My Professor by R.S. Grey
Part One
Chapter One
Jonathan
* * *
Today is not a good day.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s absolute shit.
It started small: a toe stubbed on the corner of my bed frame. Excruciating, sure, but I persevered. When I went to scramble some eggs for my breakfast, I found an empty carton in my refrigerator. For that, I only have myself to blame. My housekeeper is good about stocking up, but only if I keep a list of what I need. While I was rifling through my pantry, trying to find something else to eat, my business partner called, complaining about how bureaucratic red tape and zoning issues will halt progress on our Amherst project for another six weeks. Now, I’m on the side of the freeway, listening to a kid try to explain to me how it’s my fault he slammed into the back of my car while we were in stop-and-go traffic.
“You didn’t have to slam on your brakes like that, man!” he says, throwing up his hands.
I don’t even bother arguing with him. There are soggy Frosted Flakes dripping down from where they splattered across his front windshield during the accident. He was clearly driving while distracted. His car is likely totaled. Mine is still drivable, but the fender’s hanging off the back, and besides, I have to wait for the police to get here so they can draw up an incident report.
This series of events is un-fucking-believable.
The bright sun beats down from overhead, and I check my watch for the thousandth time. I’m going to be late for my lecture. I already missed a faculty meeting this morning. Okay, yes, they’re a waste of time anyway, but it’s the principle of it. I don’t miss meetings. I never show up late for my ten AM lecture at Dartmouth.
Today happens to be the first day of the fall semester, and pretty soon there will be an auditorium full of students waiting for me to arrive. I tug on the collar of my shirt, pissed beyond measure but trying to keep it together.
“Are you even listening?! This is your fault, you asshole!”
I look over at the kid, finally gracing him with my full attention, and he has the decency to step back as if slightly nervous. Maybe he’s only now registering who he’s dealing with or perhaps it’s something in my expression, but he finally does the smart thing and shuts up.
I should have taken the toe stub as a proper warning and just stayed home today.
It’s another hour before I’m back on track. A tow truck is dragging my car back to Boston to get serviced, my insurance is working on a claim, and I’m in a hired car being driven the rest of the way to Hanover, massaging my temples.
On a good day (read: not today), I have a lot on my plate. My architectural conservation firm is still in its infancy, and it requires constant care and attention. Even with my business partner taking half the workload, I could shackle myself to my desk at Banks and Barclay from sun up to sun down, seven days a week, and still not get everything done. It’s partly because I’m a perfectionist and partly because we’re expanding at breakneck speeds. In the last election, Boston approved a major infrastructure bond package, part of which funnels tax dollars toward restoration work around the city. My firm has taken on a good many of these projects. In the last two months, we’ve hired twelve new people and let an equal number go. I’ve blown through three assistants, two CAD designers, a survey technician, and a project manager because they weren’t up to snuff. I won’t abide laziness or incompetence. I won’t hold someone’s hand or give them second chances. Too much is on the line.
I could always leave the world of academia and lighten my load, but I won’t. I only teach one course at Dartmouth, and it meets just twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s my fourth year at the university. In the beginning, the dean of the architecture school wined and dined me to get me to accept the position. I’d just won a Pritzker Prize for my conservation work on the Washington National Cathedral, but I wasn’t sure where I wanted to take my career. I was solo then, my firm not yet in existence. Meanwhile, Dartmouth was eager to infuse life into an undergraduate program that routinely ranked below Yale, MIT, and Harvard, and they saw me as their way to do it.
It’s worked out well. Now that I’ve been teaching for a few years, the course requires very little effort on my part. My teaching assistants handle office hours, and they also grade tests and papers based on rubrics I provide. I care immensely about the course topics and am passionate about what I teach, which is why I’m currently enduring this hell.
“Shame about your car,” my driver says, drawing my attention to the front seat. “Saw it before they hauled it away. That’s a nice whip.” I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror, and he grins conspiratorially. “Bet it gets you a lot of ladies, huh?”
I make some noncommittal sound as if to say, I heard you but am unwilling to participate in this conversation.
“Got a girlfriend?”
What part of me massaging my temples makes this guy think I want to chat?
“No girlfriend.”
“Yeah, don’t blame you. My girl back home is a real piece of work…”
After the morning I’ve had, fate could have at least taken pity on me and blessed me with a mute driver. Instead I have this.
I let him drone on as my phone rings. It’s my business partner again.