Chapter 6
Risky Quizness is down by four points going into the last round.
“Sea turtles,” Fumiko Hayashi says, leaning over the answer sheet.
Sam Wright, professor of ancient history specializing in the Roman Empire, jabs a finger at the next question. “That’s an easy one. Augustus.”
What’s the largest organ in the human body? That’s biology professor Lola Adebayo’s domain. “Skin!” she whisper-shouts, deservedly smug about it.
Jozef Brodziński from the linguistics department takes the question about Middle English.
And the round ends with a question about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, so tailor-made for Nick that he scribbles the answer too quickly, the pen nearly ripping the paper.
All confidence, they turn in their sheets to the quizmaster on the other side of the bar, giving their rival team, the Know-It-Ales, their most intimidating glares. Which, for a group of professors, is probably not all that intimidating, but they try.
What started as a way to blow off steam has now become one of Nick’s favorite parts of the week.
Fumiko, a recent empty nester eager for some social interaction, brought them together across departments after posting an ad to their online classifieds.
STEM Prof Seeks Trivia Team, Must Enjoy Annihilating the Competition.
Risky Quizness is consistently in the top three, often the winner, and even if the prizes are lackluster—usually a free round of drinks—what they’re really here for is the glory.
It didn’t take Nick long after the divorce to realize most of his friends were couple friends, and because he was no longer in a couple, spending time with them meant fielding soft-spoken questions about how he was doing and if he was ready to get back out there.
He wondered if Kathryn was doing the same, before quickly realizing that no, she was now part of a couple once again.
Tonight, with his sister out to dinner with a client and his niece spending the night at a friend’s, Nick feels slightly untethered. At least he’s gotten his ten minutes of wallowing down to six, mainly because the new quarter has him so busy.
“Hell of a first couple weeks,” says Jozef Brodziński, his Polish accent more pronounced after a couple drinks. He joined the UCLA faculty from Warsaw a few years back. “My 101 course is half students who thought it would be an easy gen ed.”
“Mine too.” Lola Adebayo gives a dramatic nod toward Nick and Fumiko.
She’s the youngest on their team, their resident pop culture expert, and a fan of wearing her academic subject whenever possible.
Tonight her natural coiled hair is tucked back with a DNA-patterned bandanna.
“And I don’t even have a celebrity in class. ”
Fumiko removes her reading glasses and laughs. “She’s very sweet. It’s not quite as glamorous as you might think.”
Very sweet. Nick sips his IPA and wonders what version of Ramona Fumiko is getting. He can think of a hundred adjectives to describe Ramona, but sweet isn’t at the top of his list. Hostile, maybe. Scary, definitely.
“Did you notice the rest of your class started dressing nicer after the first day?” Fumiko asks Nick, clearly delighted by the whole thing. “Almost like they wanted to impress her.”
Nick considers this. “Now that you mention it…” Usually his students transition to sweatpants after day one, but there hasn’t been a hint of athleisure in Behavior and the Brain. And sure, that’s amusing, though Ramona clearly hasn’t cared.
She’s been much quieter, keeping to herself even as his other students chat and flirt and make study plans. He figures there’s no reason for her to be a social butterfly—she probably has enough friends.
But the quiet bothers him, too. Participation is crucial in his class; he loves the kind of rousing debates that get him thinking about something in a new light, like the conversation in his advanced Psychology of Sleep class that made him reconsider his recent dreams. Psychology isn’t black-and-white.
It lives in the grayscale space, and he’s always eager to see how his students interpret that grayscale.
Ramona’s homework hasn’t shown up in the online portal, and if that continues to be the case, he’s going to have to talk to her again.
And he really, really doesn’t want to do that.
Because of course she asked for zero special treatment, and then proceeded not to do the thing none of the other students have a problem with.
“Can you gently suggest she take Cell Biology next quarter?” Lola asks with pleading eyes. “My friends and I were obsessed with ‘Never Be Prom Queen’ when it came out. It’s still my karaoke song.”
“Is it too late for her to switch for this quarter?” Nick jokes.
