Higher Education

by Lisa Pliscou

  “’Scuse me,” a voice whispers. “Y’all got any books on the meanin’ of life?”

  “Michael.” I finish aligning Plato’s Republic on top of Nausea. “It’s only the philosophy library.”

  “An’ I thought I’d come to the right place.” He walks around the desk and pulls up a chair close to mine. “What’s doin’, kitten? Metaphysically speakin’, of course.”

  “Oh, the usual. Nothing but angst, angst, and more angst.” I close my notebook and look at him. “After last night’s suppertime tragedies, I’m sort of afraid to return the question.”

  “It ain’t too bad.”

  “Really?”

  “Try me.”

  “Okay. How’s everything?”

  “I wouldn’t know. But my baby brother got himself into Yale, Brown, Princeton, an’ Columbia.”

  “You’re right. That’s not too bad.”

  “There’s more.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Harvard wait-listed him, y’see, an’ my mother’s about ready to curl up an’ die. Speakin’ of angst. Guess I came to the right place after all.”

  He laughs, and someone over in the nonsmoking area makes a loud shushing noise. Robbins is another one of those tiny obscure departmental libraries, so small that it’s divided into three sections by means of two massive bookcases that do little to ensure auditory privacy. Smirking at Michael, I roll my eyes and rattle the keys to the front door, another of my crass tactics to close up the place as near to ten o’clock as I can possibly manage.

  “Am I makin’ too much noise?” Michael whispers. “I don’t wanna get you in any trouble.”

  “Are you kidding?” I say loudly. Then I lower my voice and lean close. “Hey, I heard this great joke today.”

  “Y’all gonna try’n cheer me up?”

  “I know you’ll love this. Why did the elephant cross the road?”

  “I dunno. Why?”

  “Because it was the chicken’s day off.”

  Our laughter is hushed from the next section over, whether by the same sourpuss as before it’s hard to tell. As I’m reaching for the keys again, the door opens and the stooped Phil 169 student steps diffidently up to the desk. “Sorry to bother you,” he whispers, “but has the—”

  “As a matter of fact it has.”

  “Oh, good. May I—”

  “Sorry, we’re closing in a few minutes. Reserve readings don’t go out for overnight circulation.”

  He looks at his wristwatch. “It’s only twenty till.”

  Michael nudges me. “That’s enough time to get it Xeroxed, ain’t it?”

  “Eh?” I frown at them both. “Oh, all right.” I shove the folder at him. “But bring it back before closing time.”

  “I will. Thank you.” Holding the folder close against his concave chest, he turns and scuds out into the hallway.

  Three people straggle by, their bags receiving the idlest of glances from me. “I know what you’re thinking, Michael,” I say, smiling crookedly. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.”

  He doesn’t return my smile. “You know, darlin’, you can be kinda ornery now’n again.”

  “Oh, Michael, it’s a jungle out there. Believe me, I know.” I take his hand and hold it to my cheek. His skin is warm and smells faintly of Paco Rabonne. “Hey, have you been buying cologne behind my back?”

  He just looks at me, and after a little while I let go of his hand. “I mean, you smell nice.”

  The door opens and the Phil 169 chap returns. “The department copier is working again,” he says, in the tone of one who has just witnessed a healing at Lourdes.

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “Yes.” Tenderly he hands me the folder. “Thanks again for your help.”

  I feel an odd stab of—what? Remorse? “You’re welcome.”

  “Well, good night.” He starts to open his satchel for me but I wave him away. “Thanks, miss. Have a good evening.”

  “You too.” I stand up and start rattling the keys again. “Closing time, folks,” I call out. Prowling through the other two sections I find only Raphael Manini, star philosophy graduate student, celebrated wunderkind of the department, ace teaching fellow and already a published author of several articles on postmodern existentialism. “Hey, Raphael. It’s closing time.”

  Using his folded arms for a pillow, Raphael snores peacefully with his head face-down on the tabletop.

