by Lila Younger
Not that I will. I’ve got more important things to think about. I stride out the door and walk quickly back to my office. The building is connected to the professors’ offices on the first floor, so I have to go all the way back down before I can go up to my own office. The halls are quiet; either there are classes going on, or most of them have dismissed earlier than I have, since some professors only hand out the syllabus for the first day. The girl was on the top floor of the building just before class. The only reason she would be heading up and then back down was because she’s lost or she made a mistake.
My mind is running over the possible ways I could figure out which class she is supposed to belong in as I step out of the elevator of the third floor where all the Art professors have their offices. Art History belongs in the gray area between Art and History, so we don’t get our own floor at a small university like this one. I give our secretary Hilda a distracted smile as I pass, and then head over to my office. I turn the corner and groan. I don’t need this right now.
“Taylor,” Barry Bergman barks. “What are you doing here?”
“I finished my class Barry,” I say patiently. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
I try to go around the man, but he blocks my way.
“Hold on. You dismissed class thirty minutes early?”
“Yes,” I say impatiently. “Most teachers don’t teach on the first day.”
“But aren’t you teaching 101 today? That’s a lot of material you need to get through. Are you sure you should be letting students out early? You wouldn’t want to run out of time at the end of the year.” Barry’s voice makes it clear that that is exactly what he hopes would happen to me.
“I’ve got everything planned out. Now if you’ll excuse me, you’re standing in front of my door.”
I wait a beat, just long enough to be polite, then push past him to my office. I can feel Barry’s glare following me until I close the door. I wish I could slam it, but I won’t give him the satisfaction.
I’ve enjoyed art for as long as I could remember. When I was a kid, my favorite activity was finger painting, especially all over my bedspread and my mom’s fancy wallpaper. As I grew up, I realized that while I had dedication, raw talent was in short supply, so I started focusing on art history instead. I’m not bitter about it, just honest with myself. And luckily, as the fourth son, I wasn’t expected to do much of anything, so I could indulge in whatever caught my fancy. I genuinely want to teach, as surprising as it was to my parents, and so after I got my Ph.D. I decided to apply here, knowing that while my family doesn’t own the university anymore, my name might get me a foot in the door at least.
Which is where Barry comes in. He’s an assistant professor, and as far as I can tell, he was next in line before I showed up. So on the one hand, I can understand why the guy is pissed off. On the other hand, I’d worked my way up myself, and you can’t buy a summa cum laude from Harvard no matter how much money you throw at the institution, so it’s not like I wasn’t qualified for the job. All he can see is my last name, and he’s convinced I bought myself his position, so he’s determined to try and trip me up. Yet another reason for me to not get involved with a student. Old Barry would happily take that to the Dean.
I push the thought of trying to find the mystery student out of my head as I hang my coat on a hook and throw my briefcase onto my desk. The little office isn’t much. A big L shaped desk takes up most of the space, and my books take up the rest. I had to bring in extra bookshelves myself as they didn’t come with the room. I’ve got a perfect view of the parking lot and the top of meal hall out my window too. The walls are thin too, and I’ve sometimes overheard my colleague on either side of me on the phone. But it’s my name on the plate on the door, and I’m damn proud of the space.
Forget about Barry, I think. I’ve got more important things to do, like figuring out how to cram what’s left of today’s lectures into Wednesday’s class, and sorting out the three other classes I’m expected to teach this year. Too bad forgetting about the beauty I bumped into this morning is much, much harder.
Chapter 3
Kaitlyn
The day finally starts turning around by lunchtime. I guess maybe God decided I had enough of the rough start. I had lunch with Tiffany at meal hall, where I filled her in on my encounter. Then, after buying our schoolbooks, we split for our afternoon class. She’s an econ major and determined to become a CEO of a company someday. If it wasn’t for the lucky fact that we were roomies during our freshman year, we would never have become friends.
