Getting Schooled (The Wright Brothers Book 1)

by Jones, Christina C

  “The assignment was not to analyze whether or not Mr. Jefferson’s work was suitable reading material for the class. It was to provide a critical analysis of said work. If you want to make the claim that City of Dreams is not fit to be called literature, you can certainly do so. In your paper.”

  I sat back, deciding to wait a few minutes to see if J. Wright was going to respond right away. Apparently, he wasn’t drinking the Cory Jefferson Kool-Aid, and neither was I. He was being hailed – by “liberal” white people, grossly misogynist “enlightened” men, and the silly women who pandered to both – as some kind of literary messiah, but fuck that. I’d actually personally side-eyed my mother about this book choice, and gotten a laugh in response.

  Every year, in the midst of the actually good books she required the class to read, she would throw in a choice that made my damned teeth itch. According to her, the goal was to help her students discern what was good literature and what wasn’t. She’d assured me that City of Dreams was this year’s “wasn’t”, and I was incredibly pleased to see that she’d taken my suggestion of doing a couple of her lectures on romance-centered novels.

  But back to Corey Jefferson – I wasn’t sure if his inclusion was having the desired effect, so far. It had been hard as hell for me to read some of those papers and not give the feedback that the student needed to jump off a cliff into a sea of dicks. Some of these kids actually agreed with Corey Jefferson’s bullshit, and it made my head hurt.

  My computer pinged, letting me know I had a new message, and my heart started beating a little faster when I saw J. Wright in the “from” box.

  “Hey, my bad Professor B. I didn’t mean to imply that you’d made a mistake in choosing the book. It’s definitely an eye-opener, even if I’d rather keep mine closed on this one. Still, message received.

  In any case, I do want to contest the assertion that my social commentary isn’t suitable here. City of Dreams is a very, very widely read bestseller, with a huge marketing push of movies, merchandising, etc behind it. People are buying into these words like they’re some type of law. This book, and the ideas and ideals it presents, absolutely have a social impact. I think exploring that as part of critiquing the overall work is valid.”

  I had to walk away from the laptop on that one. I considered calling “Professor B” to see what she thought, but I didn’t want her peering at me over those glasses of hers, not saying anything, but questioning my competence anyway. On the other side of that, she would provide the final grade on the paper, with my notes and scoring provided as suggestions. Even if said I was accepting it, there was no guarantee she would agree.

  But on the other side – yes, I was up to a thought triangle now – she rarely went against me. She actually tended to score things higher than me, so maybe I was worried for nothing.

  I walked around my space, straightening up for Gray’s arrival later, and then climbed into the shower. Now that my apartment and I were clean, I felt better, and I sat down in front of the laptop again, staring at my fingers as I considered my response. Finally, I typed something out.

  “Cite your sources. Use direct quotes. Provide examples. Show context.”

  If J. Wright was so adamant, I’d give him the chance to make his case. Crush-worthy social and literary views or not… his ass had better write to impress if he wanted to earn a better grade.

  two.

  “Cite your sources. Use direct quotes. Provide examples. Show context.”

  I pushed out a heavy, relieved breath as I sat back in my chair, letting it swivel back and forth as I re-read the message on the screen. Those ten words had just saved me from having to cut a crazy amount of work from a paper that was due on Monday. Yeah, I had some work to do to address the other things the professor had pointed out, but those were no big deal. I could make those adjustment tonight when I got home, have my Saturday off to my damned self, and read over the paper again on Sunday.

  “Hey, where are you? Jay?”

  Shit.

  I closed out my email and slipped my phone back into my pocket as I hopped up from the chair. There was just enough time for me to look like I’d already been on my way out when my father, Joseph Wright Sr., rounded the corner.

  “What are you doing back here in the break room?” he asked, wearing a little frown as he looked me over. “And why aren’t you in the polo with the company logo?”

