Continued The Correspondent
Felix Stone
FRANCE
Dear Felix,
I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. My head has been off somewhere else, I guess.
Things have been a bit busy lately, but it was lovely to hear from you, as always, and I can’t believe I haven’t filled you in about the latest development with the UMDCP English fiasco.
You will think I’ve completely lost my mind.
There is no other way to put this, Felix, but something got into me.
I took Harry and I showed up at the College of English in College Park.
It was a Thursday, and I knew she would be there that morning because Harry, with his internet savvy, had discovered a calendar of the department and there was to be a department meeting at 10:30 am, ninety minutes.
You know the way I can be when I get my mind on something, so I left Harry under a tree by the car and I planted myself outside of the room where the meeting was being held.
They all came filing out of the room chattering away and carrying little styrofoam cups of coffee and nobody noticed me.
(This is the trouble with being only five foot one inch, and it has always been the trouble, but you know I am tall on the inside.) I did see two professors I’ve audited in the past, but I kept my gaze averted and I didn’t see Melissa.
I knew what she looked like because Harry had shown me her photo on the website as well as the press release from when she’d been hired, and I was looking for her, no luck, but you know, this thing had gotten into me.
I went into the conference room when the trickle of English department staff or what have you had slowed to nothing and I saw her.
Felix, she is shorter than me! I couldn’t believe it.
The tiniest little woman in black slacks and a gorgeous yellow wool cardigan sized for a twelve-year-old, I’m telling you.
(I guess she was wearing the heavy sweater because it was absolutely freezing in the building, something men do in summer, turning women to popsicles.) Anyway, I stood in the back and waited for her to finish the conversation she was having with a man (a monstrous man in his fifties, large gut, red face, and Melissa is this tiny and absolutely gorgeous black woman maybe forty years old with long braids I don’t know how she could stand under the weight of them!
Amazing, and this man was speaking down to her both literally and figuratively and I could see there was that quality in her eyes—you know what I mean.
Defeat.). She didn’t see me there, and even when this man left she didn’t notice me.
I had marched my way into the building ready for a fight, but I could see that she was upset or weary, this very small woman, and my hackles went right down.
I said excuse me, and she was surprised the room wasn’t empty, I could see.
She was wearing these lovely earrings. They were feathers.
As I mentioned, she is a very pretty woman, but she looked positively haggard.
Wilted as a rotten peach. A bit of lipstick would have done wonders.
I told her who I was, and rather still prepared for a duel, I stood up as tall as I could and it was one of those auditorium seating theaters so I had that advantage of being at the top, and it took her a moment to place me, so I told her I was the woman who’d been fighting to audit courses for two years.
She looked positively surprised and we faced off for another moment, but then all the air went out of it, and it seemed very funny to me all of a sudden.
I don’t know what on earth was happening, but I found myself trying not to smile, or rather, trying not to laugh, but my face must have broken and then we were both laughing, these two short women standing thirty feet apart, it was really very funny.
And so I asked her if she wanted to have a coffee, and she said she would prefer wine, so I said that was fine, I would go for a glass of wine (it was noon, after all) but then I remembered that young Harry was at the car, so I told her I had this friend with me, and she said she didn’t mind, she’d be glad to have this friend along, so we walked to her office (which was absolutely littered with papers and books and only has this one small window—she’s the DEAN, for the love of the world) and she took her sunglasses and dropped off her sweater.
She was wearing a green t-shirt and she had these thin little arms, she is very fit, but thin, and I had the thought I should bring her home with me, feed her, let her sleep off some of the misery I saw in her face.
We went for the wine at a patio near the campus (Harry had a Coke).
In the end she told me she didn’t care a shred.
I could audit every class if I wanted to, that she was trying to establish her authority, but it wasn’t going easily.
She’s had a hell of a time, at her age, and she is treated poorly—you know, Felix, people are downright racist and sexist—and she said that being a poet, she isn’t taken seriously.
She said that’s what it was that first put her off me—I’d mentioned a disinterest in poetry (and I really do dislike most poetry, but I could see why she might be defensive), but I told her she was going to have to grow some thicker skin, and I told her about my time working for Donnelly, the fortifications I had to learn being an alien (female) in a world of men, though of course for me, a white woman, it was not nearly so large a mountain as the one she is endeavoring to climb, and it was all in all a very good conversation.
So that was that, and I’m sitting in a class on the Brontes this term.
It meets Wednesdays at 1pm. It’s wonderful. We are reading Wuthering Heights now.
I have a few other things to report. One of them is that I have finally heard from my relation in Scotland.
Her letter was open, though I would not go so far as to say it was warm.
I’ve written her back. The principal of Broadneck High School reached out to me to ask if I would speak on a political science panel they are hosting in conjunction with other local high schools, and that would be in the spring.
I said I probably would not, but I am considering it.
Mick Watts: I did enjoy the week we spent together in Texas.
While I was there he suggested a swap and he come to Annapolis to stay with me, so I’m mulling that over, but the fact of the matter is that Mick is really rather a lot.
I’ve lived a quiet life for so long I’ve gotten out of practice with the way people can be, I own, but my goodness he’s loud and with some massive opinions.
I will say, I fully expected him to be homophobic, but when I mentioned you and Stewart, he didn’t bat an eye.
Goes to show, again, people can surprise you.
Warmest regards from your loving sister,
Sybil