Really Good, Actually(59)

I told her I resented the idea that I had to love my job or even like it. It was not providing me with a pension, or dental benefits, or a competitive salary, or much life satisfaction. My hours were random and solitary, the path to publication opaque and arduous, and department functions had instituted a two-glass maximum on complimentary wine. Why, then, should I like my work, or try hard to be good at it, or even show up on time? The version of this job that I had heard about and imagined, getting into it, was not the version of the job currently available.

I asked her to think about air travel.

“Air travel?”

“Have you ever seen a picture of an airplane in the seventies?” I asked, though I did not want an answer. I wanted to do my little speech. “It’s like a fancy restaurant in there. Like a private club. In the nineties airplanes started looking like buses, but they still fed you and gave you that dry little pillow, and you could move your legs without jostling the person in front of you. Now you don’t even get a free checked bag. Every human element of the air travel experience has been taken away, and you have to buy back each individual thing. Let’s be honest: ‘premium economy’ is a contradiction in terms.”

Olivia said she did miss the free cookies Porter Airlines used to give out.

“Exactly,” I said. “Late capitalism at work.”

I sounded like my uncle when he got drunk and talked about being tracked by his credit card company. Still, wasn’t I right? Didn’t she see what I was saying? Olivia said she did, but wasn’t sure how the erosion of the in-flight dining experience related to marriage, or anything else we had been talking about.

I told her it was not only planes that had been made terrible over time. This was true of basically every aspect of modern life. Home ownership was totally out of reach. Adulthood would not involve a lot of vacations or weekends away or even single-occupancy one-bedroom apartments. Screaming in the streets would not force anybody important to do anything about climate change, and all the body positive messaging in the world would not alter the fact that my favorite store stocked something called a “triple zero” but did not make sizes larger than a ten, and even that you had to buy online, like a thief in the night. The only thing that really offered what it said on the tin was marriage.

“That’s why it’s so tempting,” I said, feeling like we were finally getting somewhere. “I understand why you want to do it. It’s like the only hallmark of what we think of as an ‘adult life’ that’s still accessible. And it’s so accessible! You can do it for three hundred dollars as long as you find someone else willing to sign the papers.”

“That’s not why—” Olivia started, but I wasn’t finished.

“And you get to stand there in front of your parents, even if you still take money from them sometimes, and say, Respect me as an adult. Right? And the wildest thing is they do it, because they recognize the ceremony and the moment and everything. It feels so good to have your aunts and uncles act like you’re a real human being, to file joint taxes, to tell some rude landlord that my husband and I are looking for some extra office space . . . like, yes, you’re buying into the heteropatriarchal state apparatus or whatever, but everybody gives you money and you get to sit at the grown-ups’ table and own a fancy blender.”

Olivia paused for a moment. She furrowed her brow and said she wanted to marry Aidan because she was in love, but she respected that it was complicated and that there was a lot going on around the concept, maybe in particular for me at this phase of my life. She said that there were lots of reasons to get married, and that she saw the appeal of ritual and even of the blender, but at the end of the day it sounded like I was talking about commitment and community through a perhaps overly bleak lens.

“Maybe,” I said. “But who cares? Nothing matters, everything ends, the world is ruled by greedy misogynist racists, and all the affordable furniture looks like shit.”

I picked up my bag and strode out into the hall, encountering one of my keenest students, Sara. She had a canvas tote bag from the drama department over one shoulder and her hair in its usual messy bun. “Still on for our meeting?” she asked, all optimism and young-person pep. I told her something had come up. She looked disappointed in a way that made me hate her.

“Why don’t you email me,” I said. “It’s easier for me to answer questions over email.”

Her face clouded. “I have been emailing you,” she said. “You told me to come to your office. You said it was easier for you to answer questions in person.”

“Right,” I said. I had a vague memory of her many follow-up emails.

We stood together in the hallway, saying nothing. Sara bit her lip and looked as though she might cry. She was not much younger than me, but clearly still in the dreaming-at-the-kitchen-table phase of this career. I tried to think of something useful to say, a bit of advice to make the trip to my office worth it, but really did not try very hard. Eventually I said, “Well,” sighed in a way I hoped seemed world-weary, and walked away.

Outside I found Jiro smoking some of his slender, illegal mint cigarettes. Why were all his possessions so small? What was he trying to prove? “Fun bit about capitalism,” he smirked. “Is John Oliver hiring?”

“Please, please fuck off,” I said flatly.

Jiro stubbed out his cigarette and regarded me thoughtfully. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t be teasing you like that today. Have a good night, okay? And don’t stress. It’s a fake holiday anyway.”