  Because that shit looks wack, I thought, but didn’t say. Instead, I just kind of shrugged as I slipped past him, and headed back to the glass-walled cubicle right up front that my father referred to as my “office”, but felt more like a cage.

  “Hold up,” he called after me, and I stopped, pushing my hands into my pockets as I turned in his direction. “It’s your lucky day… we had a mechanic call out, so—”

  “Yes!”

  I didn’t even really need to hear the rest of what he said. I was already headed toward the back, toward the service center where I really wanted to be in the first place.

  “Slow down, son.”

  Again, I stopped. Turned to look my father in the eyes, because I already knew what was coming. “What, you don’t even have two words to spare for your old man today?”

  Oh.

  Wait.

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  Joseph Wright had never been a lovey-dovey guy, not with me or my brothers. He saved the mushy stuff for our mother – turned into a smooth-talking teddy bear when he interacted with her. For us boys though, it was always toughen up, less emotion, work harder, sweat more, better grades – normal shit, honestly. Looking back, I could see that he was careful not to talk down to us though, not to be too harsh, leading by example. He was raising men, not assholes, he said at least once a week, usually directed at me.

  He swore up and down, backwards and forward that he’d been me, exactly, growing up. That my “candor” as my mother referred to it, had come to me honest, passed down from him. That the sheer potency – his word choice – of my mother, once they met, had polished away the sharpest of the edges on his personality, made him a little easier, a little more smooth.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet your sandpaper, little boy,” my mother, Priscilla, had dryly muttered to me one day, long past the time I was actually a little boy. I was home on leave, and she insisted I take one of her friend’s daughter out.

  I suffered through the date, with a girl whose jaw was stronger than mine and couldn’t keep her clammy-ass hands to herself. I was nice-ish. I was polite to this girl. I drop her off, walk her to her door… and she snatches me by the collar, trying to get a kiss.

  I got the whole fuck outta there, and I don’t know what she told her mom, but her mom called my mom, and Priscilla Wright called me into her sewing room and just looked at me, with that quiet disappointment that stung a helluva lot more than anything my father ever said.

  But, back to my point.

  My father wasn’t some talkative, sentimental guy. We often communicated in little more than a series of grunts that we each inexplicably understood.

  When he stopped me, I was expecting to be admonished because I was wearing a mechanic’s shirt, instead of the wack-ass white polo with the royal blue J&P AUTO SALES logo embroidered on. He was always on me about presenting myself like a salesman, even at my blunt insistence that it wasn’t what I wanted to do. But, it paid the bills and kept me out of my savings while I attended school, and he was generous enough to give me flexible hours.

  What I hadn’t expected was to look into my father’s eyes and see genuine concern over my lack of communication today.

  “Sorry Pops,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “School on my mind. You good?”

  “Are you good?” he countered back, not releasing me from his penetrating stare. “Ever since you’ve been back, you’ve been—”

  “Fine. I’m fine, Pops. Okay?”

  “You don’t seem fine. I’m worried about you, son.”

  “Worried about who?”
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br />   I groaned at the sound of the voice behind us.

  Here we fucking go…

  “Why’re you worried about Jay, Pops? What’s going on? Jay, you good? You need me to look at—”

  “Nah,” I insisted, turning to face my older brother, Joseph Jr. “I don’t need you to look at anything, Dr. Wright.”

  Joseph gave me a dry smile. “Ha ha. Funny. Are you sure—”

  “Yes. Can I get out to the service center now?” I asked, addressing both men with the question. They exchanged a look, and Joseph Jr. gave Joseph Sr. a slight head nod that I guess they thought I couldn’t see.

  “Yeah, son. Go ahead,” my father agreed, and I didn’t waste any time taking advantage of the out, leaving them to discuss my demeanor. There was nothing to discuss though. I wasn’t different, they were.

  I’d only been home a few months, since right before the semester started, and had noticed it more and more in the time I’d been back. My family tiptoed around me in a way they hadn’t before, always watching me, asking me how I was, like they expected any little thing to set me off into a panic attack or something.

