One More Time

by Deborah Cooke

  Annette couldn’t be in that bad of a mood: she had broken out her favorite black Battlestar Galactica T-shirt. Maybe something was going on at school.

  Maybe it had something to do with Scott Sexton.

  Leslie knew better than to ask.

  “Have the girls been out?”

  “I took them for a walk after I started the coffee,” Annette said. “Mission accomplished.”

  “And your grandmother?”

  “No sign of her yet.”

  Leslie took a sip of her coffee and sighed contentment. “You’re spoiling me, you know.”

  “I could get used to you spoiled. It brings out your inner alien.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  Annette grinned.

  “So, do you need a ride to school this morning?”

  “No, thanks. I’m going to walk.”

  Leslie blinked, then blinked again at her daughter’s mischievous grin.

  Annette leaned over her cereal bowl to confide something of such obvious import that Leslie leaned closer instinctively. “I have found the most awesome bra,” her daughter said, “and it costs a fortune and you’re going to have to buy it for me soon.” She nodded sagely. “Really soon.” Then she eyed Leslie, as if expecting the offer to be rescinded.

  “Good. I’m ready anytime.”

  Annette grinned and bounced a bit.

  “You know, it’s funny, but I seem to have lost a book I once had,” Leslie mused. “And it’s not like me to lose track of a book, but I just can’t figure out what happened to this one.”

  Annette flushed and Leslie smiled.

  “Guess it’s gone for good,” she said with a wink.

  “I’d think so,” Annette agreed and they shared a smile.

  Chapter Fifteen

  This was it.

  That was Leslie’s thought as she strode down the hall, outwardly confident and inwardly terrified, toward her afternoon lecture. Everything was riding all this, she felt, all the chips were on the table and she’d called ‘double or nothing’. It was frightening to have risked so much by challenging Dinkelmann.

  She hadn’t even thought to wear the Rosie the Riveter bra.

  On the other hand, she hadn’t felt so much anticipation for a class in years. Maybe anticipation mingled with terror was a better description.

  Maybe they had all dropped the course.

  Maybe none of them had prepared.

  Maybe they would have absolutely nothing to say, and all two hundred and seventy-five souls would stare at her in silence for two hours.

  Scary prospect. Maybe she should have brought a lion and a Christian or two.

  The fact was that there was no way to tell for sure in advance how it would all work out. Which was similar to a lot of other things, which was not the most reassuring thought Leslie could have had.

  All possible mortal preparations made and the result was left in the hands of the gods. Not being a particularly religious individual—and experience had shown her miserable success rate with divine intervention—Leslie wasn’t optimistic.

  She gripped the door handle to the lecture hall, took a deep breath and hauled it open.

  The chatter within was abruptly silenced by her appearance. To her astonishment, at least two-thirds of the class as she knew it had shown. She continued to the lectern as if she’d expected nothing else.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, letting her voice carry over the room. “Is everyone prepared?”

  There were some murmurs of assent and a lot of shuffling of papers. Several of Leslie’s grad students had offered to help by taking attendance for her and she greeted them quietly, giving them some instruction on how to have the students sign in without disrupting any potential discussion.

  The class waited restlessly, either anxious about each having their chance or terrified of being singled out.

  “I’d like you all to move down, closer to the front,” Leslie said once the grad student cum emissaries were dispatched to their missions. “That way, we’ll be able to hear each other better. I’d like you to meet several of my grad students—Fatima and Michael and Ilona and Chi-Van—who have graciously offered to take attendance during our discussion. Please have your student identification on your desk and be prepared to sign in with your student number. They will also take note of anyone who arrives late or leaves early.”

  At that, the back door opened. Everyone glanced over their shoulders to see who was late, and Leslie caught her breath when Dinkelmann stepped into the back of the hall. He seemed discomfited to find all eyes upon him.

  Leslie was discomfited that he and she were wearing the same color of pink.

  At least she told herself that that was what was making her heart leap. He glanced about and quickly claimed a seat, clearly hoping to disappear.

  Leslie wasn’t inclined to give him his three wishes.

  “As you can see, Dr. Dinkelmann, who is head of the history department, will be observing our discussion today as well.” Leslie smiled at her daunted students. “Here is your chance to impress Team Fuchsia and nail that graduate school referral.”

  A ripple of laughter rolled through the hall, though Dinkelmann did not smile. He seemed particularly concerned with opening his notebook and taking the cap off his pen.

  “As you know—or I hope you know—we will be discussing the emergence of the notion of the individual in medieval society today. This will be a free-ranging discussion, so please put up your hand when you have something to contribute. I’ll try to ensure that you all have your chance to share what you’ve learned. I’d like you each to stand when you speak, as that will help your voice to carry.” Leslie smiled and gestured to a familiar student. “Mr. Carmichael, would you like to start us off, maybe with a nice broad working thesis?”

