Compliments by Mari K. Cicero Page B

screened porch. Two white wicker chairs take up most of the space. He’s seated in the one on the left, the rocking chair. It waxes and wanes at his command. With a tap on the arm of the other chair, I take a seat next to him.
    “You’re a Morgan Prize winner,” he says out of nowhere.
    My eyes look back into my studio, and to the wall over my desk where the framed certificate hangs. “Oh, yeah. I am.”
    “Pretty impressive. I’m surprised you’re worried at all about getting an advisor with something like that on your resume. The faculty are all probably falling over each other to work with you.”
    “One prestigious award does not a prized advisee make,” I joke. Pulling my legs up, I hug them to my chest. “I won it as a junior after working my ass off, but the grades I got during the last year of my undergrad weren’t … quite so impressive. If I hadn’t totally aced the GREs, there’s no way I ever would have been able to get into Manderson. I was lucky.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    I look at him askew. “Say what?”
    “Don’t write off anything you’ve achieved to something as flimsy as luck.” Sincerity defines his demeanor. “You putting in hard work and effort, and a kick ass GRE performance, isn’t luck. You should own that and be proud.”
    My smile beams and I bask in the glow of his power talk. A moment later, I hear his tone soften.
    “I know how hard it must have been for you to finish. I have to admit, ever since you told me what happened at Colorado, and seeing how well you’re doing now, I find your perseverance inspirational.”
    “You do?” I ask. “Thanks. That means a lot.”
    As if he didn’t hear me, he continues, “Granted, what happened with me is a little different, but … Never mind.”
    I turn my body toward his and put my feet back on the floor. “Hawk, you know you can tell me, right? Whatever it is, I promise I’ll keep it private.”
    “It’s not you, it’s me. I don’t really want to get into it,” he says. A flash of hurt thunders across his face, then is no more than a distant echo. “Nonetheless, I can understand how hard it can be to hold your head high when you’ve done something that can seem wrong to those who weren’t there. How standing up for what you believe in can lead you to do things you’d swear you’d never do.”
    As though he’s stood up and bolted from my presence, Hawk’s eyes are a light year away. I don’t know what he’s remembered in the last minute, but suddenly I feel like I’m alone on the porch, sitting with only a ghost. I clear my throat and try to change the subject.
    “I never told you how the dinner at Woo’s went.”
    The ploy works, and Hawk’s eyes shift back to mine, bright and eager. “Yeah, I guess I sort of made it impossible for you to tell me much of anything, didn’t I? So, then? Did you manage to get a word in edgewise with Lamertus?”
    “One word? I’ll let you know I got in a full sentence, dangling participle and all!” I brag. Although, given some of the looks he was giving me toward the end of the evening, not all of them were well received. “I also got to talk to Ferris, and Alexi Breznikov said he had heard about me, though he didn’t say from where.”
    “Hmm, must be all those ‘for a good time, call Robin’ messages I keep washing off the stall walls in the men’s bathrooms. Ow! What? I was only kidding.”
    He rubs his arm where I slapped him, but the twinkle in his eye is infectious, and I find myself laughing and asking why he keeps destroying all of my hard work.
    “Ah, so it was self-advertising.” He scratches his chin and pretends to muse. “Boy, you really are a go-getter, aren’t you?”
    As my laugh tapers off, I return to the subject. “I think it went well. I didn’t get a chance to talk with too many others. There was a lot of competition. I have to admit, the Asian students are a little more persistent in their look at me, look at me approach than I am.