EPH RETREATED TO his office. He put some Tom Petty on his phone and connected to a Bluetooth speaker. That Tom Petty was the apogee of American music was the one thing on which he and Big Mike always saw eye to eye. Petty was from Gainesville, a stone’s throw from southern Alabama. One time, Big Mike piled everyone into their old Jeep Wagoneer and drove them the two hours to Pensacola to see the Heartbreakers. It was one of Eph’s best childhood memories.
Eph knew rock music wasn’t in sync with the rest of campus. Students favored hip-hop, while the faculty leaned toward jazz and classical. But this particular part of his upbringing he refused to surrender. Popular music standards, in Eph’s view, had been declining since roughly 1982, before he was even born. Where was the amped-up adrenaline of Led Zeppelin, the glorious menace of the Stones, or the soaring harmonies of the Beach Boys? There was some good country, which he liked, but today’s pop dribbled like treacly syrup from the radio, written by soulless algorithms never programmed to understand interesting chord progressions or complex harmonies. And where did the guitar go? He would never tire of Petty’s jangling, Byrds-like Rickenbacker. Rap music—ubiquitous in every dorm—struck him as a forced marriage between a rhyming dictionary and a drum machine. He thought it all sounded alike, a view he kept to himself in case anyone thought it racist.
Glancing at his watch, he saw it was almost five. He reached into his lower drawer and retrieved a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He wasn’t a big drinker, but somehow listening to Petty always gave him the urge, another vestige from his younger days. He poured a couple of fingers into a glass he kept in the same drawer and took a sip. The warmth slipped down his throat, all the way to his gut. It was easy to understand why people made this a habit.
He wasn’t sure how to feel right now, and he was hoping the Jack would help sort it out. Getting by the Bias Response Team had been a great relief, but he knew the cloud that followed him would not blow away so easily. His colleagues were treating him differently. It was subtle, but there. They were unduly solicitous, as though he had an illness or something. And if he was being honest with himself, Blue Feather was going to be an issue. He had to win her favor, but didn’t have the slightest notion how, or if he even wanted to try.
There was a knock on the slightly open door. “Hi, Professor.” It was the Harris girl. What was she doing here? These weren’t office hours.
“Miss Harris. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I sent you an email.”
“Sorry, I must have missed it.” Lulu Harris had taken to sending quite a number of emails to Eph, mostly about class, but sometimes they veered off-piste. A recent one included side-by-side pictures of Lulu in two different outfits and asked him which one was more “literary.” She was going to New York for a book party or something. Eph thought the email was odd but harmless. He answered, “Number two, but I confess I am out of my depth.”
“I thought I’d catch you to hand in my paper,” said Lulu.
“It’s perfectly all right to email your paper in, you know.”
“I know, but I wanted to hand it in personally.” She nudged the paper across the desk. Louisa May Alcott and the Birth of the Modern Woman.
Hmm, interesting title. At least he wouldn’t have to print it out. Crap—he realized the bottle of Jack was sitting right there. No way to hide it without being obvious.
“Looks interesting. I look forward to reading it.”
“Thanks.” Lulu stood there.
“I appreciate your bringing it by.”
“Of course.” She was still standing there. Eph eyed his bottle, desperately wanting another glass, but not until Harris left. “My dad likes this music.”
“So does mine, and I seemed to have inherited his musical tastes, if nothing else.”
“Cool.” Lulu saw a picture of D’Arcy on Eph’s desk and picked it up. “Who’s this?”
“She’s someone I care for.”
“Girlfriend?”
Eph thought it odd to be getting personal questions from a first-year, but he had left the picture on his desk, so he supposed it was fair game. “Yes.”
“She’s gorgeous.” Lulu closely examined the picture before putting it down. “You know, that whole thing in your class, it was a total setup. I mean, it was so obvious. Any idiot could see it. They even sat in different places to make it look spontaneous, but I’ve seen those guys hanging around.”
“Thank you. It’s been an unwelcome episode.”
“I can imagine.”
Lulu eyed the bottle of Jack. This was getting uncomfortable. Eph made a mental note to pour his drink directly out of his desk drawer next time.
“Sooo, can I have some?”
“What?” Eph hoped Lulu meant something other than what he thought she meant, but then she nodded toward the bottle, smiling.
“Oh, uh, I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
“I’ve been drinking since I was fourteen. I think I can handle it.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure we’d be violating about twenty-five different clauses in my employment contract.” Why is she smiling like that?
“Oh, you’re no fun.”
“It’s true. Please don’t tell my girlfriend. She doesn’t know.”
“Hmm, she’s lucky.”
“I think it’s clear that I’m the lucky one.”
Lulu twirled her hair and then looked back at the bottle. “Are we celebrating something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Rumor has it you’re in the clear.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“You mean, other than because I was the one who got you off? Other than that, I’d say it’s because there was something about it a half hour ago in the online Devon Daily.”
Eph was at a loss for words. Someone must have given the paper the scoop. He swiveled his laptop around and called up the Daily. There it was.