Chapter Two
I t was absolutely typical that Dani s first year as junior teaching staff- good -had coincided with her unfortunate transfer to the hideous building that was Echo- bad .
She should be teaching next door to one of her Ph.D.
supervisors right now, in the tiny, cozy building on campus dedicated to literature and women s studies.
But back in October, there d been an unfortunate incident involving a group of first years, clown suits, a pi ata, and a surprising amount of asbestos.
In the chaos of relocation, Dani had helpfully and foolishly volunteered to take the classroom no one else wanted to touch.
After all, Jo worked in Echo, so how bad could it be?
Now that Jo was no longer her good friend and regular lay, the answer was: quite bad. Even the best thing about Echo-one rather entertaining security guard-had a habit of making her late. Or later than usual.
All right! Dani clapped her hands as she strode into her temporary classroom.
I m here, shut up, hope you did the reading, because if you didn t, you re buggered.
She carefully removed her laptop from her rucksack, put it on the desk, then dumped the bag unceremoniously on the cold, hard floor.
Uncapping a whiteboard pen, she pointed at the table of students waiting for her, all of whom looked slightly unnerved-which was just how she liked them.
Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market, let s discuss. Emily, start us off.
The sleepy-eyed teenager wrapped a strand of long, blue hair around her finger and said promptly, Totally about banging.
Dani approached the board and wrote Goblin Market in a bubble. Traditionalists might find writing on the board unnecessary, but not all learners were aural, no matter their stage of education. So she scrawled a little arrow coming out of her bubble and wrote: Banging .
Then she turned back to Emily and said brightly, Please elaborate.
Well, Emily hedged, I mean, it s either banging or Christianity. One of those. Maybe both.
I think it s both, added the boy beside her, Will.
Dani nodded, drew another arrow, and wrote Tits out for Christ? Then she asked, Anything more specific?
Tits in for Christ, Will corrected.
Tits wherever you want for Christ, Emily said firmly, because he ll totally forgive you. It s an allegory. Lizzie suffers, right, for Laura s sin?
Now we re getting somewhere. Dani grinned, grabbed a board cloth, and replaced Tits out for Christ with Allegory: original sin, savior s suffering . Okay, someone else . . . Her eyes landed on an unfamiliar face-the new girl. She d received an email from scheduling about that. Fatima, yes?
The girl nodded, small and serious and alarmingly well dressed. That s right.
Did you have time to read?
I did.
Hit me, then.
Fatima cleared her throat. I got the Christ thing, too. And I think the goblins are anti-Semitic.
The girl next to her, Pelumi, clicked her fingers. Like in Harry Potter.
Hey, someone piped up from across the table. Don t shit-talk Harry Potter.
It s not shit-talking if it s true.
Dani clapped her hands. Robust discussion is precisely what I want from you, but unless you can connect Harry Potter to Rossetti s themes more solidly, I m going to ask that it s taken off the table.
There was a pause before Pelumi said, Excess sensuality and the private cost. Hogwarts has magically refilling tables as a result of underground slave labor; the girl in the poem dies of too many orgasms or something because she tasted some dick. I mean, fruit.
Dani nodded gravely. For sheer ingenuity, I will allow it.
The debate burst to life.
Dani spent the rest of the class listening to a mix of razor-sharp insight and meme regurgitation, directing the conversation when it seemed necessary, shutting up when it didn t.
Time skipped ahead of her until the seminar was over, notebooks were being stuffed into bags, and the cupcakes at the union stall started calling her name.
As the students filed out with waves and good-byes, Dani paused to open her laptop and take a quick look at her emails. One had to stay on top of these things. Someone might need her to-
Ah .
There was a new email at the top of the screen with a bolded subject line that made her gut squeeze. Whether that squeeze was excitement or a warning sign of nervous diarrhea, it was hard to say. All things considered, it might even be both.
DAUGHTERS OF DECADENCE, THEN NOW: A PUBLIC RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM.
Hi, Dani . . . the preview read, and was doubtless followed by something like: Just need final confirmation re: topics for discussion panel with Inez and co.!