Jozef gives him a good-natured grimace. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”
Nick peels at the label on his IPA bottle. Just this afternoon, she passed him at the door at the end of class. “Have a good weekend,” he said, and she didn’t even glance up from her phone.
So, no. It isn’t going badly. But it’s also distracting him more than he anticipated, because he spends too much time worrying the other students are distracted.
“Let’s just say that if I have a few more gray hairs by the end of the quarter, you’ll know why.”
“It wouldn’t be because you’re up for tenure?” Sam asks with a lift of his eyebrows. Incidentally, he was granted tenure fifteen years ago and sports a full head of salt-and-pepper hair.
“That too.”
Before the quarter started, Nick got a letter informing him he was on track, with his annual review scheduled for the spring. He wants to be excited about it, and he is—but he’s spent so many years working toward it, and for most of them, he assumed he’d be celebrating with Kathryn.
“You already have such a strong case,” says Fumiko, who became tenured last spring. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Just before the quizmaster comes on the mic to announce the final scores, his phone buzzes in his pocket, and then he’s leaping out of his seat, telling his friends to let him know if they snagged first place.
Audrey: not spending the night anymore. can you pick me up now?
—
Audrey doesn’t say a word the entire drive home, but once they get into the house, she collapses onto the couch and hugs a blanket around herself.
“I’m thrilled you had such a great time,” Nick says, pocketing his keys and flipping on the lights.
“Don’t try to make me laugh,” Audrey calls from the couch.
“Afraid it might work?”
Audrey lets out a groan, grabbing a pillow and shoving her face into it—then, realizing her glasses are in the way, flings them onto the coffee table before trying again. When she speaks, her voice is muffled. “It’s nothing,” he thinks she says. “I’m just being dramatic.”
“Good. I love drama.” He heads for the kitchen, opens up the pantry. “I also love hot chocolate. And mini marshmallows.”
Audrey doesn’t say anything, but he can tell he’s got her. It’s ten thirty, technically past her weekend bedtime, but he’s sure Lexi would understand a hot chocolate emergency.
As he takes out a saucepan and bar of dark chocolate, he’s aware of her poking her head up from the couch, as though wanting to make sure he isn’t doing anything she wouldn’t approve of in the kitchen she considers hers.
“I’ve been listening to your breakup playlist,” he calls out as he chops the chocolate. “Some good stuff on there. I didn’t think you even knew Fleetwood Mac.” But there was “Silver Springs,” sandwiched between Gracie Abrams and Tate McRae.
He also didn’t anticipate hearing a Ramona Wilder song.
It came on during his morning commute, and he was so startled by the artist ID that he forgot to flash his blinker on a turn.
Her voice was dark honey, a catchy melody with sharp edges and even sharper words.
When he tried to match the sound to the defiant girl in his office that first day, he could almost see it.
“I have taste,” Audrey calls back, and Nick has to hide a laugh.
He’s always loved kids and imagined having them was a “someday” kind of thing; Kathryn had felt the same.
But every time they discussed it, they never quite felt ready.
Not yet, she’d say. We have to finish redoing the deck.
Or We should paint the house first. And then the next year, he was being promoted from assistant to associate professor.
The past few years, neither of them brought it up proactively, and he’s beginning to think it’s because they could no longer picture having kids together.
But sometimes his heart aches a little, seeing Lexi with Audrey, or hearing his colleagues talk about their children.
When that rich chocolatey scent starts filling the room, Audrey’s head pops up again. “You’re supposed to heat the milk before adding the chocolate,” she says, and whoops, she’s probably right. “But I guess it can be good your way, too. Thank you.”
Audrey sits up on the couch when he brings over two steaming mugs topped with whipped cream and miniature neon marshmallows.
“I’m sorry I texted.” She stares down into her mug. “I didn’t want to bother you while you were out with your nerd friends.”
Nick takes a seat next to her and sips his own hot chocolate. “You could never bother me, Aud. Uncles have to swear an oath the day their nieces are born that they will always be available when needed.”
“It’s going to sound so middle school.”
“That tracks, given that you are in middle school.”