My afternoon class is in Ancient Chinese Art, a class that I had to take to complete my major. I have no real interest in Asian art (I’m planning to write my thesis on the Renaissance), but at least I have my friend Jason in it. He’s really tall, enough that he always gets those ‘how is it going up there’ jokes, and gangly too, like a telephone pole. He’s already saved me a seat beside him and waves me over as soon as he sees me. I put my backpack down and look around. Upper level classes are much smaller so they are usually held in small classrooms as opposed to the theatre style seating of the 101 classes. Ancient Chinese Art only has ten students total, so I don’t get to talk much with Jason except to exchange winter break stories, until after the class is over and we’re all packing up.
“Do you know what happened to our Western Medieval Art class this morning? I didn’t get an email,” I said.
“It got moved to the first floor. Apparently someone stole the projector in the room we were supposed to be in,” Jason says. “Are you sure you’re registered in the class? Everyone got the email last night.”
Last night… Well I know what I was doing last night, but I wasn’t anywhere near a computer.
“I guess I better send Prof. Klein an email,” I say with a sigh. I already have so much stuff I need to do. Why is it that winter semester always feels way more rushed that fall? And then I remember about the professor this morning. If there’s somebody who would know who he is, it’s Jason.
“Hey, do you know anything about a new professor at the school?” I ask him.
Jason is the editor-in-chief of the TAU Chronicle, a weekly student newspaper. He’s worked his way up from junior reporter and takes the job very seriously, so if anyone would know the dirt, it would be him.
“Maybe,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. “You’ll just have to read it tomorrow with the rest of them.”
Sometimes he takes his job too seriously.
“Come on,” I say. “You really can’t tell me?”
“It’s a pretty big deal. I don’t want the story getting leaked. I think a lot of people are going to be very surprised.”
He makes the zipping motion over his mouth and mimes throwing away the key. Jason and I have been friends since freshman year, and I’ve never spilled the beans on anything he’s ever told me. I’m actually a little insulted. But this also means the new professor’s a big deal, and now I’m more curious than ever. But who could I ask, if not Jason? I haven’t heard anything about a faculty member retiring either…
“Well, I have to go if you’re not going to tell me anything,” I say as I glance over at the clock in the wall. “I’ve got my thesis meeting.”
“How is that going for you by the way?”
I scrunch my face.
“That bad huh?” he says with a laugh. “Good luck.”
We part ways outside the classroom and I make my way over to the office building. I see a few people I know, but I don’t have time to catch up so I just wave and hurry on. It bothers me when people are late, so I really don’t like to be late either. Once I get out on the third floor I breathe a sigh. I have just over a minute. I see Hilda the secretary and exchange smiles, but then she waves me over.
“Kaitlyn,” she says, her voice low. “There’s been a slight change. You have a new thesis adviser, Prof. Taylor. I know you really liked Prof. Joseph, but he’s not around this semester.”
“What? Can he just do that? Leave
in the middle of the school year?”
I don’t want to sound upset, but I can’t help it. I really liked Prof. Joseph and I feel a bit abandoned almost. He was like a mentor to me, and he had promised that he would be my reference for graduate school too. I’ve never taken a class with Prof. Taylor. How the hell could they expect me to work with him now with only a few months left before my thesis presentation?
“I’m sorry honey,” Hilda says sympathetically. “But it’s already done. Prof. Taylor comes to us very highly recommended. He’s in Prof. Joseph’s old office. I think you’ll find that you like working with him.”
My thoughts are whirling around so fast I don’t catch the tone of her last words. I walk down the hallway, upset and more than a little worried. Prof. Joseph understood that I was a bit of a procrastinator, and that I did my best work last minute. But this new guy wouldn’t know that. He wouldn’t understand the fact that my being a quarter behind schedule isn’t a big deal. I get to the closed door and scowl. The guy’s already ripped down the funny Art History comic strips that Prof. Joseph printed and put up. Some of those have been there for years. Who did he think he was? Did that mean that the change is permanent?
I knock on the door, ready to be a pill, but that flies out of my mind as soon as the door opens.
