Before her stroke, Dr. Vandeventer had been a bright, vital force but was, truth be told, a rather nasty person. After the stroke, apart from the wheelchair and a tendency to slur words, only one aspect of her changed: She got nastier. She had long suspected—and I didn’t agree—that her history department suffered from a lack of diligence and rigor. Here was her chance to change all that, to find the next Sadie Brier, whose ghost probably kept appearing before Dr. Vandeventer, reminding her what could’ve been. Born Vera Milhinkowitz, Dr. Vandeventer had chosen her new name, it was believed, just days before she crossed the platform to receive her doctorate from SUNY Buffalo. An Ivy League wannabe, she loved nothing more than to crow about the high number of Montague graduates attending the Harvards, the Yales, the Prince-tons. The rumors, if true, told of the former Vera Milhinkowitz and her wild bohemian youth. Among her conquests: two ambassadors, a recent president of Dartmouth, a Nobel laureate economist, sundry award-winning poets, and a female Supreme Court justice. Oh, the stories—men, women, men and women—here was someone, pre-stroke and post-stroke, who’d eagerly fuck a great mind. If you were sexy and stupid, she had no interest. Or if your dissertation topic didn’t appeal to her.

(During that first interview, as I described my work on the history of loss, her brow wrinkled up and her mouth pulled back in horror. “It seems rather unformed,” she said. “It’s early,” I said. “Young man,” she said, “it’s never early.” Then, as she stared at me with her cold, bloodless eyes, she said, “I have a feeling the students here are really going to like you.” I thanked her. “It’s not a compliment,” she said. “To me, it’ll just mean you’re doing something wrong.”)

That morning, as she wheeled me to the door, she positively glowed. She extended her hand, and I held it. How cool and smooth and soft was her skin. She looked up, smiled slightly, and cooed, “Timothy, your going away will be good for all of us.” I couldn’t believe what I did next. I bent down to kiss her. Unfortunately, she saw me coming and had already started to wheel herself back to her desk. Finding only air, I made a smacking sound with my lips so we’d both know I’d tried.

Fifth period, World History. Bea Myerly was in the middle of her oral presentation on the obscure Gnostic rites of the Byzantine Empire. It was to be only a five-minute talk, but Bea was in minute twelve with an inch-high stack of index cards left to get through.

“Excuse me, Bea?”

She kept talking at her usual debater-like clip.

Others in the class had to help shout her down. “Bea. Bea!”

“Can we finish this up Monday?”

“But—”

“Thank you, Bea.”

Sulking, she gathered up her note cards, her audiovisual aids, the poster board with the Byzantine time line printed out in five colors of ink. She clomped to her desk and sat down, part pissed, part humiliated.