Page 28 of One-Star Romance

“Honey, we did read it,” his mother said quietly.

“Oh,” his father said, shaking his head. “Of course.” He readjusted himself in his seat, then snapped and leaned forward. “Neologisms, yes. It was very good, I thought.”

Perhaps Professor Kapinsky had skimmed it, and it had meant so little that he’d pushed it out of his mind. It had only been a substandard piece of work from his substandard son, who had entered the same profession but would never reach the same heights. (Though Rob wondered: How would his father have reacted if Rob had surpassed him? The one thing Professor Kapinsky might have had a harder time forgiving than his son’s failure was his son’s success.)

But Rob suspected something else: his father had never even read it at all. He’d looked at a page or two and let Rob’s mom summarize the rest. “What was your opinion on the ultimate conclusion?” Rob asked, folding his arms, fury blooming in him. He’d spent months, no, years of his life working on this, and his father couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention. Briefly, Natalie flashed into his mind, the hurt in her eyes when Rob had thrown it in her face that Gabby wouldn’t read her book. Somehow, this made Rob feel even worse than he already did.

His father seemed legitimately flummoxed, and so Rob’s mother jumped in. “I remember you saying how you enjoyed the way Rob compared the spread of new language to a highly contagious disease.”

Professor Kapinsky brightened. “Yes, that’s right. An interesting intellectual connection.”

Not good enough. “What did you find so interesting about it?”

Rob and his father regarded each other, his father’s eyebrows knitting together, and Rob could tell that it was one of those rare occasions in life when Professor Kapinsky had nothing to say. For a moment, Rob thought he might actually get his father to admit defeat for the first time, and amid his triumph, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted that. But then, his father leaned back in his chair, a wry smile on his face.

“Well, to be completely honest, Robert, your writing was a bit impenetrable for anyone outside the field. This is what separates the good from the great. A good academic speaks to his fellow experts. A great academic speaks to everyone. Something for you to work on.”

There it was, his father twisting things around on him like always, unable to allow Rob a true win. Desperate, Rob played the closest thing he had to a trump card, forcing a smile through his gritted teeth. “Funny, Zuri didn’t have any trouble, even though she’s over in postcolonial art.”

“Well,” his father said, “she must be an extraordinarily smart one.”

“She is,” Rob said, keeping his tone even. “She just had an excellent paper published in Art Journal. I’ll send it to you. I think you’ll find that it speaks to everyone.” Here it was, Rob’s consolation. His father might be an untouchable academic, but at the end of the day, he hadn’t been able to face a partnership of equals. Rob, on the other hand, didn’t have to maintain his own self-worth by only going after graduate students whom he could keep eternally in his thrall. (No offense to his mother.)

“She’s reading your dissertation!” his mother said, beaming. “Things must be getting serious. Can we start officially using the word ‘girlfriend’?”

Zuri was not his girlfriend yet. But things had been going well since they’d met at a university lecture one and a half months ago.

His father raised an eyebrow, dubious. And before Rob could second-guess himself, he replied, “Yes.” Close enough to the truth. He’d make it official with Zuri as soon as he returned.

“Well, good for you,” Rob’s father said. “We look forward to meeting her.”

Rob’s mother smiled. “Now, are you sure you can’t stay longer? I bought fresh corn at the farmers’ market.”

Rob found it hard to look at either one of his parents. Even being around Natalie would be better than this. “No,” he said. “I should get to the lake.”

13

The “luxury cabin” Angus was renting had seen better days. Natalie surveyed the living room. Clearly the photos in the listing had been taken years earlier, before a parade of guests had overrun the place with their pets and kids and parties. The large couch across from the fireplace had gone from invitingly squishy to an injury lawsuit waiting to happen. Angus plopped down on it, then got up, wincing and rubbing his butt.

“They really should replace this,” he said. “I’ll leave them a card for Stoat and Sons.”

The decor was Cabin Americana: a sculpture of a fish, mouth splayed open in a howl of pain, pinned to an oval-shaped slab of wood. An odd triptych of signs that read, Who says you can’t have wine with breakfast? then If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion—The Dalai Lama, then I’m not too drunk, you’re too sober! But, oh, the windows. A whole wall of them lined one side of the cabin, looking out onto trees and, beyond that, the promised lake.

Natalie threw open the sliding doors and inhaled. A stone-step path led down to the water. There was a large dock made of planks of sun-bleached wood with a tied-up rowboat rocking gently in the water. On the dock sat two Adirondack chairs, inviting relaxation in their low-slung seats.

“Should we change into our bathing suits and jump in?” Gabby asked, bumping Nat’s hip with her own.

“Absolutely.” Nat’s fingers itched. She would just check her email before they did so. But when she pulled her phone out, she had no service. “What’s the Wi-Fi here?”

“The owner said it had been on the fritz, but she was going to send someone out to repair it, and in the meantime, we should just use data.”

“I don’t have any signal.”

“Huh, me neither. That’s weird,” Gabby said. “Well, work has been exhausting lately, and what with all the stressful election news, I think it could be nice to unplug!”

No. Not nice at all. Natalie could have an email sitting in her inbox RIGHT NOW telling her that an editor was offering her a book deal. She’d read it and shriek with joy, and everyone would rush over to ask what had happened. And then how much nicer this weekend would be. (How much better she’d feel about seeing Rob too, with that armor to put around herself.)

“Come on, bathing suits,” Gabby said, dragging her back into the house. “Before the sun sets and it gets too cold!”

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