Chapter 7: Hanover

Sean was right to leave me the Accord. Shadow would cause problems in Hanover, so she spent a lot of time in storage. I arranged a parking sticker for her, but even that much was an issue. The fact that Richards Enterprises held title proved to be key. I could truthfully say it was driven by the CEO's sister. That was good enough for the parking police to issue a visitor's permit. It was no good in my usual lot, but what could I do?

Much of the summer was spent in Connecticut, wrapping up my situation at Yale. My dissertation attracted international attention. I made sure everyone knew that Dartmouth had been first in line, which earned me thanks in the fall. In the press, I was attacked from both ends of the political spectrum. One interesting sidelight was a panel on Sean Hannity's radio show. Both of the other guests claimed that my work supported their opposing position. Idiots. They were both wrong.

It was a big fight, which may have been the point. Hannity seemed to have at least read a precis of my thesis, because he asked the best question, along with some ridiculous ones. Of course, I had read Karl Marx. He was a founding sociologist and well respected as such. I did not give a damn about his economic theories. When I said so, Hannity seemed taken aback. It suffices to say that I was invited to be on the program again.

August came, so I formally moved to Hanover, New Hampshire. The flat threw me a going away party. We had a night of five girls in a bed, but I do not remember any of their names. I went back to New Jersey for a week. It was a trying time. For one thing, I needed the Honda worked on. Shadow stayed in New Hampshire, so I was on foot. As a family member, I had the right to check out the cars, but that meant dealing with security. By then, that meant Gerald. I had a mother. I did not need a male version. What made it worse was that Gerald is tall enough to look down on me. There are a lot of ironies in that.

In any event, I mostly stayed in and sulked. I had learned to play decent pool in Boston, but Jerry, one of security guys, taught me another level. Sean has incredible hands for massage. It turns out mine are not bad with a stick. Jerry started me on 8-ball and 9-ball, followed by full rack rotation and straight pool, then changed tables to snooker. Strange game. Finally, it was billiards, which really stresses your judgment of spin and angle. When I ran 20 shots at billiards, Jerry quit playing me for money. Oh well. I considered my losses to be tuition. Veronica taught me that.

That Sunday afternoon, I threw my bags in the car and headed north. During the week, I moved into my new apartment, attended faculty orientation, had my lesson plan approved by the Dean and learned the campus and town. On the weekend, I cruised south, toward Concord and Manchester.

I found a nice place to get old concert shirts and a couple of bars to hustle pool. I won two dates. One was scared spitless, so I sent her back to the guy that lost her. Her panties I kept. The other girl, Marci, was at least bi-curious, so I bought her dinner and half a motel bed. Either my technique had improved or she was already leaning lesbian. Marci went off and kept going off all night.

Feeling satisfied, I drove back to Hanover to teach my first class. I was about two minutes late, so I was among the last ones through the door. I set my books down, wrote my name on the board, then turned to see what I had to work with. As soon as I did, I heard, "Oh my God. No way. No freaking way." That was how I learned Elspeth Otis-Endicott's name. Small world.

There is not a lot to say about the next two years. I only had Elspeth in the one class, but she never was far from my awareness. In retrospect, she was trying to get my attention. At the time, I was not secure enough to consider that she might find me attractive. Since then, we have had a couple of long coffee talks, about how misconceptions came close to ruining a good relationship.

Otherwise, I fit into the Ivy League sisterhood fairly well. Campus life was a lot like Yale, braless and piercings not-with-standing. Off campus life was quite different, but that was good. I grew up in rural New Jersey, so rural New Hampshire was soothingly homelike. Summer's I did research in Manchester, New Hampshire's version of big city.