  He stood, a lanky kid who was both pompous and self-conscious. “Yes, Dr. Coxwell. I’d like to suggest that the emergence of the notion of the individual was both the culmination of medieval society, resulting in the highest achievements of the era, and its doom, as the notion of the supreme importance of the individual necessitated the end of the middle ages and the beginning of the Renaissance.”

  It was pretty good for something off the cuff. “Excellent. My only quibble is that the word “necessitated” implies an inevitability, Mr. Carmichael. I’m not sure that anything in history is inevitable, but other than that one small item, it’s an excellent working theory. Tell me more about what you mean, or why you arrived at this thesis.”

  “Well, I focused on architecture, and the changes in the design of private residences over the course of the middle ages…”

  To Leslie’s delight, the discussion took a life of its own. Mr. Carmichael talked about changes in architecture from a few large communal rooms to private rooms and private sleeping arrangements.

  Another student contributed some comments on walls, the increasing popularity of walled gardens for private contemplation, and the internal division of rooms in all buildings.

  They talked about the pursuit of solitude and its fruits. They talked about the growing importance of identification of the individual creator with the work of art: of paintings being signed, of poets ensuring that their name was associated with their work, of even monks who copied chronicles making note of their own name in the margin when once they would have worked anonymously.

  Someone brought up the notion of a personal relationship with the divine, of worshippers meeting God as an individual instead of en mass during Mass, of gnosis and Cathars and people reading the bible for themselves and how the Reformation was a natural outgrowth of that. That led them down the road of women’s role in religious life, of visionaries like Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila, who communed with God and shared their experiences. They talked about Joan of Arc, and her discussions with angels, as well as her abilities as an individual in rallying the military fortunes of France.

  Another student had examined the notion of the solitary quest in poems a
nd literature, particularly in the Arthurian cycle and the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table, who sought personal growth in order to glimpse or potentially possess the Grail. Previous to the popularity of these stories, a knight traveling alone was believed to be a threat or an outlaw fleeing his past, this student declared and Leslie concurred, but these stories defined the solitary traveler as a hero instead.

  They talked about livestock being moved out of peasant huts and into their own barns or outbuildings. That led to the inevitable discussion about sex and its presentation in popular medieval fiction, how it changed from being a deed done while surrounded by others—in a peasant hut, or in a shared bed in a feudal castle—to an encounter requiring seclusion and privacy.

  Leslie pointed out how the Ménagier de Paris—a kind of domestic instruction manual written by a thirteenth-century merchant for his young wife and a familiar, beloved source for medieval social historians—insisted that arguments between man and wife belonged in the privacy of their own bed, and should not be conducted before servants or guests. Lines, she noted, were being drawn between public and private deeds, which was a facet of the same movement from communal focus to individual focus.

  Another student who focused on comparative literature noted about the emergence of first-person storytelling in literature, and the many various recountings of personal quests and dreams. Jean de Joinville’s personal memoir, the first vernacular autobiography in French, was presented as another obvious example of this trend toward a focus on the individual.

  Ideas were flying across the lecture hall, the students were animated, and Leslie was having the time of her life. She was thrilled at the wide variety of topics they had explored and how all of the information complemented the working thesis. She redirected and provided citations and made note of items that they had missed or that she felt should be granted greater emphasis.

  Suddenly, Fatima, one of her graduate students, looked up from the back of the hall and tapped her watch.

  Leslie glanced at her own watch and was shocked at the time.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have two minutes to sum up,” Leslie said, incredulous at how quickly the time had passed. She laughed and put her hands on her hips. “But that’s impossible. We’ve had a fabulous exchange of information here today and have seen many facets of medieval society in transition. First of all, I’d like you each to write a short summary, either using Mr. Carmichael’s thesis or one of your own, focusing on your particular area of research. Keep it brief, no more than three pages and a bibliography please, just so I’ll have a firmer idea of what everyone explored. Although this won’t be assigned a grade on its own, you can rest assured that one of the optional essay questions on the final exam will build upon this assignment. It will be good preparation for you. I promise.”

  She took a deep breath and smiled at her students, who were clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop. “In conclusion, I have to say that this class far exceeded my highest expectations. I want you all to give yourselves a round of applause for a job well done. This was exemplary.”

  Leslie began to clap. She stood at the front of the room and applauded her students, their work and energy and enthusiasm, none of which she’d really glimpsed before. She was delighted as the students joined in. Their faces were alight and she knew they had learned something, maybe more than they had learned thus far in her course. They were engaged.

  This was what teaching should be.

  This was what she had signed up for.

  Leslie had no chance to gloat, though. She looked up to where Dinkelmann had been sitting just in time to catch his scowl. He turned and marched out of the lecture hall, his shoulders hunched in disapproval.

  She was going to guess that he wasn’t persuaded of the power of what had happened here today.

  In fact, she wasn’t going to wait for him to summon her. She packed up her notes, thanked her graduate students for their help, then left the hall, making a beeline for Dinkelmann’s office.

  Might as well beard this lion in his den.

