Chapter Text
First day of classes, syllabus day, whatever it’s called, it’s Dr. Gerri Kellman’s least favorite day. Antsy students too interested in each other’s new haircuts and fresh fall wardrobes to really pay attention, a day of learning lost to tradition and the idea that college students should be eased in from their summers off.
She looks out at the students in the small lecture hall. “Introduction to US Politics” is never the largest draw of the department, but she gets a few non-majors every semester, filling a gen ed requirement. She doesn’t make it easy for them, but she’s been told not to make it too hard either.
A couple students she recognizes from a poli sci intro course last year, one junior major she’s seen skulking around the department, though this is the first time she’s had him in a class. As she moves through the chairs, handing out copies of her syllabus, she tries to gauge who will be the bright spots in the semester, whose papers she’s just going to have to slog through.
“I only take attendance on the first day of the semester, after that, I don’t care whether you’re here or not. Learning the material is up to you.” Her perfunctory attitude towards attendance is sometimes appreciated, rarely taken advantage of. Dr. Kellman’s reputation precedes her, and for the most part, people want to be in her class.
“Allen, Tabitha,” she starts the role call, looking over the rim of her glasses as she marks down students who raise their hands. She moves through the names, past Stewy Hosseini, past Naomi Pierce, and when she calls out “Roy, Roman,” the slouching, dark-haired junior raises his pencil in the air, his eyes hooded, staring at her. For some reason, meeting his gaze pulls a small smile from her, a quick quirk of the lips, and then she returns to the list.
She lays out the course requirements, their three papers, one group presentation - the assignment that always gets groans. “If you don’t think you’ll have to work with other people in the world of politics...well I hope you’re rich.”
Roman’s hand goes up. “If we’re rich, can we bypass the group presentation?” There’s good-natured snickering around the room, and Gerri fixes him a look over her glasses, tucks her hair behind her ear.
“How much?” she asks, and he sits up straighter, the rest of the class going quiet, smothered grins as they wait to see - who will be embarrassed? Professor or student.
“How much?” he parrots, setting his pencil on the desk.
“How much is not doing a group presentation worth to you?” she says, leaning against the edge of her desk, crossing her legs at the ankle, willing to play out the scenario, willing to give him a little slack in the rope, all the more to hang himself with later.
He’s quiet, considering. “A thousand dollars,” he says, after a bit. Gerri smiles, benevolently, pushes herself up from her desk.
“You value your contribution to any potential group at a meager one thousand dollars? That doesn’t bode well for your future in this department, Mr. Roy,” she says, doesn’t look at him again, even as a smattering of giggles breaks out, even when his pencil drops to the floor, rolling off the desk. She moves down the syllabus, highlights important dates, makes sure they know her office hours.
“My door is open to any and all with course-related questions, or, perhaps, to any future offers of bribes. I hope you’ve all learned from Mr. Roy’s example that both my time and yours are valuable, and to price it accordingly. First lesson in politics. Class dismissed.” She turns away as the class files out, notebooks and folders being stuffed into messenger bags, the soft chatter of excitement that always accompanies a new year.
She can see Roman slink out, dark sweater and dark hair, a look tossed over his shoulder at her, a smirk on his face, and she has to remind herself not to blush.
-
This isn’t her best semester, but it’s far from her worst. The students seem relatively engaged, three-fourths of them do the assigned reading on any given day, and she’s only had one person drop the class. And then there’s Roman Roy.
Roman Roy, whose dad’s name is on the fucking business building, whose older brother graduated summa cum laude three years ago and is wrapping up an MBA. Roman Roy who seems to not give two fucks about what he’s doing at all. One day he shows up with a toothpick in his mouth and what she’s sure is a flask of bourbon. She’s from Kentucky, she knows the smell. Another day, he suggests that they all just take their shirts off, that learning will happen best when their bodies are free.
Mostly she ignores him. Except for the fact that it’s fun. She hates to admit it, but he makes her laugh. Deep inside, where no one can see, but she’s laughing all the same. If she were a vainer woman, she might think he was baiting her, trying to make her break. But she’s seen the girls he dates, how he leans over Tabitha’s desk, and knows that there’s nothing there for a dried up old professor.
What gets her the most is that he actually knows what he’s talking about, when he cares to participate. He’s smart. His first paper, on the long-term effects of gerrymandering, argues at a level she hasn’t seen from an undergrad in years. On the first day of class, she worried about who would be stuck with him for the group project and now she thinks whatever group he’s assigned is lucky. He’s the best mind in the room. After her, of course.
He also starts taking advantage of her office hours, a rare thing, she’s learned. Students have defaulted to emailing with questions, posting on the class message board. She doesn’t mind, not really, because it gives her uninterrupted grading time, a few hours free a week where she can almost count on the fact that no one will knock on her door.
But right after midterms, he slings himself into her office, slouches down into a chair, doesn’t even bother to pause at the door to see if she’s busy first. “You know tests like that are why students call you Dr. Killman, right?” he says.
