A story....

 

 

“Who IS that woman?” Max wondered.  She was standing in the line at the campus coffee shop. He didn’t think he’d seen her there before, yet something about her eyes looked so familiar. She smiled. At him? He wasn't sure. He nodded slightly in her direction -- just enough so that he wouldn't appear rude if she knew him, but not so much that she'd think he was hitting on her if she didn't. He hated his inability to recognize people out of context. In his position at Kentwood College, he met a lot of people and really was expected to remember them. He occasionally wondered if he had some kind of neurological disorder-- he was THAT bad at recognizing faces. He once spent an hour talking to a visiting professor at a reception and was mortified when he didn't recognize her the next day as they walked from the parking lot to his classroom where she was to be the guest speaker.

 

But those eyes were so familiar. He was sure he knew her from somewhere. A donor dinner? The wife of the new endowed chair? That new hire in HR? No, he didn't think so. He scanned his memory for all the women he'd met recently but simply could not place her. Sighing, he turned his attention back to his laptop computer.

 

Checking his Facebook newsfeed, he learned that his son, a junior at Kentwood, was attending “Filmaddicts: Tarantino Festival.” He smiled, wondering what could be considered festive about Tarantino. He checked 'relationship status' -no change. That was good. Michael had some ups and downs with his girlfriend Janie, but for now at least, they were still 'in a relationship.' No drama this week. Maria, his tenth-grade daughter had recently changed her profile picture. She replaced the summer theater camp photo with one of herself proudly modeling her new Homecoming dress. He thought the dress was a little too revealing but was voted hopelessly Puritan by Maria, with the full support of Michael and Janie.  Max tried to recruit his wife, Pam, to his side but she helped Maria choose the dress.  With no allies, he was forced to concede. Maria was trying her best to look adult and seductive and might have pulled it off if it weren't for her mouthful of braces. $7000 for a perfect smile and a few more years of childhood. Not a bad deal, all in all.

 

He took a sip of his coffee and glanced around the room. Now that woman was sitting at the next table, facing in his direction. Like him, she was working on a laptop, engrossed in her work. She nodded as she read, frowning slightly. He realized he was staring at her but felt protected by the two laptop screens that separated them. He studied her carefully, hoping that he'd remember where they had met. She reached absentmindedly for her coffee, tipping it over.

 

“Shit,” she said. The coffee covered the small table, endangering her laptop. She picked it up and noticed the mess dripping off the edge onto her purse and coat. “Damn it!”

 

Acting quickly, Max pulled the last paper napkin out of the tabletop dispenser on his table. He set the paper cup upright again and tried, somewhat ineffectively, to wipe up the spill. “Hey! You're wiping the coffee right onto my stuff,” she wailed.

 

Still holding the open laptop in one hand, she tried to move her coat and purse out of the way. Her coat dragged across the table knocking the cup over again, this time directly onto Max. “Shit!” he said. The coffee left an embarrassing wet spot on the front of his Dockers. “Jeez! Look what you have done! I was trying to help you!”

 

She looked directly at him, eyes filled with frustration and anger.  That was when he remembered. Sally Mansfield. They were both in the English Department at Columbia, years ago. She looked different now- hair color maybe.

 

“Sally?”

 

She eyed him uncertainly.

 

“Sally Mansfield? Max Trowbridge.”

 

“Max! Oh my God! It's been a long time. I didn't recognize you. You look...”

 

“Older,” he interrupted. “Older, fatter and balder. But you look great!”

 

She smiled. He did, in fact, look older, fatter and balder, and she did, in fact, look great.  Nodding imperceptibly, she changed the subject. “It must be what, eight years now? What brings you to Kentwood College?”

 

“Actually, I work here. Dean of Arts and Sciences. And you? “

 

“I'm leading a couple of workshops in the honors creative writing classes. Nora Walsh invited me. She's an old friend of mine. And I am doing a reading of a new piece.“

 

Max smiled. “Well then, on behalf of Nora Walsh and the English Department, welcome to Kentwood! Care for some coffee? In a cup?”

 

Laughing, Sally replied, “Sure. But you better put your laptop away first.”

 

Max ordered more coffee for Sally while she gathered her belongings and moved to his table.

 

“Administration, huh? When did that happen?” she asked as he sat down across from her.

 

“About 5 years ago. I needed some new scenery and some new challenges. And here I am. Are you still at Springfield?

 

“Yup. It's not Columbia, but I like it. And, I am very excited because my third novel is coming out next month.”

 

“Wow! That's great! Congratulations.”

 

“Thanks. I am really pleased. How's your work going? I guess I sort of lost track.”

