A True History of the Captivation, Transport to Strange Lands, & Deliverance of Hannah Guttentag by Josh Russell

Author:Josh Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: A True History
ISBN: 9781936873777
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

30

I read the Chronicle of Higher Education in bed, wearing my buttercup hat and a pair of gloves. After Cleveland, I’d had trouble feeling warm. Only when I was under two quilts or in the Honda with the heater cranked up all the way and blowing hotly in my face did the chill leave my bones. Across the small room Frank sat in a T-shirt and sweatpants, his bare feet on the sill of the drafty window, reading an Erskine Caldwell novel I’d been assigned in a Southern literature class while an undergrad at Tennessee.

“Hey, listen to this: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln invites applications from scholars of Native American descent for a two-year post-doctoral Native American Studies research and teaching fellowship. Too bad you don’t know which tribe your great-great-granny Susan was from and too bad you’re not post-doc and too bad you don’t do Native American Studies.” I tapped the next page. “You think I could convince Cal State-Fresno I’m a specialist in Irish theatrical literature and culture of the late Nineteenth Century?” I was reading the Chronicle in preparation for a meeting that afternoon, and I was amazed by the announcements of esoteric fellowships, narrowly-defined jobs, and calls for papers I thought might be jokes. “Want to write an essay about Star Trek and Lacan?”

A professor named Jenks led the once-a-semester professional development seminar. He was in his mid-fifties but youthful behind his gray beard. His uniform was hiking boots, jeans, a pressed shirt, a tweed jacket with elbow patches, and a tie with orange and blue stripes I assumed signaled he’d attended a New England prep school and/ or Princeton. I was surprised and relieved to find Joanie and Zöe the poet outside the room. Jenks’s clinics on how to get ahead in academia were mocked as being only for desperate tools. I’d signed up because when my mother asked the week before, I couldn’t explain exactly how one got a job as an English professor.

“Jenks’s meeting?”

Zöe nodded. “But you’re skipping. Baby shower.”

“Baby shower?”

“Surprise!” Joanie sang.

Professor Jenks turned the corner shuffling note cards and Zöe put her hand on my forehead. “You do feel hot.”

“Hannah might have a fever—and she’s pregnant,” Joanie told him.

He nodded seriously. “I’ll leave handouts in your boxes.”

“That would be rad,” Zöe said, and I coughed to cover my laugh.

“Get her some broth,” Jenks suggested.

“Yes, broth,” Joanie agreed.

At Nat and Sam’s house pink bunting and ribbons hung from the living room ceiling and there were gifts on the coffee table. A cake decorated with a marzipan pacifier and rattle had It’s A Girl! written on it in pink icing. I was so touched I thought I might cry. “Who told you it’s a girl?”

“Frank,” Joanie said. “She’s all he talks about.”

“You sisters sure know how to go femme when the situation demands,” Zöe said to Nat.

Sam appeared in the kitchen door with a bottle of red in one hand and a bottle of white in the other. “Let’s get shitfaced while she opens presents stone sober,” she cheerily suggested.

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