Student Body, Sample 5 |
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From Chapter 13
At the end of that semester last year when Lauren had taken Rick’s class, after the final period she thanked the touched boy for the time she had had, and when they had said goodbye before Christmas break, he had known, vaguely, that he probably would see her around the Department sometime. There were, one of the secretaries had told him once, over a thousand undergrads majoring in English, so it was not surprising that he had not happened to run into the this particular one before. Yet while 100- and 200-level English courses were taught all over north campus—Berkey, Horticulture, Kedzie or Bessey, even Baker a good half-mile to the east off Bogue Street—more and more of the upperclassmen courses were taught in Morrill, and naturally all the grad courses, too. And if she was admitted to the graduate program, which he had no doubt that she would be, then of course in the coming fall she would become an actual inhabitant of Morrill Hall as well. They had parted in good humor, and Rick had felt a paternal sort of pride at the thought of his pet student joining the profession in earnest.
Yet when he came back in January and sauntered into the first day of Dr. Rosenblatt’s classroom, almost directly above Rick’s own office, how surprised and delighted he had been to see Lauren sitting there sleek and lovely at the pushed-together conference tables! He greeted her happily, grinning as if on the bustling foreign streets of Milan or Bombay or Singapore he had found a long-lost hometown friend, and as she beamed up at him, the girl explained that she had received permission from the Dean to take this graduate class before she had finished her bachelor’s. She had more than enough credits to graduate, she said, so this class was going to count for her master’s program once she started in the fall.
As other students filed in, Rick finally shook himself, and he slipped quickly behind Lauren’s chair and dropped into the seat beside her before anyone else could. Well, that was very good, he congratulated her with a purposefully condescending sort of gallantry that made her impish lips quirk. And now that she was in the grown-up leagues, he added, slouching down complacently and stretching out his casual feet beneath the table, if ever she found herself in over her little head and needed any extra bit of help...well, she should not hesitate to ask an old pro.
“Why, you can be my study buddy!” the girl gushed, batting her eyelashes playfully.
Despite himself, Rick could not help wriggling slightly within. “Deal,” he agreed with a magnanimous gesture of one open hand.
“Oh, by the way, Mr. Pro,” she added, leaning in with a smirk, “you fucked up my grade.” As he goggled at her, she continued matter-of-factly, “I was going to stop by your office after class, but as long as you’re here...” She gave her smoky eyebrows a shrug.
For a moment he could only blink back into her coolly composed, cream-complected face that was dotted here and there upon the bridge of her nose and the tops of her pretty cheeks with the cutest little freckles. He could not figure out if she was still joking. “What do you mean?” he asked at last, perplexed.
“You gave me a 2.5!” Lauren laughed quietly. “Is that what straight 4.0s average out to, for you?” She narrowed her mocking dark eyes. “Wait a minute—did you actually pass your freshman math requirement...?”
“Jesus, you’re kidding me...” he breathed.
“Got the grade report with me,” she replied. “But no biggie, you can just fix it.” Suddenly she blinked, looking concerned. “You can fix it, can’t you?”
Belatedly Rick closed his mouth. “Oh, there’s a form for that, I’m sure,” he assured her hastily. “I’ll just ask the secretaries, and we’ll get it fixed up.” Ruefully he shook his head. “I—” Helpless, he turned his hands palm-up. “Gosh, I’m really sorry, Lauren. I must’ve penciled in the wrong bubble...”
Professor Rosenblatt cleared his throat, and the class started to quiet down as everyone looked his way. “That’s okay, Mr. Pro,” she whispered back before turning away. “Just fix it!”
So Rick did indeed fix it, and the two did indeed become study buddies. Really, Rick always had been rather solitary in his academic pursuits, both because that was the introspective boy’s nature in general and also because although on rare occasions he had compared notes with friends or tossed a few ideas back and forth with classmates, most often he had been too advanced to benefit much from his so-called peers. With Lauren, though, he found the perfect companion with whom he actually could do such things, and more. Sometimes she hadn’t yet read as widely in a certain literary area or studied a particular author or theme in class as he had done, but her mind was keen and imaginative and fresh. And occasionally, to his secret delight, on some topics their positions were reversed, and instead it was he who had to look up to her, marveling at the intellect behind those dancing dark eyes.