  “Hey. Wake up. It’s time to go.” I tap his shoulder.

  “Wha?” Abruptly he bolts straight up in his chair, unfocused eyes blinking in terror. “Jesus,” he gasps. “Why’d you creep up on me like that?”

  “It’s my job,” I explain. “It’s closing time.”

  “Oh.” Still batting his eyes, he twitches his shirt into place. “I guess that means you’re kicking me out.”

  “There’s a Holiday Inn a few blocks away.”

  “That’s okay. I can take a hint.” Slowly he collects his books, papers, pens, pencils, slide rule, Scotch tape, compass, rubber bands, eyeglasses, cigarettes, lighter, and miniature stapler and stuffs them into a crisp white Lord & Taylor shopping bag and stands up. Yawning, he takes a comb out of his back pocket and runs it through what’s left of his hair. “You a philosophy major?” he asks me for the twentieth time.

  “No, I’m an East Asian–studies major.” Last time I was majoring in folklore and mythology. The time before that, as I recall, it was biology.

  “No wonder I never see you in any of my courses.”

  “Well.” I clear my throat. “I’ll just be closing up now, I guess.”

  “Interested in auditing Phil 180? I know it’s a little late in the semester, but I’ll help you catch up on the reading list.”

  “Maybe next term.” I drift back to my desk, where Michael is stamping the desk blotter with the ROBBINS LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY ink stamp, humming under his breath.

  “Having fun, darling?” Perching on the arm of his chair, I breathe in the warm familiar scent of his neck.

  “Simple pleasures, gal.”

  The phone rings, and I reach over Michael to pick up the receiver. “Robbins. Can I help you?”

  “Well?”

  “Hi, Jessie. How are you?”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Well, are you?”

  “Well, am I what?”

  “Don’t be a dope, Miranda,” she says crossly.

  “Oh.” I nod farewell to Raphael, who furtively grips his Lord & Taylor bag to his abdomen. “No, I guess I’m not.”

  “Well, thank god. You dumbshit.”

  “Hey,” I protest. “You’ve already called me a dumbshit today.” I snatch my hand away from Michael, who’s begun stamping my forearm with the date stamp which he has set for June 24, his birthday. “Can’t you think of another nasty name to call me?”

  “You’re absolutely right. I apologize.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Thank you. Shithead.”

  “Derivative, but it’ll have to do. Why am I a shithead?”

  “Thanks for letting me know, shithead. What do you think I’ve been doing all day, out shopping for little pink booties?”

  “Oh dear.” I clamp a hand across my forehead. “I’m sorry, Jessie. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay, jerk.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “Ha.”

  “At least not this week.”

  “That’s more like it. Hey, cut that out.” I hear Sutter giggling in the background.

  I let go of my forehead. “Tell Sutter I’ll scratch his eyes out if he so much as lays a hand on you.”

  “Miranda says hello,” she says loudly.

  “I hate it when you translate.”

  “Look, I’ve got to run. The commercials are over.”

  “I understand.”

  “Hey, are you still going out with the boy wonder tonight?”

  �
��I guess so.” I steal a glance at Michael, who’s now carving his initials into the desktop with his Swiss army knife.

  “Well, have fun. If you can call it that.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know I think he’s boring.”

  “I don’t see what—”

  “Different strokes, though, I always say.”

  “Don’t be disgusting.”

  “And speaking of scratching eyes out, hope you don’t run into Jennifer on the way over.”

  “Thanks for the good wishes.”

  “You know it, dope.” She hangs up.

  Michael’s back to the date stamp, imprinting the back of my notebook with June 24, working his way downward in neat vertical rows. “Hey, are you trying to tell me something?” I lean forward to breathe at his nape again. “How many more shopping days is it, anyway?”

  “Anythin’ wrong?” He doesn’t look up from my notebook.

  “No, why?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah?” Now he turns his head to look at me. His face is very close to mine, and I find myself studying the mossy green-brown of his eyes and the fine silky arch of his brows.

