Love Lessons (2 page)

He passed the sad little studio where he’d taken the elective course that spawned his possibly ill-conceived degree, and he smiled. He waved at Jax, who was playing DJ for a campus radio station no one paid any attention to. Finally, he headed down the stairs to the basement offices where the communications professors—all three of them—did their best not to hold office hours.

Professor Williams was at his desk, though, his lanky form huddled over the rough old wooden slab as he nibbled at a homemade sandwich, his graying and thinning hair sticking up in varying directions. Spying Walter, he waved and motioned him into the small, overcrowded space.

“Mr. Lucas.
Entre vous.
” He put down the sandwich and moved a pile of file folders off a chair. “What can I do for you?” When Walter didn’t answer right away, Williams studied him a moment before wincing. “Oh damn. They didn’t give you permission to live off campus.”

Walter shrugged, trying to make like it didn’t matter. “It was a long shot.”

“It was pretty important to you, as I recall.” He sighed and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “For the record, I went to the board and the dean personally and pled your case. Though in hindsight that might have not been the best plan. They seem even more irritated with me this year than usual.”

“It’s okay, really.”

Williams looked at Walter over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses, and Walter sighed before slouching in the chair.

“Okay. It sucks ass and not in a good way. I think I’ve been preparing myself for it ever since I got that notice from the bank, though.”

“Still, I’m sorry, Walter.” After pouring coffee into two chipped mugs from a battered thermos, Williams handed one to Walter. “Wish I kept a flask in here so I could make this Irish. Even though I’m not sure that’s kosher, giving alcohol to a student no matter whether or not you’re a legal eagle—today I would, because today sucks for you.”

“Thanks.” Walter took a sip of the lukewarm rotgut coffee and felt like he’d gone home. Some of the best moments in his life had been in this office drinking bad coffee with Williams. “How’s the family?”

“Good. Kids started school last week, so Karen’s not quite as homicidal. It was getting to be a near thing toward the end of summer.”

Walter winced. “Damn, wish I hadn’t had to go back to Chicago, or I could have helped.”

“Speaking of
that
. I know it’ll be grim, but give me an update on the home front.”

Walter sipped more coffee. “Mom is unstable again, Dad’s blissfully ignoring her, and Tibby is at Olympic-level pouting and flouncing. Cara is in full wedding-planning mode, and Greg is neck-deep in grad school.” He scraped his thumb over a chip on the rim. “They wanted me to transfer back to Northwestern, or somewhere in Chicago.”

“Hmm.” Williams tipped his chair back, making it creak on ancient hinges. “You sound oddly guilty when you say that. Did you
want
to transfer?”

“Not really.” He rubbed the chipped mug rim again. “It would have been easier to keep tabs on my family, I’ll admit.”

Williams snorted. “Good reason not to transfer, then. Keeping tabs on your family has only ever made you crazy. Though you know you’re wasted on Hope. Northwestern, U of C—anywhere else has to have a better communications department.”

This comment made Walter frown. “I like our department.”

“
Nobody
likes this department.” Williams poked at his sandwich. “I’m up for tenure this year. I have a very bad feeling they’re going to find a way to deny it to me. Goddamn, but I don’t want to move.”

“What?” Walter sat bolt upright in his chair. “Back up.”

Williams looked surprised. “I’m in a tenured position, which means now that I’ve been here six years, they either give me tenure—essentially ensure I won’t lose my job unless I retire or do something obscene with a student—or they don’t, and in the case of the latter, that means you’re out the door. With a black mark on your name when you try and find a new job.”

“They have to give you tenure,” Walter said, hoping he sounded less desperate than he felt.

“They don’t have to, but it is pretty hard to deny it. Still, I’ve been in close contact with the American Association of University Professors, and I’m ready to appeal if it comes to that.”

Walter simply sipped his coffee, though internally he reeled. He couldn’t imagine finishing his degree without Williams. He’d fucking
sleep
with Ethan Miller and give Porterhouse a naked parade while they jeered before losing his advisor.

