“Being an associate professor should keep me pretty busy at first.”
“What do you teach?”
“Political science.”
“Oh,” Gail responded, hoping not to hear any more.
That was fine with Jen, since she didn’t enjoy discussing it outside an academic setting. Besides, Gail and Jen hadn’t had anything to really talk about since tenth grade, when their interests diverged dramatically. Jen discovered scholarships and academics while Gail discovered that boys pay a lot of attention to girls who put out. So when they did see each other the conversations were always stiff until they reverted back to high school. Thank God for the past — it was resuscitating another friendship.
As far as wedding showers go, Mandy’s was enjoyable. Getting together with the girls was fun for everyone, but Jen derived a little extra pleasure from it. After years of not quite fitting in, she was now the one who everyone admired — bold, intelligent, and free to focus on herself. She didn’t quite see herself the same way, but she knew they all did. Jen wasn’t proud of herself for needing to feel superior in order to face the fact that a wedding shower for her had no chance of taking place before Hillary would be a candidate for president.
Jen still had not even taped the packing boxes. Thinking about the ordeal of moving made her start to panic. Mandy saw Jen preparing to leave. She rushed over and hugged Jen tightly.
“I’m going to see you before you move, right?”
“Of course…God, I’m so nervous about going,” Jen confessed. “The whole thing — new city, new job, new people… scares me. Starting over at 31 — it’s crazy.”
“You’re so wrong. What do you really have going on here? In D.C., you’re just another cute girl working in politics. How many brilliant and sexy political science professors do you think there are in Minneapolis?”
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