How he always looked forward to that class they had with Dr. Rosenblatt! They sat next to each other, he looking past the side of her pretty face as the old man lectured, the two of them now and then trading a smirk, or perhaps a note, back and forth at some point of amusement. Once, for example, when Rosenblatt required each of the students to do a brief presentation on topics they chose, a girl in the master’s program was talking about the “grisly token” common to epic tales, only on her mimeographed handouts the idiot had spelled it “grizzly,” like the bear... Lips pursed mischievously, Lauren had laid her shapely white hand casually on the table between them, and as she tapped the red nail of her middle finger as if by happenstance beneath the gaffe, it was all Rick could do to keep from laughing out loud.
And in retrospect...well, they had begun flirting just a little, too. Oh, at the time Rick of course wouldn’t have considered it as such. He was simply having such a hard time at home, with Anna irritable and moody, and gallingly sexless to boot, so coming to class was like an escape, a chance to enjoy the companionship of his pleasant young friend in a way that, without even realizing it, perhaps, he had been missing so desperately. At home, after all, Anna was like a stranger. With the chemicals of her double-pregnancy coursing through her bloodstream, and her body growing more cumbersome and uncomfortable by the week, she scarcely even seemed the same woman he had married.
He sympathized as much as he could, and tried to understand. But, God, he just felt so neglected, physically, emotionally! And she didn’t care. She didn’t notice his plight—scoffed infuriatingly on the few occasions he tried to bring up the matter, actually, and accused him of selfishness—and she didn’t seem to miss the old closeness, the old intimacies, the old special tenderness one bit. When he hiked home at the end of the day, tired and frazzled and thinking about the work he still needed to do that night in order to stay afloat in his classes, he was beset with carping and criticisms about his absence, with household chores that she claimed she was no longer able to perform because of her condition, and with a hundred other niggling annoyances. And then finally, after reading and studying late into the night until he nearly fell asleep at his desk with the lamp-warmed black cat sprawled half across his books, when he slipped cold and lonely into bed, trying not to wake his wife, the unloved man lay there without touching her, and his thoughts were bitter and circular and futile.
Back at school, however, Rick could feel young again. God, how long had it been since he had been like this with a girl?—smiling, teasing and joking, basking in the glow of lovely, long-lashed eyes that did not sneer or dismiss but instead thrilled him and looked up to him, and fed off of his own secret giddiness. Ah, the way Lauren smiled, and the way the corner of those expressive red lips quirked ever so faintly when she did not quite smile! In sneaking sideways glimpses, and with pretendedly studious looks up at the chalkboard where old Rosenblatt, stooping slightly, scratched and puttered, he drank in the sight of her, glowing inside of himself. Sometimes, if she sat a little closer than usual, or if she moved just right, his wondering nostrils might catch the fragrance of her perfume, and he would close his eyes for a moment, savoring the sweet intimacy of it.
Now and then Lauren leaned over to murmur some private comment in the middle of class, and she might touch his bare arm lightly with the tip of her finger for emphasis, and that tiny, oh-so casual contact made all the little hairs upon the back of his forearm stand up. Sometimes as she spoke in this fashion, a heavy swath of silky raven hair fell crookedly across one eye, and Rick could not help thinking that this was simply the cutest thing ever. Why, once, just once, as if pretending he did not realize he was doing it, he reached nonchalantly out with a pair of fingertips and brushed the lustrous vagrant strands back from that serenely beautiful forehead and tucked them behind the delicate curve of her ear. Those enigmatic lids drooped ever so faintly, and the muscles of one pretty cheek bunched slightly in the vaguest suggestion of a smile. When she turned unconcernedly back to the professor’s lecture, however, she acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Which, perhaps, he tried to tell himself, was the case.