Max looked down. “Well, the administrative gig is pretty much all-consuming. I keep promising myself that I'll revise that textbook I wrote in '09, but I just haven't done it yet.” Max's book was big news, even at Columbia, when first published. “War over Words:  Blasting the Canon” was widely heralded as the textbook for advanced lit courses. Those were heady days for Max, but in fact, the book was the last original thing that he did, if a textbook could even be considered original.

 

Sally smiled. Kindly? “Yes, I am sure that the administrative work keeps you pretty busy.”

 

“So, you've written three novels now? “

 

“Yeah. I had the first one nearly done when I came up for tenure at Columbia. I submitted the manuscript with my tenure file, but since it hadn't been published, it didn't count. I know they reviewed it though. My tenure rejection letter was a pretty detailed account of why I'd never rise above mediocrity to be a successful writer.”

 

Max took a sip of his coffee. Her tenure case was coming back to him now. He wasn't on the tenure review panel, but the chair had asked him to review her manuscript. He found it to be stunningly average. Not bad, just nothing special. It was never going to win any prizes, no Bookers, certainly no Pulitzers. If it got published, and that was a big if, it would disappear into the black hole that consumes books that are neither popular nor literary. It certainly would never have the impact of …  well … of “Blasting the Canon.”

 

Sally continued, “It was really tough having to start all over. It took another 7 years, but last year, I finally got tenured and promoted.”

 

“Well, congratulations on that!” Max paused slightly and asked, “Your husband was a biology professor at Columbia, wasn't he? “

 

“Yes, and still is. At Columbia, that is. Not my husband.”

 

“Oh. Sorry.”

 

“Another academic casualty. Bob was very close to his tenure decision when my denial came. His tenure looked secure, so it made sense for him to stay behind after I went to Springfield. The idea was that once he earned tenure, we'd try to find new positions in the same place. But, in our case, distance didn't make his heart grow fonder, or at least not fonder of me. So, he got tenure, stayed at Columbia, and had an affair with a grad student."  Again, her eyes gleamed with anger and frustration. Suddenly, she relaxed.  "Yeah, so anyway, I got rejected.  Twice.  And… I moved on. All because some asshole reviewer who didn't know anything about me said that I would never win a Pulitzer prize!”

 

Sally sipped her coffee. She looked at Max who sat gazing off into space. Suddenly ill at ease, he shifted in his seat, as if he were about to say something. She looked at him expectantly and he looked straight back at her. Nothing in her eyes suggested that she suspected his role in her story.

 

He took a deep breath, cleared his throat and mumbled, “I've got to run. I've got a meeting at 4. But, hey, it was really nice to see you again.”

 

Max quickly put his laptop in his briefcase and hurried down the hallway. Remembering the unfortunate spill, he ducked into the men’s room to do something about his pants.  Glancing back towards the coffee shop, he saw Sally watching him. Forcing a smile, he waved as the restroom door closed.

 

Alone in the restroom, he looked in the mirror.  The coffee spill was large, dark and could not have been in a more embarrassing place.  First, he tried to dry the spot with a paper towel.  No impact.   He then dampened a paper towel to clean the front of his pants.  No improvement.  Finally, he stood in front of the hand dryer, trying to position the spot under the nozzle. It would probably leave a big ring around his fly, but dry had to be better than wet. He faced the hand dryer, bending his knees.  He turned sideways. He did squats.  He jumped up and down.  He leaned back thrusting his pelvis toward the nozzle. His efforts were in vain; the hand dryer was not positioned to effectively dry trousers.  He kept trying. He had a meeting with a student group and could hardly stand in front of them with a big wet spot over his fly.

 

The door opened, startling Max.  He turned towards the door.

“Max?  What on earth are you… My God!  What happened?  Oh wait, I know what happened, but...!”  Jeff Stanley, the chair of the history department stifled a laugh.

“No, no, it’s not what it looks like” Max said, “I ran into an old colleague at the coffee shop and she spilled her coffee on me.  Not on purpose.  At least I don’t think it was on purpose.   But I need to clean up before the student meeting that starts in exactly…” He looked at his watch. “7 minutes.”

“Don’t you keep a spare suit in your office?”  Jeff, asked.

Max shook his head.  Leave it to Jeff to always be prepared.  An Eagle Scout, no doubt.  “No, I have a spare shirt and a couple ties, but no pants. I mean, how often do you need a spare pair of pants?”

“Well, I haven’t needed them yet, but I do have a pair.  36 waist. You?”

“On a good day.  And let’s hope this is a good day. Can you bring them here?”

“Sure, I’ll go get them... but…” Jeff turned toward the urinal while Max continued his slow dance with the hand dryer.

 

A few minutes later, Jeff returned with his pants.  Max pulled them on but no matter how vigorously he sucked in his gut, the pants were not going to button.  Clearly not a good day.  Desperate with no other choices, Max left his shirt untucked to cover the unclasped waistband.  There was nothing to do about the inseam that was at least 2 inches too short.  But unclasped high waters were definitely better than wet spots.  Besides Max had on a great pair of socks.

