Make Room for Love

Chapter 8

8

“But the queen, for a long time wounded by heavy trouble, feeds the wound by her veins and seizes… Is that right?”

“Almost,” Mira said. This was Lauren’s second ever Latin class, and she always needed a bit of reassurance during office hours. “You’re doing great. Take a look at the verb ending again.”

“Oh, it’s passive. Right?” She looked at Mira, who nodded. “She’s seized by a secret flame.”

“That’s right.” It was a relief to slip into her teacher role, leaving her own problems behind for the time being. “Nice job translating those ablatives. Does anyone know what kind of ablative venis is?”

“Instrumental ablative,” said Colin, to Lauren’s right.

“Great, instrumental ablative. Dido feeds the wound with her veins. What does that mean? Lauren, do you know?”

“She’s letting her love for Aeneas suck the blood out of her?” Lauren ventured.

“Perfect,” Mira said. Lauren beamed.

A few more undergrads had come in, some of whom Mira didn’t recognize. Word had gotten around, apparently, that she was the most helpful of the TAs for Latin Poetry, and students who weren’t in her section were showing up. Mira didn’t mind helping them, exactly, but she had her work cut out for her.

In fits and starts, the two dozen undergrads who drifted in and out of her office worked out Queen Dido’s admiration of Aeneas, her reawakened desire, her rapidly weakening resolve to never marry again. The official end of office hours came and went. Mira stayed an extra ten minutes and then shooed most of the students out, feeling slightly guilty like she did every time.

Lauren was still working in a corner, mumbling as she traced the words on the page. “Lauren, I have to leave, unfortunately,” Mira said. Lauren’s head jerked up, and she scrambled to collect her things. “You don’t have to rush,” Mira added. “Great job today.”

“Oh, thanks! Um…” Lauren looked sheepish. “I meant to talk to you sometime about whether I should be a Classics major. I’m a sophomore, so I kind of have to decide soon. Like, really soon. But I know you have to go.”

Mira grabbed her messenger bag. “Do you have some time now?” Lauren nodded. “You can walk with me while I get lunch.”

Lauren’s face lit up. Mira was long used to it, but occasionally she was acutely reminded that her undergrads looked up to her as an authority figure. “That would be great,” Lauren said. “I have to submit the form by Friday, and I’m having trouble deciding. Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Of course.” It would be better than dwelling on her own anxieties. Mira was good at being a reassuring TA, if nothing else. “I’d be happy to talk.”

They headed toward the food trucks. Lauren explained her situation. Her parents wanted her to major in pre-med, and she was dutifully taking her science classes. But she’d taken Greek and Roman Mythology to fulfill a requirement, and it had lit a fire in her. She’d gotten a glimpse into an ancient world, full of people who were alien yet familiar in their passions and fears and hopes, and she wanted more.

She had been intent on reading Virgil and Ovid in the original, and she’d worked harder in her Intro Latin class than she ever had in her life. Now she was taking Latin Poetry, Intro Ancient Greek, and two science classes, which was unsustainable. It was time to choose.

“Did you have to decide between Classics and something more ‘practical’?” Lauren made air quotes.

Mira pursed her lips. So much for avoiding the subject of her own life. Still, she would do what she could for Lauren. “Not exactly. My parents didn’t mind me becoming an academic, so I didn’t have to worry about that.” They would have objected far more to Mira becoming an investment banker. “And I was dreadful at math, so most of the practical majors were out of the question anyway.” Lauren laughed politely. “But I thought I could be equally happy in philosophy or literature or history. And then I took my first Latin class as a freshman, like you, and that’s when I knew.”

“Oh, that’s good. Sometimes I worry that I started too late.”

“You didn’t. You’re doing great, okay?” Lauren was clearly hanging on her every word. “Learning to read poetry is a big step up from the intro class. It’s been wonderful to see your progress.”

They lined up at the food trucks, which didn’t serve up anything fancy. Just hot meals for broke grad students who showed up reliably at lunchtime. “We can keep talking, if you want to stick around for lunch,” Mira said.

