2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
I’m sorry I can’t get to the conference,” Grace said through the camera. “I have so much to do this weekend.”
I waved a hand, dismissing my mentor’s anxiety. “Don’t worry. I’m glad we’re going to have dinner together.”
Grace had been the reason I had come to Lacock to get my PhD over a decade ago.
She and I had collaborated often since her research focused on accessibility and aging.
We had met after we both had testified in front of congress in hopes of improving the Americans With Disabilities Act requirements.
We hadn’t been successful that time, but it started a friendship that still shaped much of my life.
It had been Grace who suggested that I get my PhD, so the mediocre, abled, white men who ruled the world would take me seriously.
It made sense to go to the university she worked at.
She became my dissertation advisor and mentor.
Now she was a regular collaborator, and she had been right.
The PhD had increased my ability to get new legislation passed.
It was directly responsible for getting me this job leading the WorldWiki Foundation.
“How was it seeing Mason again?” she asked with an eyebrow raised.
We had discussed the inevitability of interacting with him.
I had decided to come to the conference a few days ago, once the rumors of my being hired started making the rounds.
The WorldWiki Foundation board felt I should be here since it was less than three hours from where I lived.
I didn’t have an excuse to say no. It was part of the job to be at conferences like this when possible.
“He was surprised to see me,” I told her.
Grace raised her eyebrows. “Nobody told him you were coming?”
I winced, feeling guilty for setting it up to surprise him. “I may have told Lizbeth not to mention my name to anyone. She mentioned that her co-chair was in the middle of the tenure process, which isn’t going well.”
Grace shut her eyes and let out a deep sigh. “Yep, it’s not going very well for him at all.”
I leaned closer to my camera and raised an eyebrow. “Why is he distracted by the tenure process? Shouldn’t he be done and waiting for the final decision? Isn’t Lois taking care of him?”
My tone was snarky and playful. Mason had stayed in academia for the job security that came with tenure. His mentor was the president of the university. It should have been a slam dunk for him.
Grace’s jaw dropped. “Oh shit, you don’t know! He may not get tenure.”
I sat back in my chair, torn for a moment between my desire to hear about Mason’s struggles and the guilt that I hadn’t been here to support him.
This evaporated quickly. He had pushed me away, and it had been nearly a decade since I was his partner.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “After all of this, he may not even get it?”
Grace nodded. “You know how he gets, Penny. Lois moved the goal post, but I fought for him in the department committee. I, unfortunately, was in the minority. It’s been with the campus tenure committee and rumors are flying.”
She was right. I knew how he was. Mason put everyone’s needs ahead of his own.
He wanted to work at Lacock State because it wasn’t a heavy research college.
That allowed him to focus on being the best teacher he could be.
That’s what brought him joy. What started as a wonderful part of his personality eventually became a problem.
I thought I could inspire him to want more.
I should have known it was futile as soon as he told me why he had picked Lacock State for his PhD.
“My grandparents live in the next town,” he had told me over coffee on our first real date. “I want to be close to them, and this school is the closest.”
We had known each other for a couple of weeks at that point.
It had taken us so long to go on this date because we had to find a place that I could enter.
One simple step meant everything to me and too many cafes and restaurants had them.
I was thrilled that he had found this little cafe for us.
The coffee was good and nobody seemed to know it was here.
It became a favorite place to work, with few distractions.
“You’re lucky to still have living grandparents,” I said. My own had passed away years before.
Mason had nodded as he took a sip of coffee. “I’ll stay in the area as long as they’re alive. They’re the only family I have left.”
I smiled at the time, loving how important his family was to him. Years later, as graduation loomed and we had to start looking for jobs, he had the same reason to stay in Lacock.
“I’m not leaving until my grandparents have passed on,” he said, his face red with anger.
“You don’t have to work and live right on top of them to stay close,” I said, my stomach tight with my own anger and anxiety. “There are countless schools within an hour of Lacock. All of them would allow you to become an expert in your field.”
Mason shook his head and shut down. That wasn’t what he wanted. It may have not been the reason we had broken up, but this disagreement had chipped away at our relationship and made it easier for him to be persuaded to break off our engagement.
“Let me guess,” I said to Grace. “Lois wants Lacock State to be a research university now that she’s president. Mason’s putting his students’ needs above his own?”
Grace let out a deep sigh. “He’s published articles, but he’s like the second or third author. In some cases, he’s way down the list. He has to be the first author if he wants it to count in his tenure packet.”
I nodded, remembering how academia worked.
Professors and researchers were expected to build their expertise in their chosen field over the first part of their career.
They were expected to either be the only author or the first one listed in books and articles they published.
