Read Love in the Time of Climate Change for Free Online Page B

Nothing for middle-school eyes to gawk at. You couldn’t access squat without the coveted friend status.
    With one perplexing exception.
    â€œUh oh!” Jesse gasped. “Could be time to flip fantasies.”
    â€œHuh? Where? What are you talking about?” All my attention was focused on that stunning face, those dazzling freckles, those deep, blue, adorable eyes.
    I had barely noticed that there was another person in one of the pictures.
    â€œChrist, are they holding hands?” Jesse asked.
    I looked again. The image was taken from quite a distance, but the two women looked awful close.
    â€œThey’re not holding hands.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œThey’re not holding hands!”
    â€œHard to tell. You may be barking up the wrong tree,” Jesse said.
    â€œI’m not barking.”
    â€œ
Woof woof
.”
    â€œShut up! I’m not barking, damn it. Even if I was, it doesn’t mean anything.”
    â€œDude. She’s holding hands with another woman. It means something.”
    â€œFor the tenth time, she’s not holding hands!”
    â€œRelax. Take another hit. Why are you getting so defensive?”
    â€œI’m not getting defensive,” I argued, my voice rising a notch.
    â€œYou are. What’s up with that? It’s not like she’s potential. She’s a student, remember? Untouchable. Beyond reach. Taboo. Forbidden.”
    â€œBelieve me, I remember!”
    â€œGod, she
is
hot though. So’s the woman she’s holding hands with.”
    â€œJesus, will you stop already! She’s not holding hands. Anyway, it could be her sister.”
    â€œDo you hold hands with your sister?”
    â€œA best friend.”
    â€œDo you hold hands with me?”
    â€œWomen are different. You know that. They’re always arm in arm, hugging and shit like that. They’re totally into it. It could be her best friend.”
    â€œBest friend with benefits,” Jesse said.
    â€œShut up!”
    â€œWhy don’t you friend her and ask? You could be like, ‘Hey darling. It’s your sex obsessed, desperate-to-get-in-your-pants, climate-change prof here. Just drooling over your profile and wondering if you were doing the deed with the chick in the pic. Please get back. LOL. As in: Lots of Lust.’”
    I punched him in the arm.
    â€œYou’re a pervert,” I groaned. “You really are.”
    â€œWhatever,” Jesse answered, pulling up another one of his nurses. “Good thing it doesn’t matter.”
    â€œYeah,” I sighed. “Good thing.”

7
    M R . C ONDOM CAME TO MY CLASS Thursday afternoon.
    I had met him at a workshop a number of years earlier at the University of Massachusetts, and we had clicked immediately. He was an Indian gentlemen (Indian as in India), now in his sixties, with deep, dark wrinkles and a British Indian accent to die for.
    I would have given anything to talk like him. All of my social awkwardness, my angst, my occasional bouts of low self-esteem would disappear in a heartbeat if only I could speak with that lilting roll. Everything he said, no matter how seemingly trivial or mundane, sounded just right.
    He had worked for years in the Indian government on population-control issues, and had retired to this country to be closer to his daughter who had relocated here. This was the third semester in a row I had invited him in as a guest presenter.
    â€œI am extremely happy to be here,” he said to my class, smiling as the wrinkles danced on his face. “Beyond happy. Ecstatic! And I want to share somethingwondrous that happened on my way to your lovely college this afternoon.”
    He reached into the oversized backpack he had slung across his shoulder and took out a rusty-looking brass lamp.
    â€œOn a whim,” he said (God, how I loved how he said the word
whim
), “I stopped by that antique store on Olive Street. What do you call