She does know. And she likes it.
“And you got a B-plus,” she says, “so why are you here?” He mutters something under his breath. “What was that?”
“A B-plus is bad, plus terrible. Old Roy family saying. Practically our crest, if my dad didn’t say “fuck off” so much.” He’s twitching a little, moving in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position, only resting when he puts a leg over the arm, foot dangling.
She twists her lips. “Are you asking about potential extra credit, to bump you up to an A?” It feels like feeding him the question he’s looking for, but a part of her just wants to know his response.
She’s not disappointed, when his eyebrows go up, when his eyes darken. “What’s the extra credit, teach?” His leg slides off the arm of the chair, his hands folding on her desk. She notices how long his fingers are, how pale. His hair looks like it might be greasy, some patchy fur on his chin that means he’s either trying to grow a beard or not that good at shaving.
“A thousand words on the issue of raising taxes on the rich.” She arches a brow, knows full well that the Roy family is very near the top of that 1%, curious to see how morality factors in to family loyalty. He smirks back, drums his fingers against the desk, beating out a thrumming tattoo.
“That’s it?” he says. “I mean, all I have to do is write two pages on, like, why poor people want to take money from my family or whatever?”
“Or whatever.” She waves a hand. “Try to do some outside research and not just, like, why it’s bad because you won’t get a pony for Christmas.”
“Dr. Vernon just gives me an A, usually.” He doesn’t seem mad, more curious, perhaps slightly wary. She wonders if he’s ever really had to try at anything.
“Do I look like Dr. Vernon, Mr. Roy?” she asks. “Careful with your answer, you might insult my ego.”
“Let me just say that on that, you know, rating site for professors?” She nods, resists the eyeroll, stopped looking at the whining students saying she graded them too hard years ago. “There’s a chili pepper by your name.”
“A thousand words by Friday’s class, Mr. Roy,” she says, a clear dismissal, turning her head back to her computer screen, hoping he hasn’t noticed her blush, though she feels like her cheeks might be bright red, for as hot as her face is.
-
It’s not a one-time occurrence, either. He starts visiting weekly, she becomes accustomed to his sprawling limbs in her chair, to conversations that start at politics and end at the amusement park ride he dreamt up the night before. Roman starts quizzing her about coffee and tea, finds out what she likes to drink, brings her a warm cup every time he comes to sit, and she wonders if it’s a sort of payment for her attention.
They get to a point where he works on assignments for her class, for his other classes, in the chair next to her desk. She finds the quiet tapping on his laptop almost comforting as she works on her computer, reading articles, planning lectures.
He fights with her on assignments, sometimes, says the reading is too biased, her lecture was too pointed. She’s never sure how serious he is, or if he’s just looking for the argument. She gets the sense he likes them, that he’s learned how to provoke her just right, that he likes to see her mad.
“What if I wrote that I would motivate my friends and colleagues to vote by threatening to murder them if they didn’t?” he asks, looking over the short paper assignment handed out earlier in the week.
“If you had sound reasoning and evidence that it would work, I assume I’d have to give you an A,” she says blandly, likes to see how far he’ll go, likes to send him spooling out before winding him back in.
“Is this some sort of, like, thing? You know, you pretend to be all cool and hot and aloof and then you get me to write you a paper about murder and then, like, the cops show up at my door?” His hand is on the lid of his laptop, ready to close it down.
“That’s a pretty detailed plan when all I’m trying to get you to do is think about why college students don’t vote.” She steeples her fingers and looks at him. “What good would it do me to have you arrested, anyway? How would I get my weekly coffee?”
“Higher taxes on the rich, probably,” he answers, raises his own paper cup in a mock toast. She mirrors the movement, takes a deep sip, and hates how good it tastes, just a little bit, watches him leave her office, leaving the door open behind him.
It’s not just assignments he argues about, but the readings too, flopping down with a quibble that she knows will turn into a discussion of the ridiculous prices at the campus bar sooner or later. He surprises her, when, near the end of term, he just throws his hands in the air.
“I don’t get it,” he says, a rare admission from a student who never wants to be wrong, never wants to be caught out not knowing. He pushes the papers he’s printed out towards her, and she just sees it’s that fucking reading about the gender gap in politics, knows he’s baiting her, doesn’t know how yet.
“What don’t you get, Roman?” she says, slipping up, using his first name, has to barrel on like she didn’t notice, has to hope he didn’t either - the smirk on his lips suggests he did. “Women? Politics? Sexism? What’s confusing to you?”
“The title,” he says. “‘American Party Women’ and wouldn’t you know it, Coachella? The Met Gala? None of it mentioned. How much of a party can these women be having?” It’s so ridiculous, so inane, so obviously a thin excuse to come sit and talk to her that Gerri isn’t even sure she can be mad, not really.
“You had no problem understanding the reading, then, I take it.” She purses her lips, stares down the barrel of her glasses at him, gets the feeling that he’s more willing prey than mouse caught in a trap.