Lauren looked delighted, like she was being let in on something. “Oh, sure! I’d love to.”

Mira had had TAs and professors in college that she’d admired, brilliant women who didn’t let Mira get away with anything less than her best work. Mira wouldn’t be herself without them. When she’d imagined her own future, she hadn’t only seen herself as an academic, but as a woman, too—finding her own path in academia, as murky and frightening as that vision was.

The thought of an undergrad seeing her that way, as not only authoritative but aspirational, was vertigo-inducing. Mira hoped she was worthy of it.

She ordered the tofu and eggplant with a side of stir-fried cabbage, and Lauren ordered the exact same thing. They took their food to the benches nearby. “What do you think I should do?” Lauren said.

Mira was in no position to give advice to anyone. What was she doing with her Classics degree? She was scraping by on her grad school stipend and living in a tiny room, and last week she’d humiliated herself on campus and cried her eyes out in front of her roommate. And Isabel hadn’t humiliated her a second time; she’d been as blunt and as kind to Mira as on the night they’d met, and she’d helped Mira put herself back together. Mira hadn’t stopped thinking about it since. She could barely make sense of her own life anymore.

Maybe becoming a doctor was the safer move. “You could get a minor in Classics instead,” she said weakly. “It would be easier to keep up with your pre-med classes.”

“I know. But the thing is, I don’t know if I want to do pre-med at all. I don’t want to take the required classes. I don’t think I actually want to be a doctor.” Lauren paused ominously. “Do you think I have any chance of getting into grad school if I keep working hard?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Mira said. That much wasn’t in doubt. “I think if you continue at this rate, and start developing your own research interests and write a strong senior thesis, a lot of grad programs would be fortunate to have you. The real question is whether you actually want to go to grad school. And that’s a decision you shouldn’t take lightly.”

It became clear that Lauren had no idea what grad school was like. Mira tried to explain that after six or seven or ten grueling years of a Ph.D.program, a tenure-track academic job was by no means guaranteed; that most universities didn’t pay their grad students nearly enough; that the teaching burden could be nearly unbearable; that one’s professional life and future prospects were dictated almost entirely by one’s advisor, who could be negligent or abusive. Lauren looked at her wide-eyed.

“I don’t mean to scare you off,” Mira said, even though she had meant exactly that. “I’m fortunate to be able to study what I love and to teach all of you. Just think about it carefully.”

“Is that why you’re all unionizing?”

“For those and many other reasons, yes.” Mira smiled. “Try to pick a place where the grad students are unionized, if you can. Hopefully, by the time you apply, that’ll be everywhere.”

Guilt crept up on her. If she didn’t do her part, she had no right to be saying this to Lauren. And she was angry—angry that she couldn’t wholeheartedly tell one of her brightest students to pursue a life studying what she wanted, and instead had to warn her away.

Mira hadn’t had an easy time in grad school; even so, she’d been lucky in so many ways. But luck shouldn’t enter into it at all. She had to make a better future for her students.

And maybe she owed something to the twenty-year-old Mira who’d been on the cusp of taking so many big risks, and who had deserved a better future than moving in with Dylan out of desperation. Maybe her present self deserved a better future, too.

They talked more about Lauren’s aspirations, what classes she wanted to take, how she might win over her parents. Mira explained her own research on the lyric poets. Lauren asked, “Can I study that in grad school too?”

Back in her office, Mira pulled up the spreadsheet for canvassing grad students about the union. The slot for the Classics building was open this time, thank goodness.

She could do this. Her despair from Friday had receded, and now she could take a longer view.

Isabel had told her that she needed to find her own way of doing things. Mira knew how to talk to people. She’d spent all morning doing it: listening to her students, building trust with them where she could, not worrying too much if they didn’t pay attention. She’d been doing this for years. And one bad day didn’t count for much—she still had most of her working life in front of her. Mira signed up.