“Susan, it was good to see you again,” Mizuki Takashita said, as she hugged her old friend goodbye. “Drop by again sometime when you’re in the area.”

“Oh, I sure will,” Susan Langenderfer-McMahon said, with the familiar but now distant feel of Mizuki in her arms seeming strange indeed. For most of five years off and on, the two had been roommates, best friends, and occasional lovers – but it was clear that those days were in the past. Charles, Mizuki’s boyfriend, significant other, fiancée, or whatever he was, looked on as the old friends hugged; his mere presence told Susan that while she and Mizuki had shared a lot, all but the ‘friends’ part was in the past now.

Maybe it’s all right, Susan thought as she squeezed a little bit on the hug. We always knew we were going in different directions, and we finally have.

There was a little more hugging, and a quick kiss on the lips out of friendship, out of days gone by. After all, it had been over two years since Susan and Mizuki had seen each other, and Susan suspected it could be even longer before they saw each other again.

Finally, Susan realized that she couldn’t hang on any longer to the shreds of what once had been. “I’d better be going,” she told her old friend. “I’ve got lots to do.”

“I suppose,” the small, slender Japanese-American woman said as she broke away. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” Susan replied, realizing that she was probably lying as she got into the car. “But I don’t know when the next time will be.”

“Susan, I’m sorry,” Mizuki said in Japanese to talk past Charles, who spoke about five words of Japanese in total and would have severe problems finding a bathroom using it. “I wish it could have been the way it used to be, but it isn’t that way anymore.”

“I am, too,” Susan replied, also in Japanese – she spoke it nearly as well as her friend, who’d been brought up bilingually – “but that doesn’t keep me from wishing.”

“Yes, me too,” Mizuki replied still in Japanese, then switched back to English as Susan fastened her seat belt. “Take care, Susan. Let’s try to keep in touch.”

“I think we should,” Susan said as she started the old Chevy Cavalier. “You take care too, Mizuki.”

Susan couldn’t help but be sorry as she drove away from the suburban Detroit condo where Mizuki and Charles were living. She wasn’t even sure why she’d come in the first place, other than to see an old friend. She’d known before she’d left home that Mizuki was with Charles, and had a good start on a salaryman’s – well, in her case, salarywoman’s – engineering career at Caldwell-Deerfield Manufacturing. Susan knew that the term didn’t fit, not really. The concept of “American job” is not even a patch on the company loyalty, dedication, and work ethic shown by workers in Japan, but her friend was finally doing the job she prepared for. It had been the culmination of a dream Mizuki had held as long as Susan had known her, and in that sense she was happy for her friend. But yes, the old days were gone, never to return.

It wasn’t as if Susan was faultless in the matter, either. Both she and Mizuki were bisexual; if anything, both were more interested in guys than they were each other. But neither of them had wanted to get tied down while they were in college, since a guy could get in the way of a career, so they’d deliberately been more or less lesbian – but only with each other – until they graduated. By that time both of them were ready for a little more conventional relationship. Charles was a nice guy, if a pretty insular American; Mizuki seemed to click with him, even so. Susan was the same way. On her first day in China, still settling in, she’d met Theo Osterkamp from Dresden, Germany; they’d been in and out of each other’s beds for most of two years without any sign of it ever getting serious.

Susan had to concede that she really didn’t want things to get serious with Theo anyway. He had been a handy sex partner, a way to keep from feeling alone, but she’d known within ten minutes of having met him at Sichuan University that they were also heading in two different directions. While she liked China, she had no intention of spending a life there, but Theo seemed perfectly happy with staying, especially after he’d landed a job with a big German company in Nanchang. She thought the air pollution had been bad where she’d lived in Chengdu, but that was hardly a warm-up to what Theo had to deal with where he was these days.

All in all Susan had enjoyed the two years she’d spent teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) at Sichuan University, and Theo had helped her enjoy it – him and some other friends, both western and Chinese. But a lot of the fun of living in Chengdu had left when Theo packed for his move to Nanchang a few months before, and Susan had decided to not renew her teaching contract with the University. It was time to move on, she thought, at least to a place where she could read the signs on the buildings or menus in restaurants.