  “Of course I am.” I stand up. “Can’t complain. What time is it?”

  “Ten-fifteen.”

  “Darling, will you stop staring at me? I’ve got to run. I’m not paid for overtime, you know.”

  “I was gonna ask you if you wanted to mosey over to Piroshka’s with me for a cappuccino.”

  “I can’t tonight, Michael.” I’m twitching into my jacket. “But I’ll take a raincheck, okay?”

  “Sure, okay.” He stands up too.

  I’m tossing my notebook, pens, and thesaurus into my bag. “Let’s get out of here.” I wait at the door while he places the stamps and ink pad in a corner of the blotter and then pushes in the desk chair. He comes toward me and I hold the door open for him to pass. Instead, he pauses in front of me.

  “Are you really okay?”

  “I’m really okay, Michael. But I’m sort of late for something. And I just totally blew off a whole evening’s worth of Soc Sci 33 reading.”

  “You’re worryin’ ’bout Soc Sci 33?”

  “You don’t have a two-hundred-pound section leader breathing down your neck, do you?”

  We walk into the hallway and I lock the door behind us. We’re silent as we leave Emerson and descend the steps into Mem Yard.

  “Michael.”

  “What.”

  “Knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Kant.”

  “Kant who?”

  “Canteloupe’s always better than watermelon.” I look up into his face, trying to see if he’s smiling. “Get it? Kant-elope?”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “Funny, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to laugh if you don’t want to.” There’s a full moon tonight. Fat and pearlescent, it casts a spectral white light that shimmers off Widener’s immense proscenium and smooth high creamy-colored columns. “Hey, I’ve been telling all the jokes tonight.” I touch his sleeve. “It’s your turn now.”

  “Sorry.” He moves his shoulders restlessly. “Don’t feel like it.”

  “Michael?”

  “Yep.”

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Oh, not a whole lot. Gotta make a few phone calls, I guess.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you be a little more specific?”

  “Sure. Somethin’ like, No Ma, I don’t know anybody in the admissions office, but if you want, I’ll try sleepin’ with the Dean’s wife to see if it’ll get Daniel off the waitin’ list.”

  “Michael.”

  “Yep?” His smile is unnaturally bright, and all at once I’m assailed by the feeling that I’m forgetting something. Shit. What is it? Somebody over in one of the Yard dorms is playing “Stairway to Heaven” at full volume on his stereo. A couple passes by us, hand in hand, and then I realize that I’m supposed to be meeting Dean right about now. What time is it? But I seem to have missed a beat or two; already Michael is turning away.

  “Well, so long, gal.”

  “Michael.”

  “What?”

  His skin looks pale and luminescent in the moonlight. The sockets of his eyes are flooded with blue-black shadow and I can’t make out his expression.

  “You’re coming to the master’s tea tomorrow afternoon, aren’t you?”

  “Hadn’t thought ’bout it.”

  “It’ll be a gas,” I say, cajolingly. “I hear there’ll be brownies.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good. I’ll see you there.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, come on. Cucumber sandwiches, and we can see and be seen by the beautiful people.”

  “Now I’m changin’ my mind.”

  “Don’t.” I still can’t see his face clearly enough to read his intent. “So I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? And don’t forget you owe me a cappuccino.”

  “No’m,” he says. “I won’t forget.”

  I tiptoe down the tiny cramped steps into the Ha’Penny and see Dean standing in front of the jukebox, looking at the song titles, his head bent over the arched glass panel.

  Softly I say: “Got a quarter, buddy?”

  “Oh, hi.” He looks at me with his quick enigmatic smile.

  “Play ‘Brass in Pocket,’ will you?”

  “I was just looking.”

  “Oh.” A rush of childish disappointment floods my chest for a second. “Me too.”

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Are you? I thought I was.” I look at my watch and laugh airily.

  Dean glances down too, and then he bends closer. “How come your watch says twelve-thirty?”

  “It’s broken.”