  * * *

  “That went well, didn’t it?” Leslie asked, sparing only a rap for Dinkelmann’s door before she entered his office. He looked up from his desk and sputtered a greeting. Leslie continued with confidence. “I have to say that I was enormously impressed with how much preparation the students did and how much enthusiasm they showed for what can be a very elusive subject.” She took the seat opposite him, crossed her legs and smiled triumphantly. “That was education! Those kids were totally engaged with the material, and it was sophisticated material.”

  Dinkelmann took a deep breath. “You needn’t be so self-congratulatory about that fiasco.”

  “What fiasco? I was encouraging their academic passion.”

  “You can’t teach like that all the time. You can’t just let the class descend into chaos! What kind of exam question can you fabricate from that?”

  “Oh, that’s not difficult. One of the essay answer choices can be to write about their research for that class.”

  “But what are you teaching them, other than the fact that you are able to abdicate your responsibility?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Leslie got out of her chair. “They each went into the library to research a specific facet of a major social change. There was no bibliography, no cheat sheet, no way they could ask each other, no breadcrumbs through the medieval studies section. They had to do research all by themselves, which means they had to formulate a research plan and undoubtedly learned a great deal about the indices available as library resources, and then in class, they had to formulate and defend a thesis related to that research.”

  “You should have taught a lecture,” Dinkelmann insisted grimly. “That’s your job, Dr. Coxwell.”

  Leslie stood up. “My job, Dr. Dinkelmann, is to teach history and to teach academic skills to those who will go on to graduate work. Both of those objectives were met in that lecture hall today.”

  “You went too far. You obviously are distraught and are trying to pretend there is success in a failure on your part. I will not excuse this kind of behavior…”

  “I am not distraught, though I am considering its merits at this point in time.”

  Dinklemann pushed to his feet. “I told you to take a week off. Do you see now the wisdom of my advice?”

  “I have a family funeral to attend tomorrow, so I will not be in. I have canceled my lectures and appointments, but I will be back on Thursday.” She straightened and looked Dinkelmann steadily in the eye. “I have a job to do here, Dr. Dinkelmann. There is academic excellence to be encouraged and the future of scholarship to be assured.”

  “You are going about this the wrong way.”

  “We have a deal, Dr. Dinkelmann, and I’m going to see it through. Have you had the grade point averages of my students calculated for comparison at the end of the term?”

  “The dean will not support this kind of whimsy.”

  Leslie laughed. “I didn’t know it was whimsy to try to improve students’ marks. What is this institution coming to? Why will they need professors and department heads, Dr. Dinkelmann, after they decide to just give every registered student an A? Why bother teaching courses? They could just save the payroll cost and not have any professors at all.” She leaned closer and tapped her fingertip on his desk. “You may think that you’re compromising, that maybe it’s just a little compromise, but as a historian, you should be able to discern the evolution of a trend. This is the beginning of the end and I will not capitulate. I will fight the good fight to my last breath.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment, then pivoted. “I will see you Thursday, Dr. Dinkelmann.”

  He cleared his throat. “I assume your graduate school referral letters are done?”

  Leslie turned on the threshold of his office and smiled sweetly. “They’re not due until Thursday. I had quite a number of requests this year and as I’m sure you can appreciate, personal events of this past wee
k have interfered with my ability to complete them. They’ll be done on time, though, you can be assured of that.”

  With one last achingly sweet smile, Leslie left Dr. Dinkelmann with something to think about.

  She went back to her office, booted up her computer, logged on and replied to a message in her Inbox.

  Dear Graham:

  Please call me at home, at your convenience.

  Sincerely,

  Leslie Coxwell.

  She included her home telephone number and hit Send before she had a chance to reconsider.

  * * *

  Beverly Coxwell was certain that the demon child—as she had come to call Annette—would make her crazy. She’d left the funeral home, paused at the house to drop off the dogs, then gone shopping because she’d been certain the child would have nothing to wear to a funeral.

  The quest for a suitable dark suit, one that was ladylike but not too old, one that was flattering but not too cute, one that also would fit a girl the size of Annette, had not been an easy one. It had, in fact, left Beverly in dire need of a shot of nice amontillado sherry.

  Instead, she had persisted against all odds, found a suit, haggled over the price and returned to the house triumphant (if sherry-free).

  Where Annette had curled her nose. “I’m not wearing that!”

  “You’re not wearing that,” Beverly retorted, gesturing to the black T-shirt and jeans with impatience. She didn’t understand the logo on the T-shirt and didn’t much care: wearing clothing with writing on it was vulgar. “You must wear something appropriate and your mother won’t have time to shop for you by the time she gets home.”

  “I’ll wear something I have.” Annette sulked in the corner of the kitchen. “What happened to all of those chocolate chip cookies?”

  Beverly could relate to the need for an indulgence all too well. “They’re gone,” she said dismissively, remembering that her sherry had been similarly discarded. “And there won’t be any more of them in this house anytime soon.” She drew herself up to her full height when Annette looked as if she might balk. “All right. What do you have to wear?”