2019
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
instructor was not expected to deviate, and her face set in a mask of simmering disappointment. The worst of it was that Billy – Corin – was doing everything right, and every well-meant gesture seemed somehow to touch a nerve. No, worse than that was that he didn’t see her disappointment unless she mentioned it, and to mention it – at least as often as she wanted to – was tedious, even to herself. Somehow students discover selected fragments of a new professor’s past, and it was not long into the semester before they were calling him “Dr. Corin.” He liked it. He answered to it. He smiled. Nobody called his disappointed wife Dorinda. People didn’t spontaneously make the connection between them, despite their common last name. In the department they called her Kristen. You could hear “Kristen” and “Corin” in the same sentence. It was difficult to know whether to disapprove more of the coldness they showed her or the informality they showed him, but something was wrong. She went to a career counselor who told her to be patient. One year in her life had gone awry. One. Be patient. It was not what she wished to hear. During the beginning-of-semester composition faculty meetings she sized up her colleagues. If she was as smart as she knew she was, she should be able to rule that roost before too long. Better to rule in hell . . . All the adjuncts and lecturers were women. Almost all cobbled together some kind of living by adjuncting at as many institutions as they could fit into their schedule. Some of the regular professors joined the meetings because they were teaching comp that semester, but even in a room where all were dedicated to one goal, one detected a line between tenure track and non-tenure track, be-
ONE YEAR IN HER LIFE HAD GONE AWRY. ONE. BE PATIENT. IT WAS NOT WHAT SHE WISHED TO HEAR.
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
152
Push and Pull by Kimberly Wheaton (oil and cold wax on cradled wood panel, 36x24)
tween lit people and comp people. This division was denied by everyone in the department and yet palpable, traditional, indelible. It had a taste like sharp steel in Kristen’s mouth. She at once abhorred the hierarchy and felt she was on the wrong side of it. She would begin a sentence with “I should really be teaching Milton” and retreat in confusion, realizing almost too late her preferences were a distinction that particular culture did not approve. A lesson she had learned while still in grad school was that like hires like. It is true in Academia, and she supposed it must be true elsewhere. It’s the most difficult thing in the world to improve a