Mrs. Fletcher

by Tom Perrotta

  “I’m only kidding, bro.” He clapped me on the shoulder, more gently than I would have expected. “Let’s get some lunch.”

  *

  Everybody had to meet their academic advisor at some point during Orientation Week to finalize their schedule and get one last pep talk about college. My guy was Devin Torborg from the Anthropology Department. I made the mistake of calling him “Professor,” which was apparently a sore subject.

  “Technically I’m an instructor,” he explained, running his hand through his stringy hair, which looked like it hadn’t been washed in a while. He had these little round eyeglasses like John Lennon, and his eyes were baggy and tired behind the smudged lenses. “Not currently on the tenure track. But I prefer ‘Devin’ anyway.” He gave this sad little shrug and glanced at the folder on his desk. “So. Brendan Fletcher. This must be an exciting time for you. The beginning of a great . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and he scowled like he couldn’t remember the next word.

  “Adventure,” I said, helping him out.

  “Ah,” he said. “You’re an optimist.”

  He opened the folder and examined the single sheet of paper lying inside. It must have listed my high school GPA and test scores and whatnot. He slid two fingers in between his face and his glasses and gave his left eyelid a thorough massage, clockwise first, then reverse.

  “So tell me, Brendan.” He paused to make a run at the other eye, working pretty hard on the loose skin, tugging it up and down and sideways. “What do you want from college?”

  I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth, which was that I wanted to party as much as possible and do the bare minimum of studying, but I didn’t have a lie handy, so I just kind of stammered for a while.

  “I . . . I . . . well, that’s . . . you know. Good question. Just a degree, I guess.”

  “A degree in what?”

  “Econ. Possibly. If I can survive the math requirements.”

  “Why Econ?”

  “You know. So I can get a job when I graduate.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Any kind. Long as it pays six figures. I mean, maybe not right away, but pretty soon. That’s my main goal.”

  He looked impressed, but only in a sarcastic way. “Good luck with that.”

  Then we went over my schedule, which wasn’t very complicated. I had to take Econ 101, and also get the required freshman Writing and Math classes out of the way. That left room for just one elective, which I had narrowed down to either Basic Concepts in Accounting or Intro to Statistics, neither of which sounded all that exciting.

  “That’s one strategy,” he said. “You could sign up for a practical class like that and learn something useful and so forth. But my advice would be to stretch a little, try something new and impractical, maybe even a little off-the-wall. Learn a language. Take a poetry class. Study African History or Linguistics or Drawing. There’s a lecture class on Polytheism that you might want to check out. Taught by yours truly.” He smiled, kind of hopelessly. “You never know. It might change your life, or at least open up some new avenues for exploration.”

  I didn’t know what Polytheism was, and I honestly didn’t give a shit. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I pretended to think it over.

  “Maybe next semester,” I said. “I’ll probably just stick to Stats this time around.”

  “All right. Your call.” He checked the time on his phone. “What about extracurriculars? Any ideas about that? Any clubs or teams or community service organizations?”

  “I’m hoping to go Greek next year,” I told him. “I’m not sure which fraternity, though.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. “Where I did my undergrad work they didn’t allow frats.”

  I had the feeling he wanted me to ask where that was, but I didn’t take the bait. Especially since he didn’t seem all that impressive to me anyway, a grungy non-professor in a shithole of a basement office, wearing a Journey T-shirt under his tweed jacket, which I guess I was supposed to find amusing.

  “That must’ve sucked,” I said.

  “Not at all,” he replied. “I certainly didn’t miss them.”

  Then we just sat there for a few more seconds, staring at each other. I could hear singing out on the quad, an a cappella group doing a pretty cool version of “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Somebody had a great falsetto. I thought it might be fun to be in a group like that, if I could sing and it wasn’t so gay.

  “Are we done?” I asked.

  He nodded and I stood up. As I was heading for the door, he called after me.

  “Brendan,” he said. “You know about consent, right?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a pretty simple concept. No means no. And an intoxicated person can’t consent to sexual activity. You understand that, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “All right, then. Have a great semester.”

  *

  Zack was meeting with his own advisor, so I killed some time at the Activities Fair on my way back to the room. It was crowded, dozens and dozens of tables set up under a huge circus tent, a good chunk of the freshman class milling around. Apparently, anybody could start a club and get funding from the university. There were Beekeepers, Hula Hoopers, Paintballers, Vegans, Future Real Estate Professionals, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Atheists United, Triathletes, Stroke Victims, Cancer Survivors, Bicycle Mechanics, Slavic Folk Dancers. You could ride horses, row crew, play rugby, boycott Israel, learn to juggle or knit. Some of the people behind the tables were in costume—the Quidditch Club officers carried brooms and sported fake Harry Potter glasses, and one of the volunteers for the Muslim Student Union wore a full burka, or whatever they called it—and others just looked exactly like what their names said they were: Queer People of Color, Dungeons and Dragons Enthusiasts, Cannabis Reform Coalition, League of Young Conservatives, Bearded Hipster Alliance. I guess I must have spaced out a little, because I didn’t even know where I was standing when the girl behind a table spoke to me.