At the end of that semester last year when Lauren had taken Rick’s class, after the final period she thanked the touched boy for the time she had had, and when they had said goodbye before Christmas break, he had known, vaguely, that he probably would see her around the Department sometime. There were, one of the secretaries had told him once, over a thousand undergrads majoring in English, so it was not surprising that he had not happened to run into the this particular one before. Yet while 100- and 200-level English courses were taught all over north campus—Berkey, Horticulture, Kedzie or Bessey, even Baker a good half-mile to the east off Bogue Street—more and more of the upperclassmen courses were taught in Morrill, and naturally all the grad courses, too. And if she was admitted to the graduate program, which he had no doubt that she would be, then of course in the coming fall she would become an actual inhabitant of Morrill Hall as well. They had parted in good humor, and Rick had felt a paternal sort of pride at the thought of his pet student joining the profession in earnest.
Yet when he came back in January and sauntered into the first day of Dr. Rosenblatt’s classroom, almost directly above Rick’s own office, how surprised and delighted he had been to see Lauren sitting there sleek and lovely at the pushed-together conference tables! He greeted her happily, grinning as if on the bustling foreign streets of Milan or Bombay or Singapore he had found a long-lost hometown friend, and as she beamed up at him, the girl explained that she had received permission from the Dean to take this graduate class before she had finished her bachelor’s. She had more than enough credits to graduate, she said, so this class was going to count for her master’s program once she started in the fall.
As other students filed in, Rick finally shook himself, and he slipped quickly behind Lauren’s chair and dropped into the seat beside her before anyone else could. Well, that was very good, he congratulated her with a purposefully condescending sort of gallantry that made her impish lips quirk. And now that she was in the grown-up leagues, he added, slouching down complacently and stretching out his casual feet beneath the table, if ever she found herself in over her little head and needed any extra bit of help...well, she should not hesitate to ask an old pro.
“Why, you can be my study buddy!” the girl gushed, batting her eyelashes playfully.
Despite himself, Rick could not help wriggling slightly within. “Deal,” he agreed with a magnanimous gesture of one open hand.
“Oh, by the way, Mr. Pro,” she added, leaning in with a smirk, “you fucked up my grade.” As he goggled at her, she continued matter-of-factly, “I was going to stop by your office after class, but as long as you’re here...” She gave her smoky eyebrows a shrug.
For a moment he could only blink back into her coolly composed, cream-complected face that was dotted here and there upon the bridge of her nose and the tops of her pretty cheeks with the cutest little freckles. He could not figure out if she was still joking. “What do you mean?” he asked at last, perplexed.
“You gave me a 2.5!” Lauren laughed quietly. “Is that what straight 4.0s average out to, for you?” She narrowed her mocking dark eyes. “Wait a minute—did you actually pass your freshman math requirement...?”
“Jesus, you’re kidding me...” he breathed.
“Got the grade report with me,” she replied. “But no biggie, you can just fix it.” Suddenly she blinked, looking concerned. “You can fix it, can’t you?”
Belatedly Rick closed his mouth. “Oh, there’s a form for that, I’m sure,” he assured her hastily. “I’ll just ask the secretaries, and we’ll get it fixed up.” Ruefully he shook his head. “I—” Helpless, he turned his hands palm-up. “Gosh, I’m really sorry, Lauren. I must’ve penciled in the wrong bubble...”
Professor Rosenblatt cleared his throat, and the class started to quiet down as everyone looked his way. “That’s okay, Mr. Pro,” she whispered back before turning away. “Just fix it!”
So Rick did indeed fix it, and the two did indeed become study buddies. Really, Rick always had been rather solitary in his academic pursuits, both because that was the introspective boy’s nature in general and also because although on rare occasions he had compared notes with friends or tossed a few ideas back and forth with classmates, most often he had been too advanced to benefit much from his so-called peers. With Lauren, though, he found the perfect companion with whom he actually could do such things, and more. Sometimes she hadn’t yet read as widely in a certain literary area or studied a particular author or theme in class as he had done, but her mind was keen and imaginative and fresh. And occasionally, to his secret delight, on some topics their positions were reversed, and instead it was he who had to look up to her, marveling at the intellect behind those dancing dark eyes.
