Chapter Text
Brienne knows, packing her books and her furniture into a van for a job that does not have a long-term future, that she is one of the lucky ones. She lets her dad pretend she needs his help to get the secondhand dresser up the ramp, and that is that. Or so she thinks.
“Be safe."
“I will.” She is still surveying her worldly goods, hands on her hips. “I’ll call from the road, and as soon as I get there…”
“You’ll take these,” says her father, and presses two small, oddly-shaped packages into her hands. Brienne stares at them for several minutes before she realizes they are a canister of pepper spray and a plastic object garishly labeled as a ‘safety whistle.’
Brienne swallows hard. She is unable to keep exasperation out of her voice when she says: “I lived in Storm’s End for seven years.”
“I know.” In the bright morning light, her father looks suddenly old, and oddly solemn. “I know. And a small town will be different.”
To that Brienne has no answer. She simply embraces him, and hopes he hasn’t been reading too many nationwide statistics about the rise of gender-based hate crimes.
After that strange valediction, setting off for the Riverlands and a full-time teaching job feels oddly anticlimactic. And a day and a half later, having navigated highways and rest stops, a motel long past its heyday, and far too much road work, she finally pulls into a gravel drive in a college town, and tells herself that the shabby old house in front of her will be home.
The couple renting out the house arrive fifteen minutes after her phone call. Brienne hopes that it won’t be too awkward having her landlords be university staff. But on the whole, she thinks, staring out from the porch, a rambling century-old house rented by people obligated to be at least kind of nice to you is preferable to a soulless new-build apartment rented after a video tour provided by a woman wearing too much makeup. She’s not sure why realtors always seem to wear too much makeup.
When Cat and Ned arrive, she handles the keys while he insists on carrying one of Brienne’s suitcases. It is Cat who shows Brienne how the latch on the old screen door works, shows off the built-in bookcases in the front room. Under other circumstances, Brienne thinks, she might have underestimated Cat, with her soft voice and unfashionably long hair. But here, her confidence is unmistakable. Brienne is amused to note that she and her husband have an antiphonal way of speaking, of encouraging each other to tell stories, to remind her of things like the dishwasher, the trash collection days, the light switch for the cellar stairs.
“It’s beautiful,” says Brienne with unfeigned warmth.
“We spent a lot of time fixing it up,” says Ned. “Became regulars at the hardware and supply stores.”
“They thought we’d get a divorce,” says Cat, smiling fondly. “But we survived even the kitchen remodeling, as you see.”
“We wouldn’t have moved out if it hadn’t been too small.”
“Too small?” Belatedly, it occurs to Brienne that the question is rude. It’s none of her business how her colleagues choose to use space, though she wouldn’t have imagined them as one of the couples that carefully demarcates areas of an ostensibly shared home for their private use.
“Six kids,” says Ned easily. Brienne hopes she looks brightly interested rather than startled.
“Three bedrooms and one and a half baths was not going to cut it,” adds Cat. “Speaking of which, let me show you the bedrooms.”
By the time Cat has given her the tour of the upstairs, Ned has stacked three of the boxes labeled ‘kitchen’ neatly on the stone countertop. She waves them off from the front porch, hoping that they can see only her gratitude, and not her equally genuine relief at their departure.
She unpacks in the languorous heat of late summer, in the state of suspended animation that always seems to come to academic communities in August. She sorts out the books she’ll want in her office from those she wants at home. She visits both branches of the local grocery store chain, and the farmers’ co-op. She is bored, yes; but she also feels, half-superstitiously, that she should use the slowness of this time, conserving her energies for what lies ahead.
Faculty orientation brings with it first-day-of-school nervousness. Brienne wishes that dressing were as simple as putting on a school uniform. At least knee socks and cheap twill are unbecoming on everyone. In the end, she fluffs her hair, straightens her button-down, and decides that this will have to be good enough.
At least, she reflects, clutching her cup of mediocre coffee and plate of fruit salad, most academics are as awkward as each other. She’s not sure how they’re supposed to manage handling breakfast and glad-handing at the same time. After a few minutes of hovering awkwardly, she decides to reduce the risk of dropping grapes memorably onto the floor, and sets her breakfast on one of the tiny tables. She straightens her shoulders. Now she is Brienne, possessor of a covetable table, and people who share her inability to hold items, eat, and make small talk simultaneously can come to her.