  I knew what they were worried about. PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares of kids with bombs strapped to their backs. All the shit American movie magic shoved down our throats as the reality of what deployment looked like, when the truth wasn’t nearly as depressing or tragic, but somehow, simultaneously worse. I didn’t know how to explain it, but the point was that none of that was happening with me. I was good.

  I just needed my well-meaning family to realize that, and lay off, damn.

  As soon as I stepped into the part of the dealership that housed the service center, I breathed in a deep sigh. The cloying smells of engine grease, brake dust, rubber, gasoline, and motor oil would send most people into a gagging, coughing fit, but it smelled like home back here to me.

  The little BSU princess from earlier would probably die of shock.

  A twinge of annoyance settled into my shoulders, remembering the way she’d recoiled at the sight of my mechanic’s shirt. I wore it to class with some regularity, because it saved me time from going all the way home on the days I worked at the dealership. My clothes were clean though, because my mama raised me right. No, I wasn’t on campus dressed to impress like the pretty boys she probably preferred, but that was the thing – I wasn’t a boy. I was twenty-eight years old, just trying to take advantage of the military’s generosity and get my damned degree so I could get the fuck out of there. I was surrounded by teenagers, and kids so barely into their twenties that they may as well be teenagers too.

  But not the princess.

  No, as annoyed as I’d been by that little accidental exchange in the classroom door, I couldn’t deny that unexpected softness of her body against mine had felt good. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her – she was always in the lecture hall on Fridays, sitting at the table next to Professor Bryant, looking good as hell.

  Pretty copper-brown skin, big brown eyes, and a sexy ass mouth. She had her hair done in thick, jet-black braids that hung past her waist, grazing the soft curves of her hips. The obvious hint that she was older than the girls of campus lied in the fact that she was a grad assistant. She had to have at least graduated with a bachelor’s to be in the position she was, which meant at least twenty-one, twenty-two, but I suspected even older than that. Something in her vibe – easy, breezy, bougie as hell – spoke to a level of confidence the younger women didn’t seem to have.

  Not to mention, I’d heard the little smartass remark she hurled at my back after we bumped into each other. Even though I hadn’t responded, only a self-assured woman fired back like that, despite the fact that she was clearly the one at fault.

  Aiight.

  So… maybe that’s not completely accurate.

  Maybe she was too busy looking at her phone to watch where she was going.

  Maybe I was too busy looking at her ass, too distracted by the sliver of brown skin between the top of her jeans and the hem of her shirt – she had those little dimples, the thumb placement guides, you know? – to watch where I was going.

  So maybe it was both of our fault.

  But the princess didn’t have to act like I was covered in grease and grime either, so there was that. She wasn’t into men who got their hands dirty, and I wasn’t into stuck up women.

  The end.

  I finished up my shift at the service center, and went home, dodging my father and brother on the way out. There, I pulled out some leftover chicken and rice, and stuck it in the oven to heat while I got in the shower.

  Afterwards, I set up my laptop at my desk, and sat in front of the computer with my dinner while I worked on my paper.

  While I aced my paper.

  - & -

  What the fuck is this?!

  I sat back from my computer screen in disbelief, staring at the score at the bottom of my paper for Modern Black Lit. I blinked, looked at it again, and then looked around me, searching for someone to confirm whether or not I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.

  82.5%

  Yeah, yeah, that was a passing score. A lot of people would have been fine with that, but I wasn’t, because for one – I wrote the shit out of that paper. Two – a “B” was aiight in passing, but the final grade for the course was based on a cumulative score, not weighed by the letter grade. It was too early in the semester to be dragging my score down. And three… I wrote the shit out of that paper.

  Wearing a scowl, I scrolled furiously through the paper, reading the comments. I was in the library, studying fucking thermodynamics for a test later in the week. But nah, I heard the little ping from the email, and had to check it. Now, I was pissed off and worried about my GPA over a class that didn’t have shit to do with the degree I was seeking.

