From Publishers Weekly
From the author of Nine Wives comes this amusing tale of an insecure college grad who wants nothing more than to drop a few pounds, write the great American novel and lose his virginity. Raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Justin Hearnfeld is plagued by his lackluster track record with the opposite sex. After landing a job teaching English at the Clarke School for Boys, his abhorrent former high school, Justin becomes obsessed with striking yet unattainable co-worker Beverly Kinney. But his friend and fellow teacher David Grinstein, persuades him to instead try for Sadie Black, a teacher at Clarke's sister school. To add to the complication, Justin's pious ex-girlfriend, Abigail Wilson, comes back into his life with a newfound enthusiasm for sex. Enmeshed in an awkward and slightly unbelievable love triangle, Justin has to contend with the many uproarious obstacles standing between his virginal self and sex. Elish's lighthearted romp will strike a chord with the early 20s set. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
Like most faculty members, Justin was no fan of the new policy. After all, why should he be required to use valuable free periods—especially with the end of the year crunch looming—to participate in other classes? “So we can keep in touch with what each other is up to”—that’s how Dr. Bell had put it. Fair enough, but given Justin’s lifelong hatred of the natural sciences, it felt strange to be flanked by a gaggle of voice-cracking sophomores, uncomfortable in their ties and jackets, moments away from dissecting a fetal pig.
“Your scalpel?”
Justin glanced to his lab partner: history teacher David Grinstein. Justin’s closest friend at Clarke, they had arranged their schedules to suffer through Dr. Bell’s latest brainchild together.
“Yeah,” Justin said, carefully taking the instrument. “Thanks.”
He looked to the other side of the room. Mrs. Hahn, the aging bio professor who had seemed aged when Justin had been a Clarke student himself, was showing two students the proper way to make the first incision.
“So,” David whispered, “I’ve been thinking.”
Justin hesitated a moment before answering. Only a year removed from college, he still feared the well-chronicled wrath of Mrs. Hahn. Yes, Justin was now compelled to call her “Sylvia,” but in his day, she had been known around the Clarke halls as “The Ball Remover.”
“Thinking what?” Justin said.
“Sadie.”
“What about her?”
“She likes you, dude. It’s obvious.”
Justin sighed. Sadie Black—the Bridgemore teacher he had met while codirecting Our Town that fall. From the start, Justin could never quite decide if her looks could be categorized as sexy on account of her slim waist and largish breasts, or merely interesting due to the frizzy hair and slightly large nose. Then there were those temporary braces, the result of oral surgery from a biking accident. Unfortunately, whenever Justin tried to imagine how much prettier Sadie would look without them (they had been due to come off over the winter), he found it impossible to forget the rehearsal where she had directed an entire scene with a small wad of chunky peanut butter smeared across two upper right teeth.
“Come on,” David said again. “Just call her.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen?”
Justin and David looked up. Mrs. Hahn smiled broadly from across the room.
“How can we expect our students to take this work seriously when our two visiting teachers are chattering like a bunch of Bridgemore girls?”
Known more for her nicotine-stained teeth than her wit, this comment elicited a series of appreciative and sustained chuckles from the twenty or so students. Her point made, Mrs. Hahn turned to the next set of lab partners. Justin and David exchanged a resigned glance. For the time being, they had no choice but to focus on their pig.
“You do the honors,” Justin said, handing David the scalpel.
David smiled. “Gee, thanks.”
As Justin watched his friend take a practice cut above the animal’s belly, he remembered how much he had hated performing the same task for the same teacher seven years earlier. Which made him wonder (not for the first time) what he had been thinking when he had decided to return to his alma mater. Yes, he appreciated that Mr. Andrews had been in a bind, but was that reason enough to accept a job? Did he have a secret desire to rewrite his Clarke history, making up for an unhappy high school career with a brilliant one as a teacher? Or was he just that desperate for something to do with himself? Though his tenure was just short of a year old, Justin didn’t even remember anymore.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Hahn was saying to a student across the room. “Make the incision at the base of the rectum.”
With that, Justin made a decision. Just because he was being forced to reacquaint himself with the horrors of biology, didn’t mean that he had to pay close attention. As David took a second practice cut, Justin made no effort to stop his mind from wandering. Yes, he knew that thinking about Beverly Kinney was no more than an exercise in advanced futility. Not only was she firmly out of his league, she wasn’t even available. There was Gene, a surprisingly pallid lawyer who Justin had seen, from a distance, at a varsity basketball game. But Justin also knew that this was one of those times in life where logic was meaningless. From the moment he had seen her at the year’s first faculty meeting, browsing through a copy of The Red Badge of Courage, he had been a goner.