  “Those real sapphires?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Nice. Birthday present from your parents?”

  I keep the smile fixed on my face. “No, my grandmother gave it to me. She said she liked her Timex better.”

  “Oh. Can’t you get it repaired?”

  “I don’t know. I never tried.”

  “Oh.”

  We take a table in the very back. “God, I love this place,” I say, slipping into my chair. “The cute little tables, the candles.” The convenient amnesia of the cocktail waitresses. “The ambience.”

  “Yeah.” Dean takes a pack of Camels from his blazer pocket, taps one free, places it between his lips and lights it, accomplishing this all in one graceful motion. He takes a deep drag, and coughs. “Shit, my bronchitis.” He inhales again, more delicately.

  “What can I get you?” Our waitress, a ponytailed brunette wearing pink-trimmed Tretorns, stands before us with her tray poised.

  Dean looks at me. “You go ahead,” I say, unable to make up my mind.

  “Dewar’s and water,” he says. “Twist. Three cubes.” Then they both look at me again. Dean’s knees, I note, are touching mine under the table.

  “I—I—oh, well.” I smile weakly. “How about a greyhound.”

  “Sure thing.” She winks at me and goes off.

  In her wake there is a brief silence. I press my lips together, wondering if I’ve recently applied lipstick, and if so, what shade it might possibly be. God, I hope it’s not that loud fire-engine red I pilfered from Jessica’s desk last week.

  “Did that girl just wink at you?”

  “Did she? Oh, it’s probably just a nervous tic.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a very high-pressure job here, you know.” I’m picturing the worn blue denim of his Levis against my own black trousers. Caught between a delicious sensation of clandestine exhilaration and doubt as to whether he’s even noticed, I’m afraid to move my body from the waist down. I slide the pretzel basket his way. “Pretzel?”

  “No t
hanks.” He’s looking at me, his hazel eyes almost violet in the light, and my fingers stay curled around the basket. We remain like this for what feels like a long time. When somebody calls out my name I jump in my chair, and look around to see Pablo Esperanto coming toward us at full lope.

  “Well, hi!”

  Dean reaches for another cigarette, and I let go of the pretzels.

  “Hey, hey.” Pablo waves as if we were in fact twenty paces apart. “What’s going on, kids?”

  “Hey, Pabs.” I show my teeth in a barbed smile. “What’s up, dude?”

  “Oh, just finished another silly rehearsal for a concert in Mem Hall I promised to do.” He sighs. “And the New York Philharmonic won’t stop pestering me.”

  “Really? Do you owe them money?”

  His lips thin. “They want me to join.”

  “Ah.” He’s certainly got the physique for a concert pianist, I muse, with his tall slender body, fiery dark eyes, and long tapering fingers. Less attractive is his proclivity for describing in brain-numbing detail both his royal Castilian lineage and the contents of his parents’ loft on Spring Street. “Why?”

  “Maybe they think I’m good.”

  “Ah.”

  “So Deano. What’s new?” Smiling now, Pablo looks down at me. He knows I know he’s a good friend of Dean’s girlfriend Jennifer. “Tell me everything.”

  When Dean does not reply, I tilt back in my chair, gazing up into Pablo’s swarthy face. “Oh, we’ve just been sitting here criticizing the English department.” Once again I’m trying to figure out exactly why Jessica dated him for all of three weeks. “What else do English majors talk about?” It occurs to me he might look awfully good in tails.

  “Good question. You guys talk about grammar? Punctuation? Conjugating the verb?” He leers, revealing a set of large, rather yellow teeth.

  “I like to think we’re a little more highbrow than that.”

  Just then our waitress muscles her way to our table, and with a superbly aimed elbow forces Pablo to step back a pace.

  “Here we go. A greyhound and a Dewar’s water.” She smiles at me as Dean pulls out his wallet. “New haircut?”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh.” She takes Dean’s five-dollar bill. “I mean, I like your haircut.”

  “Keep the change,” I say loudly.