Patrice

I was still digesting the conversation I’d had with Nesto about Easton when I walked into my office. I didn’t expect much human interaction until I headed to class later in the morning, and was checking my email when Brad Gunham, one of the associate professors in the economics department walked into the office.

“Professor Denis.”

Brad was the reason people thought all academics were insufferable assholes. He went out of his way to let people know all the ways in which he was smarter than them, and could not have a conversation without repeatedly attempting to throw shade or just outright offend. The first time he ever talked to me, he let me know we needed to “band together” since we were the only two minorities in the department.

Brad was white and both his parents were world-famous economists. I came to the States with my mom as a refugee from Haiti in the nineties, and she literally had to work three jobs to support us. But to Brad the fact that we were both gay apparently made us homies, and brothers in the “the struggle.” It would’ve been funny if he wasn’t literally the master of micro-aggressions. I sighed internally and tried my best not to sound as weary as I felt when I finally answered.

“Hey, Brad.”

He had his usual sneer in place, indicating he was on that bullshit again, and I had literally zero patience for it right now. I had to play nice though. Brad had just gotten tenure and would most likely be on the committee that decided on mine when it came up. The chair of the department was also, from what I’d seen at least, very much a Brad fan, so I had to keep it polite, no matter how much this dude annoyed me.

He raked his eyes over me as he leaned against the door. “Patrice, you’re on brand, as always.”

What the fuck did that mean?

He waved a hand in my general direction, which I guess was his way of presenting me with the evidence. “You’ve got the dapper thing down to a T.” His eyes were literally glomming me, and I tried my best to suppress the shudder coursing through my body.

He was so fucking greasy.

“Can I help you with anything, Brad? I’m in the middle of office hours right now, and may have a couple of students coming by to talk about the midterm assignment.”

He ignored my attempt to get him out of my office, and walked in, parking his skinny ass in one of the chairs. “Oh I won’t take long, just wanted to check in how you’re getting on. I know that your research topics can be a little controversial and was wondering how it had gone over in your sessions.”

This was one hundred percent not his business, and the controversy he was talking about was my research focusing on how people of color experienced discrimination through government sanctioned public policy. It was apparently a little too real for Brad’s brand of academia. He also knew I was teaching Statistics 101 like the fucking grunt I was, and that my research was not likely to come up in those classes. He still had to ask, to be an asshole.