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The Deaf Chef

EM Lindsey

ChapterOne

Rhett

‘Professor, I’m horny.’ That’s what Alliesigns. What shesaysis, “Professor, I’m starving.”

In the few lessons she’s absorbed about ASL, she understands that emphasis is the key in a lot of ASL conversation, she just missed the mark on this one by signing it far too many times. The one thing I can say is she’s enthusiastic.

Horny? Probably not.

But this isn’t an ASL class. It’s a history class. It just so happens the professor is Deaf, and he’s encouraged the students to take a few sign language lessons so they can communicate with him in his own language.

Apparently, she did what he asked—she just didn’t quite getthatlesson right.

I glance over at Robbie, who chokes and dribbles the sip of coffee he was taking down the front of his shirt. Luckily, it’s a black shirt, so it doesn’t really show.

His eyes dart over to me, and he signs my name. ‘Rhett? Stop smiling, you asshole.’

‘You’re smiling too,’ I fire back with a smirk.

Robbie swipes the back of his hand across his lips and clears bits of coffee from the back of his throat very loudly. He turns to her and manages a smile. ‘Fifteen minutes until class is over. And that’s the wrong sign for starving,’ he signs.

I repeat that aloud for her. It’s second nature to me now. I find myself mumbling aloud in conversations with all Deaf friends just because it’s habit, and sometimes I think I do it in my sleep. Hell, the two guys I’ve managed to take home on shitty app dates have complained about it. They say I should stop flapping my arms and wiggling my fingers.

I wanted to flap my fingers right into their eyeballs. Instead, I just ghosted them and pretended like the nights of crappy sex didn’t exist as I went back to my increasingly mundane life.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the pool of interpreters in this small town is dreadfully small and the fact that the community college here is offering Deaf teachers a chance to teach literally anything else besides ASL, I’d probably retire.

But I can’t do Robbie dirty like that.

He’s worked too fucking hard for this job, and his only other real option would be to either teach at a Deaf high school—which he’s said repeatedly he’d rather throw himself into the sun and watch his skin melt off in slow motion—or head across the country to Gallaudet, but a Deaf university isn’t exactly hard up for Deaf professors there.

It helps that the benefits are pretty good here, and it’s full-time pay. I can’t quite give up something with stable working hours and health insurance.

I just have to deal with, you know,students. Post-pubescent but not-quite-adult-yet students. Their brains aren’t fully formed, and I swear, every semester, there is at least one student who tries to cover up his farts with coughs.

“What did I say?” Allie asks. She looks mortified, eyes wide, cheeks red, and I understand. She’s one of the few students who actually bother to give a shit, and she went and fucked up.

I’m pretty sure Robbie can read that question off her lips, but I still interpret, and he laughs, waving his hand. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

“Uh, Professor,” someone chimes in from the back of the class. Ah, John. The fucking clown with the pale face and freckles who never puts his hood down. Honestly, I’ve only seen his face twice. “Don’t you always say that telling someone ‘never mind’ is insulting?”

I interpret this with all the rudeness I can muster, making sure my signs and facial expressions convey how he spoke.

Robbie’s eyes narrow, but I know he’s not going to relent. He’ll tell Allie later so he doesn’t humiliate her in front of the class. Not to mention, he refuses to teach any of them the dirty signs. He turns his back to the class without answering and begins to draw a timeline and dates on the whiteboard.

I straighten my back and ignore John’s loud noise of protest on Robbie’s orders because he thinks it wastes time for me to interpret all the noises he fully plans on ignoring.

Another thing I love about him. My wrists and shoulders are a little less sore with him than with others I’ve worked for.

Eventually, everyone settles. Allie stops looking so mortified, and I do feel a pang of sympathy for her. She’s on track to follow in Robbie’s footsteps, which is a nice change from the students who took this class because they thought it was going to be an easy A.

By week three of this class, we have students dropping the class. There are several Deaf professors on campus, and somehow, someone started a rumor that they were coasting classes because they can’t hear you.

Just like we have a couple of blind professors, and the campus myth is that you can sneak out after your name is called and still get your attendance credit. As though the professors were smart enough to get their doctorates but not smart enough to know that sighted people are assholes and make contingency plans for it.