spent maybe an hour looking at molecules before I fell asleep right there at a study table under all that beveled glass and beautiful sunlight, my head cushioned by my forearms. I woke with drool on my book, a page stuck to my cheek, feeling stupid in many ways.
But now, right next door, in Wescoe’s dreary basement, my English professor was telling me that he was impressed with the draft I’d turned in for my final paper on Far from the Madding Crowd. I was the only student who had argued that the ending was sad, he said. Strong critical thinking, he said. Palpable enthusiasm for the subject matter. A real talent for this. I smiled back at him, feeling dazed and slightly warm, though his office was cold, and my hair was still damp and curling from the rain. It had been a while since anyone had told me I was doing okay at anything.
He said he’d been impressed with every paper I’d turned in that semester. He thanked me for the thoughtful comments I’d made during class discussions. It was so nice, he said, to see so much genuine enthusiasm for learning. He asked me if I was an English major and if I was planning to apply to graduate school.
“No,” I told him. “I’m pre-med.”
The words came out of habit. But this time, as I said them, I felt as if I were listening from the outside, nowhere inside my own head. My gaze moved around his office, at the shelves full of books on Hardy and Keats and Yeats, books I would very much want to read if only I had the time. Papers cluttered his desk, and a print of Virginia Woolf’s face stared out from the wall behind him. On the other wall by his desk, he’d Scotch taped several crayon drawings of stick figures with smiling faces, “FOR DADY” scrawled across the bottom of one.
“Pre-med,” he said, smiling as he slid my paper back across his desk. “Renaissance woman, huh? Good at everything. Well, you’re smart to do medicine, then. You’ll always have a job.”
I did not correct him. I did not explain that I was not a Renaissance woman, good at everything, or that I was about to flunk out of my major. I only stood and thanked him when it was time to leave, my voice maybe a little too grateful, too loud for such a small office. Before I left, I took one last look around. The only thing missing was plants, and he probably would have had some if he’d had a window. What was important was that he had an office. He spent his days doing what I would love to do, and he did not appear destitute. There was no reason to assume he would someday need to move into his child’s dorm room to save up for a security deposit. Perhaps doing what you loved, what you really wanted to do, wasn’t a problem. Perhaps just being my mother was. I did think wistfully of our family doctor, and all the tangible help she gave to people here and on the other side of the world. If I did not get control of myself immediately, I would never be able to vaccinate children in Kenya, or maybe never learn to do anything that useful. But maybe I could find some other way to be good.
I felt strangely light as I climbed the stairs back up to ground level, even in my coat and boots, my bookbag swinging beside me. Outside, I stood under one of Wescoe’s many overhanging slabs. A bus came by, but I didn’t run out into the rain to catch it. A talent for this. Genuine enthusiasm. I stared into the falling rain, vaguely aware that I was smiling.
I should have taken that bus.
“Veronica Von Holten! What a pleasant surprise!”
Jimmy Liff walked toward me across the patio, something metal jingling in his pockets, both arms extended, as if he were coming in for a hug. When he got closer, his arms still raised, and it appeared that he was not going to stop, I took a step back, forgetting I was standing at the top of several cement steps. I had to catch myself on the banister.
“What’s the matter?” He stood over me, stooping a little so his face was very close to mine. “You’re not afraid of me, right?”
I glanced back over my shoulder, searching for another bus. I didn’t want to