Chapter 21
"So how's the dissertation coming?"
I groaned. Fuck. Why did she have to ask me this every single time she saw me? It bordered on nagging. I especially didn't need this in front of Daniel, who was now listening curiously. Families were so damned embarrassing.
"You know how it's coming," I muttered.
"You're still not finished? And have you even worked on it at all?" Charlotte prattled on, stubbornly oblivious to my stare of death. "It's been how many years now?"
"I've worked on it."
"Opening the file from time to time doesn't count as working on it."
"How is it any of your business anyway?" I said under my breath; I almost hoped she didn't hear me, but Charlotte had inherited my grandmother's radar ears.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's my business because I want you to get your doctorate?"
"Nothing but a worthless piece of paper." I scowled at her, turning red under Daniel's slightly confused look. "My publisher doesn't care if I have a PhD. after my name and neither do my readers, so why should it matter to you?"
"Your readers think you're a woman named Cassandra," Charlotte reminded me sarcastically. Daniel laughed softly and even I had to crack a slight smile. "I just want you to get something out of all those years of hard work, even if it is just a worthless piece of paper. You've earned those letters after your name and if you'd just get off your ass and finish your dissertation, you could get a teaching job instead of sitting around staring at a computer screen all day."
"Wait a minute," Daniel said. "I'm confused. I thought you already had your doctorate."
"Well, I do and I don't." My face was blazing. Charlotte had an uncanny ability to hit on the one thing that would embarrass me most. "I've finished all the doctorate course work at Auburn and I picked my dissertation and had it approved... I even have it mostly written." I cringed, waiting for the inevitable question, and of course, it came.
"What's it about?"
"The Death of Spencer:
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
and Byron's Assault on the Elizabethan Virtues." Reluctantly, I told him the title and waited for the blank stare of "Huh?" Shit. I hated talking about it with people not in the academic world; it was so embarrassing, having to spend five minutes explaining what the title meant. To my surprise Daniel actually seemed interested, so I talked a little bit about George Gordon, Lord Byron, and his wild life of debauchery that shocked society, the rumors of liaisons with both sexes, and the affair with his half-sister that eventually led to his downfall.
"Well, it seems like you have all your information; so what's the hold up?"
Now, I was really embarrassed, squirming in my chair like I'd just been called on in class and everyone was staring at me waiting for me to answer and I was frozen. "Um... I have to present it to the committee and it's just... not ready."
"At the rate he's going, it never will be," Charlotte said, as if I wasn't even in the room. She was being a total bitch, which was nothing new. I understood her frustration and I knew it was motivated by her loving me and wanting the best for me, but at the same time, she needed to butt out. Nagging and pushing were the two fastest ways to get me to dig in my heels. You'd think after knowing me my whole life, she would know that. It barely took Daniel a week to figure it out. The thought amazed me, the way he could get me to do anything, say anything, get past issues that I'd struggled with my whole life, and he did it without pushing one bit. How could he know me so well when he knew almost nothing about me?
He smiled at me and I blinked, startled out of my cloud. I'd been staring at him like a crushed out schoolboy again; it was mortifying, but Daniel slid his hand over under the table and gave my thigh a squeeze. He thought it was cute, even if my aunt did roll her eyes as she got up from the table and grabbed the coffeepot to refill our mugs.
"Besides, you know I don't want to teach," I growled at Charlotte.
"Then what do you want to be when you grow up, Rylan?"
"I think he wants to be a writer. Wait. He is a writer." Daniel gave me the full intensity of his smile and my heart did the flipping thing it seemed to have just begun when I met him. I stared into his blue eyes, speechless, awed by the way he always said the right thing. He was fucking wonderful. His hand rubbed light circles on my leg and I just slowly melted down into a big, quivering puddle on the kitchen floor. So much joy he gave me but such sharp stabs of sudden pain, realization that it was almost over.
"He'd be a good English professor though," Daniel added, eyes twinkling at me. I could just see the dirty little ways he could earn extra credit dancing through his head.
"Not likely," snorted Charlotte as she banged around. "This is the kid who deliberately got a B in honors chemistry senior year in high school so he wouldn't have to be valedictorian and get up and give a speech at graduation."
"Won't you ever shut up?" The embarrassing secrets were too much and I got up from the table and stalked off. They were laughing at me; I just knew it. Charlotte was telling Daniel all about what a dork I am, how I threw up when I had to give class presentations. I always ended up getting good grades, but there was always a moment, when I first stepped up to the lectern and all the eyes were staring at me, that my throat closed up, my knees got weak and I was sure I couldn't do it.
Presenting my paper to the dissertation committee was a black cloud over my life. It had to be done, and eventually I would do it. I would finish the dissertation and present it, but not until it was perfect. My facts were perfect. The paper was impeccably researched, arranged, edited and just waiting. Byron was a natural choice for me, it was easy and I knew the work would be highly praised; the academic publication would be good for my "legitimate" writing career and the people whom I was supposed to be eager to notice me would finally know my name.
Charlotte and the rest of my family knew that and they didn't understand why I still hesitated. They were thrilled at the prospect of having a doctor in the family even if it was a doctorate in English literature. Frankly, sometimes I wondered myself why I couldn't do the deed and get it over with; but the fact of the matter was, something in me wouldn't let me because it wasn't what I really wanted. And in order to face that committee, those strange faces all gathered around staring at me and listening to me and judging me, everything that comprised my worst nightmare, I had to really want it.
Daniel seemed to understand when he came into the living room and sat down beside me. I tried to explain it to him and he nodded thoughtfully. It was something I'd never tried to articulate until now and the vague dissatisfaction I'd always felt with my academic career was much clearer now. Making sense of it all filled me with relief.
