The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(101)

“All right.”

“Call me. We’ll come back as many times as it takes.”

He paused for a moment, feeling out the professional line between them. “I like we,” he said.

“You won’t do this alone,” she said. “I’m on your team.”

“Thanks, doc.”

“I’ll see you next week, if not before.”





Part Five: Melanie





Adjunct Asshole


Miles called Erik one night in late summer of 1998, full of gossip and intrigue. The technical theater director at Brockport State had just resigned in disgrace, in a scandal involving not one, but two freshmen girls, and a boatload of video tapes.

“Video,” Erik said, eyebrows raised. “Impressive. Did you see any of it?”

“No, goddammit.”

The college was desperate to distance itself, sweep out the closet before any skeletons could take residence. They needed to regroup and replace as soon as humanly possible.

“And, let me guess,” Erik said. “Distract everyone’s attention away from the video tape to a big main stage production.”

“Big,” Miles said. “Big-ass, I believe was the expression used.”

Big-ass productions required big-ass stagecraft, but big-ass applicants were proving hard to find. “So I said I knew this guy down in Brockport,” Miles said. “No formal teaching experience—”

“Try no experience,” Erik said.

“But he’s good. A natural with kids—”

“Kids. Not college students. Kids.”

“And a born leader.”

“Miles, are you saying my ass is big?”

“I’m saying, is your resume up to date?”

“I’m incredibly flattered. Thank you for thinking of me, Miles. You’re a prince. And they will never give me the job.”

“Come up,” Miles said. “Come up and visit us. Janey misses you. And go interview for the hell of it. Chance of a lifetime, Fish. What’s the worst that could happen? They say ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ and you go back to Geneseo.”

He went for the hell of it. And he got the job.

“I got the part,” he said. This was the theater, after all.

“Someone must have liked your ass,” Miles said.

Packing his possessions into a jumble of boxes, duffel bags and laundry baskets, Erik felt a new man. After a year of intensive therapy he was seeing Diane just once a month. His regular doctor had been dialing down the dosage of the antidepressants. He was nearly off them and any episodes of anxiety were few and far between. He was feeling good. Head shrunk, almost med-free and shit together. Things were interesting again. Food tasted good, sleep was a friend. He was back in shape and ready for a change.

He still felt woefully underqualified for the position, but as he toured the performing arts complex and got to know his colleagues, he couldn’t help but feel a rejuvenated excitement. People were happy he was there. Grateful he was there. Miles and Janey fussed around, helping him get settled. He had an office. And a business card, for crying out loud: Erik Fiskare, Adjunct Professor of Technical Theater.

“So now it’s Professor Asshole,” Miles said, as they went for a run in Corbett Park.

“Adjunct *. Sounds kind of sexy.”

“Sounds like a medical condition I wouldn’t want.”

Brockport is a village in the town of Sweden. Erik got an ancestral kick out of that. He liked the feel of the place. Beautiful Victorian houses nestled on tree-lined streets and the stately Erie Canal gave Brockport its old world charm and quaint village air. State College brought a buzzing modern energy to downtown, where Erik had his apartment on Apple Street.

He moved from Geneseo in a hurry, dove straight into the new job and never completely unpacked. He didn’t hang any pictures or buy himself mugs or a bathmat. A skeleton kitchen was good enough. He made sure the windows facing the street were decently covered and hooked up the stereo and TV. The rest was just floors and walls and a drafting table.

The fall semester was a blur of activity. The theater director pitched Noises Off as the main stage production. Erik wasn’t familiar with it. He picked up a copy of the script at the library, took it home to read and blanched. It was a British play-within-a play comedy, dependent on a thousand technical cues and effects. This was no open the curtain, close the curtain affair. He’d have to build a set on a turntable, a set to be viewed from both sides.

“I’m screwed,” he said to Miles on their daily run. “This is way too big an ass.”

“Then you’ll have to build big pants.”

In his small, Spartan apartment, Erik paced, thought and panicked. What would Leo Graham do?

“He’d get to work,” he said. He talked to himself a lot lately.

He made tea, sat down and read the play again. A thought tapped his shoulder and he reached for a pad of paper. An idea sat in his lap. He filled page after page with notes and sketches. The high of creative flow began to creep through his veins. He touched the groove. Took a careful taste. Put one foot on the bedrock of his own capability and tested it. Then the other foot. His talent felt solid beneath him. He trusted it. He could pull this off.

The shop had been a disaster area when Erik arrived, a disorganized mess with safety violations warranting public floggings under Leo’s regime. Erik cleaned house and began to bring order from chaos. He identified his superstars, his weak links and his filler, and from them he crafted a team. Within a month, he had if not a well-oiled machine, then a respectable jerry-rigged motor humming along with an energetic purpose. The shop came alive. Erik came alive, more alive than he’d been in years.