by Karis Walsh
“Perfect,” they said at the same time after tasting the concoction.
Berit laughed. “It’s a great ale on its own, but the lavender brings out the hoppy taste even more than usual in an IPA.”
“And the basil gives an almost minty bite. Thank you,” Tace said, putting their spoons and glasses in the sink. “Your omelet gave me the idea for this.”
Berit shook her head. “I put a few herbs from your garden and pantry into some eggs. You were the one who picked out the ideal ones to complement the beer. You might have a real gift for this.”
Tace shook her head with a derisive laugh. “I got lucky. Maybe other people will like it, too, and I’ll be able to sell the place before I have to sink all my money into it.”
She filled the sink with sudsy water and started washing the breakfast dishes. Berit’s comment made her feel a flicker of hope, but she snuffed it out as quickly as she could. She’d learned not to give those little flames a chance to burn too long or they’d threaten to consume her when they were doused by reality.
“I have to get to work in an hour, but I can take you grocery shopping after my shift. I’ll go to the brewery later this evening.”
“Don’t worry about me today. Kim is coming to take me to the college. I have to find my office and take care of some paperwork before classes start. I guess I’ll look through those textbooks, too, while I’m there. On the way home last night, I saw a grocery store just a couple blocks away. I’ll have her drop me there when I’m done, and then I can make it back here by myself.”
Tace submerged her hands in the hot water and felt disappointment when she should have been relieved. Berit had other friends and was becoming independent more quickly than Tace had anticipated. Soon she would be busy with classes and students, and even these occasional meals together would end. Berit wouldn’t need her for long, and neither would the failing brewery. Tace had been happy enough with her life—or at least resigned to it—before these two new obligations had been thrust upon her. Now the idea of going back to nothing but her work at the store and occasional moments of relief in the wilderness or in a bar made her feel a sense of loss. She imagined herself going to the Blue and seeing Berit there with another woman, drinking beer from a tap that had Tace’s former brewery’s label on it.
She wiped a plate clean with a blue sponge and wiped away the picture of Berit as well. “If you don’t need me, I guess I’ll ride out to the brewery instead of driving. It’s on one of my favorite bike trails.”
“A bike-trail brewery. That should help bring more customers out your way.”
She left the kitchen, and Tace let one of the beer glasses slip from her soapy fingers. It plopped into the water and settled, unbroken, on the bottom of the sink.
Bike Trail Brewery.
Tace could see a label in her mind, could think of names for the different beers. One step closer to making it a real business.
And one step closer to selling it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Berit gathered her notes for Intro to Archaeology and tapped them into a neat pile. She put them into her messenger bag along with the text and a folder full of syllabi. She did the same with her Greek language materials. She slung the bag over the handle of her wheelchair and checked her office to make sure she had everything she needed for her back-to-back morning classes. The room was fairly bare, so she wasn’t likely to have overlooked anything. The desk, table, and two chairs had been there when she arrived. She’d added little more than a couple of reference books she might need during the semester, and the few books and papers she’d collected for each class.
She double-checked the schedule she had taped to her door. Archaeology and Greek back-to-back, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday starting at nine. Pindar on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Intermediate Greek Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for two hours. Should be a breeze. Shouldn’t it?
Berit’s chair rolled easily on the low-pile carpet lining Olin Hall’s corridor. She was early, but she wanted to go over her course material one more time before the students arrived. She’d been certain she wouldn’t need to do much prep work for these classes since the subjects were familiar and the classes had been easy for her when she took them as an undergrad. Plus, she’d spent more than ten years in the field as a top-level archaeologist. She’d managed to convince herself that the year would be simple. She could teach these classes in her sleep. Over the past week leading up to the first day of classes, she had devoted more hours to dwelling on her pitiful exile to this excruciatingly quaint college town and to thinking about her too-desirable landlord than to making lesson plans.
Now, though, faced with the prospect of actually teaching the information to a class full of students—her students—she was starting to worry. She’d written each syllabus in less than ten minutes last month when she’d decided to take the job, sketchily outlining the semester based on an online table of contents she’d found for each textbook. She’d foolishly believed what Kim and the college dean had said—they were lucky to have someone of her caliber at their college. She’d even felt a little ego boost when Tace had told her how entertaining she was and how much her students would adore her. She’d expected the college to be as grateful for her presence as she was reluctant to offer it.
If she’d learned anything at all in the field, she should have learned not to fall prey to her ego. The harsh conditions and still-rudimentary nature of her job—even in advanced technological times—meant discoveries were as often made by rookies and amateurs as by seasoned pros. Good fortune, good weather, the right political climate, the right friends in high places. Berit opened the door to her classroom and dropped her messenger bag on top of the bare Formica table. She had a feeling today’s lesson for the professor would be humility. Hopefully the students would learn a little something about the classical world at the same time.
