Twenty-Three, Fifty-One

Age: 23/51

Because he was my physics teacher, I was now in grad school. I said so in my application - my love of physics was sparked and nurtured by Mr. Turner from the moment I stepped into his class. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what I would have majored in undergrad, if I would have done research on semiconductors, if I would have pursued my PhD.

When he was my physics teacher, Mr. Turner knew how to put on a show. He shot an air bazooka at students who said that air didn’t have mass - students would watch slack-jawed as a ball of air crashed into their classmate, rippling their clothes and blowing back their hair. He spun around on a turntable, a hammer in each hand, to demonstrate the conservation of angular momentum. He plunged metal rings into liquid nitrogen and shot them off of electromagnets to show the relationship between resistance and current. If he greeted us at the beginning of class wearing a tie-dye lab coat and safety goggles, we knew it was time for a performance.

He was my kooky physics teacher, sure, but that label was almost reductive, almost insulting. His theatrics drew students in, yes, but you can’t rely on razzle-dazzle alone to keep a teenager's attention. Rather, it was the way he lectured that was special. There was a warmth to his words, to his gestures. He took you on a journey through a world that was familiar but scary, and gave you terms to describe the things that you already knew, that you already had an intuition for. Formulas were broken down bit by bit until they were painless, almost obvious. He made puns and mnemonic devices to remember Greek letters or the units of a vector. He engaged with students and saw them. He saw me.

He was my high school physics teacher, but so far in grad school - during seminars with great physicists or while organizing panels about women in STEM or while grading my own students’ lab reports - he was the one I kept thinking of.

Age: 22/50

“Because he’s my high school physics teacher,” I shrug as I slide the tassel onto my cap. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I would have majored in physics.”

Clara rolls her eyes and grabs my lip gloss. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he has to come to graduation.”

“He was my physics teacher, but like, he wasn’t just that, you know?”

“Oh, I know.” She swipes the applicator across her lips. “Do your parents know he’s coming?”

“Of course.”

“Do they know he’s been taking you out to lunch?”

I snatch my lip gloss out of her hands.

Age: 21/49

Because he is my physics teacher and not some oafish frat boy, I slide into a pleather booth at the Irish pub instead of a sticky stool at the dive bar. The ambiance is so perfectly him - the warmth of the dark wood, the roasted notes of malted barley, the faded signs for Murphy’s, Smithwick’s, and Guinness. I inhale deeply, smelling cherry, spicy cinnamon, and wood. It smells perfect. It smells like him.

“Can I see your ID, miss?” The waitress plucks my driver’s license from my hands and purses her lips. Her eyes flicker from my birthday, to my picture, to me. I force a smile as I feel my face flush hot. 

“I’ll be right back,” she says with a tight smile, turning on her heel and walking away.

Turner laughs once she is out of sight. “Man, tough crowd today. I’d understand this level of scrutiny at campus bars, but here?” He sips his water. “I remember when they’d let you into the bars at nineteen. Of course, you still couldn’t drink until you were twenty-one.”

“And you followed that rule, right?” I ask, arching an eyebrow and resting my chin on my palm.

He winks. “Always.”

I stick out my tongue at him before blowing him a kiss. He catches it and pretends to tuck it in his pocket.

The waitress comes back and hands me my license. “Happy birthday,” she says, taking out her pad. “Would you like any drinks to start?”

Age: 18/46

Because he is a physics teacher, and an unapologetic nerd, Turner has a science-theme playlist that he blasts after school. The guitar riffs and tinny horns of Weird Science drip with 80s pomp and cheese, and while the bombastic sounds of Oingo Boingo can usually make me smile, that’s not the case today.

“As much as I adore our time together,” he says, looking at his watch, “it’s getting a little late, even for me.”

I shrug and keep staring at the sophomore’s test that I’m grading. He is struggling with the concept of kinematics, but it’s hard to tell where he goes wrong when his handwriting looks like a bowl of spaghetti.

My non-response is a response, though, and there is a heaviness in the air. I look up from Spaghetti Boy’s test to find Turner staring at me. His eyes behind his round lenses are kind, warm, and so, so blue. “Do you want to talk about anything?”

