Look Again

Moreau goes on. And on. It’s getting hot, and I am bored. I’ve heard Dr. Moreau’s welcome-back speech three times before this, and I know the gist.

I let my eyes find Joey again. It’s not difficult. In fact, it already feels natural to settle them on her. She’s much more pleasant to look at than Dr. Moreau, who scares me a little. She insists on being called chancellor, not headmistress.

If I’m being honest, I like that about her. I mean, mistress? Even though it means she’s the boss, it sounds wrong. Not professional. Chancellor is better. She’s a woman who knows what she wants. But she’s still scary.

I listen vaguely as I plan how I’m going to convince Joey Harker she is delighted by my company. I formulate a few plans to charm her.

I realize I haven’t heard much of Moreau’s speech about educational standards and student collaboration and responses to student interventions and professional reporting when she says, “I would like to introduce our newest faculty members, Doctor Adam Brillstein and Miss Joey Harker.” She gestures for them to come down to the stage. The guy called Brillstein peels himself from a stone seat and lurches down the steps of the bowl. When he arrives at the mic, he almost bows to Dr. Moreau. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him tug his forelock in submission. She waves him to the microphone.

Fidgeting foot to foot, he looks a bit like a penguin. A friendly one. Maybe his legs fell asleep sitting on the stone bench.

“Hello, everyone?” His voice rises, as if in a question. “I’m glad I’m here? I’m Adam?” I wonder if he’s going to raise his vocal pitch like that at the end of every sentence.

Hank notices, too. “Is he not certain he’s Adam?”

New guy continues. “I’ve come from teaching at Phillips Exeter? In New Hampshire?”

Hank nods. “Ah. That Phillips Exeter. The one in New Hampshire.” Hank is not the most gifted whisperer. His voice carries. And his Queen’s English accent is impossible to hide. A couple rows in front of us, someone turns around and smiles.

Adam Brillstein continues. “I’m teaching history? American Problems? And post-war history?”

Hank stretches his legs in front of him and clasps his hands across his stomach as he leans his elbows back against the stone bench behind him. “A good thing we’re living in a world without current wars.”

I give his leg a light kick. Sometimes Hank needs help knowing when he’s said enough. Or at the wrong volume.

He nods and pretends to slap his own wrist. He sucks his lips inside his mouth in some unsubtle suggestion that he’ll shut up for a while. Dr. Adam Brillstein continues to talk in a way that indicates he’s playing a long (tedious) game of twenty (forty? sixty?) questions.

Finally question guy sits down. I look over to where Joey has been sitting by Ginger, but she is already on the floor of the amphitheater, moving toward the microphone. She walks like a dancer, her back held straight and her legs moving in front of her.

I have the sudden thought that I want to see her on stage. The spotlight would love her.

“Hello, everyone,” she says, and her smile shines. I want to stop time and just watch her stand there smiling. “I’m Joey. I do photography. I’m very honored to be here.” And she gives a small wave, walks back to the first row of seating, and sits down.

That’s it?

I’ve been looking forward to learning something about this girl. Woman. Person. Qualified educator. Whatever. To hear what she would say about her life, her work, her place here; how she would paint the picture of herself.

She didn’t mention a boyfriend, but she didn’t mention anything. She probably had someone, wherever she came from. How could she not? But she said no more than a dozen words at the microphone. It was hardly enough to get any kind of impression beyond that obvious first one—that she is beautiful.

Which I already know.

I wish she stayed up there longer, showing me who she is. Somewhere between Adam Brillstein’s long and boring soliloquy and Joey’s “hi and goodbye,” there is the right balance. Enough information to form an opinion, but plenty of room to ask further questions over coffee or at lunch. Not to mention I would have liked a chance to stare at her face for a while as she stood in front of the faculty. Everyone was staring, or at least attentive, which was only polite. But she hustled away from the microphone without giving even a clue about why she might resist the gentle and subtle advances of a handsome and charming guy like me.

Maybe she’s blind. No problem. I’ll show her that my charms go way past the physical.

She doesn’t stand a chance.

Yeah, keep talking,I tell myself. You’ll convince yourself eventually.

Dr. Moreau heads back to the microphone and makes a few more announcements. I listen, mostly, while I stare at the back of Miss Joey Harker’s hair. I think it’s a good thing she sat down there, at the front of the bowl, instead of climbing back up the stairs. I can study her much more subtly from this angle.

I’m definitely not listening to Moreau when I get a kick from Hank.

“We are pleased,” the chancellor says, “to announce a change to the Chamberlain Faculty Council beginning in January.” The Chamberlain Faculty Council is a huge deal in most departments, but I struggle to care. My classes, theatre and one choir—all the arts classes, really—are unrepresented on the council. Apparently, it’s only a real, official department if the Chamberlain board says it is. And art is important, of course, the Board says with a patronizing pat on the head, but Real Education leads to Real Employment. I’ve heard this argument all my life.

You can’t avoid hearing it when you get a degree in theatre.

I raise my eyebrows in question at Hank, who responds with a “be patient” wave of his hand.

Moreau goes on. “After years of discussion and final input from the Chamberlain Board, we are pleased to announce the opening of an arts chair position. Any interested applicant will set an appointment with me through my assistant.”

Hank slaps me on the shoulder, still keeping his mouth sealed but looking smug and self-satisfied.

I lean over and whisper, “You knew about this? And you didn’t tell me?”

He shrugs, a smirk on his face, and points to his sealed lips, as though keeping things quiet is part of his normal skill set.

A seat on the Chamberlain Faculty Council. That is legitimate. That is validating. That is what I need.

I want it. I want to be arts chair. I want it, and I can get it. I formulate an affirmation and repeat it in my mind until I’m almost confident that my luck has changed and, once again, after all these years, what I want is within my grasp.