Mind Change

by T'Gracie Reese

  The letter was signed Lucy.

  “Rick,” she said, “do you want to come? I’m sure she means this for both of us.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, Nina, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “What?”

  ‘I’m not—I’m not sure. And I’m not really sure how to ask it. I need to walk for a time and think. But, why don’t we do this: there’s a wine bar on Hacker Street. President Herndon can tell you where it is; it’s only three blocks from the residence. After your oysters, why don’t you meet me there?”

  “All right, Rick. Have a nice walk.”

  And think about what it is you want to ask me.

  Because, she mused, I already know what it is.

  What I don’t know, is how I’m going to answer you.

  Within only a few minutes, she had walked to the back entrance of the residence.

  She sat on a porch swing and waited.

  After a short time, Lucinda Herndon arrived.

  “Nina! You could come!”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it, Lucy! Congratulations!”

  “Thank you, dear. But what about Rick? How is he?”

  “He’s all right. Just a scuffle.”

  “What a horrible thing. That brute Iverson. I never thought such a thing would happen.”

  “I know, Lucinda, but the things he said before we got into the stadium––”

  “Don’t worry about those comments. A small cluster of unimportant reporters—after what happened in the stadium, he’ll have to recant. So will Barbara. They’ll be forced to say that they were misinformed.”

  “So you’ve won?”

  “Of course, I’ve won. I won the moment Peter Stockton opened his mouth this morning. Millions of dollars, maybe even more. Acres and acres of donated—that is, free—land? An immense cut in tuition rates. Nina, even as we’re talking right now, four of our professors, all of whom were earlier in the day merely adjuncts, are planning a six-week study tour in Paris, combining language study, art history, music appreciation, and European history. This six-week trip—and there will be many more like it, trips all over the world—will be free. Free for up to a thousand students, each of whom merely needs to say ‘I want to go.’”

  “But how is that possible, Lucinda?”

  “We’re saving two hundred and sixty million dollars a year by laying off useless people. The trip I’ve just told you about costs $10,000 per student. Ten thousand times one thousand is ten million dollars. We’re still a quarter of a billion dollars to the good. Now come. I hope you like oysters.”

  “I love oysters.”

  “Some sherry, followed by cold white wine?”

  “I can be forced.”

  “Good. There is a small fire going inside, although it’s probably too warm to warrant it. Still, it looks so nice. Now, let’s go inside.”

  They entered the back of the Residence.

  Fire burning, lights golden––it was like walking into a Christmas card.

  “Please sit down, Nina. Here. We’re by ourselves, I’ve given the staff the night off. So many people all day—I just felt the need for privacy.”

  They sat in giant green amoebas that served as chairs and were situated, at the present time, in position to engulf the fireplace-andirons after only a few more stages of growth.

  Lucinda Herndon poured herself a glass of sherry and toasted:

  “Well, then: to a marvelous day!”

  “I’ll have to go along with that, Lucinda. I have to ask, though: how was Peter Stockton able to get these building plans done in just a few hours?”

  The president looked at Nina incredulously for a second, then laughed:

  “Oh, of course, these are not the exact buildings! This is actually a picture of a development near Montclair, New Jersey. But it has trees, just as ours will, and it has buildings, as will ours.”

  “I should have known.”

  And then the two of them chatted for some minutes about things much less important than a revolution in how universities should be run. Finally, Lucinda said:

  “Our oysters are in the dining room. Shall we go?”

  Nina rose and followed her.

  A few of the oysters had slithered down her throat when she asked:

  “What do you think their next move will be?”

  The president simply stared for a time.

  “What next move?”

  “Well, they’re not going to simply take this.”

  “Who?”

  “The faculty. The administrators.”

  “The faculty are the administrators now, as they were for the most part throughout the history of this institution. “Director of Curriculum Development!” For God’s sake, as though it were not the faculty’s job to develop curriculum!”

  “I mean, the old faculty. The old administrators. There are so many of them.”

  “There were so many of them. Far, far too many. It’s shocking, when one looks back on it.”

  “They’re not going to just leave, are they?”

  “Of course they are. They have to.”

  She left for a second, then returned with an armload of papers of some sort, most of them yellow, which she simply dumped on the floor.

  She beamed at them.

  “Some are congratulatory telegrams. The rest are applications.”

  “Applications to come to school here?”

  “Yes. All told, we have five thousand new applications, with more pouring in, despite the time of day.”

  “My God.”

  “Why are you so surprised? Why should anyone be surprised? I myself am surprised that the number is not higher still. Think about it, from the student’s perspective: you can go to another university, pay the tuition you’re paying now, plus five or ten thousand dollars extra if you want to study in Paris. Or Vienna. Or Bangkok. Or wherever.”

  She shook her head.

