Emily Barker: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

“Well, I’ve been working hard. I’m just not making much progress.” Nora paused, but Naomi said nothing, so she plunged on. “I’m starting to think—I’m just not sure I can say much that’s new about gender politics in Donne.”

“Nora, when you chose your topic, we discussed the pitfalls of writing about a canonical author like John Donne. It can be difficult to find unplowed ground.”

Hundreds of authors to write about, and yet it seemed that every single one had already been chewed over by packs of other hungry doctoral students. Even poets who had written only a handful of decent poems in their entire lives were the subject of lengthy, arcane, lovingly argued dissertations. And someone good, like Shakespeare or Brontë or Dickinson or Dickens—or Donne? They were mobbed by grad students and professors alike, like pop stars surrounded by screaming groupies.

“Yes, I know,” Nora said. “So I’m wondering whether it might be fruitful to look at another writer, too. I have some ideas about Donne and Dickinson, their comparative poetics, that I’d like to outline for you—”

Naomi held up her hand. “If you really want to write about Dickinson, the emphasis needs to be more American or early modern. Otherwise, you’ll get killed on the job market.”

“But I really am just—” Nora searched in vain for a way to describe the vast, barren desert of thesis research where she had been wandering without a compass. “Just stuck.”

The baby had been fidgeting inside the sling, his starfish arms and legs waving in the air. Now he opened his mouth and began to wail. Nora suppressed an urge to do the same.

“I need to feed him,” Naomi said, unsnapping the pouch, “and then I have a meeting with the dean, and then I’m going home to pack. So I’m sorry, I don’t have time to finish this conversation. We’ll talk after I get back in July.”

Nora nodded. “Sure.”

“If you want to e-mail me that Donne and Dickinson idea while I’m away, I’ll take a look at it.” She sounded less than enthusiastic about the prospect.

“Okay, I will. Thanks.” Nora stood up, picking up her backpack. “Enjoy London.”

Naomi looked up from behind her immaculate desktop. “Nora, I agreed to be your adviser because you’re very, very good—in some areas. You’re one of the best close readers of poetry I’ve ever worked with. You have a real knack for understanding the life of a poem. Fifty years ago, that would have gotten you a doctorate, a job, and tenure at any English department in the country. But today that’s not enough. You have to be able to address a big question—something to do with aesthetics, or colonialism, or philosophy— what it is doesn’t matter so much, but you need to play at that level. And that’s where you’re having problems.”

“I know, I know. Big questions aren’t my strong point.” In fact, Nora had plenty of questions, just less and less assurance that she could ever formulate answers to them. She added, a little desperately: “No ideas but in things.”

“Well, that has to change,” said Naomi, unbuttoning her linen blouse. Nora closed the office door, but not before getting a glimpse of the baby’s mouth closing urgently on Naomi’s brown nipple.

Heading for the library, she checked her phone and found a message from her mother. “Nora, I was hoping you might be able to drive up this weekend. We’re going to the beach, and then to a fellowship dinner that you would really enjoy—”

She skipped to the next message, from her father’s number in New Jersey. Nora’s youngest sister’s voice, high and cheerful: “Hi, Nora, how are you? It’s me. Teacher shirk day, I have to go with Mom to her work, boring boring. I looked for those books of yours you said were in the attic, but I couldn’t find them. Do you know where else they might be? I need something to read. Bye.”

Ramona wasn’t looking hard enough. Nora could picture the box, left of the attic stairs, near EJ’s things. She was in the middle of leaving her own message when she walked smack into Farmer Dahmer, literally collided with him, right in front of the library.

Farmer Dahmer—as in Jeffrey—wasn’t his name, but almost everyone on campus, even the senior faculty, knew whom you were talking about if you mentioned Farmer Dahmer. He was a small man, around sixty, with a stiff, gray-brown beard like the wire pads used to scrub out sinks. He usually wore a faded plaid shirt, which Nora assumed was the origin of the agricultural portion of his nickname. Rumor had it that he was a superannuated grad student who had gone crazy after being unable to complete his thesis. Nora no longer found this story as amusing as she once had. He spent most of his days hanging around the library, where she had often seen him bent over a sheaf of papers in a carrel, swaying back and forth, mumbling to himself.

Farmer Dahmer looked even more stunned than Nora at their collision, and for a moment she was afraid that he would topple over. “I’m so sorry,” she said, clutching his arm. “Are you all right? I can’t believe I didn’t see you. I’m really sorry.”

“Oh, it’s you,” he said to her, blinking his small eyes.

“Um, yes,” Nora said uncertainly. “It’s me, all right. Are you okay?”

With a jerk of his arm, he shook himself free of Nora’s grasp. “Oh, I’m fine. Thanks to you. I very much appreciate it.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic. I really do apologize.”

“No, I blame my own carelessness. You see, I was very hungry, and when I smelled the peanut butter, I simply forgot to be cautious.”

She nodded, unable to think of a proper response.

Farmer Dahmer’s head swiveled from side to side, as though he were reading something in the figures of passing students or the grass and oak trees of the quad. Then he looked back at Nora. “I suppose you want the usual reward. Is three enough for you?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry,” she said, shaking her head vigorously so that there would be no mistake. “I’m just happy to know that you’re okay.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” he said. “Let’s do the thing properly, shall we?” He squared his shoulders and gave her a brisk nod, then turned and marched away, disappearing around the side of the student union.

What a day, Nora thought, rubbing her head. She noticed for the first time the rich smell of olive oil mingled with rosemary hanging in the air. Hell, she must have spilled that stuff on her clothes this morning. She must reek. What had Naomi thought?

She went into the library and spent a few hours finishing up the Blum-Forsythe application. In the air-conditioned quiet of the stacks on the twelfth floor, where she had her carrel, the scent of olive oil and rosemary faded, much to her relief.

Heading home, she took the long way, past Adam’s favorite coffeehouse, the one where he used to hold his office hours when he was a teaching assistant because he couldn’t smoke in his assigned cubbyhole in the English department. Of course he was not sitting there now. Why would he be? Not running into him was a clear sign from the heavens that whatever had existed between her and Adam was over, finished for good, the invisible karmic connection between them severed and tied off forever.

She said aloud, but softly: “I wish I could see him again, though.”

Maggie picked her up at four for the drive to the wedding in the mountains. That was a relief. Someone to tell about this nightmare of a week.

“Oh, you’re kidding,” Maggie said, when Nora had gotten only partway into her story, as they shot into the I-40 traffic. “He flew all the way back here just to break up with you? And you really thought he was going to ask you to marry him. That’s so awful.”