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “Excuse me?”

  She laughed in a way that made me feel like she already knew me and liked me.

  “It’s not a trick question.” She looked like a farm girl, freckles and a blond ponytail, and big shoulders, almost like a guy. “You know your name, right?”

  “I used to,” I said. “But I had a bunch of concussions last year.”

  She liked that, too, enough that she volunteered for a high five, which I delivered very gently, basically just pressing my palm against hers, earning a few more points in the process. I was a couple of inches taller than she was, but our hands were the same size.

  “I’m Amber,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Brendan.”

  “Do you know someone on the spectrum, Brendan?”

  That was when I looked at the sign on her table: Autism Awareness Network.

  “No, I—”

  I was about to tell her that I’d just stopped there at random when two things occurred to me. The first was that I did know someone on the spectrum, and the second was that this girl was really pretty. I hadn’t noticed at first, because I was so distracted by her shoulders.

  “I mean, yeah,” I said. “My half brother.”

  She nodded, as if she’d expected as much.

  “My little brother, too.” She smiled at the thought of him. “He’s obsessed with Matchbox cars. It’s pretty much all he cares about. Yesterday he sent me a text with a picture of two of them. Nothing else. Just two little cars.”

  She thought this was adorable, though it seemed kind of pathetic to me.

  “Mine doesn’t talk much,” I said. “He just has these scary tantrums about nothing. We don’t even know what he’s screaming about.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jonathan. But we call him Jon-Jon.”

  “That’s cute.”
<
br />   I agreed, mostly because she seemed so nice and had such a positive attitude. The truth was, nothing about Jon-Jon was cute. It was awful to watch him get all red-faced with rage and frustration, and not know how to help him.

  “Do you have a picture of him?” she asked.

  I shook my head. It had never occurred to me to take a picture of Jon-Jon.

  “This is Benjy.” She handed me her phone. The screensaver was a photo of Amber and her brother on the beach. I’d expected him to be a little kid, but he was a skinny teenager with an intense, almost angry expression, only a year or two younger than she was. She was wearing a navy blue one-piece bathing suit in the picture, the no-nonsense kind competitive swimmers wear. Her body was thick and strong-looking, not usually what I went for, but sexy in a way I hadn’t expected.

  “You can give that back now,” she said, but not in a pissed-off way.

  “You a swimmer?”

  “In high school. But not anymore. Here I just play softball.”

  “Cool,” I said. “What position?”

  “Pitcher.”

  She tried to look humble about it, but I could see she was proud.

  “You know what?” I said. “You look like a pitcher.”

  “Why?” She pretended to take offense. “Because of my massive shoulders?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It’s okay.” She struck a bodybuilder pose, turning sideways and flexing her arm. “I worked hard for these muscles. And I do have a wicked fastball, if I say so myself. You should come watch us. We’re pretty good.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  She gave me a look, like I was probably full of shit. But it was kind of flirty, too.

  “We’re not all dykes, you know.”

  “I never said—”

  “I’m just kidding,” she said. “A few of us are bi.”

  I must have looked shocked, because she laughed this big-hearted laugh and slapped me on the arm as a nervous-looking girl stepped up to the table.

  “It was nice meeting you,” she said, stepping toward the new arrival. “You should come to one of our meetings. Third Thursday of every month.”

  *

  That night I got epically shitfaced. Zack and I pregamed with vodka, and then we visited a bunch of room parties in Einstein, wandering from one to the next like it was Halloween, taking a bong hit here and a shot of Jager there, a slice of pizza in a room that belonged to a skinny white dude named Evan who was supposedly a great rapper. There was dancing in a room where two girls named Kayla lived—Hot Kayla and Less-Hot Kayla—and a foosball tournament in the fifth-floor lounge.

  At Will and Rico’s, I drank some jungle juice that really knocked me on my ass. My father called when I was there, the first time I’d heard from him since I arrived at BSU. I must not have been making much sense, because Zack grabbed the phone out of my hand and started chatting with him like they were old buddies. All I remember after that was puking in the bathroom, and bumping into that douchebag Sanjay on my way out. He was wearing pajamas and a plaid robe, and carrying a little bucket with all his toiletries in it.

  “You okay?” he asked. “You don’t look so—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, giving my mouth one last wipe. “Ready for round two.”

  I went back to the room to change my shirt, but I guess I must have crashed, because the next thing I knew it was three in the morning and Zack was stumbling around in the dark, totally wasted, telling me that he’d tried to hook up with Less-Hot Kayla, but she wasn’t into it, which was fine, because he wasn’t really into it, either.

  “I mean, if it was Hot Kayla, that would be another story, right?”

  After a while he got into bed, and it was quiet again, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was thinking about maybe getting up and seeing if anybody was still awake when Zack started jerking off. I could tell he was trying to be quiet, but our beds were pretty close together.

  “Dude,” I said. “Seriously?”

  “Oh shit,” he said. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Nope. Wide awake.”

  “You want me to stop?”

  “Nah, it’s okay. Just, like, hurry it up, okay?”

