bed.” “Dye-it—get it?” she has scribbled at the bottom.
“Shortly before Christmas I guess they’re supposed to have it all squared away. Or us all squared away.” Her eyes are all bruisey turquoise. She can inhale a cigarette like no one I know. If Cleopatra had smoked Winstons she would have smoked them exactly like Eleanor. “Listen to this sentence,” she says. “ ‘They decided to go sledding on their rear ends where the incline was less steep. Then an audible burp sent a shudder from her pleated and powdered chin down to her buttocks, which hung inertly over the struggling and baffled chair.’ ”
“Is that Stacy or Tracy?”
“No, that’s Howard.”
“Eleanor, what are we going to do?”
Because the teacher didn’t have an official office, she had to have what she euphemistically called “office hours” in the Student Union Snack Bar on Thursdays from two to four. On this particular Thursday she trudged into the Union with way too much stuff, books crammed into bag and briefcase, department memos she had yet to read clutched with haphazard violence in one fist. She spotted an empty table in the back—not the one she usually liked, but close—and she trudged over and unloaded, books and papers on the table, briefcase on the floor. She put her rumpled gray blazer on the back of one chair, then got in the snack bar line, paid forty cents for a Styrofoam cup of coffee, grabbed some plastic half & halfs for her smarting, tripish stomach, and then wended her way back to the table. Sitting was a relief. She let the steam from the coffee float up and into the itchy, chalky corners of her eyes. She breathed. It felt good. She gingerly slurped hercoffee and stared out the window for a little while at the small hill which slid gently from the Union’s outer wall toward a stream at the bottom. There was an asphalt promenade built on either bank, which gave the stream a captive look, as if without the walks, someone had thought it would leap maniacally outward, take off through campus like a mad motorcyclist. Paths and roads always followed water—rivers, shorelines—but this promenade, thought the teacher, seemed so ugly, so senselessly competitive with nature. And because the walk took all the bends of the river, it was never the fastest way to get anywhere. It was usually frequented by students and teachers interested in a leisurely stroll. The teacher turned her attention back to her coffee and papers. She began reading through memoranda. New, more rigorous faculty review procedures, some department gatherings—both social and business, though who could really distinguish—some offers for small magazine subscriptions, and then someone was standing beside her.
“Hi, Ms. Carpenter. Do you mind if I join you?”
It was Darrel Erni, all laughlines and teeth, knitted hat and green fatigues.
“Sure, have a seat,” she said, a bit scattered and harebrained, trying to clear a place, frantically making one towering pile of papers and books, which, finally, slipped, tumbled, crashed into the Styrofoam cup of coffee, milky brown spreading out, over, onto things, like a yearning but stagnant pond.
“Oh my god,
my nightmare!
” howled Eleanor from three tables away, having a conference with a student but obviously not engrossed. She had caught this accident of caffeine and cream and paper and was clearly enjoying it. The teacher crossed her eyes, shook her head, and began mopping things up with napkins yanked from the dispenser on the table. Darrel, like Eleanor, was brimming with harmless bemusement, giving him a power over the situation, which the teacher couldn’t help but resent. He pulledover a chair and sat down. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked, some zany displaced hostess with soggy napkins.
Darrel placed a full Styrofoam cup on the table. “I already have one, thanks,” he smiled.
The teacher stared at his cup for a second. “Right,” she said.
The teacher already
“Shortly before Christmas I guess they’re supposed to have it all squared away. Or us all squared away.” Her eyes are all bruisey turquoise. She can inhale a cigarette like no one I know. If Cleopatra had smoked Winstons she would have smoked them exactly like Eleanor. “Listen to this sentence,” she says. “ ‘They decided to go sledding on their rear ends where the incline was less steep. Then an audible burp sent a shudder from her pleated and powdered chin down to her buttocks, which hung inertly over the struggling and baffled chair.’ ”
“Is that Stacy or Tracy?”
“No, that’s Howard.”
“Eleanor, what are we going to do?”
Because the teacher didn’t have an official office, she had to have what she euphemistically called “office hours” in the Student Union Snack Bar on Thursdays from two to four. On this particular Thursday she trudged into the Union with way too much stuff, books crammed into bag and briefcase, department memos she had yet to read clutched with haphazard violence in one fist. She spotted an empty table in the back—not the one she usually liked, but close—and she trudged over and unloaded, books and papers on the table, briefcase on the floor. She put her rumpled gray blazer on the back of one chair, then got in the snack bar line, paid forty cents for a Styrofoam cup of coffee, grabbed some plastic half & halfs for her smarting, tripish stomach, and then wended her way back to the table. Sitting was a relief. She let the steam from the coffee float up and into the itchy, chalky corners of her eyes. She breathed. It felt good. She gingerly slurped hercoffee and stared out the window for a little while at the small hill which slid gently from the Union’s outer wall toward a stream at the bottom. There was an asphalt promenade built on either bank, which gave the stream a captive look, as if without the walks, someone had thought it would leap maniacally outward, take off through campus like a mad motorcyclist. Paths and roads always followed water—rivers, shorelines—but this promenade, thought the teacher, seemed so ugly, so senselessly competitive with nature. And because the walk took all the bends of the river, it was never the fastest way to get anywhere. It was usually frequented by students and teachers interested in a leisurely stroll. The teacher turned her attention back to her coffee and papers. She began reading through memoranda. New, more rigorous faculty review procedures, some department gatherings—both social and business, though who could really distinguish—some offers for small magazine subscriptions, and then someone was standing beside her.
“Hi, Ms. Carpenter. Do you mind if I join you?”
It was Darrel Erni, all laughlines and teeth, knitted hat and green fatigues.
“Sure, have a seat,” she said, a bit scattered and harebrained, trying to clear a place, frantically making one towering pile of papers and books, which, finally, slipped, tumbled, crashed into the Styrofoam cup of coffee, milky brown spreading out, over, onto things, like a yearning but stagnant pond.
“Oh my god,
my nightmare!
” howled Eleanor from three tables away, having a conference with a student but obviously not engrossed. She had caught this accident of caffeine and cream and paper and was clearly enjoying it. The teacher crossed her eyes, shook her head, and began mopping things up with napkins yanked from the dispenser on the table. Darrel, like Eleanor, was brimming with harmless bemusement, giving him a power over the situation, which the teacher couldn’t help but resent. He pulledover a chair and sat down. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked, some zany displaced hostess with soggy napkins.
Darrel placed a full Styrofoam cup on the table. “I already have one, thanks,” he smiled.
The teacher stared at his cup for a second. “Right,” she said.
The teacher already
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