Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) Read Online Free PDF Page B

was approved two years ago, he announced to me that the time had arrived for him to come out to his students. Now that he wasn’t at risk, he didn’t mind being a role model on campus. He dropped a couple of hints during lectures, the faculty got wind rapidly,and now almost everyone seems clued in, with the exception of Paleozoic.
    As Jeff pours a first cup of coffee, the lounge’s door swings open: Grub, returning for a misplaced volume. Watching Grub search the haphazard towers of books on the end table, Jeff is the picture of solemnity.
    â€œ
Very
nice tie,” says Jeff.
    Volume in hand, Grub straightens, smiles, and claps Jeff on the shoulder.
    I like Jeff, and I find him scary.
    Â 
    I meet Hannah at the front of the reception hall. She looks composed, as always: brown hair tucked behind her ears; slender silver pendant resting above a not too deep V-neck; competent, calm, cheery. She’s already filled a paper plate with hors d’oeuvres and is bolting them with the prayerful concentration of the pregnant.
    As we hug, her considerable belly bumps me, and we smile.
    â€œWhat’s new in the hallowed halls?” she asks.
    â€œToo many papers to grade. Otherwise it’s a good semester so far. Just a couple problem students. How are you?”
    â€œWe’re all fine—tell me more about you.”
    In someone else it might be a power play, this habit of deflecting questions, drawing me out while revealing almost nothing of herself. With Hannah it’s modesty, and a genuine love I’ve never taken for granted. Through college and after, Hannah and I were nearly inseparable. But in the years since we last shared an apartment, work and marriage and then motherhood have laid claim to her schedule. Now a coffee date requires three weeks’ advance planning. In a rare show of exasperation last week, Hannah suggested a quick meeting at this reception to celebrate her office’s new collaborative project with city charities. She’s here for only twenty minutes, then off to pick up her three-year-old, Elijah, from preschool; but the reception is right around the corner from my department, and at least it’s a place where she has a chance of conducting an adult conversation.
    â€œTell me about your problem students,” she says.
    â€œOne of them called last night to ask whether he could skip class to get tickets for a Tragically Hip concert. He said he’s a poet and the concert would really
inspire
him.”
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    â€œExactly what he expected: I gave him a lecture about the concertgoing habits of Emily Dickinson. Part of my job is managing undergrads’ limits-testing.”
    â€œSounds like parenthood.” Hannah nabs a pig in blanket from my plate. She rolls her eyes in ecstasy, then bites into it. I trade my full plate for her empty one.
    â€œYou’re sure?” She eyes my mushroom puffs.
    â€œEat. What’s new in your world?”
    â€œEd is good. He likes the new job.”
    â€œHey, I saw George recently.”
    â€œOh, thanks.” She prods upward with her tongue, then ducks her head and daintily removes the piece of food that had lodged between her upper canine and its neighbor. “He still around?”
    â€œNope, he’s vanished.”
    Hannah flashes me a big, Georgeless grin. “Yet again you’ve saved me from social catastrophe.”
    George is the code name not only for a piece of crud that gets stuck between your teeth, but for a wandering bra strap, an undone zipper, a piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe. The guy helped Hannah and me alert each other to potentially embarrassing social situations through college and beyond, including the time I overslept the arrival of the first guests for predinner drinks, woke to the sound of the doorbell, and dressed from the top of my clean laundry pile—neglecting to notice, as I greeted our guests, the pair of underwear