28

James was having lunch in the cafeteria with Cohen from the English department and Greenwood, who was a sociologist. Cohen was a Faulkner specialist, who had written a novel of his own, which was totally autobiographical and unpublishable. James could say of Cohen’s experience what he’d often felt about himself—it’s a life, but it’s not much of a story.

Cohen as usual was talking about coeds. He’d caught a glimpse of the breast of one of his particular favorites through the armhole of her blouse as she was reaching for a book on a shelf.

“What a body,” he was saying. “There’s nobody like her.”

“Yah,” said Greenwood. “She’s a frigid bitch. Like her friend Judy Halstead.”

Cohen chuckled. Leaning forward conspiratorially, he whispered, “You think Judy Halstead is frigid? Well, you’re wrong. In point of fact I personally have hugged and kissed Judy Halstead. In my office.”

“You have?” Greenwood said with mild surprise. Squeezing his tea bag, he added, “If you’re going to hug and kiss a student, I suppose that is the way to do it—personally.”

James stirred his gelatinous chop suey. “Isn’t Judy Halstead on the field hockey team?” he asked.

“She’s captain of it,” Cohen replied. “Also she’s chairman of the student disciplinary board.”

“Discipline?” Greenwood said sweetly.

“Is it ever really worth it, I wonder?” James said. “Getting involved with a student, I mean?”

“You tell us,” Greenwood said.

“I don’t think it is,” James replied. “They’re so much younger than we are. Their bodies are developed, but they’re not capable of—what can I call it?—depth of feeling, maybe, emotional sympathy, long-term relationships.”

“A father figure isn’t forever,” said Greenwood.

“It can happen,” James replied.

“Not often. The Durants were a fluke,” Greenwood said. “Feh. December is December and May is May. Let’s face it, it’s almost impossible to have any kind of a relationship with someone who’s just starting their life when you’re at the stage where you’re trying to figure out what happened to yours.”

“Speak for yourself, Clyde,” said Cohen. “I’ve got an appointment with a student in five minutes. She wants to talk about Emily Dickinson. You never know where Emily Dickinson is going to lead you. She and Sylvia Plath. Loneliness and insanity, that’s what makes them want to reach out to you.”

James had no appointments. As his colleagues got up from the table, he leaned on it, squeezing his eyelids with his fingers. He felt utterly worn out.

“I think this student I’m seeing really is a possibility,”

Cohen was saying. “Janet Hunt’s her name. She’s a real hippie, doesn’t wear a bra, which is a good sign, and there was a rumor she was along with that radical group that trashed Hamilton’s office.”

“I doubt she’s into discipline, then,” Greenwood said.

“We’ll see,” said Cohen.

*

James had slowly made his way back to his office, where he was listening now, for perhaps the twenty-fifth time, to Lauren’s last tape. It began with “I’m sorry” and ended, five minutes later, with “I really am.” Between her apologies she talked about what a growing experience it had been for her, and how people change.

As the tape played, James stared out the window. He saw a hippie girl, who appeared to be muttering to herself, charging across the quadrangle. She looked a little like Janis Joplin, the singer his son was so crazy about. James didn’t understand how a woman with a face like that could appeal to anyone. You just knew that something in her wanted to squeeze men like blackheads.

When the tape ended, James got up to go to the bathroom.

His urine was the same color as the Rose’s lime juice he used to make his occasional vodka gimlets. That was because of the vitamins his wife was making him take after reading Linus Pauling. Over his own splashing James could hear the shrieks of Anderson’s opera, which was in rehearsal on the floor below.

He flushed the urinal, and was as relieved when its churning drowned out the dreadful singing as he’d felt peeing.

Little reliefs. And they were about it, the most he could hope for at this stage of the game.

James looked in the mirror. He was getting jowls. Lately his skin felt suspended from his bones, the net under the tightrope act.

Anyplace my blood pressure doesn’t make me red, I’m gray, he thought.

Downstairs the piano was banging.

James heard some ugly high notes, and familiar lyrics.

“I am blind to what they say is my shame

I see but what’s lit by my passion’s flame.”