The Greek Persuasion

by Kimberly K. Robeson

“Yes, you will. You’ll see. You know that just before the cut-off, a ton of students will drop, and then you’ll be happy to add me to keep your numbers up.” He said this with an ostentatious smirk.

  “I will not add you.”

  “Okay. But you’ll see, by week three, you will.”

  I added him by week two.

  Then there is Cynthia, a mom of four rambunctious boys. They are finally all in school, she told me, exasperated, relieved, happy; the youngest in pre-school, so she could return to community college, thankful her forty-five units had not expired. Soon enough she would be able to transfer and get her coveted degree. Cynthia is a dirty blonde and compact with a great chest, a bit of extra skin around her waist from four pregnancies, but, mostly, a certified sexpot. Voluptuous figure with eerie gold eyes and eyelashes that go on forever. She loves to get fixed up for class. She told me that this class, once a week, is the only time she interacts with the adult human. At twenty-nine years old, she is a wife, a mother, but really just a girl. I can see her flirt with the young boys, boys still in their teens; they look at her hungrily, I’ve heard them call her a “MILF.” When I asked them to explain, they all laughed. Google gave me the answer, but Cynthia has brains, not just booty.

  Cynthia’s personality is really the showstopper. When she speaks, in her smooth, sultry Southern voice, we are all spellbound. She makes the most articulate comments while accompanying her critiques with personal anecdotes that are both interesting and directly connected to what we are discussing. I can see Freddie also has the hots for her, but she tends to gravitate to the younger ones. There are two twins in the class, Chris and Kyle, eighteen-year-old studmuffin surfers; handsome young men with perpetual sunburns and excited eyes, not the sharpest tools in the shed, but certainly welcome additions to the class. They make us all laugh with their off-the-wall comments and bizarre insights. I always see them nestle themselves close to Cynthia, each one sitting on either side of her. And she adores the attention.

  In the corner of the room is another young man, Jeffrey, painfully shy, who does not talk to anyone. He only speaks when I call on him. He is not strange, by any means, not one of those students that you are afraid will show up to class and blow everyone’s brains to oblivion, just a quiet, pensive lad. When Jeffrey arrives to class, he opens a book and reads silently; he tells me he loves Tolkien, and this is his fourth time reading The Hobbit. The rest of the students enter noisily, and I hear comments such as “So what did you think about the reading?” Or “Did you get the revision of the paper done?” Or “What? I didn’t know we had to turn that in today!” Other times the comments are more personal, comments such as “How was your weekend?” Or “No! He did not do that to you!” Even if it’s not class related, as I take roll, I always allow them the first five minutes of class to catch up. Build community. Bonding time. At least that’s what the professor at the conference said, and it has proven to work.

  Today, as with most days, they are actively engaged, answering questions from the reading. I see Cynthia asking Jeffrey what he thinks. She is always kind and conscientious of who is in her group. In another corner of the room, Kyle has been assigned group leader, and he takes a deep breath and tries to make sure everyone is involved. He looks over at me, with pleading eyes, wanting to know if I approve of his leadership skills. In the same group, Freddie is writing away. He has been assigned the role of “The Scribe”; I made him the notetaker today, one way to make sure he doesn’t always overpower the younger folk in the class with his strong personality and never-ending opinions. He’s a good soul, tends to get frustrated with ignorance, but overall keeps me on my toes.

  There are a lot of tough parts about being an adjunct community college professor, but these faces make it all worthwhile. I am feeling sentimental today, first taking my English 100 class, then (save for Freddie, who is new) taking the 200 class together. For the last two semesters, I have seen them change and grow, and I will miss them. Knowing that this is my penultimate class is making this day a bit emotional.

  All of a sudden, Leah, a somewhat rebellious young lady, who has tattoos on her arms and neck, bright purple hair, and has missed too many classes, looks up and says, “Hey, Thair.” Even though I have told my students they can call me by my first name, the way she says it sounds almost disrespectful with the “hey” attached.

