Winter Jacket (36 page)

“Keep your shirt on,” came Troian’s voice.  “I’m coming.”

Normally her disgruntled attitude would have made me laugh, but I was too distracted for that today.  The door swung open and she stood there, scowling.  “What? Are you checking in on me? Couldn’t be bothered to call in advance?”

“They know about Hunter and me.”

The sour look on Troian’s face faltered. “Who?”

“My university.”

Troian’s face visibly blanched and she stepped backwards. “Come in.”

I paced the carpet in the living room while my friend watched from her seat on the couch.  “How did they find out?”

I shook my head.  “I have no idea.  My teacher mentor, Emily – I think I’ve told you about her before – she told me she’d heard it from the mail ladies at the Student Union.”

“Shit.  That means it’s
everywhere
.”  Troian had gone to my university as an undergrad years ago and she knew how vicious and unforgiving the small school’s rumor-mill could be.  She herself had remained closeted until after graduation to avoid it.

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Troian asked reasonably.

I slowed my perpetual back and forth. “I could get fired.”

“Would they really do that?”

I shrugged.  I honestly didn’t know.

“This is perfect.  This is just the push you needed.”

I stopped pacing altogether. “What are you talking about?”

“Now you can come work for me on this new TV show.  The Studio loved the pilot script I sent them last week and they’ve ordered a half-season run of scripts.”

“That’s great news, Troi.  Congratulations.”  I was genuinely happy for my friend even with my troubling issue. “But I’m not a screenwriter.  I’m an English teacher.”

“You’re a writer – and a talented one at that.  This could be really good for you.”

I raised an eyebrow at my friend.  “
You
didn’t start the rumor on campus, did you?”

Troian laughed at my suggestion.  “God, I’m almost mad at myself for
not
coming up with that idea.”

I sat down heavily next to Troian on the couch and released a deep sigh.  I rested my head in my hands.

“So now what?” Troian asked.  “Are you still having your tenure review at the end of the week?”

I kept my head in my heads.  “I haven’t heard otherwise, so I’m assuming it’s still on.  They probably have to still meet with me as a formality.  Then they’ll deny me tenure on some technicality to avoid a teacher-student sex scandal, and then I’ll get fired.”

“That’s not fair though,” Troian said, raising her voice.  “You didn’t do anything wrong.  You haven’t broken any laws.  If they fire you, we’ll sue them.”

“They can do whatever they want, Troi,” I sighed miserably, looking up.  “It’s a private school and my sexuality doesn’t prevent me from getting fired in this state.”

Troian was quiet for a moment, no doubt letting my words sink in.

“Hey, if it gets bad, you know you’re going to be okay, right?
” She placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.  “Even if you get, I don’t know, banned from teaching for the rest of your life, you’ve still got Nik and me.  We’ll totally hook you up with something, even if it’s not writing with me.  Gardening.  Fast food.  You’ll be okay.”

             
“I know.”  I nodded wetly and wiped at my nose.  “Troian to the rescue.”

+++++

I was cutting up vegetables for stir-fry when Hunter came over later that night. She tossed her bag on one of the kitchen countertops and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

"Good day?" she asked me as she
stole a piece of red bell pepper. She popped it into her mouth and smiled.

"It was okay,” I replied, not looking up from the cutting board.

"Just okay?" she clucked. "Well, I'll have to see what I can do to make it better then." Her arms slipped around my waist, and I felt her press the full length of her body against my back. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the feeling.

"Well, a
pparently there's a rumor going around campus that I'm dating a student."

I felt her body immediately stiffen
. "You're dating a student? Do I know her?" I knew she was trying to make a joke and keep the mood light, but her voice sounded too high and tight. Regrettably, her arms fell away from my waist. "How did you find out?"

"
Emily Sullivan. She's a professor in my department."  I finished cutting up bell peppers and moved on to scallions.

"And how did she know?"

"Campus mailroom rumor-mill.”  My responses came out as terse, bulleted bursts, but it was the best that I could do without breaking down.  I feared that if I elaborated too much that I might break down and cry.  Since leaving Troian’s house I’d done my best to keep my brain busy.

"Did they say my name specifically?"

"No. Just that I'm dating a student."

"Ellio,
” Hunter said experimentally, “are you alright?"

I kept my eyes trained on the cutting board, not wanting to slice off a finger.  It also helped me maintain my calm exterior.  I worried if I looked at her concerned visage, I might lose it. 
"Do I not look alright?"

"You look fine. And that's the part that's worrying me." Her hands fell on top of mine, stopping me from continuing cutting up vegetables. "Just stop for a second, okay
?" She turned me around to face her and continued holding onto both of my hands. "What does this mean for us? Do I have to go into hiding? Can we not see each other until after graduation?  Because I’ll do it; just tell me what you need me to do."

"No," I said emphatically. "Nothing changes."

"You've got your review in a few days,” she unnecessarily reminded me.  “I don't want to be the reason they don't award you tenure."

She looked so concerned, it made my heart flutter. "Nothing changes," I said again.
I pulled her to me. "My stupidity has caused too much drama between us, and I'm sorry for that.  I'm not going to let myself be ruled by fear anymore. I want to be with you, Hunter. And if this is what gets me fired, then I wasn't meant to work at this school."

Her wide eyes blinked. "Just like that?" she asked. "You'd risk your job to stay with me?"

"It's just a job,” I shrugged. After leaving Troian’s house, I’d had more time to think about my situation.  “There'll be others."

