Give & Take (Redbeard Cove #2)

35. Raphael

Chapter 35

Raphael

I straighten my tie outside Room 419 in the Department of English building. The hallway is deserted, being the summer.

“Raphael LaForest?” A voice calls from inside.

I stand up, waiting for the nerves to gallop inside my stomach. They don’t come.

I don’t really get nerves about a lot of things. It’s the whole not attaching myself to outcomes thing. Except now I’ve fully attached myself to an outcome, albeit not this one. So I expected everything to be fucked.

But as I walk into the room filled with four senior academics, each one having been dragged from their summer activities with an absolutely insane request, which I’m still shocked they honored.

“Did you ever see Flashdance?” I ask.

My advisor closes her eyes, but she’s trying not to smile.

“What’s a Flash Dance ?” Professor Jones asks. He’s a silver haired Black man who looks like he moonlights as a Supreme Court judge, but actually specializes in medieval French literature.

“You don’t know what Flashdance is, George?” Professor O’Malley asks, appalled. O’Malley’s a portly Irish lecturer with a Santa Claus beard who I know for a fact knows what Flashdance is because I once saw him singing “What A Feeling” at a Karaoke bar last year. The same place my sister tracked him down in two weeks ago to ask him for the favor of a lifetime.

“My mom loves that movie,” I explain. “By extension, I do too. There’s this scene where Alex has to Audition to get into school and she does this very unconventional dance and?—”

Professor Chan narrows her eyes. “Mr. LaForest, have you come here to discuss movies, or defend this dissertation you insisted we drop everything for and read in a matter of weeks?”

“Days, if we’re being specific,” Professor Jones says.

“Now, Mary,” my advisor, Professor Lowe says. “Tell me you didn’t tear through this paper like a John Grisham meets Michael Crichton novel.”

Professor Chan turns up her nose but sighs, turning back to me. “Tell me at least this introduction has a point, because at this moment, you’re doing this work a disservice.” She taps the thick stack of paper on the table before her.

“In the film,” I say, slipping my hands in my pocket as I begin to pace, “Alex, the main character, performs an unconventional dance,”

“So you said,” Professor Jones says drily.

“And,” I continue, “of course wins over the panel of judges despite her lack of formal dance training, her choice of song, her style of movement, and her passion, which is not restrained as is normally the case in formal ballet. In fact, there’s quite a delightful scene in which one of the judges blows his nose to the beat of the song.”

Professor Jones, who’s pulled out a handkerchief, pauses with it halfway to his face.

Professor O’Malley lets out a boom of a laugh. “Oh that’s too rich. Did you time this?” He’s delighted. “Jones, you must have been in on this joke.”

Professor Jones stuffs the handkerchief in his pocket. “I most certainly did not.”

O’Malley slaps his hand on the table. “Incredible.”

With O’Malley and my advisor, I’m 2 for 4. If I don’t fully flub this.

“The point I’m making, Professors,” I say, but direct my comment to Chan and James,” is that overcoming opposition and succeeding despite the odds may be one of the most common arcs in modern and historical literature. But eliciting joy from ones opponents—truly reforming their position not just of you but of themselves—that’s where the reward lies. In this paper, you’ll see that using the works of Tolstoy, I’ve examined how attachment to success and wealth is not of primary importance to us in our lives. And yet attachment to love is worthy of all the riches in the world.”

I launch into my defense, telling them about how Tolstoy believed love only mattered when you sacrificed yourself. When you forget yourself for the sake of another, that’s true love.

My dissertation is seven hundred and twenty-nine pages long. I know because I wrote six hundred and fourteen of those pages at night every night, into the wee hours of the morning, beginning the moment I knew I’d fallen for Lana.

I would have quit this degree for her in an instant. The minute I knew I needed to convince Lana I wanted to be a part of her life forever, that was my first instinct.

But I also knew Lana would never go for that. She’d hold herself responsible.

And because finishing this dissertation was as therapeutic for me understanding my love for Lana as it was important for her that I finish, it felt easy to write.

I explain all this to my panel, using the impassioned language I don’t need to pull out of anywhere but my whole chest. Because I don’t need to convince them I took this degree and made a meal out of it. I only need to convince them that I finally learned what love really is.

And that’s not hard to do at all.

I’m just nearing the conclusion of the discussion portion and heading into questions when I feel a strange itch on my thigh.

It’s insistent, and I only realize after a few moments that it’s my phone buzzing. I’d been so deeply into what I was talking about, each of the professors leaning forward, eyes never leaving mine, that I hadn’t registered real life was carrying on around me.

“Excuse me,” I say, pulling my phone out to turn it off.

But on screen, I see the caller ID says “Sunshine.”

I look back at the group, who are slowly descending into frowns. “I…have to take this,” I say .

Lowe’s jaw falls open. James sputters. Professor Chan actually laughs.

“He’s serious,” O’Malley says, as I answer the call, turning my backs on them.

“Hey,” I say.

“Raph?”

It’s Nova. I remember what I told her before I left. That she can call me any time.

“Hi sweetheart. What’s up?”

“What’s the name of the guy in the Goonies who’s stuck in the basement? You know the brother they all forgot about.”

I’d convinced Lana that the four of us needed to watch all the best kid movies of the past forty years together. The Goonies was the one we’d seen before I left.

“Sloth!” I say.

“But you said he had a real name.”

“Oh yeah. Uh…” I pinch my fingers at the bridge of my nose, thinking. Then it comes to me. “Lotney! But they never say it in the movie. That’s just trivia.”

“Lotney! Yesss. That’s what we’re going to name this turtle.”

I laugh. “A turtle, huh?”

In the background, Lana says, “We’re not getting a turtle, young lady!”

“That’s what she thinks!” Nova whispers.

I laugh. Then the sharp sound of a throat clearing behind me has me glancing back. “Hey, do you think you can tell me about it when I’m back?”

“Sure. Oh, Mom wants to talk to you. ”

I hold up a finger. The professors are still clutching their collective pearls. Oh well. I’m not not going to talk to Lana. I’ll never give up the chance to hear her voice.

“Hey, Raph,” Lana’s voice comes on the line.

Yup, that voice. I love that voice so fucking much. It’s rich and raspy and?—

Murmurs sound behind me. Not the time.

“You busy?” she asks.

“Just a little. You okay?”

“Of course. I just…” Lana clears her throat. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

My whole chest blows up like its filled with helium. She wanted to hear me. I manage to throw a lasso up and reign myself in. “Is that right, Sunshine?”

“Sunshine?” Chan sputters. “Mister LaForest. It seems we’re interrupting something!”

“Raph, where are you?” Lana asks, her voice halting.

“I’m sorry Sunshine, I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.”

When I hang up, I apologize. “Professors, I know I might have blown this whole thing. But…well, I guess I just showed you I’m living what I wrote. When love calls, you answer it. If I sacrifice this defense because I answered the phone for my family—well, I think I still come out on top.”

There are a few more minutes of silence, while the group looks at each other, then confers amongst themselves. My advisor looks like she’s going to be sick.

But after a moment, Chan sighs wearily. “All right. Continue. But we implore you that no further demonstration of your absorption of the material is required.”