  “Yes?” I walk over to her group, assuming she has a question about the reading. She has been a bit challenging as a student, always takes the opposite position to the majority of class, often debates passionately with me. I don’t mind though because her written work is astute, so I always give her room to express herself. Nevertheless, she does sometimes push my buttons. When I see her haughty expression, I can’t help but wonder what she will say today.

  Turning from the group, she says loudly, “I think I saw you in Hillcrest on Friday night. Outside The Burn.” Not everyone knows what or where The Burn is, but the name itself creates a stir in the class.

  Then silence. I don’t know what to say. I am a fairly private teacher, an open book when it comes to my opinions of politics and the world in general, but details about my romantic life, I rarely share with my students. And now that I am dating a woman, I am more tight-lipped than ever.

  Her comment takes me aback, not knowing how to respond, I reply, “Maybe.” And “so what?” The way I say it comes out immature, too aggressive, too defensive, almost as if I am challenging her. At this point, the students pretend to be working, but their ears are as big as the Big Bad Wolf’s.

  Leah continues, “And? Nothing. I was just asking if it was you.”

  “Leah,” I say with a sugary smile, “you know I don’t like to talk about my private life. I don’t ask you all what you do on the weekend.”

  Cynthia, to my surprise, pipes up, “Thair, you don’t ask us what we do on the weekends, but you do probe into our lives. Through class discussion and your 101 questions, we all know that Chris and Kyle’s parents are divorced, that I have a drunk for a husband and four sniveling boys; Jennifer told us the first day of class she is a pot-smoker. Freddie recently lost his wife. We’ve all shared with you bits and pieces of our life. So why are you so averse to telling Leah if that was you at …”

  “The Burn,” Leah states loudly.

  “The Burn—whatever … ” Cynthia says, and then looks away as if she has maybe said too much.

  I cannot believe that my beloved student, Cynthia, is putting me on the spot like this. She is right though, why am I so unwilling to talk about going to a club? When I was in heterosexual relationships, I did share odd details about my romantic life, but now that I am dating a woman, I have become so secretive. And I think I know why. I am not gay. I am not a lesbian. Not one hundred percent anyway. I am one of those who are stuck somewhere, not somewhere in between, just stuck. I am still in the process of figuring out who I am. After thirty-four years on this earth, I don’t know how to describe myself. I wish I could just say bisexual, but that label seems too negatively charged. Bisexuality seems synonymous with nymphomania, or it’s a fad: girls kissing girls because they are curious, girls kissing girls to turn on boys. Many of Jessica’s friends think bisexuals are just confused. Or, worse, they are traitors. They have relationships with women but then go back to men. From my limited experience, neither gays nor heterosexuals readily accept bisexuals. Just like the prefix “bi,” I live on the periphery of both, but not part of either.

  When I started dating Jessica, I wasn’t curious (maybe just a little bit?), but I certainly wasn’t playing with anyone’s heart. I was just open to the possibilities. Then I came across the term “pansexual,” and it was like Oprah’s “ah-ha” moment.

  Pansexuality. It doesn’t just mean that a person is attracted to both sexes; it just means that gender is irrelevant when looking for love, almost as if pansexuals are gender-blind. Like the Greek prefix “pan,” it means “all, whole, all-inclusive.” Just like love should be. Of course, to those who care littl
e about linguistics, or who simply stereotype, it’s really the same thing: pansexual or bisexual. It’s a group of people who are still marginalized. I’ve felt discriminated against, just in the few months I have been with Jessica. But what I have learned since that summer in Greece is that I am ultimately attracted to individuals, probably even to a certain body type, but above all to intellect and humor. It took years to adopt the word “feminist” and not to fear it, and maybe one day I’ll feel the same way about “bisexual.” And, in a way, I’m still not sure “pansexual” feels right either; the word choice, though it has a perfect definition for what I am feeling, reminds me of people who say humanist or womanist instead of “feminist” because they don’t want to own up to a label that comes with so many stereotypes and baggage. Bisexual, pansexual—either way, now my heterosexual privilege has been tampered with. I’m changing and growing and relearning to be comfortable with me.