How he always looked forward to that class they had with Dr. Rosenblatt! They sat next to each other, he looking past the side of her pretty face as the old man lectured, the two of them now and then trading a smirk, or perhaps a note, back and forth at some point of amusement. Once, for example, when Rosenblatt required each of the students to do a brief presentation on topics they chose, a girl in the master’s program was talking about the “grisly token” common to epic tales, only on her mimeographed handouts the idiot had spelled it “grizzly,” like the bear... Lips pursed mischievously, Lauren had laid her shapely white hand casually on the table between them, and as she tapped the red nail of her middle finger as if by happenstance beneath the gaffe, it was all Rick could do to keep from laughing out loud.
And in retrospect...well, they had begun flirting just a little, too. Oh, at the time Rick of course wouldn’t have considered it as such. He was simply having such a hard time at home, with Anna irritable and moody, and gallingly sexless to boot, so coming to class was like an escape, a chance to enjoy the companionship of his pleasant young friend in a way that, without even realizing it, perhaps, he had been missing so desperately. At home, after all, Anna was like a stranger. With the chemicals of her double-pregnancy coursing through her bloodstream, and her body growing more cumbersome and uncomfortable by the week, she scarcely even seemed the same woman he had married.
He sympathized as much as he could, and tried to understand. But, God, he just felt so neglected, physically, emotionally! And she didn’t care. She didn’t notice his plight—scoffed infuriatingly on the few occasions he tried to bring up the matter, actually, and accused him of selfishness—and she didn’t seem to miss the old closeness, the old intimacies, the old special tenderness one bit. When he hiked home at the end of the day, tired and frazzled and thinking about the work he still needed to do that night in order to stay afloat in his classes, he was beset with carping and criticisms about his absence, with household chores that she claimed she was no longer able to perform because of her condition, and with a hundred other niggling annoyances. And then finally, after reading and studying late into the night until he nearly fell asleep at his desk with the lamp-warmed black cat sprawled half across his books, when he slipped cold and lonely into bed, trying not to wake his wife, the unloved man lay there without touching her, and his thoughts were bitter and circular and futile.
Back at school, however, Rick could feel young again. God, how long had it been since he had been like this with a girl?—smiling, teasing and joking, basking in the glow of lovely, long-lashed eyes that did not sneer or dismiss but instead thrilled him and looked up to him, and fed off of his own secret giddiness. Ah, the way Lauren smiled, and the way the corner of those expressive red lips quirked ever so faintly when she did not quite smile! In sneaking sideways glimpses, and with pretendedly studious looks up at the chalkboard where old Rosenblatt, stooping slightly, scratched and puttered, he drank in the sight of her, glowing inside of himself. Sometimes, if she sat a little closer than usual, or if she moved just right, his wondering nostrils might catch the fragrance of her perfume, and he would close his eyes for a moment, savoring the sweet intimacy of it.
Now and then Lauren leaned over to murmur some private comment in the middle of class, and she might touch his bare arm lightly with the tip of her finger for emphasis, and that tiny, oh-so casual contact made all the little hairs upon the back of his forearm stand up. Sometimes as she spoke in this fashion, a heavy swath of silky raven hair fell crookedly across one eye, and Rick could not help thinking that this was simply the cutest thing ever. Why, once, just once, as if pretending he did not realize he was doing it, he reached nonchalantly out with a pair of fingertips and brushed the lustrous vagrant strands back from that serenely beautiful forehead and tucked them behind the delicate curve of her ear. Those enigmatic lids drooped ever so faintly, and the muscles of one pretty cheek bunched slightly in the vaguest suggestion of a smile. When she turned unconcernedly back to the professor’s lecture, however, she acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Which, perhaps, he tried to tell himself, was the case.