He just shrugs, shakes his head. Smiles.
“Time-wasting should be a criminal offense,” she says, but she’s smiling too.
“But where’s the fun in that?”
She can’t remember the last time a student insinuated themselves into her life like this, the last time she drove home from work with a smile on her face because of what some twenty-one year-old with more dollars than sense said to her on campus. And she tells herself to stop mooning and get over it, all the while waiting for the next afternoon, the next cup of coffee. The next time he’ll make her laugh.
-
Dr. Frank Vernon catches her in the parking lot, sidles up to her and she has to stop the grimace from spreading across her face.
“It’s against campus policy to fraternize with students,” he says, his breath making small clouds in the cold air. He’s saying it like he knows something, like he’s trying to hold it over her head. It’s all she can do to stop her mouth and keep her reaction to an annoyed glance his way. “I’ve seen him in your office.”
“Seen who?” she asks, “Seen a student discussing items on the syllabus and upcoming papers and projects? I’m sorry, Frank, if it’s an unfamiliar sight for you. All I hear about your office is that it smells like onions and the female students think you get a little leery.” She doesn’t have time for him on the best of days, but it’s group presentation day and she’s just hoping that Roman actually pulled something out of his ass. And she’s sure that at least one group’s presentation is sure to be shit. She’ll have to sit through it without the aid of Advil, which she left at home. Next to her very full, very hot thermos of coffee.
“Just be careful, Gerri,” he says, hands up, stopping in his tracks to let her get ahead. “The Roys are a vindictive bunch.”
Her face is burning, from anger and embarrassment. Does she look like an old washed-up teacher, mooning after a student? Is that what people see when they walk by her office? And who is Frank to say anything when he’s been the reason three women have changed their major? She swallows, and heads to the small lecture hall, doesn’t even stop by her office first.
There’s a fresh cup of coffee waiting on the podium, and no sign of Roman anywhere.
Part of her wants to tell him what Frank said, wants to see his reaction when he knows she’s been accused of trying to seduce him. Simple denial? Protesting too much? Laughing in her face? And part of her wants to keep it her secret shame. It’s just one student, one semester. In the spring, he’ll be back in the international politics classes and she won’t see him again.
But the coffee helps. It helps so much.
It helps enough that the very worst presentation doesn’t even seem that bad. And she feels a sense of pride that Roman’s group has the very best one, even has a bibliography at the end, though she feels certain he ad-libbed almost all of the swearing. A group member shoots her a worried look when he talks about “fucking liberals” and “dumb fuck conservatives” and she just shakes her head slightly, tells herself not to look too fond of the idiot waving his hands at the front of the classroom.
“You survived,” she says, when he plops down in her office later that day, not even during her office hours, just to see her. The thought gives her no small amount of pleasure, but she’d deny it if he asked.
“Barely! I’m amazed you haven’t lost brain cells grading their papers.” He doesn’t mean it, not really. She knows he liked his group well enough, couldn’t stop herself from assigning him people she sees him talk to before and after class. Doesn’t want to think about why she put Tabitha in another group. “It could’ve been worse. You could have put me in a group with Greg the fucking egg.”
She’s heard the nickname - because they think he’s just going to get a goose egg on his finals - and has a mild soft spot for the bumbling first-year, too tall for his own good, just a pile of arms and legs that don’t fit into the small plastic seats. But she knows Roman would have berated him into a nervous wreck, that his public speaking skills would’ve gotten even worse than they already are. She has some kindness, hidden deep inside.
“Didn’t want you to get outshined,” she says. Because she doesn’t have that much kindness, and she enjoys the look of shock that morphs into glee across his face. She twists her mouth, knows she has a syllabus to work on, and exams to prepare. Instead, she lets Roman sit in the chair, waits to see what he’ll do next.
“Does the Evil Dr. Killman drink beer?” he asks, but he’s not quite meeting her eyes and she’s not quite sure what he’s asking. They both have a wariness about each other, she thinks, like cats circling, waiting for the other to pounce.
But she’s also not an idiot, and she knows what he’s asking. And lies. “No.” Doesn’t even follow it up with banter, stares right at her computer, Frank’s insidious words echoing in her head. The Roys are a vindictive bunch. Roman bangs his bag against the doorframe as he leaves, a temper tantrum if she’s ever seen one, and she realizes she has no way to get in touch with him, too aware of the dangers associated with sending anything remotely illicit through her school email.
It’s ten o’clock at night, when she’s drinking wine by lamplight, computer nestled in her lap, that she starts to type out an email.
Mr. Roy -
I think perhaps a meeting is in order. Your suggestion was not without merit, but some discussion is necessary. Please let me know when you’re available.
Dr. Kellman
And below it, she edits her email signature, adds ten digits, tentatively strung together. Her finger pauses on the touchpad. There’s no turning back when she presses send, when she hits the button. It feels a little like she’s detonated a nuclear device on her life.