She expects her companion to be one of the men who shares her inability to afford tailored suits. She’s pretty sure she owns the exact same pink-and-blue plaid shirt as the man very intently eating a chocolate-filled pastry. At least she didn’t wear it today.
“Hi,” says a voice, and Brienne jumps. “I’m Margaery; can I join you?”
Brienne suppresses the remark that she has already done so. Her self-assured companion is a woman with a shampoo-commercial fall of almond-brown hair whose orientation name tag proclaims her to be jointly appointed to art history and gender studies. “Hi,” says Brienne, and adds: “Brienne.” She is, embarrassingly, impelled to add: “I’m only here on a visiting contract.”
Margaery rolls her eyes. “The social and institutional devaluation of the humanities is not your fault.”
Brienne is startled into a laugh, and covers her mouth with her hand. “Thanks,” she says, hoping this is the correct response. "Art history and gender studies?"
"Redefining masculinities in the Renaissance," says Margaery cheerfully. “History?”
“Joint appointment in history and literature. I don’t think it fit on the name tag.”
“Ah,” says Margaery sagely. “I think we must be part of the same interdisciplinary cluster hire. Designed to enable the administrators to say things like ‘interdisciplinary cluster hire’ in speeches to donors and parents.”
“Oh,” is Brienne’s ineloquent response. She suspects that the other woman’s leather boots are worth as much as the sum in her own bank account, and finds herself inclined to like her anyway. When they are called into the auditorium for a speech that does, in fact, include the phrase ‘interdisciplinary cluster hire,’ Margaery gives her a look sharp as an elbow in the ribs, and Brienne has to bite her lip to keep a straight face.
At the first coffee break, Brienne expects to be left alone again. But not only does Margaery remain by her side, she waves to someone across the room.
“Ygritte,” she says, when the red-headed woman joins them, “this is Brienne. Brienne, Ygritte. Biology-philosophy, history-literature.”
Ygritte’s handshake is pleasingly firm. “You’ll have to join us for Smith’s Day drinks.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow,” says Ygritte, as if this were an explanation. “By the second day of this thing, we’ll need drinks, in the plural. And the solitary downtown brewery has Smith’s Day specials.”
“ 'Set your week to rights!' ” Margaery is obviously quoting. “What this means is that we can order pizza and beer almost as cheaply as if we were still in graduate school, and still have the pizza and beer actually be good. Both of these things,” she says seriously, “are very important.”
“I…” Brienne can’t help feeling a little disoriented, almost disbelieving. But if she’s been adopted by a couple of academia’s extroverts, she supposes she shouldn’t fight it. “I’d love to.”
She isn’t sure how they are supposed to remember details about health insurance policies that are droned at them in an auditorium. Or why, precisely, repetitive speeches from administrators are deemed essential either for faculty information or for faculty morale. She is relieved when they are released to a buffet lunch, and she can distract herself with food. Even Margaery appears to have been numbed into silence by the stultifying nature of the talks. At least, Brienne reflects, shoveling couscous into her mouth, the afternoon sessions will be workshops. That has to be at least marginally better than trying to look alert and professional in a sparsely-populated auditorium.
“Look out,” says Ygritte, “the fourth member of the interdisciplinary cluster hire has deigned to show up.”
Brienne obediently looks up, and her mouth goes dry. This, she decides, is a nightmare. The embodiment of everything she hates about the public perception of expertise is, for some gods-forsaken reason, here, and he looks absurdly, sinfully good. Who wears a black leather jacket to a faculty orientation?
“No,” she says out loud.
“I know,” says Margaery.
“Does he have any graduate degrees?” demands Brienne, half under her breath.
“What admin calls ‘industry experience,’ and I suspect that the committee was not entirely unmoved by the promise of proximity to fabulous wealth.”
“They know nothing,” says Ygritte morosely.
“Why?” asks Brienne. She tells herself the question is not a wail.
Margaery bites the head off a stick of asparagus. “Why the hire? Possibly for the splashy website editorial alone.” Brienne groans. “Political science-business.” Ygritte mimes retching, and Brienne smiles weakly. “Why Jaime Lannister has decided to slum it at River Run College is a greater mystery.”
“I hate everything.”
“No you don’t,” says Ygritte kindly. “But feel free to spill coffee on him accidentally.”