  “Or you can come here and get better teachers, master teachers, teachers who actually love what they’re doing, pay half the tuition, and go to Europe or Asia or Africa or Antarctica, for that matter, every summer for absolutely free. Where would you want to go to school? Nina, think of this: every university will have to follow this model. The ones that don’t will go broke.”

  She continued:

  “All one has to do is take the top off this, just once, and let people see all the money that’s being wasted––their money, the money they’re losing their homes for, the money they’ve spent their lives scrimping together––let them see it being wasted on bureaucrats conferring in Zurich and bookworms writing about extinct shrimp, while their children are getting cheap rooms, eating bad food, and being taught by part-time teachers moonlighting at the local junior college. All one has to do is show them this one time, so that they really see.”

  She shook her head and then said quietly:

  “Some of the telegrams reproach me for being anti-intellectual, and for hurting the cause of human knowledge, for hindering vital research. Rubbish. The intellect is the mind. Intellectual means using the mind. Wasting twenty billion dollars of student’s and taxpayers’ money on people who do nothing constructive––nothing that helps anyone here at the university or anywhere else––is that using the mind? And as for hindering vital research––well, there remain forty nine other such research institutes in forty nine other states. If this research is so vital, so cutting edge––let’s see how many of those institutions wish to hire our early retirement faculty. Indeed, none of them will, which is why the faculty are so outraged in the first place.”

  A pause.

  “It is a far more pernicious sin to force speech from those with nothing to say, than to prohibit it to those with vital thoughts. The latter will frequently speak out, regardless; the former will never shut up.”

  Silence for a time. Then:

  “Are all of those telegrams in support of what you’re doing?�
��

  Lucinda Herndon shook her head.

  “No. Some are complaints. Some are threats.”

  “You’ve gotten threats?”

  “Certainly. I’ve even gotten bomb threats, actually. Threats are the last resort of desperate people. And these are desperate people.”

  “But the faculty––are they not being supported by professors’ groups all over the country?”

  “What groups? The American Association of University Professors? The AAUP is debating as we speak whether to put the issue on its calendar in March. March! Nina, the people of whom we’re speaking have made careers of mutual disagreement, and mutual isolation. They cannot agree on where the bathroom is. Indeed, they can hardly agree what the bathroom is. At what point in the history of this university, or any university, do you remember them acting together bravely and saying: Enough! We stand together!”

  Silence for a time. Then:

  “Of course, you remember no such time! It should have happened when they saw their classroom podiums being filled by these terribly-compensated and completely unrespected adjunct faculty. They should have stood as one then and said no. Teaching here is a revered profession and it will only be done by people adequately paid and professionally treated. They should have done that for the honor of their profession, if not for the realization that they were watching the growth of the very class that was being groomed to destroy them.”

  She took a sip of wine and shook her head.

  “I’m not an ogre,” she said, softly. “On Monday––because we’re going to have a great many more students and will need teachers––I will offer all of the full-time faculty who have signed up for early retirement, another option. They may stay on here, on with the new faculty. Of course, people such as Arthur Whittington will cheerfully agree, because Arthur’s very existence, his very core, is teaching. But they will all work for what everyone else does, and they will bloody well teach ten sections a year. If they don’t wish to do this––many will not be able to tolerate it, because many despise teaching––well, they will simply need to find another university to fund this cutting edge research of theirs.”

  A pause. Then:

  “People have for so many years simply tolerated professors, thinking them eccentric and essentially useless, but not harmful. Old Professor Suggs, strolling around the campus, mumbling poetry to himself.”

  She leaned forward:

  “And that remains true to a certain extent for the faculty we now find ourselves supporting. They are indeed useless. But harmless? They are taking our money, and giving us nothing back for it. I don’t find that harmless.”

  Then, breathing deeply, she continued:

  “Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world. Indeed, that’s the only thing that ever has.”

  “Margaret Mead.”

  “Very good, Nina. And now I must ask. The job I offered you this morning––”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you decided to take it? Will you join my small group of dedicated people?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it the work?”

  “No. No, I believe in the work. I didn’t. I thought at first you were crazy. But now I believe in you. No, it’s not the job.”

  “Is it Rick Barnes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you in love with him?”

  “No. But I find myself wanting to be where he is.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s just walking. And thinking.”

  “About?”

  “The same things I’m thinking about. We’re going to meet in half an hour or so at a wine bar on Hacker Street.”

  “I know it well. It’s an Ellerton fixture. Thomas and I used to go there often, alone or with faculty colleagues. You’ll like it.”

  “It’s not the bar I’m thinking about.”

  “But rather?”

  “What he’s going to ask me.”

  “And that would be?”

