Straight Man

we could conduct this meeting like adult professionals?” she says, not unreasonably, given the fact that I have slipped on the false nose and glasses I got from Mr. Purty. I’ve detached the mustache on the theory that it doesn’t contribute to the effect I’m after, which is slight exaggeration, not broad parody. The black plastic glasses to which the fake nose is attached are not unlike my own reading glasses, just as the plastic schnoz is only slightly more ridiculous that my own ruined proboscis.
    However, Gracie’s reaction is disappointing. I was counting on a double take at least. If I had done to Gracie’s person what she has done to mine, I’d have had a bad moment. I’d have concluded, however briefly, that I’d injured her worse than I thought. Guilt would have made the comic nose look momentarily real in the cruel light of moral imagination. Either Gracie has no moral imagination or she knows who she’s dealing with.
    “Gracie …,” I begin.
    “Dr. DuBois,” she corrects me, waits. I myself don’t have a Ph.D., is her point, and she doesn’t want me taking liberties.
    We both wait.
    “Fine,” she continues. “Well, I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to see you before I left town.”
    My wife, the dean, my mother and Charles Purty, now Gracie. That makes five.
    “Actually, I’ve come to apologize, Professor Devereaux. I never intended—”
    “Hank,” I correct her, with a magnanimous gesture. When I take off the fake nose, Gracie, to her credit, does wince.
    “I’ve thought about the whole thing,” she says, “and I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is separate the personal issues from the professional.”
    Though I have no idea what this means, I tell her I think that’s an excellent idea.
    “I’ve decided to file a grievance against you,” she continues.
    “Is that the professional part or the personal?” I interrupt.
    Gracie ignores this. “That way my position as a senior faculty member will be clear. And that I have no intention of being pushed aside.”
    Here Gracie pauses so that I may digest this.
    “I know you think this is small of me, but I must protect my turf. If we were hiring another fiction writer, you’d do the same.”
    I consider telling Gracie that we’re arguing a moot point since the funding isn’t going to come through and no one’s turf is going to be invaded, but I have promised Jacob Rose that this will remain our secret, and, besides, most academic arguments end up moot, so there’s no particular reason to surrender this one, which has already cost me a nostril. “Gracie—” I begin.
    She holds up her hand. “Maybe you’re more secure than I am. I admit you’re a successful writer. I just think it’s cruel of y’all to want to show me up. I’ve given fifteen years to this institution. I won’t be moved aside.”
    If this weren’t so pitiful, it would be funny. Not just Gracie’s feelings of inadequacy, which are real enough. But as a tenured full professor in our egalitarian, unionized, colonial outpost, Gracie couldn’t be moved aside with a backhoe. I open my mouth to tell her this when it occurs to me that she’ll take the comment as a cruel reference to her having gained weight. The other thing that shuts me up is incredulity. Gracie’s concession—that I am a successful writer—illustrates how little we have in the way of expectation around here. My slender book,published twenty years ago, and forgotten the year after, is the cause of Gracie’s insecurity. The last thousand copies of the eight thousand print run were purchased by the campus bookstore at remainder price and have been sold there for full jacket price for the last fifteen years. Last I checked, there were still a couple hundred left. Who but Gracie would be jealous of such success?
    “Anyway,” she continues. “The grievance is only part of what I want to talk to you about. You may not believe me, but I’ve always liked you, Hank. You’re like a character in a good book. Almost real, you know? Not like professors. I know I’m one of them. I wasn’t always, but I am now.”
    Of all the odd things Gracie has ever said to me, this is surely the oddest and the most touching. No less absurd, of course, this professed admiration for the fact that I’m almost real.
    “You should know,” she says, her voice lowered now, “that Finny is sounding people out on the idea of a recall. I think he plans to introduce the motion at