Compliments (3 page)

He makes his way toward the door, and it isn’t until he pauses outside and turns back to me that I pick up on the fact that he expects me to follow.

“Sorry, did I miss something?”

“I’m giving you a ride back to campus, remember?” he asks, flipping off the lights.

“Oh. After how we left things last night, I thought maybe …”

He shoos away my concern with a wave of his hand and a tick of his smile. “I feel a little guilty myself on that. I’m sure the last thing you wanted after having such a stressful day, and falling flat on your face, was some guy you just met coming on to you.”

“But you said you weren’t coming on to me.”

“I suppose I did say that, didn’t I?” He shoves a hand in his pocket, suddenly looking like an advertisement from Abercrombie & Fitch under a headline of
Casual Campus.
“You coming or not?”

My eyes reach out across the parking lot. “I have to drop my car at home first. I guess if you don’t mind making a stop … Then yes, please.”

X=3

Even though the distance hasn’t changed overnight, the ride from my place back to campus takes so much longer. Just a few blocks from my apartment, the downtown streets stagnate. We find ourselves moving slower than foot traffic on a road dotted with bistros and cafés.

“Do you eat out much?” Hawk asks, his eyes trained on the road.

I’m trying to ignore the way he sits in the driver’s seat so casually, like he’s in a lawn chair in someone’s backyard, shooting the breeze. How can he be so chill when being in a small space like this makes me a nervous wreck?

“Not since I arrived in Manderson,” I answer. “I’m on a pretty tight budget.”

“So home cooked, i.e. microwavable meals?”

I hum my acknowledgement. “Funny, but I thought graduating with my bachelor’s meant my ramen noodle days were behind me. Now I’m reduced to buying generic ramen just to save a few bucks.”

He laughs into the balled fist on his chin. “I know what you mean. Things are pricey around here. You have to really watch every penny.”

I’ve been batting around with mindless chitchat between awkward pauses in our conversation for about ten minutes when I just decide to say it.

“How are you a teacher in the Community Outreach program? I thought you were the janitor.”

“I’m
a
janitor, but not the only one. It’s like I told you last night, I’m a lot of things.”

“And one of those things is a math teacher?” I ask.

He nods.

“But I thought you had to be associated with the Manderson Math Department to teach at Community Outreach. Academically, I mean.”

“I am,” he says nonchalantly. “I’m a third year PhD student.”

“At Manderson?” The question seems stupid, but he answers it in a respectful tone.

“Yeah. And like you, and despite what my students think, I don’t come from an opulent background either. I mean, we made ends meet, nothing like some of my students deal with, but I wasn’t exactly tooling around in a Benzie when I was in high school.”

I lift my hands to indicate our current mode of transport. “If so, then there must be a good story behind trading it in for this lovely RAV-4.”

“Ha-ha. Seriously, the most valuable thing my dad ever gave me was the belief that you’re never better than the job you have. Not to say he doesn’t encourage me to aim high, but he did tell me there is never anything shameful in honest work of any kind.”

“So you both teach and work a night job?”

“And tutor high school students a few hours a week when I can fit it in.” He turns his head quickly and gives me a wink. “I’ve developed airs in my old age. I only eat brand name ramen, and it doesn’t come cheap.”

It’s my turn to let out a laugh. It feels so good in my soul to be happy. I realize as I sit here with Hawk that I haven’t had a conversation with a man, which wasn’t about academics, for far too long.

“But I admit, I do have some faults.”

I careen my ear in his direction. “I did notice the bump on the end of your nose, but I bet there’s others, too. Go on, I’m listening.”

“I don’t like apartments,” Hawk says. “I don’t know, I guess growing up in the Midwest like I did, the thought of shared walls and no yard just doesn’t appeal to me. Seems like apartments are all there are here in town, unless you’ve got enough money to buy one of those mega mansions that never got sliced up into units. I rent a small one-bedroom home out by the lake. The janitor job pays for food. The teaching job pays for rent.”

“And the tutoring job?”

He shrugs. “Mostly porn.”

“Fair enough.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his chest swell and casually fall. “Look, about your presentation today … You’ll get better. I’m not sure why they sent you out to the adult classes right off the bat. You usually have to work your way up to those. Most of your assignments will be upper elementary kids. Though, FYI, I probably wouldn’t use the example of increases in minimum wage for that crowd.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

He beams with pride. “I should. I did it myself for the last two years. Even got an award last year.”

