Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
I noticed that she sometimes sat along the campus sidewalk, at a table bearing a banner that read, “Conservation Help, Five Cents Please.” One day, as I was walking across campus, I noticed her sitting there. My stomach twisted. I felt as though I missed her, even though I saw her every day.
I’d just say hello. See how she responded to me if it was just the two of us there. Maybe she’d come right out and tell me what was upsetting her.
Or she might treat me like I didn’t really matter to her either way. No anger, no affection. Just indifference. I swallowed.
I walked up to the table. I saw her notice me approach, but she glanced away quickly, pretending she hadn’t seen me. She kept reading the large history book she had spread out before her. Or rather, she kept pretending to. I could see that she was breathing heavily.
“Hello Ellie,” I said softly, stopping in front of the table.
She hesitated for a second, as if procrastinating at looking at me, and then she looked up.
“Hi, Professor Steele,” she said, her eyes fixed blankly in the center of my forehead. “How are you?”
Terrible.
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling politely. “What are you reading about?”
She looked down at the book. Her thumb tapped one of the pictures. I was looking at it upside down, but it was unmistakably the wall of an ancient Egyptian tomb. Nothing more distinctive than that style of art.
“Ancient Egypt,” she said.
“Your thumb told me,” I said, smiling, hoping she would smile back. She didn’t. “Do you like learning about it?” I asked.
“I do,” she said, a hint of eagerness creeping into her voice. “It’s my favorite subject in history, actually. I’m going to write my final paper for Ancient and Medieval History on it.”
I smiled. “Why is it your favorite?”
She let out a sigh, looking off into the trees behind me. Her eyes got a dreamy look for a moment. “Nostalgia, I suppose,” she said. “I had this book on ancient Egypt when I was a kid. I was obsessed with it. I read it all the time. I just have a fondness for that culture. It has always captured my imagination.”
She became animated again. Warmth was spilling out of her just like it used to. I took a step closer to her.
“You’ll make a wonderful professor, Ellie,” I said.
Her eyes flickered back to me, and the light in them snapped out. She pressed her lips together. “Thanks,” she said vaguely.
I’d overstepped my bounds somehow. I wasn’t sure how. I wanted to just blurt out the question, “Why are you upset with me?” but I held my tongue. Emotions were complicated. Maybe she wasn’t even sure why she was upset with me.
“This is a fun set-up you’ve got here,” I said instead, taking a couple of steps back to look at the sign more closely.
“Oh,” she said. “Yeah, it can be.”
She paused. She seemed to be hoping I would walk away.
“How does it work?” I asked.
“Well, people can just come up and ask any questions about conservation that they might have,” she said. “It’s really more of a publicity stunt. Reminding people about conservation. Getting more people to join our club. Being here to contradict the people who think taking care of the planet isn’t important.”
Students started to gather around us as we talked. It was as if we’d created an attraction by having a conversation together. I hoped it was because I was famous and not because there was gossip going around campus about Ellie and me.
Ellie seemed to be worried it was the latter. She glanced around at the students. I gathered from her tight expression that something like this hadn’t happened at the table before.
“Does anyone think that taking care of the planet isn’t important?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “Lots of people,” she said.
“I think there are a lot of people who don’t believe that certain things are necessary to take care of the planet,” I said. “They’re not worried about the ozone layer, or the ice melting in the arctic. But they would probably say that it’s important to take care of the planet in other ways. Not set forests on fire, all that.”
I was just trying to make conversation and channel my nervous energy into something constructive. I hadn’t meant to imply that global warming wasn’t real, or that it wasn’t important to take care of the planet in the ways Ellie was trying to teach people about. I agreed with her about all of those things.
“If they don’t believe those things are necessary,” Ellie said, “they should do more research. That kind of ignorance is a byproduct of our capitalist society. People just want to feel comfortable. They want to have an excuse for being selfish: it’s just how things are done. People will follow whatever the crowd is doing. Big businesses are
destroying forests, and those same people you’re talking about seem to think it’s worth it. It’s worth it for some people to make more money, even if part of the planet is damaged.”
My lips parted. Vaguely, I was aware that she was attacking me attacking big businesses and capitalism: the things that had built my wealth. I couldn’t be offended. I was so enamored of how articulately and passionately she spoke her opinions.
The people watching started to react as if it was a spectator sport. Some of the boys whooped at the end of Ellie’s argument, and someone said, “Burn.” She was looking at me fiercely, anger in her eyes, as if I had personally chopped down a forest for oil. If she was trying to dispel the rumors that she and I were romantically involved, she was doing a good job of it.
“That’s all true,” I said graciously. To me this was all still just an interesting discussion with the woman I loved and had been longing to talk to for weeks. “But it’s possible to run a big business without damaging the planet. And I think that capitalism is a necessary thing. Those big businesses are creating jobs for a lot of people. Creating products that people need or that improve their lives.”
“Too many of those businesses make reckless choices,” she said. “They choose profit over people, and profit over the planet. That sets an example of greed and selfishness.”
I exhaled. She was passionate. I got a sense of what she’d meant when she said she wanted to look at history and change the world. She was doing it already, starting with conversations behind a card table next to a sidewalk.
I was absolutely smitten.
“I think you’re right,” I said. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely, right? Money is power. But think of it this way: there have been good kings and bad kings. We live in a world where people can gain power through money. People can become like the kings of whatever corporations they’re ruling.”
“Or queens,” someone shouted through the crowd. It wasn’t an angry comment, just a friendly correction. I could sense that the only person here who really thought ill of me was Ellie.
“Or queens,” I agreed. “They can use that power selfishly, or they can actually look out for all of the people they’re providing with financial security. They can help the planet with their business practices. They can use whatever money they have to do good in the world.”
Ellie watched me, her eyes wary. I could tell that I was winning her over, but she didn’t want to be won over.
A couple of the guys in our crowd clapped.
“Businesses aren’t kept accountable,” she said. “There should be laws put in place that restrict their power. I’m not comfortable hoping that someone with power is just going to be a ‘good guy’ when the temptation to be selfish is so strong.”
She made eye contact when she said it. I’d been missing making eye contact with her, but this didn’t make me feel better. There was ice in her gaze. She hadn’t been talking about businesses, not really. She’d been talking about me.
I watched