By the Book

by Julia Sonneborn

  Some have expressed surprise at Martinez’s relative youth. At just thirty-eight, he is one of the youngest college presidents in the United States, and one of only a handful of Latino college presidents. When asked about this, Martinez laughs. “Woodrow Wilson was forty-five when he became president of Princeton,” he says. “I know I’m considered young by some standards, but I’m not new to university administration.” Board member Ahmanson concurs, “Martinez has a wealth of experience, and we hope he will also bring youthful energy to the campus.” In fact, for the board of trustees, Martinez’s age was part of his draw. “We wanted someone who was early in his career and wasn’t just coasting to retirement,” says Annette Fowler, a longtime donor and board member.

  Martinez has only recently arrived on campus, but so far, he has earned high marks from faculty members and administrators for his visible presence on campus. An avid runner, Martinez can often be seen running on local trails early in the morning with his rescue dog, Charlie. For years, he has also been active in Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, mentoring at-risk youth who, like he did, are growing up without a father figure. His other hobbies include reading and travel. Evidence of this can be seen in his office, in the bookcases full of classics like Great Expectations and Moby-Dick and in the framed photographs of distant locales.

  “In some ways, I feel like I’m starting college again,” he says. “I’m new, I don’t know many people, and I’m excited and nervous.” He sits back in his office chair, gesturing at the walls of books, the imposing executive desk, the decorative fireplace, an old painted portrait of Fairfax’s first president, Theodore Hubbard. He shakes his head wonderingly. “I still can’t believe I’m really here.”

  I closed the magazine and handed it back to Bex. Reading the profile had made me feel dizzy. On the one hand, I felt like I knew way too much about Adam. On the other hand, I felt like I knew nothing at all. That was him, all right, but it was a slick, prepackaged version of him.

  “I read that the school’s launching a capital campaign in the fall,” Bex said to me. “I’d like to get involved. My cousin went to Fairfax, and she always talked about how much she loved it there.”

  “I can give you the name of someone in the development office,” I said, thinking of Tiffany.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Lauren asked, wandering over.

  “The new president of Fairfax,” Bex said.

  “Let me look at that,” Lauren said, snatching the magazine from my hand. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “His name is Adam Martinez,” Bex said. “He graduated our year, but I don’t think we ever crossed paths. I was asking Anne if she knew him.”

  “Knew him?” Lauren snorted. “Anne dated him. He even visited us over Thanksgiving one year.”

  “Really!” Bex said.

  “It was a long time ago,” I said, giving Lauren a dirty look. She’d treated Adam with disdain and even hostility during his visit, alternately peppering him with questions and then ignoring him. Now, though, Lauren was skimming the PAW article and nodding approvingly. “Whoa,” she said. “He’s done well for himself. It says he’s one of the youngest college presidents in the country. Who would’ve thought?”

  She turned to me. “So how long have you known about this? And when were you planning to tell me, anyway?”

  “Oh, it all happened pretty recently,” I said, shrugging. “I only just found out about it myself.”

  “Does he know you’re at Fairfax?” Lauren asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s no big deal. We bump into each other every once in a while.”

  “And you’ve been in touch with him all this time?”

  “No!” I snapped. “It’s been over ten years, Lauren. It’s ancient history.”

  “How funny,” Bex interrupted, her voice so soft I could hardly hear her. “I married my college sweetheart.” There was an uncomfortable silence, and Bex laughed a little self-consciously. “But you’re right. It feels like ancient history.”

  “Does anyone know where Larry is?” I asked, looking around. “I should probably get going.”

  “Oh, Anne,” Lauren groaned. “Did you really leave Larry with Jack this whole time? How could you? I told you not to let him harass Jack!” She indignantly turned around and marched into the house to rescue Jack.

  “I bet Jack’s talking Larry’s ear off,” Bex said apologetically. “I’ll go help your sister find them.” She leaned over to give me a kiss. “It was wonderful to see you. Thanks for coming to talk to us about the book.” She paused for a moment, then almost shyly admitted, “You know, I’m a little envious. I always wanted to be a professor—I took the GREs and everything.”

  “Really!” I exclaimed. “I was just thinking that you would have made an amazing professor.”

  “Oh, no,” Bex said, waving me off modestly. “That’s very kind of you, but it just wouldn’t have been possible. All that course work, all that writing—”

  “It would have been easy for you. You were always such a great student. And you’re so good with languages— I mean, look at the way you just tossed off that Proust quotation!”

  Bex shook her head. “No. I couldn’t. I—I had to make a choice. When Jack and I got married and moved to LA, and then his career really took off, and then of course I got pregnant and, well, you know how it is—”

  Bex was avoiding my eyes, and it suddenly hit me. She was embarrassed. She thought I was judging her.

  “It’s not too late—” I said, but Bex had already moved away.

  From: info

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: query

  Date: September 26

  Ashgate Publishing has been acquired by the Taylor & Francis Group, a subsidiary of Routledge. We have closed our academic books division.

