, then, I’ve gotten all this wrong. I think there’s not language, much less legal recourse, for what I’ve just described to her. What is the statute, the law, the bullet point laid out on the university website, for feeling less than, knocked down, not quite in control, all of the time?
I want to tell her the names of all the professors who never looked at me when I walked by them, when I was in a circle of people talking to them, how it felt like there were prerequisites for being heard or read that had nothing to do with what I thought I’d come there to try to do or say or be or learn. How it felt like smart was one thing for the men, obvious and uncomplicated, often self-appointed; the women who were chosen were anointed instead of self-selected, brilliant, they were called instead, which felt like it demanded more of the senses, which always seemed to be attributed to girls some of the male professors liked to look at during and after class.
I think of Sasha then and how she would almost certainly have a concrete grievance in this situation. Someone would have done something to her. If we were still talking, I could talk on her behalf.
Is there anything else you might want to tell me? asks the lawyer.
I’m confused now. I feel almost impossibly tired.
Did a student report anything more specific to you? she says.
She tells me a story then that I haven’t heard: a student overhearing this same professor in his office with another student, hearing sounds that sounded inappropriate, watching the student and the professor walk out mussed up.
We were told she reported this to you and you reported it to Melissa, who did not follow up with us.
Melissa, who’s been kinder to me than most anyone.
None of that’s true, I tell her.
She nods.
It’s not. I feel somehow now like I’m accidentally on his side. False allegations is what I’m saying. Who would say that? I want to ask. I want to give her something irrefutable, but I don’t have anything like that.
But the other stuff, I say.
She names the student who supposedly told me this story.
I don’t know her, I say.
Melissa’s wonderful, I tell her. It’s an adjective that means nothing, least of all to lawyers. She’s one of the most supportive people, especially to women, in this whole place, I say.
All right, says the lawyer.
She’s stopped writing down any of what I say.
* * *
I don’t go back to work. I miss a meeting, but I text my co–homeroom teachers; I ask them to tell my boss that there’s an issue with my kids. I text the babysitter and tell her that I will get the kids from school and I get on the train and pick them up. They’re surprised to see me and they smile at me and I pick them up and it feels like the first time I’ve breathed in days. I take them to the park and they play and I watch them and then I take them home and we have dinner and I bathe them and I put them to bed.
* * *
I call Melissa. I tell her about my conversation with the lawyer.