I swallow hard to keep the lump in my throat down. “My mom is still freaking out that I’m not going to Knudsen College like she did. She keeps saying that it doesn’t make sense to go to school in the city if I can live at home instead.”

He closes his eyes and sighs. “It doesn’t matter that you’d be in the city. Northwestern is a good school.”

“Can you convince my mom?” I roll my eyes and blink to hide the tears starting to well up.

His gaze softens. “Could you talk to your dad? Ask him for support?”

“He’s busy.” I shake my head. “With the baby and everything. I’m not spending weekends with him anymore. His new wife says it’s too much right now.”

“His new wife?” He raises an eyebrow and smiles. “Not your step-mom?”

“No. His new wife.”

He laughs, and I feel a brightness light up within me. “Okay, okay. I guess that’s fair enough. But…I think I might have something that would cheer you up.”

I sit up straight and try not to kick myself for being too eager. “You do?”

He smiles and pulls open his desk drawer, taking out a jewel-toned plastic case. “Well, I figured since you gave me a mix, it was only fair that I return the favor.”

I accept the case and trace the edge of it with my thumb. The CD I burned him was in a paper sleeve with the track list scrawled on the disc with a sharpie. He wrote the song titles on a piece of paper in his loopy handwriting, somewhere between cursive and print, and trimmed it to fit the window.

I look at the track list: Kate Bush, Jackson Browne, Otis Redding - people whose CDs I’ve seen at home, but have never bothered to listen to. “Thank you,” I breathe, not daring to mention that I’ve never cared about them before. I didn’t really care who the artists were, what the songs were - I was just honored to have a piece of him.

“Oh, that reminds me.” I grab my backpack and fish around. “I finished it during study hall.”

I hand over a hardback copy of Dune, the giant sandworm on the cover rearing up against an orange and red sky. The graphics look kind of retro, and while the book is in good condition, the wear around the edges betrays its age.

A huge smile splits Turner’s face. “What did you think?”

I wrack my brain to remember what I enjoyed about it, but all I can think of are how paper thin the characters were, how wooden the dialogue was, and how much I did not enjoy my time on the desert planet.

“It was…a lot. Like, it felt huge. I really liked the fear mantra, though. How to let fear wash over yourself.”

“Herbert didn’t create his own world, he created his own universe - arguably more than Tolkien. There’s two sequels - Dune Messiah and Children of Dune - that really explore the full scope of -“ 

The cell phone on his desk lights up and cuts him off with the opening notes of the Imperial March. He picks it up. “Hi, honey.”

Saved, I think, breathing a sigh of relief. 

I sit and finish grading a test as he talks. “I’m just about ready to head out. Got caught up grading and lost track of time. Yeah, I’ll be home soon. Love you too. Bye.”

He hangs up and sighs. “Unfortunately, I do have to leave now.”

I nod and start to pack up my things when he reaches out to touch my shoulder. “You’ll be okay?”

I give him a small smile and nod. He reaches over and pulls me into a one-armed hug. He feels solid, more solid and tangible than anything else around me. I inhale and savor his scent - spicy and woodsy, which I can only catch when I am close enough.

“Yeah,” I say, leaning into him. “I’m going to be okay.”

Age: 21/49

My former physics teacher orders first. “I’ll have a Jameson on the rocks.”

“I will have….” I have to have something special, but not something that is trying too hard. Something classic but laid back. “I’ll have a Guinness on draft.”

“Atta girl,” Turner beams, and I almost burst with pride.

The waitress leaves to get our drinks, and Turner continues. “First Guinness at an Irish pub, that’s a classic. Assuming it’s your first Guinness - can’t imagine they’re very common at frat parties.”

“I don’t go to frat parties,” I scoff.

“Come on,” he laughs, but it sounds more like a bark. “Even I went to some frat parties, and I was a huge nerd.”

“So some things don’t change, huh?” I tease, but the air becomes sharper, tenser. The smile on his face fades, and I fumble to make things right. “Well, it looks like I’m an even bigger nerd than you were.”

He sighs dramatically. “I wanted better for you, I really did.”

I feel myself relax a little bit. It’s okay, I fixed things.

The waitress brings us our drinks, and he raises his glass. “To an even bigger nerd than I was at twenty-one. To your first legal drink - and many more. Cheers!” We clink glasses, and after we sip, he catches my eye and winks. “Happy birthday, my dear.”