  Please go to http://www.routledge.com for further information on Publishing with Us, Getting Your Project Started, Current Authors, and Promoting Your Work.

  *

  From: Emily Young

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: rec letter

  Date: September 27

  Dear Dr. Corey,

  I was wondering if I could stop by during your office hours to ask your advice about grad school. My parents want me to go to med school (of course) but I’m not into it. I’m going to take the MCAT to get them off my back, but I also wanted to take the GRE and apply to PhD programs in English, too. If you’d be willing to write me a letter of recommendation, I’d be very grateful.

  Love, Emily

  *

  From: Tiffany Allen

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: Elizabeth Beckington Lindsey

  Date: September 28

  Dear Anne,

  Thank you for your e-mail regarding Elizabeth Beckington Lindsey and her interest in building a relationship with Fairfax College. This is great news, and I’ve reached out to Mrs. Lindsey’s assistant to set up a meeting with President Martinez and myself. I will keep you posted on any developments.

  See you at our first training session next week!

  Go Wolverines!

  Tiff

  *

  From: Rick Chasen

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: [none]

  Date: September 28

  I’ve left a little something for you in your department mailbox. //Rick

  Richard Forbes Chasen

  * * *

  Curator, Storyteller, Critic

  richardforbeschasen.com

  *

  From: Isaac Jones

  To: Anne Corey

  Subject: book proposal

  Date: September 29

  Dear Anne Corey,

  Many thanks for your book proposal. Before I request a complete manuscript, I wante
d to ask about reframing the project in a few ways.

  —Why focus on just women writers? Male writers have private lives, too, yes?

  Could you expand the focus of your book to include novelists like Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope? It currently reads as rather old-fashioned feminist criticism.

  —Why is Margaret Fuller included in the proposal? You have five British novelists and one American novelist. Perhaps take Fuller out, or add a few more Americans, like Emerson and Thoreau?

  —You talk about all three Brontë sisters. Isn’t this redundant? Could you perhaps limit yourself to discussion of just Emily? Or perhaps cut them out completely? In my opinion, the Brontës are rather overdone.

  —The book chapters are currently organized by author. Could you reorganize the chapters to follow thematic lines, instead?

  If you can make these changes, I would be happy to look at a revised book proposal.

  Isaac Jones

  * * *

  Senior Editor

  Palgrave Macmillan

  chapter seven

  I ARRIVED ON CAMPUS EARLY Monday morning, hoping to fit in some writing before my scheduled office hours. The office was quiet, and I was relieved to see that Pam, our department secretary, hadn’t yet arrived for the day.

  Pam was in her forties, but she’d been working for the college since she was eighteen and was planning to retire the day she hit thirty years of service and her pension kicked in. I got the sense that her marriage, like her job, had become routine and unexciting, and she seemed to get a kick out of following the dating lives of the single women on campus, of which there were many. When she saw me, she’d shake me down for information: Was I dating anyone new? Was I on Match.com again? How about eHarmony or OkCupid? Did I know that Sarah from psychology was close to getting engaged?

  I tried to be as vague as possible about my own life, because I always had the disconcerting feeling that the minute I left, she’d call one of the other secretaries and share the latest bit of gossip. Part of me suspected there was a campus-wide betting pool, with each single woman carrying certain odds of getting married, getting laid, or getting dumped. As I passed her empty desk now, I grimaced at her collection of Beanie Babies, the baskets of fake roses, the Anne Geddes calendar of babies dressed up like fairies and sunflowers.

  I stopped by the mailroom to run off some Xerox copies and check my box. Along with some advertisements and journals, I found a package from a distinguished literary publisher, and I opened it curiously, wondering if they were desk copies I’d ordered and forgotten about. Inside was a cream-colored card, with the publisher’s distinctive imprint at the top. It read:

  With the compliments of the Author

  I pulled out three thick hard-covered volumes with moody black-and-white dust jackets portraying urban landscapes. Richard Chasen’s three novels.

  I gazed at the books reverentially. Three books! I thought. I couldn’t even get one published. I opened up Subterranean City, now graced with a gold badge that read, “WINNER of the BOOKER PRIZE.” On the back flap was an author photo of Rick, his head resting pensively on his hand, his hair rakishly swept back. The bio read, “Richard Forbes Chasen is an internationally acclaimed, best-selling journalist and author. He has covered major news stories in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Sierra Leone, reporting on human rights abuses, war crimes, and genocide. He lives in New York City.” I closed the book, thrilled to think I actually knew Rick—that he considered me, in fact, a friend.

  My phone buzzed. A message from Larry.

  “” Kill me now.

  The phone buzzed again.

  “” Please.

  Uh-oh, I thought. Before I could text back, a third message came through.

  “”

  Oh shit, I thought. Larry was about to Lorena Bobbitt someone.

  I headed down the hall to his office. The door was open, and I could see Steve parked in a chair, droning to Larry about something or other. From where I stood, the back of his neck looked like a piece of rare prime rib. I cleared my throat and gave the prearranged signal.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m so sorry to interrupt!”

