Look Closer

“And Reid, I’m sure you’re aware, has been here a year longer than you.”

“I’m aware of that. And I’m aware that you’re only granting one position.”

“Just so, just so,” he says, so eager and condescending that it feels like he might toss a dog treat into my mouth. “And, well, this is delicate, but you can probably imagine that Reid has a fair level of support. You know how these things go—it’s his turn.”

Plenty of associate professors have been denied a full professorship. We don’t tell people it’s their turn. Not unless their father is a walking ATM.

“I would just hate . . .” His fingers work the air, like he’s trying to capture just the way to put it, like he doesn’t have this speech prepared. “I think it might be preferable for you if you waited until the next opening. Then you’d be applying without the mark of having applied once and been denied.”

“You think I’ll be denied.” I don’t say it as a question. But it is a question, I think. There are some old-school, clubby types who probably don’t take to me, but there are plenty of good, nonpolitical people here, like Anshu, who think that quality teaching and standout scholarship are what matter, not how you dress or who you know.

“Well, obviously, it’s nothing that committal. But as I say, Reid does enjoy substantial support. Not that anyone remotely questions your scholarship, Simon. You’ve done fine work.”

Right, you’ll say it to anyone.

“You’ve given me a lot to think about, Dean,” I say.

I leave the office so he can pick up the phone and call Reid’s dad and tell him that he had the talk with me, and things are going swimmingly.

—

Now I’m late for the haircut. I usually walk, as it’s only a few blocks away. Instead I head out the Superior Street side and into the outdoor faculty parking lot. I usually get here earlier than others and park in one of the front rows.

I find the silver Mercedes coupe and pull out my key. After a glance around, I run the key along the side of the car, a hideous scrape across the driver’s-side panel.

Sorry about that, Dean.

Now for that haircut.

—

And thus I go, a dressed-down associate professor off to have the old Russian guy named Ygor (seriously) cut my hair, lest the faculty at my law school think I’m less than tenure quality because my hair is too long. Not that it matters—apparently, I’m withdrawing my application.

The afternoon is steamy hot as I work through the crowd on Michigan Avenue, tourists and rich people and street performers and the homeless, the Magnificent Mile. Though they should really rethink that name these days. But I have more important issues on my mind.

Why do privileged old white men in black robes get to decide what it’s like to be an African American kid stopped on the street by a cop? Why do lawyers think that saying “inter alia” instead of “among other things” makes them sound smarter? Why does the word “queue” have not only four consecutive silent letters, which is bad enough, but also the same ones repeated? What, they weren’t silent enough the first time through?

Deep thoughts, all of them, as I cross Chicago Avenue, just a block south of the barbershop.

And then I stop moving, my feet planting in the crosswalk, someone bumping into me from behind and forcing me to stumble forward a step.

Because I feel it. I feel you, I swear I do, before I actually see you, walking out of the Bloomingdale’s building. The shape of your head, maybe. The curve of your chin. The way you purse your lips in concentration. Something that defines you as you, even nineteen years later. Something that screams Lauren—

Lauren.

Lauren.

Hey, Simon, how are you?

Great, Lauren. How are you?

—before you fully turn in my direction, wearing those oversize sunglasses like Audrey Hepburn.

—

It’s you. Your hair is longer and a shade blonder, but it’s you.

You step into the crosswalk, a bounce in your stride, confident like someone accustomed to moving through a crowd without making eye contact with the numerous pairs of eyes on her. Your lips are moving. I don’t see a phone, but when the wind carries your hair, I see an AirPod tucked in your ear.

My usual move when I want to avoid someone—the phone. Plant it against your ear, duck your head like reception is bad and you’re trying to hear. I’ve avoided hundreds of conversations that way in the hallways of my law school.

But I don’t reach for my phone.

I should move, not just stand there in the middle of the crosswalk like a small inlet amid a sea of pedestrians passing me on both sides. I should walk toward you as confidently as you walk toward me, but I can’t. I’m on system shutdown. My feet not moving. My pulse pounding between my ears. My insides stripped raw.

I think I catch a whiff of your perfume as you pass me. You changed it.

You don’t notice me. Probably the swarm of people conceals me, or you’re concentrating on your phone conversation. Or maybe you wouldn’t have noticed me even if you saw me. I’m a distant memory to you. Am I?

I turn and follow you.