Tenure Track (9 page)

Cheerfully oblivious to what was about to befall him, Dr. Burns greeted the Chair. “Sorry I’m late, Jane. So, what’s up?”

She paused. Even though she had been mentally practicing her speech all day, her mind went blank now that the moment had arrived. Following Gary’s example, she decided to stall with friendly banter while collecting her thoughts. “How
are
you Lewis?” she asked, sounding more serious than amiable.

“
I-I’m, good,” he replied, a bit confused by the intense tone of her question.

Jane nodded, carefully taking in his answer. “You know, I’m really sorry about you and Laura. I know the last year has been pretty rough on you.”

“
Uh, yeah, thanks” he replied to her expressions of sympathy. “But I’m handling it. You just muddle through, ya know?”

Lewis tried to figure out where this line of questioning was headed. Jane had expressed her sympathy once in passing, but other than that, had never mentioned his marital problems. Lewis supposed now that she was Chair she felt a special duty to show concern for his personal well-being.

Of course, Jane had never had any reason to pry about the divorce. Perry had kept most of the department abreast of every detail from Laura’s point of view. By gossip standards, it had seemed like a pretty amicable parting, with no accusations of adultery, abuse or addiction. According to Perry’s analysis, the talented Dr. Hennig had simply outgrown her less-ambitious spouse; an interpretation that made sense to Jane.

Other sordid tales of loud, cursing telephone arguments did not seem to mesh with the people Jane knew, so she had dismissed those details as typical Perry exaggerations. She had also dismissed rumors about Lewis’s erratic behavior, including allegedly assaulting a grad student, drinking heavily, and being spotted in questionable company at nightclubs. Even if the rumors held a grain of truth, she had convinced herself that they were probably just minor transgressions; certainly nothing serious and within the realm of expected behavior for a man who had just been dumped by the love of his life. Now she might have to re-investigate those rumors in light of this newest complaint. Perhaps they revealed more about Lewis than she realized.

After a few more moments of awkward, meaningless conversation, she dove into the true purpose for the meeting. “We have a bit of a problem, Dr. Burns.”

He still looked confused. “Is it something with my tenure application?”

Of course,
Jane thought,
that should be his first priority these days.
Just as quickly, she reminded herself that if tenure had truly been his top priority, he would not have done anything to jeopardize it. “You could say that. An issue has come up recently that may affect your approval.”

“
What?” he asked, looking truly concerned for the first time.

There was no more need to hedge. “Lewis,” Jane asked directly. “Do you know a girl named Mandy Taylor?”

The look on his face spoke volumes. Upon mention of the name, he turned an ashen white. He could not have looked guiltier had Jane caught him
in flagrante delicto.

“
Um, uh, yes,” he stammered. “Of course I know her. She was my research assistant last year. Very sharp girl.”

“
She also claims that you two had a sexual relationship.” Jane stared at him intently, awaiting his response.

“
S-she does? She told you that?” he asked, clearly taken aback by her knowledge of his personal life.

“
Not directly, but her mother has launched an informal complaint with the Dean of Students’ office for violating No Fraternization,” Jane explained. “There have also been some other allegations about you supplying her with alcohol when she was underage—.”

“
Now wait just a minute!” he interrupted. “The girl works at a bar! I also know that she has a fake I.D., so that’s ludicrous! Jeez, Jane, this is the biggest party school in the country. Any kid can get alcohol whenever they want. That’s just crazy.”

“
Lewis, I’m afraid ‘everybody does it’ is not going to be a helpful defense if it’s still illegal,” Jane gently reminded him. “The mother’s a lawyer; she’ll shred that to pieces.”

Lewis lowered his eyes and nervously tapped his mouth with a closed fist.

“
And what about the sexual relationship?” Jane was beginning to feel uncomfortably more like a detective interrogating a suspect than a department Chair talking to a colleague.

He said nothing. Looking a bit ill, one of his knees began to shake slightly as he opened and closed his fists.

