Higher Education by Lisa Pliscou Page A

out of the rain.”
    After Pablo has gone back to his table, Dean leans forward and looks at me. “Miranda?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œYou owe me two dollars for the greyhound.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œI said, you—”
    â€œHow about a toast?” I raise my glass high. “To structural analysis.”
    â€œYeah.”
    He drinks, but I merely brush the rim of my glass against my lips. Then he’s leaning forward again, and our elbows touch.
    â€œOh,” I say, feeling strangely flustered. “I mean, I love your leather patches.”
    â€œThanks.”
    We fall silent, and suddenly I wish I’d ordered Perrier. I pluck an ice cube from my drink and slip it into my mouth. “So anyway.” The ice cube rattles against my teeth.
    He sighs. “Yeah?”
    â€œHow’s everything?”
    â€œOh, okay, I guess.” His voice is soft, moodier now. Impulsively I reach across the table and touch his throat.
    He leans away, flashing me a startled look. “What was that for?”
    â€œSorry.” I lace my fingers together in my lap. “It’s just a nervous tic.”
    He lights a cigarette and inhales with a little whooshing noise. “I thought you were going for the jugular or something.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” I say shrewishly. “It won’t happen again.”
    He coughs. “I was kidding. It was a joke.”
    â€œOh.” I’m trying to remember which movie actress I’ve just quoted. It would be nice if it was Katharine Hepburn, or even Barbara Stanwyck. Virginia Mayo, though, would be a drag. Jackson would know . Wincing a little, I brush my bangs out of my eyes.
    â€œâ€”and that’s just the way I feel about it, Miranda.”
    â€œMmm.”
    He sighs again. “Miranda, Miranda.”
    â€œYes, that’s my name,” I say encouragingly, although I wish he’d stop pronouncing it with a soft a .
    â€œEddie Hacker wants me to help him start a new humor magazine.”
    I am silent for a moment. “Isn’t the Lampoon more than enough already?”
    â€œHe says the Lampoon snobbishness makes him sick.”
    â€œMaybe he’s disappointed he didn’t get in.”
    â€œYeah, well.” Dean stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray. “He wants me to be managing editor.”
    â€œMy. You accepted, of course.”
    He hesitates. “I told him I wanted to talk to Jennifer first.”
    â€œDoes she sign your checks too?”
    â€œSorry?”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œWell, you know she’s sort of my unofficial Advocate adviser.” Although only a junior, Dean’s long been considered a rising star on the Advocate staff. There’s talk he may be elected to an officer’s position before the semester is out. “She understands politics better than I do.”
    â€œI’m sure. And what did she tell you to do?”
    â€œShe never really said. We ended up arguing.”
    I try to keep my eyes from lighting up. “Oh?”
    â€œYeah, we were just sitting there talking about it calmly, and then Kevin comes in and wants to know if I got the message from you he’d tucked under my pillow.”
    â€œWell, that was nice of him.”
    â€œThen all of a sudden she starts going on and on about how working on Eddie’s magazine would probably make the board veto my series on F. Scott Fitzgerald, and fuck up my chances for making fiction editor next year.”
    â€œWhy?” By the time Dean is or isn’t fiction editor, I muse, I’ll have been out of college for a whole year.
    â€œShe thinks it would be seen as a conflict of interest.”
    â€œYou mean like spreading yourself too thin?” I smirk at him but he’s busy inhaling on his cigarette.
    â€œExactly. But I think it’d look good on my résumé.”
    â€œRésumé?”
    â€œShe knows that Eddie and I prepped together.