  How hard it must be for people of a certain religion, race, creed, or orientation have their family expect them to fall in love and marry a particular person. A woman has to marry a man. A Mormon should marry a Mormon. A Catholic, a Catholic. A Muslim another Muslim. A Korean boy needs to find a Korean girl. A Chinese girl, a Chinese boy. An Italian another Italian. White with white. A good friend, an African-American woman, once told me, “I will only marry an educated, African-American, Christian man.” She is still single and pushing forty.

  How hard it must be for a boy to be raised in a macho Latino family and realize that he likes boys instead of girls. Whenever I see Ricky Martin, I wait for him to come out of the closet. But I can’t help wondering if he is more like me. Maybe he does feel passion towards women; it’s just that he could also find love with a man. Maybe if he could be more open to love, and not be afraid to be pigeonholed, he could tell the world who he really loves—and it wouldn’t really matter.

  Or does it?

  These are all theories that I have been thinking about as I come to terms with who I am. But as the class stares at me, I don’t know what to say. Freddie is sitting up tall, his interest much too piqued for my liking. Thoughts are scrambling through my mind. Part of me realizes my students have no right to be questioning me, and I can just change subjects or not answer. Or it would be simple enough to say that, yes, I have a girlfriend and leave it at that, but many of my returning students had met Ravi since he had picked me up from class on numerous occasions. I could just hear the jokes, oh now our English prof is swinging both ways. I want to scream out loud: it’s not like that. It’s so much more complicated! And, yet, as I think about so many things in those interminable minutes, I come to an amazing realization. In an ironic twist of fate, things aren’t complicated; in fact, everything is so much simpler now for me. I am free to love. Just like Angela said: No society dictating what’s right and what’s wrong. I can fall in love with a woman, a man, black, white, a Christian, a Muslim, a younger person or an older one, a poor person or a rich one. There are no restrictions—finding love can be just about that—finding love; nothing to hold me back.

  So, finally, I say out loud, “Cynthia, you do make a point. I do probe during class discussions to get you all to relate to what we are reading through your own personal lives, and I apologize if I have not met you all half way.” I look at Leah straight in the eyes: “Yes, that was me at The Burn. I was there with my partner, Jessica.”

  Right away I see Kyle poke Chris in the chest both making deep, gorilla guttural sounds while huge smiles tweak their faces. Even Jeffrey says, without thinking, “Right on!”

  Right on? What the hell was that? Am I now material for masturbation? Have I just opened Pandora’s box? I wait for the salvo of questions. They probably want to know when I came out of the closet. Maybe they want to know more about Jessica. God, I hope they don’t ask questions about our sex life. Of course, I won’t answer. What if they ask me how long we have been dating and how serious we are? What if …

  Then suddenly, something remarkable happens. They all turn around and go back to discussing the reading. They don’t care. What a strange world this is, and why was I so worried?

  22

  Encinitas, California

  October, 2003

  I walk by the swimming pool, past the bougainvillea, down the stone path; then open the gate to my condo’s quaint porch. I take out my house key and slip it into the sliding door’s lock and enter my home. I catch my reflection in the mirror and smile. I love being in my own home. It’s one of those days: I woke up and everything seems right in the universe, a fantastic workout at the gym, a great day in class, everyone smiling in Trader Joe’s when I pushed my cart down the narrow aisles.

  Before I make myself a yummy salad with all the hearty ingredients I just bought, I’ll call my mom because I have not spoken to her for a few days. It has been good talking to her again even if our conversations are a bit guarded and we avoid certain issues. I am just so relieved to have my mother back because the last few months were so painful.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mama,” I say with enthusiasm when she answers the phone.

  “Hi … sweetie.” My heart drops immediately. The pause in her voice tells me something is wrong. I know she visited the doctor last week for her bi-yearly checkup. Could the results be positive? She has been cancer free for almost a year and a half and checkups were just that, checkups. I have tried to stop worrying that the cancer would come back, but now all my fears resurface. I suddenly feel queasy. Grabbing the barstool, I lean against it.