And so the walls of the biology lab melted away to a wooded country road. Out of the mist came a bright red convertible, taking hairpin curves at seventy miles per hour. At the wheel, Justin glanced briefly in the rearview mirror. Gone were the blue blazer, khakis, loafers, and loosely knotted tie—the restrictive uniform of the Clarke faculty. In their place were faded jeans, a white T-shirt, and leather jacket. A pair of Ray-Bans was perched on Justin’s nose. His sandy blond hair, usually awkwardly parted to the side, was slicked back; his chin sculpted by a well-groomed goatee. The fifteen or so doughy pounds he had been unable to lose since high school were gone. His body was hard and lean.
Soon he came to an impressive halt in front of a Southampton beach bungalow where Beverly waited, slouched against the doorway in a purple beach towel. With a quick wave, Justin leaped out of his vehicle (who needed doors?) and took stock of his lady: blond hair, pale blue eyes, long legs, big bust, mole on left cheek. And now the Kissable Kinney (as she was called by many Clarke students) was scrunching her face into a grimace of pure, unadulterated longing. “Kiss me, goddamnit!” Who was Justin not to oblige? The towel dropped to the welcome mat. He lifted his love into his arms and carried her across the marble foyer, toward the carpeted steps that led upstairs to paradise—her bedroom.
“I can’t believe this is happening!” Beverly said, doing an eager swan dive for the mattress. “I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you casting Our Town.”
Justin smiled. “I’ve wanted you ever since the day I read your syllabus for ‘Introduction to the Essay.’”
He flung his pants across the room. Beverly spread her legs. A moment later she emitted an astonished gasp as Justin put himself inside her. Just like that, the two English teachers fell into a natural rhythm, playing a love scene for the ages—short on coherent dialogue, but long on vigorous physicality. In fact, it wasn’t long before the two bodies were making a friction so intense that the sheets began to smolder. Beverly noticed it first.
“Do you smell smoke?” she gasped, her legs wrapped around Justin’s back.
“Smoke?” Justin managed.
The fact was that he had, but was enjoying himself too much to be bothered. A burning bungalow? It would take more than that to make him interrupt a passion play of this intensity. But just as Justin was recommitting himself to the task at hand, he felt someone yank him—hard. Unfortunately it wasn’t Beverly digging her fingernails into his back, pulling him into a new position. Just like that, Justin was back in the science lab where he had no choice but to refocus his attention on his fetal pig: strangely enough, it was now burning. As David pulled Justin away from the blaze, Mrs. Hahn lurched toward it.
“Put that out! Someone!”
Justin saw Brad Hickok, a boy he had given a C plus the past semester in “Early Shakespeare,” running toward him, a fire extinguisher in hand. Either Brad didn’t know how to aim or, still unhappy about his grade, didn’t try. The first two blasts hit Justin squarely in the chest and face.
“Lower!” Mrs. Hahn cried.
Brad lowered and shot a third time, this time thoroughly dousing the pig. As a thin line of white smoke rose to the ceiling, Justin realized that the smoke alarm had been sounding. Before anyone could say another word the door burst open. It was Raymond, head of the school custodial staff.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
As Mrs. Hahn turned his way with a sour smile, Justin knew better than to expect mercy. His only hope was to beat her to the punch.
“I’ve had a hankering for bacon for weeks,” he said. “I decided to cook my pig instead of dissect it.”
Thankfully, it was enough of a joke to break the tension. As Raymond smiled the laughter grew quickly into hoots and hollers, until Mrs. Hahn restored order with a sharply delivered, “Gentlemen! Your pigs!” As the class grudgingly turned back to their assigned task, David handed Justin a paper towel. Wiping his face, Justin returned to the incident at hand. A burning pig? He had no recollection of reaching for a knob. No memory of hitting it accidentally with his knee . . .
A quick glance below his belt was all it took for the answer to become painfully clear. As Justin’s desire had taken him to new imaginative heights, a critical part of his anatomy had come along for the ride. While screwing the Kissable Kinney he must have unconsciously grinded his hips against the side of the table. Apparently, his semi-erect penis, straining against the inside of his khakis, had pushed up the knob to the Bunsen burner, unfortunately one of the ...