“Hi,” Prof. Taylor says. I watch his face turn to surprise as he recognizes me. At least that makes two of us. “You.”
“Me,” I say.
If I was hoping to fix his first impression of me, that hope just flew out the window.
“Come in,” he says recovering quicker than me. He holds out his hand, and I take it. He’s got callouses on his fingers, something I wouldn’t expect from an academic at all. His handshake is warm and confident, and I have to work not to jump at the touch. “Kaitlyn right?”
“Yes. And you’re Prof. Taylor?”
“That’s right.”
He moves fluidly through the room as though he owns it (which he does I guess), his loping gait covering the small space in seconds. He’s redecorated, that’s for sure. The lovely wooden bookshelves weren’t there before, and it is, shall we say, tidier? Than when Prof. Joseph was here. He sits down in his office chair and gestures for me to take a seat too. I jerk forward into the small office and sit down, still putting the facts altogether.
“What happened to Prof. Joseph?” I ask.
“It’s not really my place to talk about that,” he says matter-of-factly. “I can say that he won’t be coming back for the semester. Now, since I myself have a focus in the Italian Renaissance, I’ve been assigned to be your thesis adviser. You can of course, pick someone else if that would make you more comfortable.”
“No! I mean, it’s okay. I don’t mind working with you.”
“That’s great. You’ll be my first thesis student.”
He flashes me a megawatt smile that makes my entire body heat up. Maybe he’s forgiven me for earlier then.
“Look at me,” he says suddenly. “I haven’t even offered you anything to drink. Did you want coffee? Tea? Water?”
“I wouldn’t mind a coffee Prof. Taylor,” I say.
He jumps up.
“Two coffee’s then. I’ll be right back. And call me Ian. In the meantime, feel free to set your work out.”
Of course that’s not what I do. Instead, as soon as he leaves the room, I pull out my phone and text Tif about the news. Then I hop onto Google. I’m surprised there’s a Wikipedia entry on him. Ian Taylor, thirty years old (eight years isn’t a terribly huge gap…), born June 19th, currently residing in New York City (I guess they hadn’t updated it yet), the son of-I stare for a moment at the screen. No way, I think. He’s that Taylor? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Tiffany messages me back in all caps ‘YOU’RE SO LUCKY! YOU HAVE TO SEDUCE HIM!!!!’ and I’m just about to reply when he shows back up, a look of irritation on his face. I stuff my phone out of sight.
“The coffee machine’s broken. But tell you what: it’s a beautiful day outside. Let’s go walk and get some coffee down at the student union building.”
“The coffee’s terrible there. But I do know of a place in the downtown where we can get better ones,” I say.
“’Downtown huh?” he says with a wry smile. “I’m not sure you could call it that.”
“I guess it’s not much compared to New York.” The words came out of me before I could realize, but instead of wondering how I knew he smiled.
“Took a peek at my credentials then?” he says, waving his hand at the degrees on his wall. “Don’t be too impressed. The campuses might be bigger, but you can get the same quality of education here at TAU.”
He grabs his coat, a perfectly tailored black wool coat with double breasted buttons and wide shoulders he had no trouble filling out, and we leave his office. We don’t say anything until we are out of the building and walking through the campus. It was a nice day out, despite the cold. As soon as we are out, Ian seems to relax, and so do I. It’s weird, because I can’t imagine ever doing this with Prof. Joseph. The guy was nice to me, but very proper, almost overly so. The office door was never closed, and we definitely never called each other by our first names.
“So,” he says. “I guess we should get to know each other a bit if we’re going to make a go at this. What was your reason for picking Art History?”
“I loved art when I was a kid. Whenever I went to my grandmother’s we would draw, paint, and look through her art books. It was amazing to me as a kid because I really struggled with reading, but a picture, that I could understand easily. And then as I grew older, I realized that there were more messages and symbols in art that people have been using it for ages that way to broadcast views and stories and beliefs, and that drew me to art history.”
“Did you ever want to make art yourself?”
“No,” I say seriously. “I don’t have that kind of talent.”
