Chapter 12 #2
“I shouldn’t say any of this. Famous last words, right?
But things are not looking great for the other two candidates.
The first guy we brought out, people liked, but no one was obsessed with him.
We knew he’d be solid and he was. But word is he’s up for a job at Northwestern and is probably looking for a counteroffer for leverage.
And I don’t think anyone wants to waste our time getting drawn into that.
The second candidate was great, really smart, but she blew the visit and just kind of fell apart.
She’s green. She’ll be ready in another year or two.
Please do not tell anyone I said any of this,” she laughed, “or I’ll be looking for a job.
But things are going exceptionally well for you. I think this last part will be fun.”
And it was. The lecture went off without a hiccup.
The questions were generous and interested, none of that performative nonsense from the audience.
I’d been so deeply immersed in the book project it was easy to discuss.
I could feel it, the way I used to be about this work, I was getting it back.
Knowledge that would have ordinarily sent me into terrified hiding—I wanted this job, I really did—even that felt good.
It felt good to want something that was right to want, and that could truly be mine.
Dinner wrapped and I thanked the committee members, all vigorous handshakes and big smiles.
Sam said they would be meeting soon and he’d be in touch.
He reminded me to send him receipts for cabs or anything else.
Desiree, who was as brilliant as Gabrielle had said—I’d asked about her book at dinner and could have listened to her talk all night—said she’d get me back to the hotel.
Once in her car, though, she said, “Gabrielle did warn you that we’re kidnapping you for the night? ”
“She did.”
“Fabulous. We’re getting together at her place. I know you must be wiped out, but you can relax. This part is just for hanging out. A group did this for me when I interviewed.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “I’m all yours.”
“Careful,” she said, and then gunned it through the light.
Gabrielle lived with her boyfriend, an architect named Eric from Minneapolis who Desiree described as a “creamy vanilla milkshake.” We were on the northern edge of the French Quarter; Desiree lived just around the corner.
She parked on a narrow cobbled street, sliding into a space that seemed impossibly tight.
An inch maybe on either side. It was a Friday night and the streets teemed with crowds shouting and laughing, drinks in hand.
We entered a gate from the sidewalk and squeezed down a narrow passageway, the brick wall to our side laced in vines.
We emerged into a courtyard, dozens of potted plants and votive candles crowding the ground.
Strings of soft lights crisscrossed overhead.
“You made it!” Gabrielle clapped her hands together. “Welcome!” She waved us into a circle of low chairs where the rest of the group was already assembled. “Eric!” she yelled into the house; the door was propped open. “Grab that next bottle.”
“We got a head start,” Tommy said. I’d chatted with him and Claire, siting to his left, after the talk.
“This is where you live?” I said. “This is incredible.”
“The place is really small, and it’s kind of falling apart. But it’s dreamy. The owners live in the front house. The wife’s family has been here for generations. Amazing characters.”
“Every time we’re here,” Claire said, “her landlord claims some other lineage. Who was it last time?”
“Something about Wynton Marsalis?” Tommy said.
“Right,” Gabrielle said. “That her mother was a cousin of Wynton Marsalis’s mother. Or her mother’s cousin was?”
Eric emerged from the doorway—he was tall and thick, vanilla milkshake was right—a bottle of red in one hand and a pizza box in the other.
“You must be the guest of honor. Gabrielle says today went great.”
“Don’t embarrass him, Eric. You know academics can’t handle praise.”
“I think all we want is validation,” Claire said. “But we picked a miserly profession that metes out the tiniest portions of affirmation, just one thimble-full every few years. So we’re desperate for it, but ashamed of the need.”
“Please,” Tommy whined, “tell me I’m worthy.”
Gabrielle opened the pizza box, pointing it toward me. “We figured you’d be starving after the dinner.” I took a slice and she waved an empty glass in the air. “You want?”
“Yes, please.” I hadn’t had a drink since just that one in Cleveland—but I had done good work today. I would let myself enjoy the night.
“Have you been to New Orleans before?” asked Tommy.
“My first time. But I think I’m already in love.”
“It does that to you,” said Gabrielle.
