Something is happening to me. It’s like there is a magnet drawing me toward him and I am in actual danger of making an idiotic move on a stranger who is, as far as I know, straight, in a cabin in the woods, when no one knows where I am. Okay, now is when I need to remind myself of all those stereotypes of rural cannibalistic serial killers. Remember The Hills Have Eyes, Daniel! Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Or, more realistically, I just need to focus on how much it actually hurts to get hit in the face, which is what’s likely to happen if I get any closer to Rex than the other side of the couch.
I clear my throat and shake my head, trying to banish the fog that’s taken over.
“Is everything you have made of plaid?”
“No,” Rex says. “Some of it’s just plain flannel.”
I start to laugh and can’t stop, even though it’s not particularly funny. All of a sudden I realize what should’ve been obvious: I’m drunk. I’ve had three whiskeys after being in a car accident and I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Can Rex tell?
“When was the last time you ate?” he says. Yep, I think he can tell. And I almost don’t care. It’s so nice and warm here, so cozy. No one I know is here to witness me potentially losing my shit in Holiday, Michigan. No one ever has to know that I hit a dog. And no one here knows that in approximately one month I will be evicted if I can’t grab a whole lot of extra hours at the bar so I can afford my rent. None of it matters while I’m warm and tipsy here, in the land of flannel and wood.
Suddenly, the middle of nowhere seems like the best possible place I could be.
I MUST’VE fallen asleep for a minute, because when I wake up, Rex is standing over me holding a sandwich.
“Daniel.”
I sit up a little and take the plate from him.
“Uh, yeah.”
“What are you doing here?”
I look around the room, my head still spacey. No, Daniel, he means in town. Get it together.
“I had a job interview. At Sleeping Bear College.” I take a bite of the sandwich and feel a little sick, the way I sometimes do if I wait too long to eat. But the second bite is heaven.
“What kind of jam is this?” I ask.
“Mixed berry.”
“It’s good.”
“What was your interview for?”
“To teach in the English department.” The words make my stomach clench with anxiety. Or maybe that’s just the peanut butter.
“You’re an English professor? You seem so young.”
“Yeah. Well, technically, I’m still a grad student, but if I get the job, it’ll start in the fall, and I’ll defend my dissertation in the summer, so then I’ll be a professor. It’s funny you think I’m younger than usual. Most people, when they hear I’m in grad school, they’re like, ‘Oh, so that’ll take you, what, two or three years?’ And I’ll say, ‘No, more like seven or eight,’ and they think it’s crazy because they’ve seen TV shows where all the characters have three PhDs by the time they’re twenty-three. It’s unrealistic and propagates total misinformation about higher education. Drives me crazy.”
“A dissertation. That’s the book you write to get your degree, right?” Rex seems to actually be listening, even though I’ve gone off on a grad school tirade.
“Yeah. I’ve been working on it for five years.” Alongside teaching every semester, bartending on the weekends, applying for fellowships, and, recently, applying for fifty-six jobs across the country, that is.
“What’s it about?”
“Oh, it’s boring; you don’t want to hear about that,” I tell him.
“Well, if you think I won’t understand,” Rex says, and his jaw tightens.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I just—no one who isn’t writing a dissertation ever actually wants to hear about them. Hell, even the people who are writing them don’t really want to hear about them; they only ask so that you’ll ask about theirs in return. Do you seriously want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“Um, yeah. Well, I study nineteenth and early twentieth century American literature. Basically, I’m writing about authors from that time period who use social realism to explore the different models of economic theory available. So, some of them were critiquing capitalism, but didn’t offer anything in its place; some were radically anarchist; some were staunch Marxists; etc. But all of them used their writing to explore the effects of those different models.”
Rex is looking into the fire.
“Sorry. I’m boring you. That was so geeky. This stuff isn’t really interesting to anyone except me. I shouldn’t—”
“You aren’t boring me,” Rex says. “Go on.”
He has this low, authoritative voice that makes me forget that there’s any possibility except to do what he says. So I go on. I tell him about the books, about the authors’ lives; before I know it, I’m talking about literary naturalism and Marxist materialist criticism, and ranting about the job market. I never talk this much—not to anyone but Ginger.