Ian gives me a half smile that makes me heart beat twice as fast. He was intimidatingly handsome when I didn’t know him, but now, just walking together like this, almost in our own bubble, made him even more attractive. I felt that same little flame of desire spark in my core and settle between my legs.
“Me neither,” he says. “I’m just like you in that respect.”
His comment makes me blush and I totally lose my train of thought. It isn’t until a couple steps later that I realize he kept talking and I tune back in just in time.
“And what’s your plan after you graduate?”
“Oh, I-I would love to be a curator of a museum,” I say quickly. “MoMA maybe, or the Seattle Art Museum in state.”
“You aim high.”
He doesn’t look incredulous or anything, even though I named two of the top museums in the country. In fact he looks impressed.
“Grandma always said that I’d only achieve as much as I expect of myself,” I say, suddenly shy.
I’ve never really said out loud how much I’d like to work at those places. Only to my Grandma, who’s always been the one to push for me to work hard and do what I want. My parents, on the other hand, don’t care what I do as long as I don’t fail and make a fool of them. I’m not even sure that I’ve ever told them what I want to do. They’ve never asked after all.
“Your Grandma is a wise woman,” he says. “Do we turn left or right here?”
“It’s actually just across the street,” I say as I point it out.
The main drag of our little town is picturesque and quaint, with old homes that were renovated into commercial space. Each house is painted with a bright color, and there are even olden style plaques hanging with the name and a picture to show what type of store it was. In the spring and summer time, hanging baskets of flowers were hung, giving it even more of a postcard feel of small town America.
We cross the street over to Joe’s Joes, owned, quite obviously, by Joe. It was housed in a tiny little red bungalow, and had a big porch for customers to sit on in the summer. Ian pulls the door open for me, jang
ling the silver bell. Inside was warm and steamy, and filled with the delicious scent of coffee and fresh baked goods. The place was already full of students. It always is, partly because Joe never pushes anyone out. I think he opened up the coffee shop for fun more than anything, because he’s definitely old enough to be retired by now. One of my favorite reasons for coming here were the gourmet donuts that Joe made in house, which I pointed out to Ian as we waited in line.
“You’ll have to tell me about all the town’s little secrets,” he said with a smile. “I could use a local guide.”
“Sure. I could do that,” I say faintly. “There’s a fantastic place down the road that serves the best late night pizza. Everyone hits it up after the bars on Friday night.”
It occurs to me that his tastes could be a bit more refined than that, but his eyes light up.
“That sounds fantastic. Does it also serve wings?”
“No, but the bar actually has a great wing/trivia night. The History Department has a team you could probably join. They almost always place first or second.”
“And what about you? Where do you rank?”
“Actually, we sort of go for the cheap wings and beer,” I confess, and he laughs. It’s a clear, bold laugh of pure delight, and I’m thrilled that it’s because of something I said.
“I think I’d rather be on your team then,” he says.
My mouth goes dry and I drop my gaze down to my feet because he’s smiling, but there’s an intensity to his gaze that makes me wonder if he doesn’t mean something else. Or maybe I’m wishing for something else. I don’t say anything because it’s not just my team I want him to be on. It’s so easy to talk to him, which surprises me because I’ve never been really good at talking to guys I like in general. For a few seconds I even forget that he’s my professor and I’m his student. That of course, nothing could or would ever happen. Why would it? Ian could get anyone he wants. He doesn’t need a student.
I’m saved from saying something by the barista who comes to take our order. Ian gets a plain black coffee and a maple bacon donut on my recommendation, while I opt for the triple chocolate and caramel donut. The barista must be affected by his square jaw and startling gold eyes too, because I see her slip in a second donut for him. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten anything for free, but then again, I’m not Ian Taylor. Unfortunately, there aren’t any tables left for us to sit down at. I feel myself deflate, and I realize that I don’t want our conversation to be over so quickly. Somehow being off campus has taken the pressure off. I like it. We leave Joe’s Joes and I turn toward campus again, but then Ian speaks up.