“What’s that wet stuff?” Alva asked as I fastened her seat belt.
“Mama spilled some wine.”
“Yuck,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
I opened both car windows all the way to air out the alcohol smell, which quickly permeated the car.
“Close the windows! I can’t hear my show,” cried Alva. “Close the windows!”
I didn’t close the windows until we were on our way up the last hill, approaching the preschool.
“I didn’t get to hear about the spider,” she whined as we walked inside.
“You can play it again when we drive home,” I replied and set her boots in her cubby before we walked into the classroom.
“Good morning,” I said to the teacher in the cheerful voice I always reserved for those whose goodwill I depended on.
“Good morning,” she said. “What did you bring to school today, Alva?”
“Was she supposed to bring something?”
“Oh, no, she didn’t need to. But she could have brought something, because it’s show-and-tell today.”
Alva shuddered and a rock sank in the pit of my stomach.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said in a way I hoped sounded casual, running my hand over Alva’s cheek. “We’ll just bring something the next time.”
“But I wanted to bring Fluttershy!”
“I know.”
For a few seconds I considered going home and getting the plastic horse she was referring to, but I put it out of my mind.
“We’ll just bring an extra toy the next time you have show-and-tell,” I told her.
She stared up at me with her big, wet eyes. I smiled encouragingly, set her on the teacher’s lap, and practically ran out into the hallway, where Alva’s classmate Rachel was busy pulling things out of her bag and putting them into her cubby.
“Look what I have,” she told me, and proudly pulled out the red horse with the green mane whose twin lay abandoned and alone in the toy box in Alva’s bedroom.
“Fluttershy,” I said.
“What did Alva bring?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to see what I can do?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s that smell?”
“I don’t know.”
“I smell something… Yuck, what is that?”
“Wine,” I said tiredly.
“Wine?”
I was about to explain about the bottle and the deposit and the Barolo when the teacher stepped into the hallway.
“Are you still here?” she said to me.
“Apparently so.”
“Alva’s fine. Karen brought two ponies, so Alva can borrow one of hers.”
“That’s great news! Next time I’ll have to put show-and-tell day on the calendar,” I said with a laugh.
She smiled back, but it didn’t seem entirely genuine. That made me nervous.
“Time for breakfast,” she said, diverting the owner of Fluttershy, who ran up to her, whining.
“Bye,” I said. As I walked out the door, I just barely overheard Rachel saying, “Alva’s mommy smells like wine.”
Traffic on the highway was backed up and only creeping along. When I finally reached the office, I immediately stuck a note on my door that said “Testing in Progress” and started writing the conference paper I was already late submitting. I heard people approach my door several times throughout the morning. I listened to their shuffling footsteps and could sense their desperation as they stood outside my door. Desperate for someone to talk to, someone to complain to about lazy students, the bureaucratic nature of the administration, dishonest colleagues, rejected manuscripts, or inhumane workloads.
Sure, Monday was usually the worst. Over the weekend, a backlog of agitation and anxiety would build up, and faculty members might need long-term paid sick leave to recuperate if it didn’t get vented. And yet Thursdays were bad, too, because they were so close to Saturday that they got people’s eyelids and the corners of their mouths twitching. Which is why there was an unwritten rule in the department that Thursday was the day for encouragement and collegial camaraderie.
Usually I made time for it, because being a part of this workplace demanded small talk and commiseration. But not today. Today I broke the rules and sat silent as a mouse, holding my breath, waiting for the desperate people to shuffle along. Maybe that was wrong of me, but I just wasn’t up to their doom and gloom today.
The ones in high heels moved on right away, but the most pitiable ones—the ones in sneakers, loafers, or sandals with socks—stood there for a while. I could hear their breathing through the door as they lingered, listening to make sure there really was testing in progress, until they eventually sighed heavily and moved on toward the break room or the copy room.
Despite these measures, I only finished about half of what I had planned to get done, and when I left I had to stuff my organic cotton bag full of folders and books so I could do some more work later at home.
It wasn’t until I walked past the open door to the meeting room and noticed Peter Walsh in there carrying teacups that I recalled the reminder that had been blinking in my calendar for a good week.
“Ah, we seem to be the first ones here,” he said to me.
“Huh?”
“Everyone else is late. Late! I don’t know why we don’t just set all the meetings to start at a quarter past. We’re brainwashed into thinking only in academic quarter-hour blocks of time. Why don’t we just accept that?”
“Oh, right…,” I said. “The meeting. Actually I have to, uh…”
“There you are!” said a voice. “In you go.” The chair of the department gave me a gentle nudge from behind so I stumbled into the windowless meeting room, where one by one the rest of the department quickly materialized. I knew I had to speak up now, right away, and say something. I could not be a party to this. I opened my mouth, but then closed it again.
I hated meetings. I hated the pointless discussions, the trite, predictable sense of humor, the endless digressions that dragged on ad nauseam, and the crazy compulsion to bring up and discuss every last little thing and squeeze it in under “other matters of business.”
That’s why we hardly had a single meeting when I was the faculty coordinator for the department. I received almost daily e-mails back then questioning why we never had any meetings, along with suggestions about topics we could meet about, but I just hit “Delete” and pretended I hadn’t ever seen them. They should have been as happy as clams to get out of all those meetings. They should have thanked me for making the tough decisions on my own and letting them spend their workdays working: writing, publishing, providing guidance, and teaching, all the stuff we were actually being paid to do.
The result was that I was stripped of the title.
“I think it would be best if we let someone else take over as faculty coordinator for a while,” the chair had said contemplatively. “There have been complaints, you see, reports that people’s sense of community in the department is taking a hit. People miss having a forum for dialogue.”
That’s because people use these meetings as an excuse for not working, I thought. And I wouldn’t have it.
I hadn’t attended a single meeting in the department since being asked to step down as coordinator. Until now.
I stared lugubriously across the table, where Ingvill was taking her seat. Her hair was gathered into two scrawny braids that hung limply from either side of her head. They dangled when she leaned forward, like little mouse tails. She set down her phthalate-free thermal travel mug, which she had bought at a conference in Germany and which could almost be considered a bodily appendage.