Page 38 of Hushed

I click into the Faculty registration portal for the department, which I left open, and see the 1101 class, which was still assigned to STAFF. “It’s completely full and opens in less than a week!”

“Yes, these intro classes tend to fill up quickly,” he says, standing up with great effort. “I’m so glad that you’ll take it.”

I look at that number again. It’s not that sixty students is unmanageable, it’s just that they gave me five classes already, and sixty is more than double the normal class size limits. My research output will slow to a crawl if I am spending all my time with these classes, and a 5:5 course load already means I’ll have to be pretty disciplined about it. A 6:5 is unsustainable.

My vision tunnels as I stare at those enrollment numbers, taking in the growing waitlist. The hard truth sinks in. This place has me by the short hairs, and they fucking well know it. For as long as they can dangle that work visa over my head, I cannot refuse unless I want to have them shrug and find any one of a hundred other, less needy candidates to take over this office while I go back to my townhouse and await deportation. And the size of Canada’s job market is so small that the likelihood of me finding a job in my own country is even slimmer than it is here. It was a miracle I got an offer willing to sponsor me to begin with. Lightning will not strike twice. I swallow so hard I’m surprised he doesn’t hear it. Team player. Be the team player, Sébastien.

“Of course. I’m happy to help.”

“I’ll make sure you get overload pay. At this size, you could probably get double overload. General Ed requirements say that one of the social sciences needs to have a lab, so it’s normally us that they choose.”

Jesus. I hadn’t even considered that I would be voluntold for a lab as well. “Don’t we have a grad student who needs some work?”

“Oh, no. Lincoln’s using all three of them for his courses,” Dean Hughes says. “The perks of seniority.”

“And can’t we hire an adjunct?”

“Takes too long. And frankly, between you, me, and the lamppost, there were…concerns about the last one.”

“Concerns?” I ask.

“About the appropriateness of his relationships with the students. Nothing we could quite prove, of course. Slippery little guy. But the eye knows, you know.” He taps his temple with his forefinger. “He was a little too…friendly, if you take my meaning. Pity. He was a good teacher. But fortunately, we can get others.” He shrugs like it’s a matter of indifference to him that it sounds like he ruined a man’s career based on what amounted to his intuition.

I look back at the dean. “Arthur,” I begin. I see the edges of his eyes twitch. I rapidly course-correct. Apparently, he can call me Sébastien, but I must call him Sir. “Excuse me. Dean Hughes. Of course I can take this class. What’s the book?”

“Oh, you can assign whatever you like,” he says. “I wrote my own for it, back when I taught it. Ninety-three dollars a pop, and I’m the one who got them to raise the cap to sixty.” He looks at me. “You don’t have a book ready for print yet, do you?”

I have to physically close my mouth because I’m so appalled. “My first book is coming out early next year, but it’s basically my dissertation.”

“Well, when you do, we’ll see how we can incorporate it into your next lecture.” He waves his hand magnanimously. “I find that the people who wrote the book are often the best qualified to teach it.”

At great profit to themselves, I think. “I think I’ll just use the free online textbooks as much as possible,” I say, struggling not to show my disgust. “For an intro class, they’ll do.”

He shrugs. “As you like. It’s your class now. You’ll have to build it from scratch. Remember, syllabi have to be in on Friday. I can give you an old copy of the syllabus from last fall for the boilerplate, but I would advise you not to rock the boat. It’s a first-year class. They’re mostly just here to check the box.”

I take his meaning instantly. It’s the trade-off he’s offering me. He’s throwing this extra class my way, and in return for assuming sixty extra students, he’s absolutely fine with me phoning it in as long as my indifference to their intellectual development doesn’t show on the surface. I look at the number on my screen. “Of course,” I say. I swallow my anger. Who does that? Who drops a sixty-person class on the new guy with five days’ notice?

And it’s not like I don’t have other problems with textbooks that haven’t come in and half a dozen new faculty orientations scattered over campus.

“I assume you’re going to apply for the Kirkfield Grant,” Hughes says, dragging my attention back to the here and now.

It takes me a second to remember it. Somebody mentioned it and I had to look it up. A local family with a lot of money who gives a grant for research. It’s fairly prestigious. It ticks all the right boxes. It could also finance next summer’s Mexico trip to document the next wave of veterans in the study. “Of course I’m applying.”

He shrugs and looks boredly around the bare room. “You’re going to be in for stiff competition with that. Lincoln’s gotten that for the past three years in a row for his work on antiracism protocols, and he’s won five times so far. Still, it’s always nice to have another person from the Department represent us.”

His eyes flicker to the wall to my left. “Speaking of which,” he starts. I follow his gaze toward the wall I share with Delphine. “It is not my place to advise you on where to go and whom to associate with,” he begins, “but it is meet for me to warn you that free association with some people might send you down a dangerous path.”

“Excuse me?”

He leans forward and drops his voice. “Some people do not take care to uphold the dignity and gravitas of our institution, and call the whole tenor of our department into question.”

I swallow hard. “Thank you for the warning.”

He leans back and smiles at me, once again the benign professor. “Well, I’ll let you get cracking, then.” He stands up and turns to go. “I look forward to seeing you at the next faculty meeting. And keep thinking about what you’ll serve at your pounding.” He leaves the room with the undeserved swagger of people who never have had to question their own self-importance.

I bristle in silent, seething rage. And even though the door is still open, the sense of being trapped in this office closes in.

Chapter fourteen