Susan spoke five languages in addition to English; she had a talent for learning them. Like Mizuki, she’d grown up bilingually, though speaking German in her case. In her younger years she’d tacked on reasonable fluency in Spanish and French. Living with Mizuki and doing a year teaching English as a Second Language with her in a Japanese high school had made her reasonably fluent in that language as well. She had to admit that she was hardly past being a beginner when it came to the ideographs used in print. Two years in China had gotten her to about the same point in Mandarin, and she could get along in the Sichuan dialect.

Given that kind of language skill and a taste for travel, it was no surprise that Susan’s goal had long been to travel the world – and to do it out of someone else’s pocket. So far, she’d done pretty well at it. Starting with a year as an exchange student in Germany in 2003, in the last eight years she’d managed to spend four of them out of the country, not counting several summer trips to Europe to go traveling with friends. But right now, “What next?” was a real problem.

It would be possible to go back to Chengdu – not that she really wanted to – but she really would rather go almost anywhere in Europe. However, ESL jobs weren’t easy to find there, and she hadn’t had much luck. She could have gone to a number of places in Asia, like back to Japan, or to Korea, or several other countries, and if something new didn’t turn up pretty soon she might just have to do it. But, really, she was tired of teaching ESL and hoped to come up with something new and better. Right now, she had the time and money to look.

She had told Mizuki that she had things to do, and mostly it had been a lie. The truth was that she didn’t have much to do but drive the several hundred miles home in the old Cavalier that had served her since high school, and then spend more time haunting the Internet looking for a job.

Even going back home didn’t interest her as much as it once would have. Oh, sure, it had been good to see her parents again, but things had changed there too. There had been a time when her father would have been glad for her to go to work for him at the weekly newspaper in their home town, but while she’d been in China, Susan’s brother Henry had moved back home and was now working there. Within a year of his return he had married a beautiful and bright young physician who had recently moved to town. That meant there just wasn’t room for her at the paper any longer, not that being a reporter there really interested her that much anyway. She’d done that before, too, for years and years. Journalism was one job she knew she could do here in the States, though, but she’d decided only if she had to.

So there was no hurry to rush back to Spearfish Lake. On her way down to visit Mizuki, she’d given some thought to the problem, and the only idea she’d come up with had been to take a swing by Southern Michigan University at Hawthorne, where she and Mizuki had gone to school. While the placement department might not have any job listings that weren’t on the Internet, she might come up with a contact or two that could lead to something that hadn’t been posted on the web yet. And, as far as that went, she knew a few people in the journalism department at Notre Dame, where she’d taken some classes; they might be worth dropping by to see, too.

Finding anything worthwhile seemed like a long shot at either place, but it was better than sitting around her folks’ house and looking for another ESL job in Asia. At least it could mean another day or two before having to face that reality, so Susan started to work her way across suburban Detroit to get to the Interstate heading west.

The traffic started to thin out a little once she was past Ann Arbor. Seeking a little diversion, she turned on the car radio, though the song playing happened to be country-western. She reached out to look for something – anything! – else, but changed her mind before her hand reached the dial. The song she was hearing was something about some guy whose exes lived in Texas and it seemed mildly amusing. Though Susan had never been much of a country-western fan, right now it suited her mood. She’d missed music from the USA more than she’d thought in two years in China.

Somehow hearing country-western – real American music – made a couple of things click together in her mind. When she’d come back from her year in Germany years before, she’d had more than a little culture shock re-inserting herself into life at home. Much the same thing had happened after her year in Japan, but after two years in China she was glad to be back in the States. There was no culture shock this time, just culture relief. That was something of a surprise, considering how avid a traveler she had been. Maybe there was a lesson in that, or at least something to think about.

As far as that went, it was good to be driving again, too. Traffic was thick and roads had been marginal in Chengdu, so with the good public transportation found in a large city and the fact that her apartment was close to her classroom at the University, it hadn’t been worth the effort of trying to maintain a car there. Once again, she reminded herself of how much she’d missed being behind the wheel of her little Cavalier, the only car she’d ever owned.