 

Picking up his briefcase, but leaving his questionable pants hanging in a stall, Max left the restroom.  Glancing back, he saw Sally and Nora sitting together and laughing.  He desperately wanted to believe that not he, his pants or his stalled career was the punchline of the joke they shared. 

 

“I hadn’t thought about Max Trowbridge in years,” Sally told Nora.  “I had no idea he was here at Kentwood.  He was so full of himself, especially after his textbook was adopted by the entire SUNY system.  He even had tee-shirts made with a picture of a cannon shooting cannonballs at a stack of literary classics.  On the back it said “Maxwell Trowbridge, Canonblaster.” He gave one to every grad student and English professor. He personally signed each one with a sharpie.”

 

Nora laughed.  She didn’t know Max all that well, but she just could not imagine him wearing a tee shirt, let alone distributing autographed ones!

 

“Really, his ego was the size of the Empire State Building, but he wasn’t a terrible person. His grad students liked him and he had some good advice on finding a new position when my tenure denial came through. I was so angry at first, but he helped me land my job at Springfield.  I wonder why he left Columbia.  Seems like he had a pretty good gig in New York.”

Nora shrugged.  “He came here before I did.  In fact, he hired me.  He has been helpful these last few years, helping me find journals to publish my stories.  Two were published last year; one in Antioch Review and one in The Threepenny Review.  No one gets rich publishing short stories, but I hope to get tenure that way.”

 

Max entered the small classroom where he was hosting an open forum for students.  The room was already filled and some students were standing around the perimeter.  His associate dean, Kaiyo Sato was already there, chatting with a few of the students from the Physics Department.

 

Seeing Max, Kaiyo rushed to the door.  Quietly, she said, “Max, I was wondering what happened to you.  You’re late.”  Looking down, she added “And you are sporting a whole new style.”

 

Glaring at her, Max walked into the classroom and grabbed a chair. Sitting in front of the students, he began, “As you know, I come to these meeting with no agenda.  This is your time to ask me whatever you want, so I ask you, what are you thinking about?  What questions do you have?  What do you want us to know?”

 

As always, an awkward silence ensued as no one wanted to be the first to speak.  But finally questions started coming.

Parking.  As always.  Students at Kentwood ALWAYS complain about parking.  Clearly, they have never been to Columbia!

Rumors of department closures.  More common lately. 

The New York Times print subscription.  Students were unhappy when the administration discontinued the free print copies that were distributed across campus, telling students to instead use the online edition through the library.  Max liked the print copies too, but going digital saved about $25,000 per year.  That savings allowed the library to maintain the exorbitant Elsevier subscriptions.

Free feminine products in the women’s bathrooms. Really? Is that expected of a college these days? Kaiyo came to the rescue.  “This is already under consideration by Campus facilities”

Parking. Again. 

Extended library hours. Max could definitely get behind that one. He replied,”Great idea.  I will have Dr. Sato look into that for you.”

Finally, with about one minute of the hour left. one student, a senior, asked “Dean Trowbridge?  Ummm….Nice pants… I mean… Great socks!”   Max smiled.  “Thanks,” he replied.

 

Back at the dean’s office, Kaiyo asked, “Max, what on earth happened?  Your pants…they look like they belong to …”

“Jeff Stanley?  As a matter of fact, they do. I was in the Daily Grind and ran into an old colleague and she spilled her coffee on me.  I couldn’t go to the student session with a spot here,” he pointed to his crotch, “so he rescued me. Sort of.

Kaiyo laughed, “The tie with the wrinkled shirttails is a nice look!”

“Yeah, right.  Anyway, it seems that Nora Walsh invited this novelist to campus.  Sally Mansfield. I am sure you’ve never heard of her. She was junior faculty at Columbia when I was there, but didn’t get tenure.  Her work was just not very…”

“You know Sally? She is doing a reading of some of her work tonight at Willard Hall.  I encouraged my students to go; the pre-publication reviews of her new novel are outstanding and I am hoping she'll give us a preview!"

"Your students?  Physics students?”

 

“Yes, Physics students.  We do know how to read, you know. AND as an added bonus, we can do math.”

“Funny. That isn’t what I meant, but what interest would they have in Sally Mansfield’s work?”

 

“Her newest novel explores human existence, death and behavior in probabilistic terms, drawing on parallels to modern physics and cosmology.  She tells deeply human stories, with the underlying premise is that humans are essentially sub-atomic particles in a vast unknowable universe, subject to a set of complex, but defined rules.”

 

 “So, now she is writing science fiction?”  Max chortled dismissively. “By the way, did I know she was coming?