"I could say the same thing about me," she countered. "I'm just a girl. There'll be others."

I shook my head. "But you're
my
girl; I don't want anyone else."

Her eyes looked a little wet. "Can I help you with dinner?"

I smiled. "Why don't you pick out a bottle of wine from the rack for tonight?"

She nodded and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I don’t want to keep bringing this up, but how do you think the rumor started?  I mean, I haven’t told
anyone
.  And Sara promised me she’d be discrete.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too.”  In truth the person culpable was limited.  I hated thinking over the short list of people who knew that my girlfriend was a former student.  I hated to think that anyone could betray me like that.

I mentally shook myself.  It was done. The University knew.   Emily was right.  I needed to stop worrying; it was out of my hands now.  The only thing I could do was wait.  Wait until my tenure review.

+++++

I stood at the lavatory mirror and stared at my reflection. I hadn't felt like this in years – not since just before my presentation in front of the faculty when I was a job candidate for the position I currently held. I pulled my hair back into a tight bun. It was my lucky hairstyle. I wore it like this whenever I needed to feel professional. It was a little like Dumbo and his magic feather, but I'd take whatever edge I could, regardless if it was just psychosomatic.

A toilet flushed and my teaching mentor, Emily, appeared when one of the stall doors opened. Our eyes met through the vanity mirror and she gave me a tight smile.
 She stood next to me and began to wash her hands. "You'll be fine in there," she said, working up a sudsy lather. 

"How can you be so sure?" I responded.
 We were the only ones in the bathroom and my voice echoed against the tile, sounding hollow to my ears.

She turned off the faucets and shook her hands. "You're too good of a teacher, colleague, and scholar for them to deny you tenure. They've invested too much in you to just let you go."

I couldn't meet her eyes directly, so I continued looking at her reflection. "I want to thank you for giving me the heads up about the rumor."

Emily pulled paper towel from the machine. "Is she worth it?"

I bit my lower lip. That Emily knew what pronoun to use shouldn't have come as a shock, but it was still a little jarring. "Yeah," I said with a nod. "She is."

Emily rested her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "I hope so."
She let go and offered me a final, encouraging smile. "Good luck in there, Dr. Graft."

I left the restrooms shortly after Emily's pep talk.
I couldn't continue to hide and I couldn't delay this meeting any longer.  As I stood in the hallway, just outside the conference room where my future would soon be decided, I could hear the quiet din coming from inside the room. I straightened the hem of my pencil skirt, and I straightened my shoulders.   I pulled the door open and the chatter immediately quieted. I tried to not let that unsettle me. It happened nearly everyday I taught.  I strode into the room with my chin elevated, mustering as much confidence as I could.

I took my seat at the center of a conference table that normally sat three or four.
I hadn't sat in a conference room with so many of my faculty peers since my on-campus interview years ago.  I took my time, arranging my things, unzipping my workbag, and pulling out a legal pad and pen.  I snapped the pen to life and scrawled my name and the date in the right-hand corner of the top sheet.  It was unnecessary. This wasn't a written test.  There were no notes I needed to take.  But, like my lucky hairstyle, writing my name and the date on that piece of paper was familiar and comforting.

Across the room, seated facing me
, were the members of my tenure committee. My Department Chair, Bob Birken, was in the center flanked on either side by two full-ranking professors. I thought back to what Emily had referred to them as – dinosaurs.  I recognized and knew them all because of the small size of our department, but I wasn't close to any of them. There were nearly 20 of us between the full-time tenure track and part-time adjuncts. Besides my Chair, Bob, the other four members had been chosen because our work rarely gave us an opportunity to become friendly. They were all white men, all full-ranking professors, and all grey haired or balding. One of the men, Thomas Dosey, was a Jesuit priest. I was worried the most about him. I had been to other tenure-track reviews before, to kind of get an indication of what I'd be subject to since every department at every university did theirs differently.  The atmosphere in the room felt tense to me, but maybe I was just projecting.

Seated in the perimeter of the
room was other faculty from the department.  I gave Emily a smile as she sat down in an empty seat next to Thad.  I smiled in his direction as well, but he didn't return the greeting. I wondered if he had on his Game-Face because of the serious nature of this meeting or if his stony exterior was in response to having heard that I was gay and taken.

The semester had been filled with one-on-one meetings with the Department Chair, getting colleagues to write letters of recommendation for me, and having other faculty observe my teaching on unannounced classroom visits.
I thought I had built a solid relationship with Bob and that he would have given me some kind of warning or heads up that the review wasn't going in my favor. I had been publishing since my original hire date, so that wasn't anything to worry about.  I always got excellent end-of-semester student reviews, too. The only thing that could get in my way of the promotion would have been choosing a faculty peer with a vendetta against me to write me a letter of recommendation. And now the Hunter thing.

Bob took a sip of water before beginning.
It all felt very much like I was on trial. In a way, I suppose, I was.  The questions that followed from each member of the tenure committee were mundane and unthreatening.  Emily had prepared me well, and I was ready for everything they threw at me.  Time passed quickly, and with each new question that wasn’t the Question-I-Dreaded, I started to relax.  Maybe this was it.  Maybe they didn’t care.  Maybe I was actually going to get this promotion.

Bob adjusted his reading glasses on his nose and coughed, sounding uncomfortable.  “Um, just one final question before we adjourn to make our decision, Dr. Graft.”

My pulse throbbed a little faster. Oh no. 
This was it.
“Yes?”