Higher Education (7 page)

“Have you tried taking naps?”

“I tell you, Wanda, I feel like I'm at the end of my rope.”

“Oh?” Where the hell is the goddam waitress when you really need her? I sneak a glance around.

“Sometimes I really wonder about this relationship.” Click-click.

“Well, sweetie.” Gently I remove the pen from her grasp. “Is everything else okay?”

“Oh god yes. We spend all our time together.” Now she tinkers with her knife and fork. “I had to tell somebody, though. My shrink appointment's not till tomorrow, and I thought I'd go crazy if I kept it inside another minute.”

“What are friends for?” I stand up. “Excuse me for a minute, will you?” I walk toward the telephone, repeating the UHS number in my head as I extract a dime from my pocket.

“Yes, can I help you?”

“I'm calling for the results of a pregnancy test.”

“Did you bring your sample in this morning, hon?”

“Yes.” I loosen my hold on the receiver. “They told me I could call after four-thirty for the results.”

“What's the last name?”

“It's Walker. W-a-l—”

“Hang on a minute, hon.” She puts me on hold.

While I'm waiting I hear the toilet flush in the men's room. Seconds later a man emerges with a hand at his crotch, having not quite finished zipping his fly. He sees me and glares, sinking his jowls into his collar.

I nod. “Nice day, isn't it?”

“For you maybe.” He stumps off, wiping his hands on his pants.

“Yeah.” I grimace rudely at his bald spot, and then the phone clicks.

“Hello?” says the voice.

“Yes?”

“Your test came out negative, Mandy.”

“I'm Miranda.”

“Oh, right. Let me look at this again.” In the background I hear a voice saying, “Leukemia, I guess.” Someone laughs. “Miranda? Walker, right?”

“Yes, that's me.”

“Right. Sorry, hon. I was looking at somebody else's chart.”

“Ah.” Do I know anybody named Mandy?

“Anyway, your test came out negative too.”

“That means I'm not pregnant, right?”

“That's right, hon.”

I let out my breath, softly. “That's great.”

“But only as much as can be determined within the first two weeks.”

“Oh.”

“If you still haven't gotten your period in the next week or so, you might want to come back for another test.”

“Oh?”

“Just to be sure.”

“I see. Thanks.” I hang up.

Back at our table Angela is back to capping and uncapping her pen. “Wanda, I feel fat. Let's go play squash.”

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“I hate squash.”

Click-click. “How about racquetball then?”

“I hate racquetball too.”

“There's a five-thirty aerobics class at the IAB.”

“I wouldn't be caught dead in an aerobics class.”

“All right, we'll go jogging.” Click-click.

“Can't.” I take the pen away from her again. “I'm due at Robbins by six.”

“But Wanda, we'd have so much fun zooming around together. Besides, I just bought a new Gloria Vanderbilt jogging suit at the Coop.”

“Sweetie, you hate to exercise.”

“That's true.” She brightens. “Oh well. I tried, didn't I?”

“Yep. Hey, do you know anybody named Mandy?”

“Mandy? No. Why?”

“No reason.” I slip a dollar bill under my coffee cup and start gathering up my belongings. “Let's go.”

As we walk along Mass Ave I feel myself pierced by the soft keen melancholy of impending Cambridge twilight. The sidewalk is crowded with late-afternoon traffic, mostly students streaming in and out of the copy shops and ice-cream stores.

“I don't suppose some course or another had a paper due at five o'clock?”

“Fine Arts 13.” Angela looks over at me. “How did you know? Philip's been upset about it for days.”

“He should try to relax more.”

“He just wants to do well, that's all.”

“Well, sure, don't we all?” Neatly I avoid stepping in a small mound of dog shit.

“God, for a double-double chocolate cone.” She's waving at somebody inside Steve's Ice Cream. “I can't though. I'm saving myself for dinner.”

“You know, if you really want to get some exercise, Jessica's been taking tennis lessons. You could play a few sets with her.”

“That's okay. I don't feel like it anymore.”

“She's probably home by now. Why don't you give her a call?”

“No thanks.” Her face is set in lines of such rigid civility that I remember anew the conspicuous lack of rapport that exists between them, although Angela is always scrupulously affectionate whenever they're in the same room together. Jessica ignores her. “I'm not in the mood.”

“Really? I'm sure she'd love to get out there and have a few rollies with you.”

“Rallies.”

“Whatever. Why don't you give her a buzz? She's probably sitting by the phone just waiting for something fun like this to come along.”

“I'm really not in the mood anymore.”

“Oh well.” Smiling, I picture Jessica's features going completely blank, her eyes shuttering to pale empty blue discs. “She's not very good yet anyway. Mostly she goes to stare at the instructor's legs.”

“Oh look, there's Philip.” Angela tugs at my arm. “And Bryan too.”

My smile dissolves. “Where?”

“They just went into Schoenhof's.”

“Speak of the devil.”

“I want to make sure he got his paper in all right, okay?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Oh Wanda, do you mind?”

“Look, I've got a million things to do.” I pull my arm away. “You just run along.”

“Thanks, Wanda.” Her lip gloss is glimmering again in that breathless smile. “I knew you wouldn't mind. I'll see you later, okay?”

“Sure, okay.” God, I hate it when she calls me Wanda. Shaking my head, I walk on toward Robbins.

“Excuse me,” someone whispers, “but do you have the reserve reading for Phil 169?”

“Huh?” I look up from my notebook.
Jesus, this guy's posture is even worse than mine
. Languidly I flip through the manila folders on the shelf next to the desk. “Sorry. It's checked out.”

“Uh, do you know when it'll be back?”

I'm at my notebook again. “No, sorry.”

He shifts his feet for a few moments. Then, with a scarcely audible sigh, he turns and leaves the library, closing the door quietly behind him.

I've had at most five minutes of peaceful concentration when somebody returns the Phil 169 reading and shows me the contents of his backpack to be checked, which receive the briefest of inspections from me. After nearly eight semesters of working in the philosophy library, I've adopted a somewhat laissez-faire attitude toward my role as desk attendant. What thief, I ask myself, stows the books where he knows perfectly well they'll be examined on his way out? In the finest spirit of Rousseau, I rarely waste my time in lengthy scrutiny; and now with an imperious nod I permit still another patron to depart more or less unchallenged. God only knows how many books Robbins has lost because of me.

I squirm in the chair, the bones in my derriere aching, and look up at the clock. It's nine-thirty: in another quarter-hour or so I can start ushering people out. It's far too late into my shift to begin reshelving books, and anyway it'll give Charles something to do tomorrow morning. Charles is a student at the Divinity School and seems to feel obliged to actually do some work while on duty here at the librarian's desk. Carefully I straighten the stacks on the cart next to the desk, figuring that he'll be bound to appreciate my little contribution to his spiritual growth.

“'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?”