“Why did you stop?”

The gaiety drains away, leaving him looking hollow. “Complications arose.”

“Oh.”

I want to ask him more, but really, it’s none of my business. I also remind myself that if he’d done anything truly heinous, he probably would have been kicked out of the university all together. And he certainly wouldn’t have a teaching position. My mind turns traitor on me and I start to picture a situation of Hawk and a nagging girlfriend who was jealous of his time spent working with school kids. While I hate this fictional woman, the tangent of thought reminds me of the complications
relationships can bring.

Nope, not looking to do that again.

We finally manage to make the lot near Yang. Navigating his car into an empty space, Hawk puts it in to park. We sit there in silence, the cab of the car a petri dish where discomfort multiplies, before he turns to me.

“I can help you.”

“With what?” I honestly haven’t a clue what he’s talking about.

“Preparing your presentation,” he says. “Experience is the best teacher. But in lieu of experience, I’m not half-bad. Plus, I know you only have a few months to snag an advisor. If you get a really good reputation with the Outreach Program, Ferris is sure to invite you either to join her group or highly recommend you to one of the other faculty. I could work with you, help you get down the basics.”

“Do you have time for that? I mean, between two jobs?”

“Well, technically, it’s three jobs. But yeah, if you can meet me in the evening, I can. I usually study in the shipping dock before work anyway. It would be nice to have company, or even if you want to just hang out.”

Relationships. They are bad.

But help with something I’m so naturally inept at? Can’t hurt, right?

“What time does your shift start?” I ask.

“Seven-thirty.”

I loop my schedule through my head. “I could meet you around six, but since I bike, I really have to leave campus no later than seven to get home before dark.”

“That should give us enough time. That is, if you want my help.”

I’m not sure if I had been in his position, I’d have given someone like me the time of day after the superiority complex I displayed the night before. Already, in just twenty-four hours, he’s demonstrated that if there’s one of us who is better than the other, I come up short. He works three jobs and is a PhD student, a reality to me that seems impossible. Regardless, there’s no doubt that my presentation skills could use a little work.

“Yes, I’d like that,” I say, causing his face to break into fireworks. “Thanks so much. Should I meet you tonight or …”

“Let’s start tomorrow,” he says. “I think you had enough of my input for one day.”

Suddenly, everything destined for the waste bin in my office gets the once over. It’s not like I think Hawk goes through it every night and catalogs his findings. Except, it sounded like he might. This idiosyncrasy actually comes as a relief. No one should be that dreamy hot, hardworking, intelligent, and generous without having some serious flaw that keeps the universe in balance. Between ransacking rubbish and, say, being a serial killer, I’ll take garbage all the way.

Yet, I find myself scanning my memory, wondering if I’ve thrown out anything that I’d have been embarrassed if he brought up. I can’t think of anything, however. Instead, I wonder what my empty honey-and-yogurt container will tell him about me tonight. Then I wonder why I care at all what he thinks about me.

A little voice inside reminds me that he didn’t even ask me out. Even if he had, what harm could come from one innocent date? It’s a double-edged sword, however, being involved with someone in the same department. I’d already walked down that road once. As I recall, I didn’t like the view. Having to leave Manderson would put a shadow of shame on the rest of my life.

“So, how did it go?”

Prof. Ferris’s head snakes around the edge of my office door shortly after lunch and I’m transported back to the here and now. I focus in on her right hand as she enters the room, and for the first time, note the absence of any golden band.

“A little bumpy start, but I think it pulled together okay at the end,” I say. “Thanks for asking.”

“No problem. I know you’ve never done anything like this before, so I made sure I put you in friendly territory.”

I can’t help my eye roll, but I keep my tone light. “Maybe not as friendly as you think.”

“Ah, yes, the adult Outreach students.” She crosses a line of formality and her arms over her chest. “True, they can be a potpourri crowd, but everything in teaching is like everything else in the world: it’s all relative. Just wait until you get a classroom of seventh graders. You’ll look back on the Outreach class as your own personal Eden. But what I meant was putting you in Hawk Stephens’s classroom.”

I find myself sitting on the edge of my chair and trying not to squirm like a child begging for a fireside story. “You know Hawk?”