“I’m meeting my boyfriend and some gays at a bar after this, if you want to come along,” Tommy said. “See the Crescent City’s seedy underbelly.”
“So,” Claire said, “how did it go?”
“Honestly, it was a really good day.”
“What do you need to know?” Gabrielle asked. “We want to be helpful.”
“Looking out for our other others,” Desiree said.
“Desiree,” Tommy said, “no,” but everyone laughed.
“What’s the ‘other others’?” I asked.
“It was this whole thing a few years ago,” Gabrielle said. “Desiree, you tell it best.”
“Wait, I need a full glass for this,” Desiree said, letting Gabrielle top her off, and then explained: A few years ago, in an effort to retain queers and faculty of color, the provost’s office put some discretionary funds into social events to help foster community, though, Gabrielle interjected, they would have preferred the money itself.
At the inaugural event, the provost, a white guy well into his sixties, made some opening remarks.
“Because an old white man is exactly who you want welcoming you to the diversity luncheon, right?” Everyone laughed.
“And he starts with something like, We want you to know that the university supports its diverse faculty. Women, minorities”—and Tommy cut in, “Minorities, like it’s the 1950s”—and Desiree continued, “He goes, and the LGBs, tripping over the letters like he’s learning the alphabet.
And then says, with like this air of triumph, and others.
Minorities, LGBs, and others.” We all laughed again and Tommy raised his glass—“To other others!”
Another bottle was opened and passed around and I asked how long they’d all be in New Orleans. Desiree said she’d spent almost her entire life there. She left for grad school but got through her coursework and exams in just three years, and then came right back to write her diss.
“That’s the way to do it,” I said. “Where were you technically enrolled?”
“Berkeley,” she said. “Oh as a matter of fact—someone from a few cohorts ahead of me is at Sawyer. Safie Hartwell? You must know her.”
“I do.” My voice caught, my throat suddenly dry—could she hear it? “Safie’s wonderful.”
“I haven’t read her book yet, but I just got it. I can’t wait.”
“Yes—” it had come out and I hadn’t even realized “—it’s amazing.”
“Please tell her I say hello. We didn’t know each other, not really. She was done with classes when I started. But this woman was very cool.”
“Mark, of course, was intimidatingly cool in grad school,” Gabrielle said.
“I’m sorry, who was?” I asked, surprised, but grateful for the change of topic.
“You know everyone was a little obsessed with you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“False modesty does not suit you,” Tommy said. “It’s not a good look.”
Gabrielle turned to the others. “You know, NYU was great. But, god, people were so insecure they weren’t at Columbia. It was like this inferiority complex that just bred a competitive vibe. And then Mark shows up. Twenty-two. Straight from undergrad, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And, no offense Mark—I mean I went to San Antonio—but he rolls up from some Florida school, and in seminars, he’s running rings around all these people who’d gone to Yale and Brown.
With MAs from Chicago. Like, seriously pedigreed.
But he didn’t care about any of that elite nonsense, or the politics of the department. Like he was actually there to learn.”
“That is very novel,” Claire said. “And as a person of serious pedigree”—we laughed at this—“it checks that people would be obsessed with you, and also unwilling to show it.”
When Gabrielle had emailed about the job, I was shocked she even remembered me.
I always believed people would forget me—the moment I left a room, someone might ask, Was anybody here?
In grad school I felt perpetually out of the loop, like there was a secret way to be that everyone else somehow knew.
If I’d been as focused and studious as Gabrielle claimed, it was only because I had so little else going on.
But now I wondered, all these years, feeling forever on the outside of something, uncertain of how to get in—had I already been inside?
We talked about a TV show that everyone was hate-watching.
A restaurant, not far away, that had closed after the celebrity chef’s pastimes had been exposed.
“Not just your regular white nonsense,” Desiree said.
“Grand Dragon–level nonsense.” Eric joined us, told us about a new project his firm was working on.
A housing complex for formerly homeless people in a neighborhood going through an intense wave of gentrification.
The wealthy new residents had organized a campaign to stop the project, claiming it didn’t fit with the historical nature of the neighborhood.
“What do they know about the history of the Seventh Ward? They’ve lived there six months.
” We worked through another bottle and a second pizza.