Jane now appropriated her “mom” voice, usually reserved for catching one of the twins in a falsehood. “Lewis, you didn’t answer my question. Did you have a sexual relationship with her?”

Lewis chewed on his bottom lip. “I thought this policy wasn’t supposed to turn into sexual McCarthyism: ‘Are you now or have you ever had intercourse with a student?’”

Jane folded her hands in front of her and shook her head, interpreting his avoidance as an admission of guilt. “Lewis, how could you? You know about the school’s policy, and with your tenure review coming up, this is the worst possible timing.”

He silently leaned the fist against his chin.

Jane continued, “And you know about her stepfather?” His face turned a paler shade of white. “My God, Lewis, you couldn’t have picked a worse student to seduce!”

Lewis sighed and closed his eyes, the full depth of the crisis beginning to sink in. Finally, Jane reluctantly told him about the photo on Mandy’s Internet page. At that point, Dr. Burns looked like he was about to throw up.

There did not seem much point in defending himself. Now was the time for damage control. “So what’s the procedure for something like this?” he asked.

Jane explained the complex bureaucratic process, should Ms. Taylor launch a formal complaint. Since this would be the first test case under the policy, there was no precedent for how the administration might rule. Given the additional accusations of supplying an underage girl with alcohol, bringing disgrace to the university with the salacious photo and the potential political fallout, she admitted there would be immense pressure to make an example of him.

“
The good thing,” Jane concluded, “is that so far they haven’t filed a formal complaint, so we may be able to head off some of the damage informally, but I need to hear your side of the story.”

Whether he was being chivalrous or practicing self-preservation, Lewis refused to answer. He insisted that he needed to consult an attorney first. Jane was a bit taken aback. “You’re not under arrest,” she said rather defensively.

“
Maybe not, but I have the feeling that anything I say right now might be used against me at a later time,” he said slowly.

Well, he’s right about that,
Jane thought. There was no code of confidentiality in this room. As his supervisor and an officer of the university, she was obligated to report any details that Lewis confessed. Still, she was disappointed that he distrusted her so. With seemingly little point in further discussion, she dismissed him curtly. Lewis walked out in silence and immediately headed to a stall in the men’s room as waves of nausea overcame him. His whole body shook and sweated profusely as he dry heaved over the toilet. Hearing voices enter the restroom, he flushed the empty bowl. Staring into the swirling water, he imagined his career going down with it.

After Lewis left the room, Jane sat quietly at her desk, unsure what to think about his predicament. Her gut told her that he was not a Horndog Harry, but this situation held the potential to spiral out of control. Jane felt obligated to do what was best for the university. That might mean sacrificing Dr. Burns, a person she genuinely liked.

Doing what she thought was best for the whole would not be easy. She had just spent 30 minutes questioning a popular, well-liked teacher about his sexual relationship with a woman who was over the age of consent.
Is this really what the Chair of the History Department needs to be doing?
If Jane felt unsure about asking Lewis such personal questions, her feelings about this entire process were rapidly growing ambivalent.
After all,
it’s not like he was arrested for trafficking in child porn.
Still, she knew that once political threats entered the equation, demands for action would follow. Despite the liberal faculty’s oft-stated desire to be a bipartisan island of freedom and forward thinking, the university had a long history of bowing to pressure from the conservative political body that controlled its funding and future.

But the political threat was only one cause of the unease she was feeling about this case. There was another factor that she could not share with Gary or any other colleague. It was something she had never even shared with Mark.

It was a memory from a long time ago.

A memory that she constantly tried to suppress.

A memory that made her sympathize more than she would like with Lewis Burns’s predicament. Try as she might, she could not prevent the memory from enveloping her mind as she pondered his situation.

