Chapter Thirty-Two

Irecognized her number before I flipped open my cell phone, and I couldn’t keep the slight sneer out my voice when I said, “Monica, it’s you!”

“Yes, it’s me. And I’ve got to start off by apologizing for not calling and for being such a bitch that time. I’ve been wrestling with my fucking dissertation twenty-four/seven. I mean, I have to remind myself to eat. And If I can get two hours of sleep at night, I’m . . . Anyway, I’m a fucking mess. And, yes, you were right. We should move to a better, safer place. But just the thought of having to get all my notes and source material together . . . It seemed like mission impossible. A ridiculous, undoable thing. So I’m so very sorry I barked at you. It was all on me and had nothing to do with you.”

Aha! I was right all along!

“That’s okay—” I started to say, but she interrupted me.

“Let me finish. . . . There’s usually not much call for a sub during summer school, but an English teacher at Dunbar High School broke his leg waterskiing, so I had to teach his classes for six weeks. Of course, I needed the money, but it also meant that I didn’t have a lot of time or energy to work on my fucking dissertation. So, whenever I was at home, I just switched my phone off. Including on the weekends. And I work almost all night.”

“I understand,” I said. And I did.

“But I did miss you, Elliot. Very much. I was under so much pressure to finish this fucking thing so I could maybe get a job somewhere before the fall semester started. Which was a crazy hope anyway, since colleges don’t wait that long to fill any open jobs. Or maybe, I thought, I could get a job starting in the spring. Another stupid idea, which Dr. John Roth, my dissertation adviser, made sure to let me know. John said that even with a PhD the best I could do these days was to get a job at a community college teaching freshman English. Grading dozens of semiliterate compositions. So now I’m all fucked up, Elliot. I know I’m talking too much. Venting. Because you’re the only one I can let it all out to. And I do love you. I really do. But I can’t help thinking that I’m wasting my time with this fucking thing. That I’m wasting my life.”

She paused, and I thought I heard her starting to cry.

“Yeah. That sucks,” I said, straining for something appropriate to say. “Anyway, how’s the thing going?”

“That’s fucked, too. John said that all I did was lay out a list of the medieval conventions, and that I failed to investigate what they mean. Especially the satires of the clergy and of women. His fucking eyes lit up when he said that I should write about how Eve’s original sin was thought to make women the cause of most of men’s problems. Like he still believes this. John’s really young to be a full professor. Maybe in his early thirties. But he’s already an asshole. I don’t think he believes that women should have graduate degrees. Even so, he still tried to flirt with me. Ugh! Anyway . . .”

“So what are you gonna do? Chuck it?”

“No. I’ll revise it, do some more research, and plow my way through to the bitter end. I mean, you’ve seen me making sure that I eat every bit of food on my plate, even food that I don’t like. Like liver or broccoli. I have this urge to finish everything I start. I’m sure it’s anal.”

“Yeah. Well.”

“I’m sorry, Elliot, for being such a mess and for being so self-involved.”

“That’s okay. It’s totally understandable. All that stress.”

“Yeah. You’re a sweetheart, and through it all, I still love you to the max.”

“Me, too.”

“So, Elliot . . . what are you up to?”

“I’m actually in Tucson, back at Southern Arizona as an assistant coach.”

“Holy shit! And here I thought we could get together tonight and I’d make it all up to you.”

Then I told her my whole deal: getting cut by the Thunder, not getting picked up by any other team, my own despair, the charity game, Coach Lee’s offer . . .

“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, Elliot. But what about us?”

“As soon as I can get a few days off here, I’ll fly to New York and we can figure things out. I’m not sure when that’ll be. Probably in a couple of weeks. I mean, I still do love you very much. . . .”

So that’s what we planned to do.

Until then, there were things that had to be done at USA.