11. A Jan Fung, Not a Jane Fung - Lords of Serendipity

A few weeks later, in the lead-up to the final exam for STA 105, Jack asked Allard to meet him in his office.

Take a seat.

Okay. What are we discussing?

I had a meeting with a student yesterday, said Jack. Actually, a student, and a parent, and a lawyer. They brought me these.

Jack pointed to a large box of chocolates tied with a crimson-red bow and a bottle covered in gold foil.

Okay. Is that champagne?

It’s called baijiu.

Oh, right, Chinese vodka. Interesting.

Why, Allard, is that interesting?

Jack generally didn’t care for his head TA, with his Tron and Dune T-shirts. Whether he was sitting in a back-row corner seat during Jack’s lectures or directly across from him in office meetings, Allard’s face alternated between casual contempt and little-boy vulnerability. It made you want to punch and protect him at the same time. Which made you do neither. Jack wondered how natural, how learned, how practiced this was.

Well, said Allard, it’s interesting that a student would decide to have legal representation for a meeting with their professor. I’m assuming this was, this was a . . . was this a former student? Asking to rewrite the final exam?

No. It was a current student. And she was questioning her midterm grade.

Oh, Allard sighed. She. He looked around the office with mild interest, smiling and exerting the air of someone who thought he’d been invited to his own execution only to find out they were decorating cupcakes.

You seem relieved?

I am.

Why?

Allard shook his head at Jack. The contempt was back, absent the little-boy part.

Exam rewrite requests, from former students? Very rare but also incredibly time-consuming if the request is granted, Allard said. I mean, I don’t mind, I’m paid overtime to take care of all of it, but the whole process can take months, and the student always wants to rewrite right away.

Why?

Usually it’s for grad school applications.

I see.

And if lawyers get involved, it’ll probably cost thousands of dollars. Not that I care about the university having to pay that much, but students’ families? They already pay so much for tuition, especially the international students, right? And all of that for what? Usually on a rewrite, for two, maybe three percent. But if it’s a current student, and they’re just questioning their grade on the midterm? Allard shrugged and got up.

Sit down, please.

Allard sat down.

Something else?

The student was complaining that she received a 76 on the midterm.

Huh. That’s a pretty good grade though.

At one point in the meeting, the student’s mother said to me, This isn’t what we paid for.

Allard cocked his head like a dog hearing a high-pitched noise.

So, what did you say?

I said, Who did you pay, to do what? Because this sounded like cheating, to me.

And?

Well, they began arguing, and not in English. The student was upset with her mother, and the mother was upset with the lawyer, and the lawyer was trying to get them to stop talking by pointing at me. And then they all got up and left. They forgot the chocolates and the bottle, Jack said, tapping on the box.

Did you get the student’s name?

I did. Jane Fung. I looked her up. She’s not in one of your sections.

Are you sure? The name sounds familiar.

I know. I checked. You have a Jan Fung, not a Jane Fung.

Allard went blank.

But Jack didn’t notice. He was staring at his computer.

Seventy-six on the midterm looks like an outlier for Jane Fung, said Jack. All of her other grades so far have been in the high eighties. I don’t think we need a regression analysis to figure out what’s going on here, do we? Allard? Hello? Are you with me?

Pardon?

Do we need a regression analysis to figure this out? As I said earlier, I suspect there’s some kind of cheating going on here.

Do you think someone’s being paid to do the work for her, but she had to write the midterm herself, and that’s why the grade was so much lower?

You clearly have experience with this kind of thing, Allard.

Yes.

So now what?

I can start the investigation, but this, as you say, kind of thing usually gets escalated pretty fast.

To where? asked Jack.

To the Dean’s Office. To one of the associate deans.

Helen?

Maybe that’s her first name? I can write to her office. The usual way is—

I’ll do it, Jack said.

Allard studied him for a moment. Jack’s tone had shifted. He sounded excited to be speaking with an associate dean about a cheating case, which was perverse.

Okay, he said. Can I go now?

Yes, said Jack.

Thanks. See you at lecture.

Allard left. For the first time in the project, he’d made a mistake. Allard got a name wrong. It could have been fatal for him, his project.

There was Jan Fung. One of his clients. And there was Jane Fung. Not one of his clients. Just another cheating international student.

While Jack went after Jane Fung, Allard had to get to Jan Fung as soon as he could, before she showed up in Jack’s office with her mother and a lawyer complaining that this wasn’t what they had paid for.

Paid who? Jack would ask, and she’d say, My TA Allard, and then Jack would ask, What did you pay him for? and she would answer, and it would all be over.

In fact, Jan Fung got to Allard first. She waited for him outside the lecture hall at the end of the next class. She was shaking and looked ready to cry, but, Allard noticed, she was alone and holding a box of chocolates. Allard found an empty section of bench and suggested sitting down.

