Straight Man

this advice so wrong?
    “I’m not sure I want a Ph.D.,” she says, more thoughtfully, less combatively, than I expect. “If you were to hand me one right now, I’m not sure I’d want it.”
    “Get out of the profession altogether then,” I suggest. “You’re young. Do something else.”
    “If I do that, then I’ve wasted all his hard-earned money. An M.A. isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”
    “Then get the Ph.D.”
    “And waste even more of his money on something I don’t even want? Beggar him completely, so he can die happy?”
    “
Somebody
should be happy,” I point out.
    “Are you?”
    “Ecstatic. Can’t you tell? And I don’t even have a Ph.D.”
    She looks me over. “Your nose looks better, anyway.”
    I look her over too. God, this is one beautiful young woman. “Thanks.”
    We’ve arrived at Modern Languages. Meg’s office is located one floor below the rest of the English department, in a huge room with a dozen desks shared by twenty-four adjunct faculty.
    “I think I’m going to wait and see if
he
has a job next year.”
    I can hear the question in this statement.
    “I don’t see how your old man could be fired, Meg,” I tell her. “He’s been here since Christ was a corporal.”
    “He’s not on your list then?”
    This week, it occurs to me, is beginning just like the last one ended. Only worse. Now, instead of being offered a bite of juicy peach, I’m being accused. I’m Judas Peckerwood not only to Meg’s father but to Meg herself.
    “Did you know that he wanted to be a writer when he was young? Did you know he wrote a novel?”
    “Billy?” I say, genuinely surprised, though I don’t know why I should be. Virtually everybody in the English department has a half-written novel squirreled away in a desk drawer. I know this to be a fact because before they all started filing grievances against me, I was asked to read them. Sad little vessels all. Scuffy the Tugboat, lost and scared on the open sea. All elegantly written, all with the same artistic goal—to evidence a superior sensibility. Maybe I’m surprised about Billy because he hasn’t asked me to read his. I’ve always liked Billy, and now I like him even more. It’s a hell of a fine man who’ll write a novel and keep it to himself.
    “Tell Julie I’ll call her tonight.”
    “Julie who?” I say, genuinely confused.
    “You have a daughter named Julie?” she reminds me. “I was gone this weekend. She left messages on my machine.”
    “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
    Meg just looks at me. Like the list of things I don’t know is pretty comprehensive.
    “So you didn’t talk to her?” I say.
    “I know about her and Russell, if that’s what you mean.”
    I start to ask, then realize I don’t want to know Meg’s take on these events. “Russell seems to have disappeared,” I venture.
    “Not really,” she says. “He’s around.”
    “If you see him, tell him I’d like a word.”
    “Oh boy, a fight.”
    “Don’t be an idiot.”
    “Okay, I’ll tell him,” she says. “If I see him.”
    The English department office has a window with a view of the duck pond. June Barnes and Orshee are watching the protest rally from the open window, and Rachel glances up at me when I enter. Rachel is always a frightened-looking woman, and she’s got her reasons, but this morning she looks genuinely terrified. Exhausted, too. There’s more gray in her hair than I’ve noticed before, more than there probably should be for a woman in her—what?—late thirties. Her eyes are darkly circled and puffy. Her whole face is puffy now that I look at it.
    “Come look,” June says, noticing me. “This is delicious. Dickie’s at the microphone.”
    I study the two of them standing there at the window. Something about their proximity, their posture, suggests that Orshee is about to slip his hand up under the back of June’s sweater. No doubt this is projection on my part. A minute ago, as I held the door for Meg Quigley, my own fantasy hand made this same journey up the small of Meg’s back to where her bra strap would be if she wore one. Which she doesn’t.
    “He’s standing on a box,” June continues. “Apparently, they couldn’t adjust the mike stand. God, he’s a tiny little toad.”
    Orshee titters nervously at this remark. He’s only a couple inches taller than Dickie, and as an untenured member of the faculty he’s not sure of the wisdom of laughing at a joke made at the