Chapter Text
I.
On Tuesday, Dr. Parrish wore a gold band on his ring finger. Thursday, it was gone. On Friday, ring again, and then after that, Elena didn’t see it anymore. It had seemed to distract him on Friday, catching his attention as he turned it and tugged at it with the fingers of his right hand.
You weren’t supposed to get stuck on things like that, but it was hard not to: Dr. Parrish was the youngest visiting professor the department had seen in years, Elena’s roommate Cora pointed out, and nobody knew anything about him. His scholarship was seminal; his personal life, a black box. But he was young, quite young, and sort of handsome, Elena thought. In a certain kind of way.
They had tried to uncover something, a little crumb of confession, at the department happy hour before the start of fall term. Cora, Elena, and Sydney all hung loosely in orbit and listened for clues in the small talk.
“Tell us about yourself, Adam.” Professor Walker’s voice carried when he’d been drinking. “What do you like to do when you’re not working?”
That bland answering smile lasted a barely polite half-second. “I’m not sure yet,” Dr. Parrish said, holding a can of seltzer to his chest, and the students and faculty near him laughed for too long. “I’ve heard there are trails by the river, is that right?”
He deflected all night, and Elena recognized herself in that. She was an acquired taste, Cora always said, a slow burn. She never made fast friends.
“And is your family here?”
Dr. Parrish shook his head. “Just me and the books.”
Elena noticed that Dr. Parrish wore a chain at least once that first week, a fine gold one inside his collar. So maybe the ring was just a ring, she thought, and nothing special. Just another piece of jewelry that didn’t quite fit right, and so he’d given up wearing it.
He seemed lonely. He made her feel lonely.
II.
Dr. Parrish—Adam, Connor reminded himself—was talking to a dark-haired man in a suit. They stood close together outside of the American Studies building in a patch of shade below the front steps.
From across the lawn, their body language was intimate, familial. At one point, the stranger waited while Adam spoke on the phone with his face pulled sharply into a frown. It didn’t look like a happy conversation.
Connor chewed his lip, conflicted. On the one hand, he didn’t want to interrupt anything personal. On the other hand, he had a question for Adam that would only take a few minutes. He’d planned on waiting for office hours the next day, but maybe he could ask now, on the way to meet with his advisor, and then he wouldn’t have to come to campus tomorrow before work…
Caught. He’d stared too long. Spotted first by the man in the suit, who lifted his chin, and then by Adam, who turned at the gesture and waved Connor over.
“Sorry.” Connor felt sheepish as he jogged over. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you outside of class.”
“It’s not a problem,” Adam said, cutting him off. It was clear he wasn’t going to introduce the man in the suit, who began texting and didn’t bother looking up. “You’re meeting with Iris, right? And you need another source for your last chapter?”
A wave of relief. “Yes, exactly, I was going to stop by tomorrow, but—”
“Don’t move,” Adam said, already pulling a phone out of his back pocket. “I’m emailing you,” he muttered as he typed, “and you’re going to review these in the order they’re listed in.” There was a momentary silence as two men typed and Connor looked up at a puffy cloud above them, feeling awkward. Finally, at the sound of Adam tapping his phone screen, Connor looked back down. “If you have time before your meeting, grab the Desjardin.”
Connor pressed his hands together, prayer of the undergrad. “Thank fuck, thank you so much,” he said gratefully. “Holy shit, you’re my savior.”
The man in the suit laughed abruptly, lifting his head and looking between Connor and Adam.
Adam didn’t laugh back. “Let him do it the way he wants,” Adam told the man quietly. “I’ll be there this weekend, anyway.” Turning back to Connor, he said, “You’re welcome at office hours, too, if you want to talk more.” And then he turned and walked away.
Suit man pocketed his phone and pulled on a pair of sunglasses.
“Any half-decent restaurants around here?”
III.
Once or twice, Elena heard Adam use “we.”
Did you like Princeton?
Well enough, although we were living in the city, so I didn’t spend much time on campus.
Did you attend the keynote last year?
I caught most of the conference, but no, that night we were hosting friends.
IV.
Partway through the semester, Connor was half-asleep in Adam’s Wednesday morning seminar.
One-on-one, Dr. Parrish was phenomenal. Ruthless. Keen. Prodding. But Connor found his classes surprisingly lax: it often felt like Adam was waiting, fruitlessly, for the students to impress him. Connor thought they might, someday, if only the class didn’t start at 8 am. It was warm, too, on the fourth floor.
“Let’s look at some examples,” Adam was saying in a disappointed tone, “since some of you clearly lied when I asked if you were comfortable with the qualitative analysis...”
He tapped the trackpad to wake his laptop; instantly, on the screen behind him, a hideous e-card took up the space of the wall: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY it screamed, in animated glitter text. Behind the text was an image of an old car on fire, surrounded by dancing clip-art cows.
Twelve pairs of alert eyes turned to Adam, expectant, ready to laugh; no luck, though, and they should’ve known better than to hope.
Smoothly, opening a new tab: “Apologies." He cleared his throat, lightly. "Inside joke.”