Berit opened her archaeology book and started to read the first chapter. None of the information was new to her, but she hadn’t given any thought to the structure of her lecture or her objectives for the day. She found a pen and was about to create an outline of her ideas when her class started to arrive. She watched the tiered rows fill with students, all wearing the same eager expressions. She hated to disappoint so many kids all at once, but her failure as a teacher seemed inevitable. She moved in front of her desk.
“Welcome to Introduction to Archaeology. I’m Berit Katsaros and I’ll be—”
She paused when two guys came into the room. She was about to mention how much she disapproved of tardiness when she glanced at the clock and saw there were still five minutes before her class was supposed to start. She felt her chest flush with an embarrassment she hadn’t felt since she’d been her students’ age. She silently recited Shelley’s “Ozymandias” while she waited for nine o’clock.
“Welcome again,” she said. “I guess I was a little too eager to start. For those of you who missed my pre-class introduction, I’m Berit Katsaros.”
The students laughed and Berit felt her tension ease a little. She’d taught plenty of interns and she loved sharing her knowledge with them. This wasn’t much different. True, they were in a classroom, without the tools of her trade around them, and she’d only had one or two interns at a time while working on digs. Otherwise, the process was the same, wasn’t it?
Berit took out the form she’d received from the registrar and called roll. She went as slowly as she could, making sure she pronounced every name correctly and trying to attach mnemonic tags to each student so she’d have a better chance of remembering them by sight. She handed out the syllabus and read through it, reciting the words she’d written about tests and quizzes and papers. At the time, she hadn’t given much thought to them—they were standard parts of every college class. But she’d be the one creating and grading those quizzes and she’d be spending hours reading through the papers. The reality of her job hadn’t sunk in until right now. She paused for a moment before reading the week-by-week reading assignmen
ts for the class. She’d been thinking of herself as merely a place-filler. She didn’t want to be here and wasn’t planning to make this a permanent career change, but this class meant a lot to these kids. She looked at them, some already familiar to her by name. They’d be investing a lot of time and money—or their parents’ money—into this class and their education here. She owed them more than a last-minute, cobbled-together lecture.
And they deserved more than a professor who wasn’t engaged in the class. She dropped her paper, and a student in the front row hurried to pick it up and return it to her. She thanked him and continued reading aloud about the final exam. For the first time, she was identifying herself as a professor. She didn’t want the job, didn’t want to be hurt and unable to follow her dreams, but she’d accepted the role. Professor Berit Katsaros.
Temporary, not-very-enthused Professor Berit Katsaros, more like it. She finished all the introductory materials and glanced hopefully at the clock. Five after nine. Was the damned thing running slow?
“Has anyone read the first chapter in our text?” Every student raised a hand. Drat. Berit had been hoping she could just move from section to section in the first chapter, reading small bits from each as she familiarized her students—and herself—with the material. She looked at the topic she’d put next to today’s date. What is Archaeology? Okay. She could usually talk about her job for hours, if anyone cared to listen. She’d spent her first evening with Tace telling her about Peru, and over the past week she’d told her about other digs as well. But Tace was different. She had been what Berit’s grandfather had always encouraged her to be—an active listener. Consuming the information and making it her own by connecting it to other ideas in her head. Asking questions that made Berit think about what she was saying in new ways.
Not to mention the sexy way Tace would sort of squint in concentration when she was truly interested in what she was hearing, bringing her dark brows toward each other so her exotic eyes became even more mysterious and captivating. Causing Berit to falter and lose her way in a story…
She cleared her throat and began to talk. Only forty-five more minutes to fill.
“Today we’re talking about the definition of archaeology. Archaeologists study the physical things left behind by people in the past. We don’t study dinosaurs, so if any of you were hoping to learn how to tell the difference between a pterodactyl and a stegosaurus, you’re in the wrong class.” She paused, as if waiting for a group of students to pack up and leave. “No one? Good. All of you just passed the first test.”
Not the most original joke, but the class laughed again, and Berit relaxed another fraction. She could do this.
“Most people picture archaeologists on their knees in the dirt, excavating ancient houses and tombs, but the job requires more than an ability to dig. In foreign countries, we’re often acting as diplomats and we need to be tactful and respectful. We also have to catalog and report on our finds, so an ability to write well is important. And if a dig is on private property, we’ll need to research and find the landowner for permission. Oh, and researching the culture and history of the area before we dig is important, too, so we understand the objects we find.”
Stop reciting job requirements—you sound like a poster advertising a field-school opportunity.
Berit switched to a different approach. “As an archaeologist, you can specialize in different ways. Some people study certain time periods, or specific countries or ethnic groups. But there’s often overlap, or even a shortage of jobs, so you’d be unlikely to devote your entire career to a highly specialized field. I’m a classical archaeologist, and I’m mainly interested in Ancient Greece, but I’ve also spent time in areas outside the Mediterranean. I was on a dig in Peru, for example, when I was injured this summer. The shelf between ground level and the excavated tombs below us was compromised by rain and collapsed. So an archaeologist needs to have some knowledge of structural engineering to understand how to maintain a safe multilayered site. Or should have that knowledge, because someone obviously didn’t in Peru.”
