The problem with Alberto “Beto” Cantanales — I always forget what he looks like. A shitty admission, considering that he’s one of the few academics who calls himself my friend. The least I could do is repay him with some facial recognition, right? But he’s the nondescript type. A thirtysomething dude of average looks and height and lumpiness. The kind of bad haircut that’s not noticeably bad. Chain-store clothes that he picked off the bedroom floor and wore again. Sure, Beto could stand out in a crowd — if he doused himself with gasoline and lit a match.

Today is no different. We agreed to meet at the Don Quixote Iconographic Museum, one of the stranger tourist traps in Guanajuato’s collection of strange tourist traps. Two floors of statues and paintings and stained glass, all in the form of Cervantes’ fictional protagonist. Outside the museum is a sidewalk cafe shoehorned into a narrow cobblestone walkway, really more of an alley than a street. Seating is comprised of a dozen tables ringed with chairs, the cheap plastic kind that stack. I’m staring holes in every face I see, determined to spot Beto this time — and then I walk right past him.

“Yo! Nick! Behind you, dude!”

Beto gets up from the table to slap skin, showing off the perfect teeth that are a birthright on Chicago’s Gold Coast. He’s wearing a light blue polo shirt that almost-but-not-quite matches his faded jeans, a disconcerting tonal effect made worse by his lack of a belt. His cheap Teva knockoffs are a plea for a pedicure.

His gaze wanders past my shoulders. “Hey. Where’s Nooshin? Isn’t she coming?”

“She can’t make it. I gave her a shitload of work to do.”

“That sucks. I wanted to hang out with her some more.” He slumps heavily into his chair, casting a needy glance in the general direction of our hotel.

Actually, that’s the reason Nooshin begged off — the awkward but intent way Beto was flirting with her, despite her protestations that she’s married. We’re keeping up appearances with him, playacting as the legit Ph.D. candidate and the legit research assistant. That’s exactly what we are, and aren’t.

“She’s not really my type, but I wouldn’t kick her out of bed,” Beto is saying, more focused on Nooshin than lunch. “No tits, not much of an ass. But she’s got a cute face. Do you know the deal with her eye?”

I’m staring ritualistically at my menu. “She’s married.”

“Well, yeah. But think about it. She doesn’t wear a wedding ring, and she’s running all over Mexico with you. Right? So my guess is that she’s more available than you realize.” He smacks his lips, so thin they’re just a pink line drawn around his perfect smile. Then his eyes bead suspiciously. “Hey, you’re not…are you?”

If only he knew. “Dude. She’s married. Aren’t you screwing some local chicks? Or the semester abroad kids coming through your school?”

Beto tosses aside the laminated sheen of his menu, a dismissive gesture. “You know what the muchachitas are like. They just want to get married. And the students I’ve got, fuck…” He shakes his bad haircut. “It’s like trying to teach during spring break. They’re always missing class because they’re hung over or whatever. The only Spanish they learn is mas cervezas, pronto.” His pudgy face turns curious again. “Nooshin is that age, right? An undergrad somewhere?”

I’m glancing around for the waitron — desperately. Anything for a disruption, for a change of topic. Finally I change it myself. “Why the hell did you come back down here, anyway? I thought you had a good thing going in Chicago.”

“A good thing? What I had was a couple shitty semester contracts. You know what I was doing last year? I was teaching two classes for a professor on sabbatical at University of Illinois-Chicago, then commuting across town to teach a couple more classes at Wilbur Wright College. I had something like 500 students, I was grading all the fucking time, I wasn’t even making $16K a year. It was hell!” Beto’s eyes seem to close on the inside for a moment, reliving last year. “The language school down here is paying me $24K. Just to teach about 40 kids total. And I got my name splashed all over their website. It’s a big deal to have a Ph.D. from Michigan on staff, you know.”

“But you’re still in the job market, right?” I ask, referring to the Holy Grail of a tenure-track position.

“Yeah. Of course I am. And this is going to be my year.” But he looks more haunted than confident. “Last year I didn’t get a single interview at the American Historical Association conference. Can you believe it?”

Actually, it’s the most believable thing in the world to me. “You picked the wrong dissertation topic,” I sigh. “Nobody wants to read about colonial silver mining in Guanajuato. It’s been done to death.”

“I know that’s what everybody says, but I’m not buying it. You know what I think? I think my advisor screwed me over. He never positioned me for the job market, not like Hercules does with you.” Beto leans forward in his chair, pushing the plastic table into me. “You were on C-SPAN for that Borderlands Conference thingamajig. Fucking C-SPAN, dude! I’d get interviews up the butt with that on my curriculum vitae.”

My laugh is a tired noise. “It’s not like I’m the Great White Hope of the Latin American Studies department. Hercules only put me in front of the TV cameras to dick over another professor.” Suddenly I find myself in the pleasing fantasy of punching the old reptile in his face.

“Hercules got you the funding to digitize the archive, didn’t he? And hire Nooshin as your research assistant. That’s bigtime special treatment. You need to put that on your CV too.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I make my voice flat, keeping up the charade about Nooshin. I didn’t just get a research assistant, I got an unexpected detour into a brand new life.

Beto looks as if he’s coming to a new conclusion about me, one that involves loathing. This dude doesn’t know how fucking good he’s got it. I can feel our connection dissipate like fog. We see each other clearly now. He’s the newly-minted Ph.D. who’s not worth sucking up to anymore, since he didn’t land a tenure-track position and probably never will. I’m the ungrateful bastard who’s treating my job market advantages as if they’re anchors to be cut.

The uncomfortable silence is interrupted by my cellphone and its embarrassing ringtone — the unmistakable opening bars of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”. I fumble in my backpack, hiding an idiotic grin. It’s Nooshin’s play on my icy blue eyes and how we’re having a baby.

“Nick here,” I answer in my most professional tone of voice.

“Did you know that some pregnant women actually lose weight during their first trimester?” she says without preamble. “Because of morning sickness and barfing and stuff. If I’m understanding this correctly, anyway.” I can hear the crisp rustle of paper in the background. “We need to find a pregnancy book in English. I can’t read Spanish well enough yet.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to find some English-language documentation too.” I glance across the table at Beto, who’s half-watching me, half-watching a mexicana rattle across the cobblestones in high heels.

“You’re still with him, huh? Well, I mostly called to say I love you.” Suddenly Nooshin launches into the worst Stevie Wonder impression I’ve ever heard in my life. “I just called…to say…I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUU!!!” Her laughter fills my ear. “Omigod. That was horrific. Bye!”

I snap my cellphone shut, returning to a conversation with a colleague where we throw around multisyllabic words like ornamentation. I can’t feel the life in any of the concepts we discuss. They only come to me in faint, cold wisps of idea. I can hear disdain in my voice, and something harsh and angry. Something aimed at these masturbatory abstractions, and at Beto slouched in nondescriptness across the cheap plastic table from me, and maybe even at myself too.