  Nina shrugged:

  “That’s what he’s almost certainly thinking about now, while he walks. He’s thinking about whether he should ask me to come back with him to his house. Just for a glass of cognac, or something like that. He’s wondering if he should invite me; I’m wondering if I should go.”

  “Nothing wrong with a glass of cognac.”

  “No, except it wouldn’t be for cognac and both of us know that. If I go home with him tonight I’m going to bed with him.”

  “And you don’t know whether you want to do that, and that’s bothering you.”

  “The thing that’s bothering me is, I do know whether I want to do that. I just don’t know whether I should do that. And that’s a question not even Jane Austen can help me answer.”

  “Well. I know which answer I’m hoping that you choose, Nina. You and Rick are two of my favorite people. If you stay with him, then you’ll be a part of the new Ellerton. And everybody wins.”

  “I don’t know. It’s been so long.”

  “You’re still a vibrant woman, Nina. You have a great deal of life in front of you. Savor it. And work with me.”

  “It’s tempting. I have to go now, Lucinda.”

  “I know you do. Order the house Chardonnay.”

  Nina rose and walked toward the door.

  “There is, of course,” she said over her shoulder, “somebody else who’s going to have to agree with this.”

  “Frank?”

  She shook her head.

  “Furl.”

  And, so saying, she left the residence.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE WINE BAR AND THE WALK

  Those knowledgeable with the Ellerton area know there is a wine bar on Hacker Street, which skirts the east side of the campus. Hacker Street is not busy. A few students live there, a few retired professors. But it’s tree-lined, with crumbling sidewalks and fallen down fences. There’s no traffic to speak of except the occasional bicycle taking a student to class, or ambulance taking a dying ex-professor to the emergency ward, or a dead one to the morgue.

  One can go upstairs in the wine bar, sit by a curtained window, listen to the tinkle of piano music wafting up from the lounge downstairs, order a Chardonnay, and—sometimes in January––watch the soft fall of blue-white snow outside, through the trees.

  There was no snow now, of course.

  But otherwise, everything was exactly as it should have been.

  This angered Nina, who’d hoped for a small explosion, a gas leak, a robbery, or something else that might have made ordinary conversation impossible.

  But as it happened, nothing.

  Drat.

  “So, how did the talk with Herndon go?”

  “As well as could be expected. She asked me if I wanted the job.”

  “The job of finding teachers, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That I hadn’t made up my mind yet.”

  Silence for a time.

  Rick:

  “She must be excited about the night. She’s won. She’s beaten them all.”

  “She knows that, but I don’t know how excited she seemed. It’s as though she had the whole thing planned from the first.”

  Nina sipped her cold white wine and continued:

  “No surprises. She knew what the faculty were going to do—the old, fired, faculty, that is––and what the administrators—bureaucrats, she would call them—were going to do—and what the provost was going to do. Except for the fight he had with you. She didn’t plan that.”

  “Neither did I. I’ve never liked that guy. We’ve clashed before on things I’ve written. We’re known enemies. I told him once in public to go to hell, and he shouted back at me that I should––well, it doesn’t matter. But when he brought you into the thing—damn, I wish I could have broken his neck.”

  “Good that you didn’t.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anyway, he got what was com
ing to him. Early retirement.”

  They both sat for a time, listening to a rising wind in the trees just beyond the upstairs window.

  “It’s nice here,” she said, quietly.

  “Yeah. One of my favorite places.”

  “Did you have a good walk?” she asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I don’t remember that, either.”

  “So, had you been drinking?”

  “Wish I had. Would be easier now, if I were drunk.”

  “Well, you could probably just go on drinking Chardonnay.”

  “You think that might make it easier?”

  “Might, you never can tell.”

  “Do you want to go to bed with me, Rick?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Then let’s pay the bill and go.”

  And they did.

  The only thing she was later to remember about the walk back to Rick’s was how comfortable it was. A thunderstorm had hit, but that did not matter. The low rumblings from scudding clouds, the flashes of lightning illuminating the dark, night sky, the spattering rain, which soaked them as they walked together, her arm around his waist—all of this merely added to the feeling of belonging, of being on the right street at the right time.

  “When did you know?” he asked, quietly.

  “The first night,” she answered.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “I tried not to think about it, but every time I tried not to think about it, I realized I was thinking about it. About you. Then yesterday when I saw your house—all I could do was see me in it.”

  “It’s a comfortable house. It’s going to get more comfortable now, though.”

  “I hope so. I hope you won’t find me—underfoot.”

  “That is,” he said, squeezing her softly with the palm that was resting on her shoulder, “the last place I expect to find you.”

  They turned a corner.

  The rain eased slightly, but she could hear it splashing in the thick leaves of oak trees which, like she and Rick, seemed to be holding hands above them, their branches intertwined.

  “You’re talking the job, I assume.”