The Apartment Read Online Free Page A

only because she’s more senior than you”—I was offered two positions elsewhere. I chose the Melbourne City Campus job because it presented longer, university-style courses. I thought that was important at the time, but I should have taken the CyberSmarts job instead; I would have been able to lead my online, outcomes-based cram tutorials from the comfort of my study and take naps between emails.
    I greet Lindi at the reception desk and head down the sixth-floor corridor, following the sign to Communications, Networking and Correspondence toward my slot of an office. This “campus”—really just another anonymous suite of offices and boardrooms—was furnished no more than three years ago, but already the office door droops and the carpet tiles are coming up, so I have to shoulder my way in every morning. There are three shelves bracketed into one wall, sparsely littered with a pile of files and papers. I still haven’t bothered to move my books in here, and I know it’s because that would imply some sort of commitment. Twenty-five years’ worth of arcane Victorian (not to mention Elizabethan and early-modern) expertise still lies dust-caked in its boxes at home.
    I go to the kitchenette to fill up my water bottle. I really feel like coffee, but there’s only cheap instant and I still haven’t got it together to buy myself a coffeemaker for my office. As I’m bent over the slow-running tap, I feel someone coming into the narrow space behind me. The kitchen’s so small that the unspoken etiquette is for only one person at a time to enter, but now I feel a hand clamping my arm.
    “How are you doing, Mark?”
    I turn awkwardly to Lindi, who’s now blocking any escape route.
    “Fine, thanks, and you?” I say, hoping that she’ll leave it there.
    But she doesn’t. “No, I mean really. It’s such a terrible thing that happened to you and your wonderful family.” She’s never even met Steph or Hayden—of course I would never bring them here.
    “Thanks. We’re okay.” I don’t want this conversation. My wonderful families and terrible things seem to go together. Just imagine how Lindi would be acting if she knew about my
first
family. She’s just being kind, but when she probes like this, I feel cornered and snappish, and I don’t want to be rude to one of my few friends here.
    “I want you to be okay,” she says.
    “Mmm, thanks,” I say again, and pointedly turn back to the sink, where my container is full and overflowing pathetically down the drain.
    Finally, Lindi gets the hint and moves away.
    Trailing down the corridor to Classroom C12, my water bottle in hand, I realize how hunched I’ve become. I straighten my back and level my shoulders, girding myself for the soul-sucking onslaught of the Level 1 General Literature class. I stride in with a sad, forced “Good morning!” dripping with false cheer. There’s only the slightest dip in the volume of conversation as I set up the keywords on the projector. When I start talking, most of the kids look at me with some variation of loathing and distaste, as if I’m the sand in their Vaseline. It’s war poetry today, but it could be anything. I used to be interested in this stuff when I was young—I had better teachers than myself, I suppose—but I can’t conceive of a way to engage these students, who stare at me, fuming like angry customers who aren’t getting what they paid for. I become aware of the drone in my voice, and the more I talk, the more anxious I become.
    Somehow, at last, it’s ten o’clock. When I get back to my office, I check my emails, ignoring the departmental circulars and clicking open a message from Steph. After all this time, my mood still bumps up every time I see her name in my in-box.
Hi Mark,
    Didn’t tell you this morning because I wanted to surprise you, but just to let you know that I put in a request for a house swap. Here are the details of the place that responded—they sound v cool and French!
    Mom and