 

Sally checked her watch. “ I assumed you knew.  Anyway, it is time for me to gather the troops.  The Physics and English faculty are taking her to dinner tonight.  And yes, you are paying.  But seriously, you should come to her presentation. She’s amazing. I’ll even give you extra credit,” Kaiyo teased. “Just like I give my students, although you’ll have to write a one-page summary of her presentation.”

 

“Gee thanks,” Max replied.  “Does it have to be on graph paper?”

 

Max retreated to his office.  He pulled up his calendar and saw that there were three events that evening.  A donor appreciation reception at 6:00, a senior voice recital at 7:30 and Sally Mansfield’s talk at 8:00.  How had he not seen that before?  He called Pam to tell her that he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

“What else is new?” she said.  “Really, you need to find some way to share your calendar with me.  Anyplace I need to be?”

“Well, there is a donor reception at the Alumni house at 6, and an English department visiting scholar at 8.  Also a voice recital, but I don’t think I can get to that.  I should at least stop by the other two, but I will probably slip out the back of the visiting scholar talk once it starts.  I am always happy when you are here, but it is really up to you. I know you get tired of all the evening events”

“Yeah, sometimes I do.” Pam agreed. “But tonight, Maria is out at a basketball game, so it’s just me and your cat.”

“My cat?” Max asked.

“Yes, YOUR cat.  She hacked up three hairballs on the new carpet and hid a dead mouse under my yoga mat.  So yeah, YOUR cat.”

Pam considered her options—a lonely evening in the empty house with an evil cat or smiling at potential donors.  “I’ll come.  I’ll be fashionably late.  6:30 ok?”

Max smiled, glad she was joining him. “Can you make it 6:15?  And ummm, speaking of fashion.  Can you bring me a pair of pants?  I’ll explain when you get here.  Meet me in my office ok?”

 

Max tried to review departmental budgets, but his thoughts kept returning to Sally Mansfield and her three novels.  THREE!?!   He googled her name and found not just the three novels but a slew of essays and short stories, including one that appeared in the New Yorker a year ago. Kaiyo was right.  Her reviews were outstanding.  Her first novel was heralded as “a brilliant debut by a soon-to-be important voice in American literature.”  “Mansfield depicts the grittiness of human relationships with candor, humor and compassion.”  And her second novel, “with this new novel, Mansfield proves that she is not a one-hit wonder. With words as her scalpel, she explores social class with surgical precision, cleanly exposing the wounds, but still leaving us hope that these wounds can heal.”

 

Sighing, Max pulls his lit textbook off the shelf.  Published ten years ago.  Written twelve years ago.  He flips through the pages, woefully out of date.  His thoughts returned to the reviews of Sally’s novels. “Brilliant debut? “soon-to-be important voice?”  Well, she must have had one hell of an editor—the draft he read was neither brilliant nor were there any hints of an important voice.  About his own book, still in his hands, well, next week, maybe he’d outline the sequel.  Hmmm.. canon blaster should be followed by something even more powerful… nuclear meltdown?  Rocket fire?  Or maybe more laser focused.  He’d have to look up something about lasers.  Kaiyo can help.  He knew there was SOME reason he hired a physicist to be his assistant dean.

 

The auditorium was nearly full when Max and Pam arrived for Sally’s reading.  Max was glad to see so many students in attendance.  The Physics and English departments did a great job getting the students out for events. There would be a lot of extra credit points earned for sure. In addition to the students, quite a few of the college faculty came too along with a surprising number of community members.  Maybe Sally Mansfield was a bigger deal than he thought.

 

Nora began her introduction.  “I am so thrilled to introduce Dr. Sally Mansfield, author of two successful novels along with numerous short stories and essays.  Her newest novel, “If by Chance” will be out next month. As you can see in her bio, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts with a double major in English Literature and Physics.  She completed a doctorate in Literature, with a focus on contemporary women writers before enrolling in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.  She began her academic career at Columbia University and now holds the position of Associate Professor of English at Springfield College.  Tonight, she will read excerpts from her recent essays and stories.  I am hoping she’ll give us a sneak preview of her new novel as well. After her presentation, she will be happy to take questions from the audience.”

Sally walked confidently to the podium and began:

of 7.6 billion persons on one of eight planets that revolves around one of the 100 billion stars in the

Consider this:  You one out of about 8 billion persons on one of eight planets that revolves around one of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy which is one galaxy in over 100 billion galaxies in the universe.

Your mass represents about 2 x 10^-49 % of the known mass of the universe. 

Sally projected a slide that said:

2x10^-49%=0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002%

Your mass is so inconsequential, your existence so unlikely that if I were a statistician, I would say with great confidence that you do not exist. 

But you do.  Did you ever wonder why?

And did you ever wonder why we humans think the universe exists to serve us?