Berit stopped again. What was the topic? She seemed to be covering a range of subjects at once, and not going into depth in any of them. They’d probably learned more from the first paragraph of the book than they were getting from her. She needed another subject, one that she was passionate enough about to devote the next—what time was it?—forty minutes to it.
“Why don’t we go over some of the tools used in the field. This is a fascinating area because even in our high-tech world, the basic mechanical tools of archaeology haven’t changed much. Take trowels, for example. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and everyone will have their personal preference, depending on many factors, both environmental and physical.”
Berit realized she should have saved this particular lecture for a day when she had either slides or actual tools to show the class. She finished describing the difference between a leaf and a square trowel and somehow, before she could stop herself, segued into a discussion of the different types of soil and sand on digs and how each affected the way she worked. She had to keep saying words until it was time to dismiss the students, though, and she said a whole lot of them before 9:50 finally came.
Berit watched as her archaeology class left and the students in first-year Greek filtered into the room. She wanted to go back to her office and hide in shame while she diligently prepared Wednesday’s lecture, but she had another class to teach. She noticed with a sinking feeling how many students were taking both classes. There’d probably be a stampede of students asking for tuition refunds in the administration building this afternoon.
Berit’s Greek class was marginally better than her first one. She’d thought archaeology would be easy—it had consumed her life since she was thirteen, for heaven’s sake—but collecting her knowledge and experience and then conveying them in a systematic way was more challenging than she’d expected. At least in the Greek language class, she had a ready-made program in the textbook, complete with drills that took up quite a bit of time. She wrote the alphabet horizontally on the white board, where it was within her reach, and she explained rules for pronunciation and accent as slowly as she could. The fifty-minute class crawled by, but she had enough material to fill it without needing to rein in a wandering lecture.
Berit skipped lunch and spent the two-hour break cramming for her next class like she was an undergrad who’d spent too much time partying instead of studying. She brought a stack of notecards covered with facts about Pindar and his poetry, as well as questions to ask the students about his first Olympian ode. She had enough to fill the hour and a half, but she had to peek at her cards several times, and she felt the conversation about the poem remained surface-level at best. There was nothing spectacular gleaned from the beautiful words, and nothing inspiring in the work she’d done that entire day.
Berit was relieved when she shut the door to her office at the end of her day. She had a bagful of homework, and she’d probably be pulling all-nighters to prepare for the next two days’ classes. She was heading down Boyer Avenue toward home when she saw the familiar powder blue of Tace’s car approaching. She held out her thumb like a hitchhiker and felt a curious lift in her spirits when Tace pulled to the side of the road and got out with a smile on her face.
“I’m glad I came this way from work. I thought I might see you out here. How was your first day?” Tace asked as she collapsed Berit’s chair and put it in the trunk. She laughed. “That reminds me of greeting Chris and Kyle when they got home from school. Chris always loved her teachers and classes, but Kyle usually had already been sent to the principal’s office before the first day ended. I hope that didn’t happen to you.”
“Well, not yet, but the dean might put me in detention because I suck at teaching. It seems you have another problem child on your hands.”
“I’ll bet every professor at every college on every first day of school feels the same way,” Tace said. She held her arm out for Be
rit to use as she got in the car.
“I think that was the exact right thing to say,” Berit said. She put her hand on Tace’s forearm and eased into the seat slowly, not so much to protect her back but to prolong the contact with Tace’s muscles as they contracted to keep her steady and protected. Berit leaned back in the passenger seat with a happy sigh. She was exhausted already, just from a few hours of classes, and she hadn’t been looking forward to even the short few blocks between her and a hot bath. She tried to tell herself she was glad to see Tace for the lift home, but she knew it was something more. She’d been feeling unsure of herself after the fiasco of her teaching debut, and she wasn’t accustomed to the feeling. Even more unusual—and more unsettling—was her reaction to Tace’s presence. She made Berit lighter somehow. Safe and reassured. Berit had expected to be a spectacular teacher without doing any work. She’d been very wrong, but Tace was probably correct. Berit surely wasn’t the only new professor to sense a disheartening distance between their imagined and actual performances in class.
“I’ll need to work harder than I thought, though. I want to encourage the students’ interest, not put them to sleep. Halfway through my archaeology class, they stopped taking notes and just watched me with the pitying looks only kids that age can give you.”
Tace shook her head with a rueful smile. “I know those looks well,” she said.
Berit figured Tace had been on the receiving end and not the giver. She talked about her siblings like a mother, but had she ever had the chance to be a child and not a parent? She was about to ask, but before she could find a way to phrase the question, Tace continued.
“I’ll bet tomorrow will be easier, because now you know what to expect. And every day will just make you more familiar with the job.”
“Ugh. Familiarity means boring. The thought of repeating these same classes every day for one semester makes me feel like I’m suffocating. I can’t imagine doing this for a whole career. A lifetime of first-year Greek? Ugh, again.”