“Of course, I know Hawk!” The exuberance on her face almost makes me feel mocked, like he’s someone I should have learned about in orientation. “He’s one of our brightest and most promising students.” She swallows her words and diverts in a way that doesn’t fail to get my attention. “Anyway, I knew he’d be sure you weren’t eaten alive, so I set up your first placement with his course. He made sure you got through it okay, right?”

I smile, but there’s now an unchecked box on my to-do list. First Hawk was surprised I didn’t know his name, then Prof. Ferris acts like it would be ridiculous if she didn’t. Why? What’s so infamous about the night janitor slash outreach teacher slash tutor slash PhD student? I know I won’t be able to satisfy my query now, however, so I put it to the back of my mind.

“Yes, ma’am. I came away totally uneaten.”

log {base 16} (4)=x

When I get to the shipping-receiving room the next evening, I’m surprised to find it locked. My inner geek girl mocks me,
What did you expect? You really believed that hot of a guy was going to come to work early just to help you be less socially awkward in front of a bunch of kids?
The voice silences when I hear movement inside. A moment later, the handle turns under my grip and bright blue eyes are looking at me through the crack.

“Sorry, last drop’s already gone out,” he says. Suddenly, his formality cedes as he recognizes me. “Oh, Robin. I thought maybe you’d decided not to come.”

I twist my wrist to steal a glance at my watch. “We said six. It’s six-oh-one right now.”

“Six-oh-two by the clock in here.”

My mind goes buzzing with the possibility that maybe Hawk’s secret is intermittent, acute OCD. I’ve never thought of a two-minute wait as anything significant. Then I start to think maybe he’s changed his mind and he’s using such an extreme technicality to get out of our agreement.

“If you’re busy, I can go,” I offer.

He opens the door further, and I can see how he’s dressed. It’s the perfect medium between his janitorial uniform from the first time we met, to the casual business suit he wore in front of his class. His faded jeans have a rip across one thigh. He’s wearing a flannel shirt that’s open halfway down, a gray T-shirt clinging to his muscular chest. I see just enough definition through the fabric to tell me Hawk has a body that wouldn’t be entirely unpleasant to explore.

His eyes go wide as he throws back the door. “No, of course we can meet. I just worried that you … but you’re here, so please,” he steps back and measures the space with a wide sweep of his arms, “come into my laboratory.”

When I enter, he closes the door behind me. This time I’m cautious about the rug, and manage to step over the folded-over section without going horizontal. Last time I was in this room, I was too focused on first the floor—and Hawk—to take too much note of it. It’s not unlike what one might expect. A large scale and gray, industrial shelves filled with shipping supplies are at the far end. In the opposite corner, a small lounge area includes a worn, brown leather sofa crisscrossed at the edges with silver duct tape, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a coffee table. On the far end of the room I see another door marked JANITOR, and I understand why he hangs out in this room even though he has nothing to do with shipping. The top of the coffee table hosts a smorgasbord of papers and books, all sedimentary layers of Hawk’s lessons.

“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Have you been here long?”

“Got here about a half hour ago. Water?” Hawk asks, holding up a plastic cup he’s just grabbed from a dispenser on the side of a water cooler.

Nodding, I make my way over to the sofa and find a spot. “The door was locked this time.”

“It usually is. The other night I had just come in for lunch and I guess I forgot to relock it. You found it open just by blind luck.”

“Given my epic fall, the blind part might be right, but there’s no such thing as luck. There’s only probability and the twisting of numbers,” I remind him. “Every mathematician knows that.”

He hands me the water just in time to say something that knocks the breath out of my chest and dries my mouth. “I don’t know about that. I think I was pretty lucky to have met you.”

I feel my cheeks stain red. The discomfort lasts only a moment since he takes his seat next to me and shifts into mentor mode. He begins by explaining to me that the biggest mistake college students—or anyone, really—makes when addressing an audience is assuming that just because they lack the knowledge the speaker has, that makes them inferior. Inferiority will lead me to talk down to the students, despite my best and most conscious efforts, he states. People made to feel inferior will either cower or act out in an attempt to regain power. Hawk holds up a finger and says there’s one cardinal rule to live by when presenting to any group.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Instead of looking at your audience as lacking something that you can provide, picture them as you before you knew whatever it is you’re trying to communicate,” Hawk answers. “Act like you’re explaining it to the you
you
were before you knew. Then tell yourself in hindsight exactly what it is that you didn’t know.”