The discussion panel was a public speaking event Dani had foolishly agreed to take part in when she was presumably high on (then undiscovered) asbestos fumes the previous year.
Well, the decision hadn t been entirely foolish-or even mostly foolish.
It would give her more academic exposure, increase her experience and her profile, and help cement her as a trusted voice in her topic of interest. Taking part would be an honor, and certainly fit with her careful plans to gain a professorship by forty-two.
(Forty-five, if she couldn t squeeze everything in within the next fifteen years.)
Really, the only reason she was close to shitting herself was that she d be speaking on the panel alongside Inez fucking Holly .
You know: one of fewer than thirty black female professors in the United Kingdom, the woman who made feminist literary theory her bitch, Dani s eternal Beyonc -level idol, et cetera, et cetera.
The one woman she would rather die-literally, she would rather actually die-than embarrass herself in front of.
Not that Dani tended to embarrass herself at work.
Her profession was straightforward and easily controlled and required qualities she naturally possessed, such as laser-like focus and an enthusiasm for close reading and analysis, instead of qualities she didn t, such as the ability to process and express irrelevant rubbish like her own emotions.
So, no, embarrassment at work wasn t likely.
But still. Stranger things had happened.
She pressed a hand to her chest and touched the moonstone hanging beneath her dress, letting calm sweep through her in waves. Then she exhaled, typed out a painstaking reply, and snapped the laptop shut.
Everything is under control, she told herself. This is your work. This is your thing . This is the kind of pressure you can handle.
She was still repeating that mantra a few minutes later, when she sailed out of the lab and came face-to-face with her ex-friend with benefits.
Well, shit.
Dani, Jo blurted, stopping just short of what would have been a mortifying collision.
Jo, Dani managed, inclining her head, hoping she looked incredibly cool and generally unaffected by this awkward situation. A quick inventory of her own body revealed she had a death grip on the trio of crystal pendants hanging beneath her dress, which rather suggested the opposite. She let go.
She still felt them, though, skin-warm against her chest: moonstone for destiny, garnet for success, rose quartz for determination.
Rose quartz was supposed to help with romance, too, but Dani had decided a long time ago that hers was broken.
How are you? Jo asked stiffly, patting her dark, silky bob with one hand.
Dani blinked, caught by surprise. How am I? Are you really asking me that?
Jo s tight smile disappeared. It s called being polite.
Polite? The last time we spoke you told me I was emotionally stunted and ruled by fear.
Both of which were patently ridiculous accusations and, more to the point, quite rude.
Honestly, it s indecent of you to expect conversation after bruising my heart.
Well, that might be overstating the matter.
After exacerbating my spleen, Dani corrected.
Jo stared. Your spleen?
Yes. It s a lesser emotional center.
No, it s not. It s an immuno-Oh, for heaven s sake, never mind.
Jo s bob looked a bit less smooth now, her cheeks flushed, her scowl ferocious.
Stop acting all wounded and brooding, she whispered sharply, as if they might be overheard by the bloody walls.
According to you, we weren t even in a relationship.
According to both of us, Dani snapped. We agreed from the start. You re the one who changed your mind. Who started demanding dates and affection and commitment, things Dani had learned not to bother with because she always got them wrong. Not that she cared. Her system was more efficient, anyway.
If she d tried to give Jo what she d asked for, Dani s efficiency would ve been the first complaint. Are you seriously scheduling me in? What, am I just another job to you?
She knew the drill. And avoided said drill like the plague, or the dentist, or both.
Look, Dani began, meeting Jo s steel-gray eyes and trying to find the easy friendship that used to warm them. The friendship that never should ve disappeared. You know I don t do that sort of thing-and trust me, you don t want me to try. It d be a waste of everyone s time.
Jo s frustrated expression flickered, then faded, replaced by something that looked disturbingly like pity. You really believe that, don t you?
Dani swallowed. Can t we just be all right again? I . . . I miss being your friend, she wanted to say. Except that would be mortifying.
But Jo waited until Dani s pause grew into a chasm. And then she shook her head slowly. No. I don t think we can.
Well. Well . Fine. And that was that.