  Steve slowly craned his head around.

  “I need to talk to Larry,” I said. “It’s about a student.”

  Steve didn’t move. Clearly he wasn’t getting the hint.

  “Uh, it’s a FERPA issue,” I said, lowering my voice meaningfully. FERPA was the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and the administration was always warning us not to violate it. Steve had no idea what FERPA was, but the acronym was scary-sounding enough to get him out of the chair.

  “Oh,” Steve said. “I should leave you two, then.” He lumbered to the door, and I let him pass.

  “Any news about your book?” he asked on his way out.

  “Not yet,” I said, smiling tightly.

  Larry frantically motioned to me to close the door behind Steve.

  “What took you so long to get here?” he groaned the minute the door latched shut.

  “I came as fast as I could!”

  “He. Would. Not. Stop. Talking.” Larry collapsed into his chair beneath a row of framed posters he’d hung on the wall behind him: a photograph of Oscar Wilde with a green carnation in his lapel, a John Singer Sargent painting of Henry James, a poster of Keanu Reeves in Speed. Larry’s gallery of gods.

  “I got more bad news about my book this weekend,” I said. “Ashgate went bankrupt, and Palgrave says they might look at my manuscript if I just, you know, rewrite the whole thing so it’s a different book.”

  “Oh, honey,” Larry said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s almost October. If I don’t land a contract soon, I’m out on my ass.” I felt myself getting choked up.

  The only reason I even had a job at Fairfax was because of Larry. We’d become friends in graduate school, when I’d briefly dated Larry’s younger brother, a lawyer and aspiring politician named Curtis. While things with Curtis hadn’t worked out—I’d dumped him after he started talking about how I had all the attributes of a perfect political wife—my friendship with Larry had flourished. Larry kept me sane as I hopped from one temporary teaching position to another, despairing at ever finding a permanent job. When he’d called to tell me there was an opening at Fairfax, where he’d just been tenured, I remember screaming out loud. He’d been confident I’d get the job, even though I was sure the search committee would think I was stale goods after so many years on the job market. But in the end, he was right. The first-choice candidate turned down the offer to stay at his home institution. The second-choice candidate withdrew. I was the third choice.

  That July, I remember, I packed up my U-Haul and left the East Coast, taking two weeks to cross the country before arriving in Southern California. Pulling off the 10 and driving down the quiet streets of Fairfax, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I was here for at least three years—longer, if I could manage to get my book out—and the prospect of settling down filled me with something like joy. I pulled up in front of Larry’s house, a gray-shingled cottage covered in overgrown honeysuckle and blowsy rose bushes. Larry was sitting on the porch, drinking a gin and tonic, an overweight tabby on his lap.

  “Annie!” he shouted out. He took a look at my dusty trailer and sunburnt face and grimaced. “God, you look like an Okie.”

  “Shut up, Larry,” I said. “You look like Little Edie.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he laughed. “Welcome home.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” I told Larry now, trying not to cry. “I really like it here.”

  Larry stood up to give me a hug. “Sweetie,” he said. “We were meant to be together. I have faith.” He straightened me up and took me by the shoulders.

  “Now for some tough love,” he said. “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GIVE UP. Did I tell you that I was rejected by twenty publishers for my last book? I’m a glutton for rejection. I spent half my thirties in a state of despair. But as my wise old fourth grade teach
er once said to me, ‘Larry, winners never quit, and quitters never win.’ You can have a pity party for exactly twenty-four hours, but then you have to pick yourself up and try again.”

  “But Larry,” I wailed. “I can’t take all the rejection! I want to crawl into a hole and die.”

  “You gotta stick to your guns,” Larry said. “No excuses! Remember: CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS, CAN’T LOSE!” Larry spun me around and pushed me out the door. “Now go send out some more proposals!” he yelled after me.

  *

  I TOOK MY LAPTOP to the patio outside the student center, sitting in a quiet corner underneath some trees. I contemplated doing some online retail therapy—didn’t I deserve a new pair of shoes?—but just then my phone buzzed with a message from Larry.

  “RU WRITING???” it read.

  I sighed, put in my earbuds, and started editing my book proposal, pausing only to refill my coffee at the cafe. After working for an hour or so, I noticed a skirmish across the courtyard. I looked up and saw Rick walking across the quad in the distance, a television reporter beside him and a bevy of cameras and boom mikes bobbing around them. A crowd of students had gathered to watch, as if he were some visiting dignitary or movie star. I watched as some goofballs tried to bob into the frame with peace signs and others pulled out their phones to snap pictures. The interview continued for a minute longer, at which point Rick shook hands with the reporter and I saw him trying to escape into the student center, waving sheepishly as he left. Once inside, he headed toward the patio, stopping to say hello to a few of our colleagues at another table before catching my eye and making his way over to me.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked, sounding slightly breathless.

  “Not at all—please sit!” I said, smiling. Across the patio, I could see my colleagues glancing over at us and whispering.