Jane had expected to spend most of her first year at the U. focusing on work, navigating the mini-city that was the 40-acre academy. Were it not for Mark and Perry, she would have had no social life whatsoever. The diminutive colonialist was constantly in her office, keeping her abreast of all the latest news. She took to working in the bowels of the library whenever she really needed to concentrate without interruption. Mark also found excuses to run into her regularly, even though the Math Department was headquartered across campus from History. Much to his disappointment, she made it clear that she had no interest in dating Dr. Straussman romantically, though she enjoyed his companionship.

Despite the initial sting of this rejection, Mark had remained determined. He approached winning her over to tackling a difficult math proof: both required patience and careful thought. She refused to make the project easy for him, emphasizing the platonic nature of their relationship by inviting Perry along on most social outings and paying her own way. Her young friend happily fulfilled his chaperone duties. For the most part, Jane enjoyed the freedom allowed by her self-imposed celibacy, unencumbered by devotion to a male ego.

Eventually, however, suppressed desires gave way to temptation.

Her course-load during that first semester included teaching History 310K, Introduction to Western Civilization: Part I. She hated the course simply because she thought it was ludicrous to cover pre-Greek civilizations through the Middle Ages, or roughly 4,000 years of history, in one semester. It was during that interminable class that she began to notice a young man who always sat in the same seat on the third row. He had a slim frame, piercing blue eyes that constantly looked half-stoned and shaggy dark brown hair, resembling a young Jim Morrison strutting on the Doors’ first album cover. The young man rarely ever seemed to take any notes, content to stare at her intently as she lectured. If, in glancing across the rows of students, her gaze momentarily caught his, he would smile as if holding back some sly secret. Those moments always threw her off balance, requiring a mental reorganization to get back on track with her lecture. As the semester drew on, she tried to avoid his gaze as much as possible, but she could feel it nonetheless. She never spied him outside of class and never tried to find out his name. Something about him just made her uncomfortable.

The day after final grades were posted, on an unusually warm afternoon for December, the young man appeared at her office door as she sat composing an article on her electric typewriter. It was the same office Lewis Burns would occupy 30 years later, with newer paint and smaller cracks in the ceiling.

With her eyes and mind focused on the manuscript, several minutes passed before she sensed the student’s presence in the doorway, and even then she did not turn right away, assuming it was Perry making his usual rounds to chat. Finally looking up, she jumped slightly upon seeing the young man standing before her in tight blue jeans with matching denim jacket, sequined KISS concert T-shirt, and gold chain necklace. He was leaning with his right arm and hip against the doorframe, staring a hole through her, just as he did in class, eagerly chewing a piece of gum. He looked like sheer sex on a platter.

“
I’m sorry,” she said, a bit disoriented by his presence. “Can I help you?”

He stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “I just got done takin’ your Western Civ Class.”

As they politely shook hands, she realized her palms were sweating. “Do you have a question about your grade?” she asked nervously.

“
Oh no,” he replied. “I got a ‘C+.’ I’m cool with that. You’re a good teacher.”

“
Thank you,” she nodded, taking note of his lack of ambition for the course. “So what can I help you with?”

“
I was wonderin’ if you’d eat with me tonight,” he asked bluntly.

Jane was stunned into silence at the boldness of this kid who looked to be no older than 17. “Uh, eat?” she replied.

“
Yeah. Ya know, food?” He smiled deliciously.

Jane hemmed and hawed for a moment. It would have been so easy to just turn him down politely, to make up some excuse or say she had other plans. But it had been a long time since her last real date, much longer since she had had sex. This young man offered the potential to end her dry spell. She had to admit that it was flattering for him to ask her out. Despite her pretty looks, Jane had always seemed to appeal mostly to cerebral, plain-looking males like Mark, not hunks like this one standing before her. After pondering several moments, she accepted, but insisted they meet on neutral ground, a Chinese restaurant on the other side of town, where it was less likely that anyone from the university would see them. Although at that time there was no prohibition against professors dating students, Jane was fully aware of the ethical issues it posed. She also knew that as a woman she faced greater scrutiny than a male professor might in a similar situation.