Love in the Time of Climate Change by Brian Adams Page A

to the house when I noticed that Jesse had waylaid two young women, not much older than most of my students. He was madly waving the bulbs of garlic around, slinging shit about some classy garlicky hors d’oeuvres I knew he would never get around to making.
    â€œTypical,” I sighed, and sat down on an empty apple crate to wait, content to watch the gaggle of happy farmer’s marketers parade on by, bags and strollers and dogs in hand.
    I had faded into a sensual daydream involving the Twenty-Nine-Year-Old, me, and a lovely field of garlic in full, luscious bloom, when Jesse rudely interrupted and tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up to see him flanked by his two new friends.
    â€œCasey, this is Patty and Rebecca. They’re grad students in Renaissance Studies at U Mass. Casey teaches at Pioneer Valley Community College.”
    â€œOh, really?” said Patty or Rebecca.
    I couldn’t tell which one was which.
    â€œWhat do you teach?”
    â€œEnvironmental science, climate change, that kind of stuff.”
    â€œAwesome.” Rebecca/Patty replied.
    â€œThey invited us to head over to their place,” Jesse said, giving me a wink and a follow-my-lead-and-we-could-get-lucky look.
    â€œIt’s just up the street. Maybe roast a little garlic. Smoke a joint. Spend a lovely afternoon with two lovely ladies!”
    God, he moved fast. He had known them for what, five minutes, and already he was halfway to first base!
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of grading to do. I should probably head back.”
    He shot me the evil eye, silently mouthing the do-as-I-say-or-I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass command. I had been down this road with him before. To disobey was not an option.
    â€œDude, grading can wait. These two can’t. Let’s go!”
    The twins (they weren’t, but they could have been) had a spacious second-floor apartment on Federal Street, about a block from the center of town.
    We sat on their couch. Jesse, clearly taking to heart the market woman’s words of wisdom, proceeded to hold forth with garlic still in hand.
    The two women put on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, passed around a quart of fresh apple cider and a killer joint, and gave us the lowdown on the trials and tribulations of Renaissance Studies. Gossip and palace intrigue fit for queens and kings. They went off on the relationships between the natural and the supernatural in sixteenth-century England, and the animated discussion about visions, apparitions, miracles, demonic possession, and mystical ecstasy reached such a crescendo that Jesse disappeared into the bedroom with Patty (or was it Rebecca? The pot had not helped in keeping the two of them straight … as it were).
    I was enjoying myself. What was not to like? They were animated, smart, witty, and cute as hell. I was high, and so were they. Whichever one was left was clearly interested in me. God knows, I hadn’t had it in a long time, and here it was being handed to me on a silver platter. Ripe for the plucking. A feast for a renaissance king.
    But just as Rebecca/Patty moved closer next to me and things began to get really interesting—curse and nuisance! blight and bother!—my OCD kicked in. Big time. The goddamn climate-change freight train came roaring down the tracks!
    No! I silently screamed to myself. No! Not now!
    From the moment I had walked into their apartment door I had done my best to ignore the surroundings and keep my eyes on the prize.
    Don’t go there! I had told myself, as I breathed deeply in through the nose, out through the mouth, desperate to banish the incoming explosive images from my head.
    Just close your eyes! Close your damn eyes. Don’t look around. Focus on her beautiful breasts. Screen out the picture of climate chaos that was their apartment.
    It didn’t work. Try as I might, the combination of pot, an unfamiliar setting, and my general anxiety around women