  I don’t know how long it took after that. Maybe just a few minutes, but it felt like a long time, long enough that I said fuck it, and decided to join the party. I thought about Becca for a while, but she was already far away, almost unreal. And then I tried the two Kaylas, imagining a threeway in their room, which was kind of interesting, but only up to a point. It was Amber from the Autism Awareness Network who got me across the finish line. And the weird thing was, we weren’t even doing anything. She was just standing on the beach in her one-piece bathing suit, smiling at me with her pretty face and those big shoulders, and for some reason that was enough.

  “G’night,” Zack said, in this soft, peaceful voice when he was finished.

  “Night, bro,” I said, floating on the same cloud that he was. “Catch you in the morning.”

  Live and Learn

  Suffering from a mild, not entirely unpleasant case of back-to-school jitters, Eve wandered through the Humanities Building of Eastern Community College, searching for Room 213. She was relieved to pass a number of “nontraditional students” like herself in the corridors, some of them even older than she was.

  The chairs in her classroom had been arranged in a circle, group-therapy style. Eve chose one and sat down, not noticing until it was too late that some bored artisan had carved the words I AM SO HORNY into the desktop, and then highlighted the incisions with a red marker. She covered the graffiti with her brand-new notebook, and opened it to the first page. It was a heartening sight, all that blank white space waiting to be filled, the fresh start she’d been hoping for.

  Once she was settled, she looked up and gave a friendly nod to the handful of students who’d arrived even earlier than she had. Only one nodded back, a worried-looking black man who appeared to be in his early thirties. The other three were staring at their phones, unaware that a greeting had been extended, let alone that they’d missed a chance to respond.

  *

  Eve already had a master’s in Social Work, which she’d earned by attending night classes for four long years back when Brendan was in elementary school. Ted’s resentment of her absences, and the parental responsibilities they shifted onto his shoulders, had been one of the major tensions in their marriage. His subsequent lack of interest in her work—his refusal to take it seriously—had been another, though that seemed mostly ironic in retrospect, now that he was raising an autistic child and had to rely on all sorts of specialists in the caring professions.

  In any case, she didn’t need another advanced degree, and had no interest in polishing her résumé. Her decision to return to school was purely personal. She wanted to read and think and reconnect with her collegiate self, which had been so much more open and fluid and hopeful than the versions that had succeeded it. And it was nice to have a reason to escape the empty house twice a week without having to convince someone else to join her.

  The class she’d signed up for was called “Gender and Society: A Critical Perspective,” a writing-intensive seminar that met on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from seven thirty to nine. She had no special interest in the topic; it was actually her third choice, after “Vegans vs. Carnivores: The Ethics of Sustainable Eating,” and “From Jane Austen to Downton Abbey: The English Country House in Fiction and Film,” both of which were full. But the class itself wasn’t the point. The important thing was that she was here, trying something different, meeting new people, making her world bigger instead of hunkering down, disappearing into her own solitude.

  At seven thirty on the dot, a tall, striking woman in a black pencil skirt and stiletto heels breezed through the door, her eyes widening in faux astonishment at the sight of the assembled students, as if this were a surprise party in her honor.

  “Well, hello there,” she said, in a throaty, oddly seductive
voice. She was slender and athletic-looking, with narrow hips and attention-grabbing breasts bulging against the fabric of her tailored blouse. “I’m Dr. Margo Fairchild, adjunct professor.” She took a moment to let that sink in. “In case you’re unfamiliar with academic terminology, adjunct is another word for very badly paid.”

  A handful of students, Eve included, chuckled obligingly as Dr. Fairchild entered the circle and sat down, smoothing her skirt and crossing her enviably muscled legs at the ankles.

  “Let’s wait a minute or two for the stragglers,” she said, languidly tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “There are always a few lost souls on opening day.”

  It was tough to guess the professor’s age—anywhere between thirty and forty-five, Eve thought—though her face seemed a little older than her body. Even that was open to debate, however, because of the prodigious amount of makeup she wore, a thick, almost theatrical coat of expertly applied cosmetics that seemed more appropriate for a beauty pageant runway than a community college classroom. Eve realized that she’d been expecting someone a little more like her cousin Donna, a no-nonsense scholar who wore her graying hair in a thick braid and had a different North Face pullover for every day of the week.

  Her fellow students were an impressively diverse bunch—half college kids, half older people (including a spry lady in her eighties), two black men (one of whom turned out to be Nigerian), one black woman, a Chinese immigrant man with an indecipherable accent, a young woman in a Muslim headscarf, one really cute undergraduate boy with a skateboard, and a butch woman in biker gear, complete with a black leather vest and a motorcycle helmet resting on the floor between her scuffed engineer boots. Eve was surprised to note that twelve of the twenty students were male, including a few middle-aged white guys who didn’t strike her as natural candidates for a class in which students would be required to “write autobiographically and analytically about their own problematic experiences on the gender spectrum, with special emphasis on the social construction of identity, the persistence of sexism in a ‘post-feminist’ culture, and the subversion of heteronormative discourse by LGBTQIA voices.” But this small mystery was cleared up as soon as they got started, when Professor Fairchild asked everyone to introduce themselves and talk about their reasons for enrolling in the class.