“Anyway.” The professor put down his coffee and scratched at the back of his head. “I’m going to try to be a little more of a line-toter this year. Karen says that will last until about October. Probably she’s right.”

You’re the best professor on campus,
Walter wanted to say, but he couldn’t because it would be too sycophantic. “If they deny you tenure, there will probably be a riot.”

This made Williams smile. “Rose Manchester has already been by full of fury when she heard I was up this year, promising to start a student committee within the Philosophy Club if they deny me. Apparently there’s precedent: in 1992 they denied a professor tenure, and during the appeal the students mobilized and in general made a big fit. I’m not convinced they’re what turned the tide, and like I told Rose, I need to not hear a damn word of whatever they do because there’s no way that will help, the dean of faculty and board of regents thinking I incited people to protest.”

“Jesus, you sound like you
expect
to be denied.”

Williams’s smile was almost wicked. “Well, the dean did call me a little shit just last week.”

Normally that would make Walter smile, but given the current context, he couldn’t. “Dean Prents is the little shit. God, that bastard is smarmy.”

“
Hush.
” Williams stuck his foot out to shut the door, then stopped himself. “Be good. I can’t shut the doors because Karen pointed out they’d love to revisit that debacle from two years ago.”

“Please. It isn’t Disney U unless someone accuses you of flirting with a student. Besides, you’re old enough to be my dad.”

“Hey!” Williams looked genuinely affronted. “Only if I’d fathered you under the ninth-grade bleachers, wise guy. Anyway, last time I checked, the daddy fetish was alive and well in the gay community.” He paused, turned slightly pale and pushed the door the rest of the way shut. “Fuck, I need to stop talking.”

Walter laughed. “What, do you think they have the place bugged?”

“No, but—” He paused, clearly fighting some internal battle. “Here’s the truth, between you and me. I’m an even bigger wise guy than you. Yeah, you find that funny and fun, but it’s probably about time, as someone old enough to be your father, that I act like a real grownup. I took this job because it was what I could get and because I had dreams of getting them to expand the program. All I’ve done in six years is screw around.”

“You’ve done more than that,” Walter said, a little too sharply.

Williams gentled. “I know. I don’t mean to diminish what I’ve been able to give to students like you. I don’t regret my time here, either. Or any of my students, even the shitheads. The thing is, at some point I should probably grow up and have a career, you know?”

“You
do
have a career.”

“Sure. I’m a junior professor in a nearly defunct department at a university making its mark on the academic landscape with sky-high tuition, cutesy policies and diversity masquerading as a marketing strategy. I haven’t even been pulling my punches on Hope because I agreed with them or because I was desperate to keep my job. I’ve been lazy. I haven’t published but that one article, which right there makes tenure an uphill climb.” Williams looked almost grim. “Yeah. I’m sure that sob story has inspired you to greatness. Okay, Mr. Lucas, I need to finish this syllabus. Really sorry about your apartment. Just tell me they snuck you into the Manors and I’ll sleep easy.”

“I’m doubling in a single in Porter with an allergy-ridden freshman.”

“
Wonderful.
” Williams raised his mug in a mock toast. “Saturday night, Opie’s, back room, pitcher of beer. I’ll bring my wife so nobody thinks I’m seducing you.” He frowned. “Fuck, I’ll have to get a sitter, and Cara’s gone. Jesus, I hate it when people graduate.”

Walter laughed, shaking off the hollowness that the thought of losing Williams had inspired. “I’ll be there.”

“Though I forgot to ask. When are you moving in? I assume you’re staying at Cara and Greg’s old place right now?”

“Yeah, finishing off the lease. Which ends on Wednesday.”

Williams lifted an eyebrow. “It’s Monday.”

“You could say I’m in a bit of denial.”

The professor checked his watch. “Given the time, I assume you’re not moving in tonight.”