“With kids,” I begin to argue, “that might not work. They don’t always understand the world from an adult framework.”

“Robin, sometimes I don’t understand everything from an adult framework either. The point is, you can’t talk to kids like they’re kids. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. You’re not educating the child, you’re educating the adult they’ll become. You can’t raise the river by keeping the water at the same level. Just pour slowly, so you don’t cause a flood.”

“Wow, you’re like the Yoda of the Outreach Program,” I say with only a little bit of jest. “You really have a knack for this. Tell me again why you gave up teaching in the program?”

“I needed to focus more on developing experience with older students, amongst other things,” he replies. “But I liked it. I love teaching. Ultimately, I’d like to be a professor. I really see myself wearing a tweed jacket and smoking pipes.”

I cough in rebuke. “I’ve never actually seen a professor wearing a tweed jacket and smoking a pipe.”

“Then you’ve never seen Ferris on laundry day,” he says.

I can’t hold back anymore; I break into a full-on chuckle. When I stop, he’s looking at me in a way that somehow makes my pulse race but my heart stop.

“It’s so good to have someone who understands my jokes again,” Hawk says.

Shifting in my seat, I lean back on my hands.

“And what about you? What is it you’re after with all this?”

I shrug. “A job, I guess.”

He turns a furrowed brow to me. “Oh, come on. You can lie better than that.”

“You think I don’t
want
to be employed? I do love math, but it’s not just a past time.”

He turns his body toward mine. “You said it yourself, you’re a master’s student in one of the hardest universities and male-dominated programs in the country. Don’t tell me you’re just trying it out for shit and giggles.” His eyes narrow on me, a daring grin on his face. “So what is it you’re planning on doing with that eighteen-karat Manderson University degree you’re going to earn?”

I force myself to straighten my back. “Finance,” I declare. “I want to build out stock prediction models and estimate potential returns on financial instruments.”

His introspective survey of me after my definitive statement makes me feel like he’s attempting to diagnose me. After a moment, his hand curls around his chin. “I think you’ll be a fine financial wizard. However, before you can take on Wall Street, you’ll have to take on the students of Parishmont Junior High School.”

“Is that where I’m going next?”

Hawk nods. “If not your next assignment, then the one after that. Ferris has a special project going on there, so she likes to bring every one of her Outreach workers in, see if they have the tenacity for working with middle schoolers.” His gaze travels across the room to the wide-faced clock on the wall over the loading dock. “It’s almost seven. You should probably get going, if you’re going to make it home by dark.”

“Do you work every night?” I ask as I begin to collect my things.

“Only Monday to Thursday here. I teach Tuesday to Friday morning, and sneak in two or three tutoring sessions in the midweek.”

“And when do you do your doctorate work?”

“When don’t I?” Hawk taps his forehead with two fingers. “I usually have something going on up here. I don’t need paper and a computer to do a lot of my work. I carry my tablet around so I can sneak in my research and reading where my schedule has holes.”

“And sleep?”

He looks dumbly into space. “Knew I was forgetting something.”

Hawk offers to walk me out. As he opens the door for us, I feel his hand on the small of my back to guide me out. The movement is so modest, so small, I don’t dare make anything of it. At the same time, I’m certainly not going to call him on it. When we get to the bike racks, he waits by my side as I undo my lock chain and strap on my helmet.

“Thanks for the coaching session,” I say, offering out my hand.

He only looks at my fingers, but makes no motion to return the gesture in kind. “You want to come again tomorrow night? We can do a mock run of your presentation. I’ll play the part of all the bad boys in the class.”

“I hope you’re a good actor, too, because it’s really hard for me to picture you being the bad boy,” I tease.

His expression shifts so suddenly and intriguingly, I’m certain at first I’ve insulted him. It takes me a moment to recognize the look as what it really is: temptation.

His tongue flicks out to wet his bottom lip. “I can be a bad boy. Especially for a good girl.”

I’m not sure why that phrase haunts me the entire bike ride home, but I hear it repeated in a loop in my mind, along with the way it made a quiver pass through my gut. In such a simple manner, Hawk’s convinced me of that much: he can be a bad boy. The question is, do I want to be a good girl?