Free Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) by Rachel Kadish

collarbone, which is sturdy-looking. “But I’d be an idiot not to make the extra effort these days to keep my ducks in a row.”
    â€œAnd the tenure process?”
    â€œComing along.”
    He raises an eyebrow.
    â€œI don’t like to burden people—”
    â€œDoubt it’ll break me.”
    â€œEither I get tenured and promoted this semester, or I’ll go on the job market—something I’d rather not contemplate.”
    â€œThat bad?”
    â€œI’m one of the lucky few Manhattan Ph.D.s who didn’t have to move to Boise or Anchorage for a job after graduation. My adviser retired the year I finished my Ph.D. and green-lighted me to fill his spot. One day I was at my graduation, lined up in my robe with a few hundred strangers, all of us with those ridiculous wind socks draped down our backs. The next day I was a prof. I deserved the job: I had good publications and a solid academic record. But so did dozens of others. I’d have to be pretty arrogant to deny the role of luck. Half a dozen smart classmates of mine got nothing but adjunct offers.”
    He hasn’t let go of my hand. His barely restrained smile dares me to continue as though there were no other current running between us. I dare him, in return, to listen.
    â€œAnd there but for the grace of the tenure committee go I—back into the pit of nonbenefited slave labor over which we junior academics dangle.”
    â€œI’m with you,” he murmurs.
    This, I see, is George’s verbal signature. The words mean only
I understand,
but when he says them it sounds like
I’ll keep you
company.
I’m not only talking—I’m talking to another person, truly talking to another person, the way most conversations aren’t. I crack open a window on my life; out come thoughts I’ve confessed to no one.
    â€œIf you want to know what academia is really like,” I say, “here it is in a nutshell. I’ve got a new project in mind, and I’m excited about it—I keep hopping out of bed at night to jot down notes. So I just wrote it up for a few applications, the sort of fellowships that offer a year off the academic grind to just do your own work. I’m not going to win one, it’s like an academic lottery ticket. But everyone applies. Now strangers on fellowship committees are going to read my new ideas—yet I haven’t breathed a word of them to my colleagues. And I won’t, until I’m on the other side of my tenure review. The project is too risky, too easy to snipe at.” My words slow. “Dealing with academic politics,” I say, “is like reading a book while walking in a rainstorm. You crane your neck like hell to anchor the umbrella’s stem while you turn pages. Step over puddles while trying to keep your eyes on the printed words. And pray you’re not about to put your foot in it.”
    A comfortable silence unfurls between us.
    Then he says, “You fill a lot of time talking about your work.”
    My hand goes dead in his. “If you weren’t interested in all that, you could have said so.”
    He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant. Everything you said is interesting. What I meant was that I asked you to tell me about yourself. And now I know a lot about what you think about. But not much about you.”
    I withdraw my hand. “Is there a difference?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo what was I supposed to tell you?” There’s no masking the hurt in my voice.
    He shakes his head again, watching me. “I don’t know.”
    My words sound brittle. “Give me your best guess.”
    â€œMaybe who you used to be. Who you are now. Who you hope to be. What you’re afraid of.”
    â€œI’m afraid of not getting tenure. Does that count?”
    He thinks a moment before answering. “Not really.”
    I straighten in my seat. He is, once more, a stranger.