  I wanted to get a little bit pissed at my advisor, but it wasn’t his fault I was one of the last students to register. I was lucky to get into any classes, let alone the ones I actually needed, that weren’t just filling out my electives. I was known to pick up a book or two in my spare time, so the last-minute opening in Modern Black Lit worked for me. Added bonus: Professor Bryant was grown-woman fine, which made it easy as hell to pay attention in class. Things were good.

  Until now.

  My eyes narrowed as I read over the comments. Underdeveloped thesis, rambling paragraphs, how does this connect to your (underdeveloped) thesis? Citation needed, blah, blah. Ultimately, she left a nice little note at the end about how this was a strong effort, but “Strong Effort” and “82.5%” didn’t compute. At least not to me.

  Since I was already in the building, I packed up my stuff, printed a copy of the paper, and went upstairs to Professor Bryant’s office. I didn’t know her schedule, if she had office hours or was in class, but if I could catch her, I wanted to talk in person about the paper.

  The door was already open when I got there, so I stuck my head in and looked around. Professor Bryant’s office was large, enough to comfortably fit two desks and still look spacious. The larger desk, undoubtedly hers, was unoccupied.

  The princess sat behind the other one.

  She had her head down, scribbling away in a notebook. Skinny purple headphone cords disappeared behind her braids, and I had to stop myself from staring too hard at her round, plump titties, filling out the front of a royal blue Blakewood tee shirt, with a v-neck.

  I cleared my throat, and her head popped up, eyes wide as she slammed her notebook shut and yanked her earbuds out. “Can I help you?” she asked, sounding a little flustered as she stood up.

  It hadn’t been quite a week yet since we bumped into each other, and I hadn’t seen her since then. Today was Thursday – she would be in the lecture hall tomorrow, but somehow this was a little different. Just me and her, relative privacy… why the hell did she have to be this fine?

  “Uhh,” I started, shaking my head a little to clear away filthy thoughts about my hands and her hips. “I was looking for Professor Bryant.”

&nb
sp; “She’s not here.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I can see that. Can you tell me when she’ll be back?”

  “Her office hours are posted there on the door for convenience.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  The princess crossed her arms over her chest, which didn’t do anything except push her titties together, making it harder not to stare. “You’re the guy that bumped into me the other day, aren’t you?”

  I smirked. “Nah. You bumped into me, but I can see how you might think otherwise.”

  She rolled her eyes, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like“this motherfucker” under her breath before she turned her gaze back toward me, her expression completely disinterested. “What do you want?”

  “To talk to the professor.”

  “About?”

  “My grade on this paper.”

  A nasty little grin spread across her face. “What’s wrong? Did you fail?”

  “No.” I scoffed, shook my head. “I didn’t fail, I’m just not happy with the grade. When will Professor Bryant be available to talk about it?”

  “She won’t. Scores are final.”

  Narrowing my eyes, I stepped forward into the office. “I want to hear that for myself. When will she be available today?”

  “It’s a waste of both of your time. She’s not changing the grade.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling the patience ooze out of me more with every second that passed. “When can I talk to her?”

  “Professor Bryant doesn’t have office hours on Thursdays.”

  Any possible hint of amusement drained off of my face, and went onto hers. The princess’s expression was high-fructose corn syrup sweet, and her eyes were sparkling with barely constrained laughter.

  I blew out a deep breath, with a dry chuckle as I shook my head. “You couldn’t have said that shit at first, huh?”

  She shrugged, and then stepped around the desk, strutting in my direction. I watched her ass as she passed, then brought my eyes back up as I turned around. She stopped at the door, pointing to a laminated sheet taped to it. “Like I said – her schedule is posted on the door. Can you see it here? With OFFICE HOURS right here across the top, in these big ass letters?”