The first listed author was the one who typically did the most work.
Once you got tenure, you could step back and let others take the lead.
Eventually, you would serve the role of mentor to those who were starting their careers.
Then you might not be listed at the top of the author list, or you may even be the last author, as a thank you for your mentorship.
Mason’s problem was that he was still in the first decade of his career.
In grad school, he had let others take credit for his work to advance their careers.
I thought he did it assuming they would reciprocate in some way, but by the time we broke up, I was sure it was him sabotaging his chances at success.
He insisted he didn’t care about research because Lacock State was college that focused on teaching.
He hadn’t changed as quickly as he needed for Lois’s new plans.
“I’ll tell you more when we have dinner,” Grace said. “I think decisions will be made tomorrow.”
I lay in bed, thinking about Mason and the first time we met.
Lacock State wasn’t the worst university to pick for my PhD.
As much as the small city failed to be accessible, the university was affordable, there were plenty of opportunities to work on campus, I was free to pursue my research, and it was growing in prominence.
I wasn’t worried about the quality of the program since I was getting my degree to say I had it.
Sure, sometimes it was difficult to navigate the broken and raised sidewalks.
Some buildings didn’t seem to be accessible at all, and some made me enter through the loading dock or use a freight elevator.
I was happy that the bookstore was accessible with aisles wide enough for my chair to navigate while I hunted for my books.
Sure, I could have ordered my books online, but the prices didn’t seem much different in the bookstore.
I wanted to be able to take them back to my apartment and start reading.
Graduate school didn’t require many books, but I took pride in being prepared.
It always made my life easier to do the work before I entered any room.
At the start of the semester, the campus bookstore was full of undergraduate students and families roaming around.
They bounced between the aisles of books, school supplies, and school paraphernalia.
I was growing frustrated as I tried to make my way around abandoned piles of books and baskets of stuff as people walked off to go chat with someone.
Of the five books I needed, three had been within my reach.
Most of the bookshelves were freestanding and a little more than chest height for the average person.
I barely reached the top shelf to get those books.
The last two books were out of reach on shelves that lined the wall and went up to the ceiling.
I could see the thick, light blue binding of the book I needed, but I couldn’t reach it.
I went around, hoping to find an employee who could help, but everyone was busy.
A man was standing at the bookshelf when I returned, my body tight and rigid in frustration and anger.
He looked at me and smiled. His thick eyebrows were the first thing I noticed about him.
They were why I noticed the sparkle in his eyes.
He was thin but his arms were lined with veins, like he played guitar.
I would later learn that he had been in a band for a while.
“Am I in your way?” he asked and picked up a messenger bag that was resting against his leg.
I forced a smile onto my face. It wasn’t hard since my locked jaw made it look like I was always smiling. I cracked my neck and took a breath. “Thank you, but I’m trying to reach a book up there.” I pointed to the light blue book out of reach.
Mason put a finger on one of three copies there. “This one?”
I nodded, and he pulled it down, his shirt lifting to reveal his stomach and the band of his underwear. “I’m getting my PhD in sociology too,” he said as he handed it to me. “I was grabbing my own copy of the same book.”
Heat flared through my body, and I wanted to fan myself with one of the books but resisted the urge.
I was sure my face was flush with this unexpected wave of desire.
It had been a while since I had met anyone I desired so quickly.
My annoyance was forgotten, and I wondered if I could find a way to spend more time with him.
He quickly grabbed another copy and looked in my lap, where I had the other three books. “Can you help me find the other books since you have them already?”
“I have one more to find too,” I told him, a real smile spreading across my face. I was ready to pump my fist at how easy that had been.
“Perfect because this is the first one I’ve found,” he said and followed me as I wheeled away.
I showed him where the other books could be found. Those were easy for him to reach without effort, so I didn’t catch another hint of skin. When we got to the final book, the one we were both missing, I looked up to the red bound books on the very top shelf of another bookshelf against a wall.
Mason looked around. It was too high for anyone to reach, but there was no stool in sight.
He let out a sigh and jumped as he reached for a copy.
My breath caught in my throat as his shirt lifted and revealed more of his stomach than before.
This time, my desire was a punch in the gut.
Later, he would share that I had a dopey look on my face when he handed me the first copy he grabbed.
I watched as he jumped to grab a second copy for himself.
I remember feeling like I was in a daze.
“I hope there’s nothing else on the top shelf,” he said as we went to the register. “I need a drink after that work out.”
I shrugged, used to something I needed being out of reach. “I’d love to treat you to coffee to thank you.”
“I’m Mason, by the way,” he said with a wide smile and a nod.
Little did I know that I would wake up to that smile every day.