Reunion. Therese Fowler

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СКАЧАТЬ there was the lack of funds from which to pay Julian very much beyond basic expenses, and his fear that his low-pay offer could be interpreted as disregard for the value of Julian’s skills, given how Mitch had so steadfastly resisted Julian’s photojournalism career choice. In Mitch’s limited experience, Julian was an emotional minefield and, while he didn’t blame him for it—blamed himself, in fact, he also didn’t relish treading there with no detector.

      So when Mitch finally did place the call, he did it after two shots of whisky, then rushed through his pitch, making the project sound as appealing as possible, braced for resistance, for disdain. That he’d gotten neither was still difficult to believe.

      He was both anxious and eager to see Julian, to spend some quality time with him, as the saying went these days. He was both anxious and eager to get the project underway, to open people’s eyes to the joy and value of literature. But … suppose Lions didn’t ultimately win the interest of PBS. Suppose he invested so much—his time, his money, his ego—only to see the door slammed in his face.

      He stood up and went again to the window. There were worse things than rejection, worse things than disappointment. But he’d had enough of both.

      A knock on his open door startled him, and as he swiveled toward the door, he stumbled slightly and reached for the bookcase for balance.

      “Mitch!”

      “I’m fine,” he said, holding off Brenda McCallum with a raised hand. “You surprised me is all.”

      “You looked—”

      “No, really, I’m fine. See?” He did a few soft-shoe steps on the bright Cuban rug to prove he was not about to end up as her husband had last April, in this very office. Craig McCallum, fellow professor, best friend and biking buddy, had suffered a brain aneurysm and died on Mitch’s small sofa while they’d all waited helplessly for the paramedics to arrive. Today was Mitch’s fifty-first birthday; Craig had been just fifty.

      Brenda continued to watch him. “I saw your door was still open. Aren’t you running late?”

      “Yes, but they won’t start without me,” he joked, and gathered the books he needed for the morning’s ENG 620: The Twentieth-Century Novel. His fifteen graduate students, if they were all in attendance, would be seated around the conference table, most with their noses buried in The Age of Innocence because they’d failed to read all, or any, of what was to be discussed today. His late arrival would not be troubling.

      Brenda was frowning at him. “What’s going on? You look funny.”

      “Thanks for that vote of confidence.”

      “You know what I mean. Odd.”

      “Really, nothing at all. Just lost in thought. I’ve been on the phone with a guy in Key West, about how to shoot part of the Lions pilot there at the Home and Museum. I’ll fill you in later.” He squeezed her shoulder and nodded for her to precede him to the door.

      She took his hand. “Mitch …”

      “Why don’t we get lunch when I’m done?” he said, letting her keep hold for a moment longer. “I’m in the mood for barbecue, how about you?”

      In part because he was so distracted, he devised an exercise for his students that would take most of the class period. While they sat in groups of three or four outlining literary elements in the novel and discussing possible intentions, he stood at the podium thinking about Brenda. Things were warming up between them, certainly. If he was ambivalent, well, that was to be expected. She was not only Craig’s widow; she was the head of the English department. As his friend Tony had put it, if Mitch wasn’t careful, Brenda could easily have his balls in a sling.

      Better, maybe, to think about Hemingway.

      After thirty years of teaching, Mitch knew his ideas about literature weren’t going to change the world. Oh sure, he’d managed to impress his colleagues a time or two or three, he’d won teaching awards, he’d set at least a dozen students on the path to respected literary scholarship. He’d also faced down a handful of annoyed students over the years who demanded to know what the point of it was. Who cared about evaluating whether Hemingway’s prose was more effective than Faulkner’s? What difference did it make that Hemingway had a tough time as a soldier, that even with the respect and awards—a Nobel for literature, for God’s sake, plus the devotion of a forgiving wife (or four), he’d pointed a shotgun at his head and killed himself? What about what was happening to ordinary soldiers now, friends of theirs, in Iraq in the nineties, in Afghanistan and Iraq again today?

      He’d nodded his agreement. He’d said, yes, my son feels this way too. There was no convincing some people—or he was not persuasive enough to convince them—that they would find their positions right there in the texts if they just gave the books a chance. Wharton, Hemingway, Faulkner—they had it all: passion, romance, existential questions, the human condition imbued in every story. “Give it a chance,” he’d say. “Give me a break,” was the answer he usually got. Or, what Julian had said that day some fourteen years ago: “Get a life. That’s what I’m going to do.”

      But what Julian hadn’t understood then was that not everyone was interested in, or equipped to travel, his chosen path, either. Some people were spotlights, some were reflectors. The world needed both. Yes, he’d pushed Julian too hard at the time, he saw that later. He’d been too passionate, too single-minded, hadn’t recognized that Julian was so much like him—and still was. Just not in the ways he had wanted him to be.

      Well, he’d mellowed. Which didn’t mean he was any less passionate about literature’s relevance. Literary Lions grew from his urge to demonstrate that relevance in a new way … and, if he was fully honest, demonstrate his own relevance as well. Since Craig’s sudden death, he’d gone around feeling as though he had one foot in the grave. What was his legacy, other than a collection of articles, a couple of books read by approximately fourteen people, two failed marriages, and a strained relationship with his only son? With Lions, he hoped to rectify the past and revise his outlook for the future.

      A future that appeared to want Brenda in it in ways he’d hardly imagined.

      “Dr Forrester? Dr Forrester?” A student’s voice penetrated, finally.

      “Sorry—you caught me daydreaming about, um, spending spring break in Key West,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

      “Well, I was going to ask if Archer’s mistaken perception of May is a good example of dramatic irony—but I like your new topic better.”

      To celebrate Mitch’s fifty-first birthday, he and Brenda joined two other couples at Mez, a new “green” Mexican restaurant Brenda wanted to try. Deirdre and Corbin he’d known since moving to Chapel Hill: she taught human genetics; he taught physics. Mitch met them at a UNC basketball game. The other pair was Tony and Gemma, both college administrators whose friendship stretched back to a time when he was dating Angie, who’d worked with Tony in the recruiting office. The couple’s friendship was one of the few things he’d kept when he and Angie split.

      Deirdre raised her margarita and said, “Here’s to Mitch. Good to see you made it another year, and that you’re making it with Brenda—oops, I didn’t mean that like it sounded!”

      “To Mitch,” the group echoed.

      “To СКАЧАТЬ