Jan offered him the chocolates. Allard accepted them graciously, along with her apology that she couldn’t find any more money to give him and didn’t know what else she could do. She was staring down at her lap, breathing in and out, her blue surgical mask sucking and popping. She said it again.

She really, really didn’t know what else she could do.

But Jan was lying.

Her eyes grew big and glassy at the large, mouth-breathing white man sitting beside her, terrified he was going to raise his eyebrows like the AI had told her some of them did when there was no more money.

But he didn’t raise his eyebrows and tell her where to meet him that night.

So she continued.

I don’t know what else I can do because, because, I did so bad, very very bad, on the midterm, respected Head TA, and I know that’s why you decided not to, not to . . .

Allard held one of his big hands in front of her damp, flushed face.

There is nothing to worry about. Actually, Professor himself recently noticed your lower grade on the midterm and wondered why, because of how well you’ve been doing. In fact, at Professor’s direction, I am going to change your grade right after lunch. To a seventy-six.

Really? The Professor Bayern, he talked about me?

Yes. And there is no need for the chocolates, or anything else, okay? Just keep doing what you’re doing.

She sniffed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I was so worried!

Don’t worry. Everything is fine, said Allard.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Like I said, I was so worried! But please keep the chocolates. Give them to your sweetheart, the love of your life. Thank you so much! Bye-ee!

She pulled the hot-pink kitty-faced straps of her backpack onto her shoulders and got up from the bench. She gave him a little wave and smile and left at a trot, staring at her phone, a dangle of Labubu dolls studying Allard in her wake. That afternoon, Allard changed her grade and mailed the chocolates to his mother. Patricia received them with thanks and in turn mailed him his ticket to the Haven Christmas Gaudy.

Given her schedule, Helen wouldn’t be able to see Jack till early December to discuss a possible academic integrity concern associated with STA 105 that, he’d explained in his email, was best discussed in person.

Butterflies bred inside him as he imagined seeing Helen again. He didn’t even realize how much he’d wanted to, until the opportunity presented itself. She had asked him to contact her directly the next time there was an issue in STA 105. That was his cover. Because Jack had made the decision, repeatedly, to avoid thinking about why he was so excited to see her. Or why, the day of the meeting, he shaved and, dipping into the rusty-red dregs of a fifteen-year-old bottle of bay rum, dabbed cologne behind his ears, his index fingers stained like he’d just voted twice in some post-invasion election. Arriving at the main academic building on the first Friday morning in December, he took the elevator to the dean’s offices and went into a windowless conference room. At which point, it felt like a flock of seagulls were attacking the butterflies in his stomach. A kaleidoscope of butterflies. But how did he know it was a kaleidoscope, and not a “brace” or a “swarm”?

How could he not know how he knew?

Jack knew the term because Elizabeth had edited a children’s book called A This of That. As in, a kaleidoscope of butterflies, a flock of seagulls, a murder of crows.

Good morning, Professor Bayern.

Helen was sitting at the head of the table. She was not alone. Jack hadn’t expected to walk in to candles on a white tablecloth, obviously, but he hadn’t expected this, either. She was surrounded by young women and men, all of them wearing odd-shaped, brightly colored glasses. Beside their open laptops, they all had metallic water bottles covered in triangles and flags and bumper stickers. A few were wearing keffiyehs. Many were wearing small, white, sharp, and beaklike N95 masks. They looked like owls, not seagulls. They all waved at him, crinkling their eyes.

A what of owls?

If Elizabeth were here, she could tell him. But of course, if Elizabeth were here now, he wouldn’t be here now. He wouldn’t be using a cheating case as an excuse to see Helen after years and years of pretending that he didn’t want to see Helen now that Elizabeth was dead.

That’s right. His wife was dead. That was it.

Walking backward, Jack moved toward the door.

Professor Bayern? Jack? Is everything okay? Jack?

He was in the stairwell by the time Helen reached him.

Jack! What’s wrong?

He stopped on the stairs.

What?

Helen, I’m a fool. I’m such a fool.

She sighed, squinted, grinned.

You don’t have a complicated case to discuss.

I do. Or maybe. I don’t actually know.

Why didn’t you just send your head TA? He’s very practiced with these sorts of things.

Because.

Because why, Jack? she said, with a softness that made him look up at her, smiling down at him, her brown eye and green eye inviting him in.

Yes. Because.

Helen stopped smiling and checked her phone.

Jack. Make a decision. Either ask me to dinner or let me go back to my meeting.

Would you like to go to dinner?

No.

Oh.

Let’s start with a cup of coffee. Maybe a glass of wine.

Oh, okay. Yes. Okay.

Now, do you want to come with me?

For a glass of wine?

No, Jack. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Do you want to come with me to tell my advisory group about the possible academic integrity case in STA 105?

Oh, okay. Yes. Okay.

Shambling like a honey-faced bee-stung bear, Jack followed Helen back to the dean’s conference room.