I grimace at the bitterness of the ale and at the lie. It’s not my first legal drink. Clara took me out to the one campus bar that allows people to enter after midnight on their birthday. She didn’t push me when I turned down her offer of tequila shots, and she didn’t make fun of me when I ordered a hot toddy. As the veteran party girl, she made me drink a glass of water and eat a handful of crackers before going to bed.

But that means this isn’t my first legal drink. That honor went to Clara and her crackers last night - this morning? Either way, it’s a lie…would he be disappointed in me if I told him the truth?

Turner snaps me out of it. “Every milestone is better with a gift,” he says, sliding a box across the table. 

I freeze at the sight of the tiny white box. There are two black interlocking C’s on the lid, and even someone as unglamorous as me can recognize the logo. “Oh,” I stutter. “Oh my god.”

He laughs as I reach over with shaking hands. I open the box to find a sleek, baby-pink tube with a black tip. “It’s makeup?” I ask, taking it out.

“Lip gloss,” he says with a proud smile. “I may be oblivious, but even I know it doesn’t go out of style.”

The tube feels heavy in my hands. It’s made out of glass, not plastic. The black top is glossy, and just underneath it is a shining gold band for ostentatious decoration. Every piece of makeup I ever bought has been from the drugstore. This one lip gloss could easily be worth as much as my entire makeup collection.

“Oh wow.” I roll the tube between my hand, not knowing what else to do with it. “This is too much.”

He snorts. “Nonsense. I refuse to entertain the idea.”

I don’t know what to say besides thanking him.

“Of course.” He raises his whiskey again. “Happy birthday, my dear. I mean it.”

Age: 22/50

He is my high school physics teacher, but high school teachers can show up to their students’ graduations.

We march into the basketball stadium in two lines. The hoops have been raised and a temporary stage is decorated with banners announcing the different colleges within the university. Hundreds of folding chairs have been set up on either side of the aisle, just underneath the crowd of family and friends that have gathered to watch and cheer.

I scan the crowd, but I don’t see my mom or my dad. I figured I had a better shot of finding at least one of them, considering they’d be split up in the crowd, but no such luck. I do spot Clara’s parents, and I give them a wave. As I start walking down my row of folding chairs, mentally calculating which one is mine - 

I see him. I see Turner. He smirks and waves at me, and I can feel his joy radiating from the stands. He was there for the genesis of all this, starting from the moment he taught me my first physics lesson. He wrote a letter of recommendation for my application. He celebrated with me when I got accepted. He comforted me as I fought with my mother about going. He bought me posters for my dorm room.

I reach up to blow him a kiss, like I have done so many times before, but I pause midway. I wave to him instead before taking my seat. I don’t look at him for the rest of the ceremony.

Age: 23/51

He was my high school physics teacher - and to my students, I am their college physics TA. Some seem to know my name, know my office hours, know where my office is. Some make me wonder if they know what class they registered for.

Some of my students are brilliant, turning in meticulous lab reports. Some of my students are curious, showing up to office hours with questions upon questions. Some of my students are confused, showing up to office hours with different sorts of questions.

The two students who stumbled into my office fell into the Confused category. They took out their notes and flipped open their textbooks, still continuing their conversation.

“I can’t do Wine Wednesdays anymore, man,” one groaned, resting his forehead against his hand. “I’ve got bio lab on Thursdays. It was hell last week, and it’s gonna suck again this week.”

“But Wine Wednesday is easy now, we don’t have to ask anyone to -” he stopped himself and looked over at me, but I pretended to shuffle my papers. “Look man, you just have to start drinking some water. You can’t lose your tolerance when you turn twenty-one, that’d just be fucked.”

Twenty-one.

The papers slipped out of my hand.

I knew I wasn’t that much older than my students - after all, I was an undergrad myself not that long ago - but…

Twenty-one? 

I knew these kids were college aged, but that’s what they felt like - kids. Practically babies. That there was only a two year age difference - empirically, it was nothing, but it felt like forever. 

I looked up at the still-arguing students, and those two years between us seemed like forever. Two years seemed to make all the difference. I stared at them, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of just how much younger they were than me.

A wave of nausea hit me as I considered how much time twenty-eight years really was.