“God no. Tonight I plan to go find someone young and nubile and terrified and take him back to enjoy my last night in non-Disney cohabitation. Though I might drop by and stake my claim on my four square feet of floor space and make sure someone puts in a bunk for me. Unless I decide to stick with the futon. More room on that for bedroom acrobatics.”

Williams tossed him a salute. “Go forth and fuck, young man.”

“I plan to,” Walter said as he left.

This time as Walter traversed the Ritche Hall corridors, he stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled, feeling a hell of a lot better than he had when he’d arrived.

Chapter Two

Somewhere in the middle of freshman orientation at Hope University, Kelly Davidson began to doubt.

His parents had left around noon after hugging him and making him promise to call as often as he could. They’d had a nice lunch at the pizza place across the street, and they’d said their goodbyes on the shores of Lake Sharon. Kelly was pretty sure that on the way over to orientation a seriously cute guy—Kelly assumed he was an upperclassman, but he wasn’t yet sure how to tell—had been checking out his ass.

Except now that he was finally in the campus auditorium listening to the dean of students talk about the wonders of Hope, Kelly could barely sit still, he was so full of panic. His happy bubble of utopia had burst sometime during the small group orientation circles, and the day which had begun with an Ashman and Menken soundtrack now played the theme from
Jaws
. Worst of all, Kelly couldn’t point to anything specific to account for his sudden desire to run like hell for home and dive right back into his closet.

A bump on his arm made him turn to his left, where his orientation leader beamed at him while the dean droned on in carefully modulated tones. Amy flashed her rainbow ring that went with her rainbow hair extensions and her bright green shirt that read
It’s Okay With Me
. She leaned over to whisper in Kelly’s ear. “Some of us from the GSA are going to Opie’s for pizza and root beer after. Want to come along?”

Kelly paused, unsure of what to do. Hadn’t he dreamed of joining a Gay-Straight Alliance since he was fourteen? Wasn’t that exactly why he was here, to hook up with groups like that?

He had, yes, but his orientation leader had given him the creeps the second they met. After outing him in front of the group—apparently his orientation was listed on her clipboard—she’d latched on to Kelly’s arm like a barnacle and carried on about how they could boyfriend shop together. Her enthusiasm and rainbow regalia deepened Kelly’s sense of foreboding instead of reassuring him.

Yes, he should go, but man he really didn’t want to.

“I think I need to head back to my room and get some things settled,” he whispered back. “Thanks, though.”

The dean finished speaking, and the audience clapped politely as they rose and dispersed. The orientation leader stayed at Kelly’s side and pouted. “Aw, come on. You gotta eat, right? Double cheese pizza and root beer float tempt you?”

“I’m allergic to dairy.”
And eggs, and almonds, and dust mites, and ragweed, and cats and dogs and down and mold.
He picked up his backpack and eyed an escape route. “See you around,” he said, and before she could trap him again, he bolted.

Kelly didn’t run out of the auditorium, but he huddled underneath the slim weight of his orientation-literature-filled backpack, frowning as he tried to shake off the interaction. His thumb brushed the woven rainbow bracelet his sister had given him that morning as they’d left the hotel room to move him into his dorm. Was it a mistake to wear this? Was it too soon? Should he take it off? It’s not like Lisa would know he’d removed her gift. How many other people had his gayness marked down on their clipboards? He frowned to himself as he angled toward the exit doors, so caught up in his own thoughts that when someone put a hand on his arm, he jumped. A girl with long blonde hair sticking out from a maroon knit beret kept hold of Kelly’s arm and pointed to the floor.

“Sorry, but you were about to walk right across the Zodiac.”

Her tone seemed to hint this sentence should be self-explanatory, which only further confused Kelly. “What?”

“They didn’t tell you in orientation? Usually they at least cover it as an amusing myth.” She pointed to a mosaic in the floor, brass-plated symbols that looked vaguely astrological. “Don’t walk over the Zodiac, or you’ll fail your next test. I know, it sounds stupid now. But as one who has done it and paid the price, I can’t let you start college that way in good conscience.”