  Just a simple “Hello, sweetie,” and I know to my core something is wrong. I have been feeling so secure and strong lately that my mother’s health has not been on the forefront of my mind. I sit down on the barstool and when my mouth has once more gathered some words, I ask, “Are you okay, Mama?”

  “Mmmmmm, yes, I am fine,” her voice still sounds down.

  “Mama, what’s wrong? You don’t sound fine.”

  “I’m okay, really.”

  But I am not convinced.

  “Did you get back the results from your mammogram? Is everything okay?”

  Now she can hear the desperation in my voice.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. Yes, I got back the results, and everything is fine.”

  Immediately relieved, but needing more reassurance, I continue: “So everything with your pap, mammogram, blood work came back well?”

  “Yes, honey.” Now her tone is starting to become a bit irritated. She hates it when I worry about her health.

  “So the doctor said everything is normal?”

  “Yes! I am fine!”

  I know I shouldn’t pursue, but it’s my job to nag, just like she always nags me! “Mom, something is wrong. I can tell.” Then with a gentler voice, “Please, tell me.”

  I hear what I think is a slight sob on the other end, and my heart breaks just a little.

  “Mama, what’s wrong?”

  “Oh, Thair, I feel so silly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At my age, can you believe it, at my age, I am acting like this?”

  “Acting like what?”

  “Like a silly … fool.”

  “Mom, is this about … Robert?”

  Her voice cracks, followed by a soft, “Yes.”

  “What happened? I thought you two had a great time in San Francisco and have been dating regularly since then.”

  “Oh, Thair. I don’t know why I get myself into these things. I was so happy before all this started. I have my home, my hobbies, my friends. Why did I even bother?”

  Now I am getting a bit angry because I want to know what that jerk did to make my mom so sad but am simultaneously irritated with her since she is not answering my questions.

  “So, Mom, what happened?”

  “Well, we went to San Francisco and had a wonderful time.” I already knew this.

  “Yes, then?”

  “Well, when we were there we got … you know … we got
intimate.” Great. Not sure I want to hear this. And still not going anywhere with the story of why she is sad, “So, what happened next?”

  She hears the impatience in my voice and responds equally. “Do you want me to tell you or not?”

  “Yes,” I try to be patient.

  “Well, we dated about once a week and then, all of a sudden, a few days ago he stopped calling. From one day to the next. No more calls. Finally, I called him, and he told me he is thinking of getting back together with his ex-girlfriend. Can you believe that? At my age, having an old fart leave me to go back to his ex-girlfriend! I hate it. I hate this dating stuff at my age. I should never have gone out with him in the first place.”

  Now she is on a roll, and I can’t stop her. Sadness is replaced with aggravation.

  “Can you believe that? Sixty-nine years old, fifteen years older than me, and can’t decide between two women? So silly. So stupid. I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I gave myself to this man.”

  My mom talking about sex, regardless of how liberated and modern I am, always makes me feel a bit awkward. “But, Mom, at least you had a nice time with him these last few months. Right?”

  “Wrong!” I almost could not believe the fury in her voice. “I wish I had just stayed at home. I did not need to be lifted out of my comfortable home, romanced, and then dumped. I was perfectly happy the way things were!” Then another unexpected sob.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I say sympathetically, knowing how hard love can be, the highs, the lows.

  “It’s okay, honey. It really is all very, very silly. I can’t believe the way I am acting.”

  “Mom, it’s normal to be sad when a relationship ends even if it was just a few months. I understand and, really, it doesn’t mean that—”

  “Did I tell you that Greta got a new cat?” It is an obvious non-sequitur, and knowing my mom, she is done talking about things that matter.

  After we hang up, I go to my office.

  Although I was upset to hear my mom so sad, I am happy that we are talking again. I hadn’t written another chapter in “Thair’s Story” because it had been too painful. My mother’s anger towards me the last few months had broken my heart.