little annoyed with their waiter, but mad at the world? That seems unduly harsh. Maybe he’s still trying to get his head around the fact that his girlfriend has spent a small fortune on his thirty-third birthday present—four nights at the Seafarer Hotel—and frankly, he’s not sure he deserves it.
“I thought you could take a few days off now that the semester is over,” she’d said as she rolled over on top of him this morning, the bedsheets twisting around her body in a seductive bow. “Your dissertation can wait. Check-in time is at one o’clock this afternoon.”
“Wow—that’s amazing,” he’d replied, too surprised to react otherwise. The truth is, he can’t remember the last time he actually worked on his dissertation. Lately he’s been spending large chunks of time at the library taking long naps and working toward the world record for fastest completion of the New York Times crossword puzzle. Typically, he comes home, tosses his briefcase on the couch, cracks a beer and listens to Gwen talk about the students in her freshman English seminar. “I mean, you’d think these guys had never heard of Shakespeare,” she complained one night. “Do you know one told me he thought Shakespeare was overrated because all he wrote was clichés?” Jason had groaned sympathetically. Gwen, a teacher’s assistant, is working toward her master’s at the same small New England college where Jason is an adjunct professor and earning his PhD.
She also happens to be five years younger, which on most days seems like no big deal, but on other days feels like light-years, as if she won’t ever catch up to Jason’s slightly jaded worldview. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing: Gwen’s ebullient overtures have often provided a welcome counterpoint to his more dour moods at dinner parties. But sometimes he wonders if they’re compatible for each other in the long run. More specifically, he worries that she might be too good for him. Gwen is head-turning gorgeous, tall and blonde and smarter than any other woman he’s ever dated. What she’s doing with him is a bit of a mystery, but if he probes too deeply, there’s a chance she’ll recognize her mistake. So for the moment, he focuses on enjoying their time together.
“Nah, I’m fine,” he says in response to her question and twirls the ice in his scotch. “Just recalibrating to vacation time, you know?” He has yet to tell her that this vacation may be more permanent than she knows, that he may not go back to finish his PhD or teach next year.
A few Fridays ago, while he stood lecturing about the Bolshevik Revolution, his students had stared back at him with what he interpreted as disinterest and, quite possibly, disgust. And that’s when it hit him: these kids didn’t give a shit about the Bolsheviks. They could barely remember what someone had texted them a few hours ago, let alone an event from one hundred years ago.
So, he’d lost it, in front of twenty-one kids, breaking the cardinal rule of teaching: never let your students see you sweat.
“You know what? If you guys don’t give a damn about what I’m teaching you, why should I?” he’d demanded, rousing a few of them from their stupor. No brave hands went up, however. “I can’t force you guys to be interested.” His eyes darted around the room, daring someone to challenge him, to restore his faith, but not one kid met his gaze long enough to return it. His books and lecture notes went sailing into his briefcase. “We’re done here,” he said, “until someone can prove to me that you’re actually interested in learning.” Well, that got their attention. A boy in the back row who’d yet to say a word the entire semester raised his hand. “Yeah?” Jason practically shouted.
“So does that mean, like, we automatically pass, or do we have to take the class again next semester?”
And he’d thought I’ll be damned. They really don’t care. He grabbed his briefcase and spun around. “Enjoy the rest of your semester. Finals are in two weeks,” he said. “You dudes have my email if you want to be in touch.”
That was nearly four weeks ago. Now finals are over, grades have been passed in and while he has heard some murmurings on campus, he assumes none of his students dared to rat him out to the administration. Because they don’t care enough; for them, canceling class was probably a godsend. And even though Jason thinks