Sir Middling U

Excerpt, pp. 38-42. Copyright 2023

By Kevin Crowley

The sight of the coffees reminded Duffy that he hadn’t finished his morning decaf. Rather than head back to his office, he decided to grab a couple of lattes and pay a visit to one of the few friends he had among the faculty of Sir Middling U.

Dr. Fifi Dubé was a bright young scholar who studied the political economy of climate change. While earning degrees from McGill, Harvard and the London School of Economics, she had published numerous articles and a well-received book, all before her twenty-seventh birthday. She was collegial, hard-working and brilliant—a winning combination that deeply annoyed her faculty colleagues.

The only reason Fifi was working at Sir Middling U was to be close to her ailing mother. Iris Dubé had struggled with asthma her entire life. Now in her early sixties, she was additionally burdened with congestive heart failure. Her declining health, coupled with the recent death of her husband, had prompted Iris to return to Yawnbury, the home of her youth. Iris’s dearly departed spouse—Fifi’s stepfather—had been a petroleum consultant named Frank Dubé. He and Iris had lived their lives moving from one oil-rich country to the next so that Frank could help kings and dictators turn fossil fuel into gold. Owing to her parents’ constant travels, Fifi had done most of her growing up in boarding school. It was the perfect training ground, she later said, for learning to navigate the arcane rules, petty jealousies and spiteful politics of academic life.

Taking the job at Sir Middling U was a major detour from Fifi’s expected career path. No one had been more confounded by the choice than her advisor at the London School of Economics. “Are you bloody mad?” the eminent scholar had exclaimed. “I only mentor one post-doc at a time. You going off to Sir Back-and-Beyond makes me look like a damn poor judge of horse flesh!”

Fifi was undeterred. Her decision to move back to Canada and seek academic work at Sir Middling U was part of a crise de conscience that had flared up following the sudden death of her stepfather. (The Dark Lord, as Fifi called Frank Dubé, had slipped on a puddle of motor oil in an otherwise immaculate street in Kuwait City, striking his head and passing away two days later.) Fifi realized that if she didn’t make up for lost time with her mother, it would soon be too late. She joined Sir Middling U on a post-doctoral fellowship. Over the next twelve months, she applied for several tenure-track positions but was turned down for each. As a consolation, one of the hiring panels upgraded her contract to a limited-term faculty appointment, which the department chair said (without a hint of irony) would “add some meat” to Fifi’s CV.

Fifi had gone straight to her office and punched a hole in the wall.

“I love my mother,” she later told Duffy. “But I wish Iris would either get better or kick the bucket so I can get the hell out of this two-bit prep school.”

Fifi and Duffy had first encountered one another during a meeting of Sir Middling’s equity, diversity and inclusion committee. Duffy had asked a question—far too politely in Fifi’s opinion—about why the university had no plan to implement the education-related recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indigenous residential schools.

“Mr. Duffy is calling bullshit on this committee!” Fifi had declared. “And I agree. When it comes to social justice, Sir Middling U flits from one crisis to another without making good on any of its commitments!”

Duffy had been mortified. His motivation had been far less altruistic than Fifi seemed to think. He had simply seen Sir Middling’s lack of action on Truth and Reconciliation as a missed opportunity for some good PR. But given the ferocity of Fifi’s support, he’d decided that this was not the time to set the record straight.

Over the next few months, he and Fifi crossed paths several times at Sir Dickie’s, the campus grad pub. Before long, they were meeting for coffee at least once a week. Duffy assumed that “Fifi” was a nickname, since the diplomas that hung on her office wall certified that F.I. Dubé had been awarded a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy, each summa cum laude.

“So,” Duffy said one day, “does ‘Fifi’ come from your initials?”

“Nope.”

“A nickname?”

“Sort of.”

“Something cute that your dad used to call you?”

“My stepfather wasn’t a nickname kind of guy.”

“Okay, I give up.”

Fifi put down the book she was reading and looked Duffy square in the eye.

“It’s my burlesque name,” she said. “I perform in an all-woman troupe called The Fabulous Ladies. You should come to one of our shows.”

Duffy’s pale cheeks flushed as red as a cathouse garter. He nodded thoughtfully, hoping to appear more sophisticated than he was.

“You know, I’ve never actually seen a burlesque show,” he said.

“All the more reason to come to one of our gigs,” replied Fifi. “It’ll make you laugh and give you a boner—the perfect night out.”

Duffy’s mouth dropped open.

“Shocked?” asked Fifi.

“A little,” admitted Duffy. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

“Nope. I really am part of a burlesque troupe. We dance, tell naughty jokes and get pretty darn naked. Most people find it funny and arousing.”

Duffy scoured his brain for a witty reply, but his Catholic upbringing sprang into action like an involuntary muscle. Racy repartee was beyond his reach. He tried to smile but his lips seemed to work on just one side, producing a look of virginal embarrassment. Fifi was delighted.

“You were in a cover band,” she teased. “Didn’t you do the whole sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll thing?”

Duffy let out a nervous chuckle. “We smoked a little weed, but the sex was mostly wishful thinking.”

“Geez, I would never have guessed,” said Fifi. More seriously, she added, “Just to be clear, I’m not coming on to you. I prefer women, at least in bed.”

It took a moment for Duffy to digest this remark. If he were more quick-witted he might have replied, “I prefer women both in bed and out.” But he was not that droll, and not that worldly. He just sat there, eyes blank and mouth open. Fifi’s words would prowl through his conflicted mind for a very long time. It wasn’t that he was shocked by her sexual preference; it was the frank mention of sex itself­, and Fifi’s evident comfort with it.

Nearly three years on, Duffy had still not summoned the courage to see Fifi perform with her burlesque troupe. And despite his lively imagination, he was in no hurry to do so. He enjoyed Fifi’s company and didn’t want any of his personal hang-ups to spoil their friendship.