Page 30 of Make Room for Love

Isabel snorted. Mira leaned against the wall, mirroring her. “I’ve always thought that if I ever got to be a professor, that’s the kind of professor I’d want to be. Not that I’m counting on it. But last week, one of my students said something, and I foundmyself frowning and leaning forward and asking her to clarify her argument in the exact same way. It’s like how we all become our parents. Though I’m sure I wasn’t nearly as intimidating.”

“I don’t know about that.” Mira was probably underestimating herself.

Mira smiled like Isabel was joking. “Maybe I’ll get there someday. I do try to take my students seriously, which is why I push them. I think that’s more important than any specific thing I can teach them, ultimately.”

The two of them had plenty in common. Mira took real pride in her work, and she knew she was meant to be an academic and a teacher, no matter what people threw at her. Maybe Mira wouldn’t put it that way, but Isabel knew conviction when she saw it. “I’ve had people have a problem with me, and point out every little unimportant thing or ice me out because they thought I shouldn’t be on the job site in the first place.” Mira nodded. She obviously knew all about that too. “It’s different when someone’s pushing you because they believe in you.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Mira said. “Also, I don’t think I’d ever… Well, Catullus can be seamy. Before that class, I’d never heard a professor say the wordface-fuckingbefore.”

Isabel nearly choked. Her face flushed again. Hearing Mira say that word in a completely dry tone was doing something to her.

Mira smiled slyly. “Here, let me find you an English translation. Unless you’re too scandalized. In which case I’ll dig up one of those Victorian translations that left the good parts out.”

“I think I can handle it.” Isabel wasn’t sure if she could.

Mira took another book out from the middle of a stack. It wobbled, and Isabel rushed to keep it upright. “Thanks,” Mira said, standing back up. She flipped through the book, opened it to a page, and gave it to Isabel.

It was eyebrow-raising. “Huh,” Isabel said, still blushing like she was a prude.

“There’s a lot to say about that little poem,” Mira said. “Gender roles, sexual mores, the relationship of a poet to their work, and so on. Anyway…” Mira’s expression turned serious. “Well, he had quite the range. I don’t know if you’re familiar with his elegy for his dead brother.”

Isabel shook her head. Mira looked uncertain. “Tell me about it,” Isabel said, not wanting the conversation to end. She hated dealing with other people’s fumbling attempts to talk around her grief. Mira’s gentle matter-of-factness was different.

Mira took the book from her. Their fingers brushed, and sparks lingered on Isabel’s skin. Mira flipped through it, dog-eared a few pages—apparently she wasn’t precious about her books in that way—and handed it back to Isabel. “A few of his poems mention his brother, and 101 is the most well-known—and forever, brother, hail and farewell—but this portion of 68 is the most moving, to me. I don’t know if… Well, if you do read them, and you’d like to share with me, I’d love to hear what you think. You don’t have to look now, if you’re…”

Isabel wanted to. She was tired of shutting herself away. She wanted to get closer to Mira’s world, and she wanted to see what Mira wanted her to see.

She opened to one of the dog-eared pages.My brother, you have shattered my comfort. Together with you, our whole house was buried. Together with you, all our joys have passed away…

A surge of something vast from the depths overwhelmed Isabel before she could keep it down. Her face wobbled and her throat ached. Tears threatened to break through.

Isabel took a shaky breath, keeping the threat contained. She closed the book. Mira put more hairline cracks in her composureevery day. Now, with this offering, Mira had almost split her open.

What if she allowed herself to crack?

She couldn’t. Not when she had to see her parents and Grace in a few weeks. She had to stay strong for them. But maybe there would be a time when she could pour herself out and let something new in.

What was Mira doing to her?

“Thank you,” Isabel said, with a tight hold on her voice. She clutched the books close to her. But she’d have to return them soon—Mira would probably be gone in less than a month. That realization nearly broke the dam. She swallowed around the lump in her throat, trying to control herself. “I’ll give these back before you go. I don’t know if… If I’m ready for the poems. But I appreciate it.”

“You can keep the books,” Mira said. Isabel looked away before she fell apart. “It’s a gift, okay? Take as much time as you need.”

14

The weekend subwayschedule truly had it out for her. Mira emerged into the gray November drizzle after an hour and a half, two boroughs, and three transfers. She took out her phone, trying to get her bearings in this unfamiliar neighborhood.

There was a text from one of the people whose apartment she was about to see. Raindrops beaded up on her phone screen.Hi, we’re sorry, but someone just put down a deposit for the room. Apologies for the last-minute update.

Mira made a hopeless strangled noise. She tried to quell her frustration. They’d probably had dozens of applicants for the room and had just wanted to pick someone as quickly as possible. At least they weren’t going to give her a tour while knowing they were wasting her time.

But this was a bad start to her second day of looking at apartments, after a bad first day of meeting a scammer, meeting a creep, encountering a bizarre intra-apartment love triangle gone wrong—hence the need for a new roommate—and, finally, meeting a different type of scammer. She stopped for a coffee, as though that would make the trip less fruitless, and went back into the subway station.

The next apartment, an hour away, was promising enough that Mira allowed herself some optimism for once. It was on the fifth floor with no elevator, and the room wasn’t much bigger than her current one, but at least it was close to campus.

She met the roommates, all around her age, who were superficially polite and questioned her with such obvious, barely veiled suspicion that Mira shook with anger as she made her way back down the stairs. She knew what it meant when people looked at her like that. They didn’t want her there, couldn’t admit to themselves that it was because she was trans, and were scrambling to invent other reasons to disqualify her.

A familiar instinct had reared its head, to make herself as meek and small as possible, even as she’d known that they were in the wrong. She’d managed to resist: She’d stood up, curtly thanked them for their time, and walked out.

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