Three hours driving brought her into West Michigan, which she had learned early on was considerably different than the Detroit area. She hadn’t been this way often, but once she turned south on Interstate 67 things started to seem familiar again. It was actually backtracking a little bit to get to Hawthorne, the home of Southern Michigan University, but it was quicker on the four-lane than it was on the two-lane country roads. It had been over two years since she’d been this way, but not much had changed, thank goodness.

Since it was the height of summer, she actually found a visitor parking space at the SMU administration building. The expanding university occupied the rather limited footprint of a former private religious college, so parking was at a premium. Susan knew that even the chancellor normally parked at a parking lot well over a mile away and took the shuttle bus to the campus. He didn’t even have a designated parking spot on the campus.

Susan got out of her car in front of the administration building. It was one of the original buildings from Hawthorne College, not in good shape and, she knew, due for replacement in the next few years, like most of the rest of the older buildings on the campus. While it retained the name of the original founder carved into the stone lintel over the front door – Tottenhaven Hall – she knew that most of the people who worked there referred to it as “this dump.” Students usually called it that, or often “Old Main” or “T-Hall.”

It felt good to stand up and stretch and work the kinks out after several hours of sitting behind the wheel. She took a moment to straighten her skirt and put a lightweight vest on over her camisole to make herself look a little more businesslike. While Susan wasn’t an all-out clothes horse or a fanatic about her appearance, she believed that dressing well and to fit the occasion made her look more professional and businesslike. This was more or less habit; she didn’t do slob easily, and it had made her stand out all four of the years she had been a student at Southern. She refreshed her lipstick in the outside rear view mirror; the rest of the minimal makeup she wore seemed adequate.

Satisfied that she was ready, she took her briefcase from the back seat – it doubled as a purse – and headed into the building. While she had some old friends here and there on the campus she wanted to see, she started out by heading for the placement office – first things first, after all. It was moderately quiet in the familiar if rather small room; she’d seen it a lot busier. Beverly Hartley, the placement counselor, was sitting at her desk, pounding on the computer keyboard. Since Beverly was busy, Susan could do nothing but wait.

In only a minute or so Beverly looked up from the computer screen. “Well, Susan!” she smiled. “What a sight for sore eyes! What have you been doing?”

“I just got back from two years’ teaching at Sichuan University in China,” Susan replied. “I was wondering if there was anything new and exotic in the listings.”

“Not really,” Beverly replied. “You’ve seen the website, haven’t you?”

“Not since yesterday when I logged on to look at it.” SMU was very computerized, and as a graduate Susan could log on to the restricted website that gave the most current listings. “But I thought you might know of something down my line that hadn’t gelled into a job posting yet.”

“You mean something that pays well and is overseas,” Beverly grinned. “I think I remember you well enough for that. But my honest answer has to be, ‘not really.’”

“This may come as a shock to you,” Susan said with a grin back at her. “though I’d like another overseas job, after two years in China I wouldn’t mind spending a little time some place where I can read the signs and eat something that’s at least vaguely American the majority of the time.”

“Susan, are you all right?” Beverly teased. “I know you, after all. Perhaps you’d better go lie down until the feeling goes away.”

“I’m pretty sure it will sooner or later,” Susan grinned, “but I think it’s going to take more than a few minutes.”

“I suppose after two years in China you’ve added Chinese to your repertoire,” Beverly nodded.

“I speak Mandarin reasonably well, now. I’m still pretty much a novice when it comes to reading it, though.”

“Would you be interested in a job here?”

“I’m not going to rule it out. I’ve missed this place.”

“You did make it interesting around here from time to time, and for all four years,” Beverly laughed. “Look, the other day there was some discussion of creating a new position, something like an international student coordinator. We don’t have many foreign students but the number is increasing and so is the difficulty in managing their education here. Your language skills might be useful in that.”

“That sounds like it might be interesting,” Susan agreed, actually more than a little fascinated by the idea. It might be just the thing! “Does it involve international student recruitment, as well?”

