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Dede’s hand shoots out, grabs my arm, and pulls me back into my seat. Heat spreads up my neck and face, apple-sized evidence of my dismay. The faculty members sitting in front of me whip their heads around and, I assume, everyone behind me stares as well. I avert my eyes from the pitying looks and nervous giggles. Hopefully most of the faculty missed my presumptuous ascent and my humiliating descent. The Dean gestures to the side entrance doors. They swing open and in walks Dwight Hurley. As Sam Bailey descends the aisle stairs to meet Dwight, I hear the cameras click furiously as they capture the momentous event, an event I cannot bear to watch. I look down. When I look up again, Sam walks with Dwight to the podium but all I see is Dwight, as though everyone else in the packed auditorium has disappeared. We are in a slow moving dream, a nightmare. I bite the inside of my cheek hard but I don’t wake up. Dwight walks with the loose, cocky swagger of politicians and men who played college basketball. His black hair is stylishly messy and long, hanging just over his collar, and his lips are full. Above a prominent nose, his dark blue eyes exude a calm confidence. I know that hair. I used to run my fingers through it. I know those eyes. I used to stare into them. I know those lips best of all. Dwight Hurley was my first love. I turn slightly toward Dede who radiates pity mixed with a dose of concern. “What the hell is going on?” she asks. “I wish I knew.” I can barely form the words with my bogus I’m-so-happy-for-Dwight-and-I-don’t-care-that-I-didn’t-get-it smile and a growing lump in my throat. If I can get through the rest of this meeting without weeping, I will count it as a brilliant success. Dwight shakes the Dean’s hand, then stands back a little to the side with his hands clasped behind his back. The Dean details Dwight’s credentials: Vanderbilt University to my Duke, Chicago Law to my Emory, Sixth Circuit clerkship to my Eleventh, the Public Defender’s office to my law firm stint, and, just last year, the Criminal Clinic at Redmont Law School in Cincinnati. Lucky for us, Dean Dody, explains, Dwight was only co-teaching one class at Redmont this fall, so he’s free to leave on a moment’s notice to join us. Great! Wonderful! “Finally,” the Dean concludes, “because faculty scholarship is essential for the law school’s continued success, you will all understand how thrilled I am to pass on this bit of very good news: Dwight is completing the first Clinical Law textbook and the book will soon be published.”
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