Gwynne Forster - Destination Love

He stopped talking while she unlocked the door to her office, and he followed her inside. “Seeing me at commencement with that cap and gown would make my parents proud. They have sacrificed everything for me.”

She turned her back and walked toward the window. He sensed that he was fighting a losing battle, but he continued. “No one in my family has graduated from college, let alone earned a Ph.D. I…This is devastating. Can’t you approve it and allow me to make the revisions this summer? Opportunities like the one at Brookings are rare.”

She turned and faced him. From the set of her jaw, he knew he may as well leave. “I have to do what I believe is right. If you want the degree, you have to revise your dissertation. That’s my last word on the subject.”

He didn’t say anything to her, because nothing pleasant would come out of his mouth. One thing was certain, he would never forget Professor Sheri Stephens. He walked past two doors to the department chairman’s office and waited to speak with him.

“I’m sorry, Hobart, but Professor Stephens is within her rights, and I can’t overrule her unless I plan to dismiss her. Too bad you have to give up that job at Brookings, but don’t fret about it. You’ll never be out of work.”

“I’d like permission to turn my revised dissertation in to you.”

“Yes, of course you can do that. Do you think you can get it done by the end of August?”

“Certainly. If she had told me last week, I could have done it by now.”

“Don’t be bitter, Hobart,” the chairman said. “This is just another bump in the road. Five years from now, this little setback won’t have made a significant difference in your life.”

Maybe not, but his parents would never see him march across Harvard Yard to Tercentenary Theatre. That hurt him more than having to add some petty nonsense to his dissertation.

“Bitter? Fortunately, I have the ability to control my rage. Forgetting is another matter.” He walked out into the spring sunlight, oblivious to everyone around him. He’d lost count of the times he had climbed from rock bottom, times when hardship hadn’t fazed him, because he knew the way up. But this time he’d worked and fought his way to the top and hadn’t been able to enjoy the fruits of his reward.

“I’ll show them. Damned if I’ll be a victim! She hasn’t heard the last of me.”

The door closed behind Dalton Hobart, and Sheri dismissed the affair with a shrug. She’d done the right thing, and she was not about to apologize for it. Things were correct or incorrect, finished or incomplete, and the man’s dissertation was not finished. A person should be rewarded for what he or she accomplished. Sentiment had no place in evaluating the work of grad students. Her parents had raised her that way—to take her medicine. They hadn’t spared her or coddled her when she didn’t meet their expectations.

She telephoned the office of the department chairman. “This is Professor Stephens. Which one of us is to review that dissertation after Hobart makes the revisions?”

“I will.”

Hmm. So the chairman wasn’t pleased with her. Too bad. “Thank you, sir. I’m glad.” Well, the whole thing was behind her, and she liked it that way.

What a wonderful thing to take a sabbatical, Sheri thought. She had an entire year away from teaching in order to travel, do research and study. So far, the loneliness of life away from the university and the job that filled her time oppressed her more than her adventures and research did. Even after months away from the classroom and her office, she hardly knew what to do with herself. While watching a travel channel on television one night, and observing things she’d read about but never dreamed of seeing, she decided to take a cruise. Late summer was not a time to plan a warm-weather cruise, so she chose one headed north. She at least had something to look forward to.

“Maybe I’ll see glaciers, polar bears, penguins or an iceberg or two. At least this cruise offers something vastly different.”

Sheri boarded the cruise ship in Manchester, Massachusetts, where the cruise began. She’d had a shaky flight from Boston, which wasn’t a promising start to her adventure. Standing on deck, watching the boat ease away from shore, Sheri hoped that somehow she would experience something new and exciting during her first cruise.

At dinner that evening, her tablemates included three couples, a woman about her age and herself. As she left the dining room with the other woman, she continued the conversation.

“Could we meet for lunch around one tomorrow?” Sheri asked the woman, whose name was June.

June stopped walking and looked straight at Sheri. “Girl, I don’t hang out with women. I’m spending my hard-earned money on this cruise to find a man who’s at least got a job, and you ought to do the same. See you at dinner.”

Stunned by June’s rudeness, Sheri wandered around until she reached the shopping area, didn’t see anything she wanted to buy and decided to take in a movie.

“Don’t tell me you’re as lost as I am in this place,” a male voice said as she was about to enter the theater. She jerked around and saw a man dressed in white pants, yellow T-shirt and white cardigan. His smile was meant to titillate, but it only annoyed her. She wanted company, but he seemed as if he was looking for more, she thought. So she ignored him and found a seat between two older women. When she left the theater later, he winked at her and flashed what she figured was a patented grin. Maybe he’d hook up with June.

She wondered if she’d brought enough to read, because the chances of striking up a friendship with someone on the cruise didn’t look good.

The next day as she looked around the pool, she compared the bathing suit she’d brought with the tiny string bikinis other women were wearing and decided that she’d stay out of the pool and wear shorts on deck.

“Maybe this cruise wasn’t such a good idea,” she said to herself as she prepared to debark and explore Portland, Maine, alone. As she walked down the plank, she saw June clinging to the man she’d seen entering the movie theater the previous evening.

Dr. Dalton Wright Hobart found a seat at the tiny bistro table and sat down to enjoy a moment in the sunshine. He had seen as much of Portland, Maine, on foot as the cruise ship’s short stay in port would permit. With his shopping bags between his feet in order to be certain that he didn’t forget them, he ordered coffee. Not because he wanted it but because he needed a reason to sit there. He opened a copy of the Portland Press Herald and checked the sports page for the baseball scores.

“Do you mind if I share your table?”

He did mind, but saying so would have been rude. “By all means, have a seat,” he said and continued checking the scores.

“I noticed that you have one of the cruise ship’s shopping bags. So you must be going to Nova Scotia, too.”

“Looks like it,” he said, hoping to make it clear that he didn’t feel like talking. Indeed, he was beginning to wish he’d gone straight back to the boat.

The ship’s horn emitted a blast, and the woman stood to leave. “Thanks for letting me share your table.”

His head jerked up. Something in her voice sounded familiar, and he looked at her for the first time. Good grief! It couldn’t be, but it was. He narrowed his eyes, looked at her more carefully and didn’t bother to hide the scowl that he knew covered his face. As she walked off, he was certain that was Professor Sheri Stephens.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” It all came back to him. The anxiety of the moment he learned that he wouldn’t graduate on time, wouldn’t be able to accept the best job offer any student in his class received and the pain of having to tell his family that he’d get his Ph.D. later. He recalled his father shaking his head and saying, “You aren’t going to wear the cap and gown?”