“It might,” Beverly conceded. “But right at the moment, it’s a concept, not a job. It was kind of an open-ended discussion, and it led to talking about an international studies coordinator to go with it. That would involve placing students in overseas schools for a semester or a year, or whatever. Maybe in the beginning it might be the same thing. It was just talk, but there’s a chance that if someone like you were available, someone who knows the ins and outs of this place, it might be something around which an actual job might coalesce fairly quickly. Bearing in mind that it’s just an idea, with no budget and no job description, do you think you might be interested in it?”

It didn’t take Susan long to make up her mind. In a position like that she might be able to do a lot of defining of the job! And that definition could easily involve a lot of international travel! “Sure,” she replied almost instantly. “I might be very interested in that, depending on what the job finally ends up being.”

“I can’t promise anything just yet,” Beverly frowned. “Look, run over to the snack bar and grab a cup of coffee or something. Let me plant a couple bugs in some ears and run it past a few people. Come back in half an hour to an hour, and maybe I’ll know something.”

The snack bar was just a short distance across the campus, located in a corner of the cafeteria. It was another one of the old buildings left over from the former college and, like Tottenhaven Hall, it could have been in better condition. In fact it was slated for removal and replacement soon, like all but a couple of the older buildings. She got a glass of iced tea and found a seat to think about this surprising turn of events.

If it worked out – and there was no guarantee she kept reminding herself – she thought she’d like to come back to SMU for a while. The place had impressed her right from her first visit there with Mizuki almost seven years before. It had been an interesting and innovative place, one where things were not done the way they’d always been done before, here or at other colleges.

Once upon a time the buildings and grounds had been Hawthorne College, a rather conservative religious college that tottered along on unstable financial grounds for decades before expiring. Susan had been told that the campus had sat empty for several years before being picked up by the state as a part of a political deal. In the rebirth of the place, it had been decided to take the concept of higher education in a few relatively untried directions; Susan had been around enough other college campuses, including in Chengdu, to know that there was nothing else quite like SMU’s model that she’d ever seen.

Southern Michigan University was very career-oriented, with the goal of turning out students prepared to take on skilled careers requiring higher education and often at least some practical experience in those careers. It was not a college just excreting well-rounded liberal arts students who had learned very little that would be useful to them in the real world. In fact, there were no “liberal arts” degrees offered, no teacher education classes. There were a few select “liberal arts” classes that were intended to bring ill-prepared students up to minimum levels they’d been unable to attain in high school – but while required if students failed parts of their assessment tests, they received no credit for those “remedial” classes.

Within reason, for technical classes the college was prepared to partner with other relatively nearby institutions to fill out a student’s education; Susan herself had had several classes at Notre Dame, not far away.

The university also didn’t offer athletics; in fact, the new Wyndham Science Center, dedicated the first year Susan and Mizuki were on campus, had been centered directly on the fifty yard line of what had once been the Hawthorne College football field. The only football games these days were occasional pickup flag games on the quad in front of Tottenhaven Hall. There was a small student fitness center, which offered exercise machines, a pool, and a small running track.

Because of the new ideas and fast growth of the place, Southern Michigan University had been an interesting place for Susan and Mizuki to immerse themselves in. They’d been members of the third class to matriculate there, so they’d seen a lot happening and been a part of it. Traditions were still taking root, and new ideas could be converted into facts at a breathless pace; Susan had been involved with some of that change and had personally engineered a few of them single handedly.

This all meant that being involved with Southern again, especially in a job she might get to define, seemed as interesting to Susan as anything she could think of. It might well be that she wouldn’t want to be a part of it forever, maybe even not for long, but the thought of coming back offered a new dimension to her life she hadn’t considered. It would be a lot different than the years she and Mizuki had spent around the place – five years in total, considering the year she and Mizuki had taken off from school to teach in Japan – but change came quickly around here. Maybe she could be a part of it again.

Oh, well, it was probably a pipe dream, she thought as she sipped at her tea. While there were a lot of new ideas around Southern, just like at many other places, they often didn’t fly; there was only so much that could be done at one time. But it was a hope. If it worked out, fine; if not, she could go back home and start looking for another position teaching English in Asia. That idea had started with only limited appeal and was quickly losing what it had the more she thought about this new concept job, she at least had to admit ESL was more interesting to her than a good many other things she might find herself doing.

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