her throat. “Surprise ’em. Stun ’em. Not like—” She discreetly cocks her head into the direction of the panel.
“—veland. I’m the Associate Vice President of Finance and Administration, and I’m going to talk briefly about the services offered by our department. First, you’ll need us in all matters concerning—”
“Sorry,” I hiss at my left-hand neighbor. “Who’s that?”
“Amanda Cleveland, Finance and Ad—”
“Thanks!”
Well, shave my legs and call me smoothie!
“What?” Yvonne mouths, startled by how startled I am.
She must be. The name is not that common.
Capable.
That is first word that forms in my mind as I stare, slack-jawed with curiosity, at the slim blonde in a white blouse and raspberry-colored pencil skirt taking us through the slides of her PowerPoint presentation.
Southern belle turned business woman.
Professor Cleveland is married to a woman who is everything I am not. Her whole manner has that seemingly effortless self-confidence that I associate with a certain kind of sorority girl, or girls from the Upper East Side. Yvonne and I made sure we sit at the back of the room among the slackers, so now I’m not close enough to decide how old she might be (mid-thirties?) and whether she’s a natural blonde (probably not). Cleveland likes blondes with big knockers and lots of poise. That’s settled, then.
“Good speaking voice,” Yvonne acknowledges while Amanda Cleveland sips at her water. “You know her?”
“I think she’s Giles Cleveland’s wife. He’s my mentor.”
“I’ve not met him yet. Is he like that?”
I think I know what she means by “that”: the air of privilege that wafts around the tall, elegant figure.
“A little, yeah, but he’s English, so he’s…different. He’s less…”
Amanda resumes her talk, and I try to work out what Giles Cleveland is less than his wife. I wanted to say, less put together. I could also say that he is more passionate. It strikes me, particularly now in contrast to his wife, how passionate Cleveland seemed to be. Very English, very cautious. Reserved. And then not cautious at all, but quick and brusque. Why the rush? You’ll be burned out by the time you’re thirty! He doesn’t know that I almost burned out when I was twenty-six.
Not that it matters.
Before lunch I rush up to the Conservatory to get on with mucking out my office. Tomorrow I will bring my cleaning kit and maybe blow off the last orientation session to scrub shelves and floor. The walls need a coat of paint, but I’m not going to wait for a miracle. Empty and clean and freshly painted would be a miracle. Empty will do me.
What is empty as I rush along it, is the corridor. A dark figure in the shade between the dormer windows opposite my office melts into the wall, and I have a sickening premonition. The Dumpster is empty, too. I unlock my office and feel I’ve been catapulted into Groundhog Day. All semblance of order that the room might have had when I first saw it has been sacrificed to necessity. It looks as if someone had stood by the garbage cart and flung its contents back into the room through the open door. The defective lamps now lie on the floor in sprinkles of shattered glass, and stacks of paperbacks are in dog-eared piles or leaning crookedly against each other like drunken domino pieces.
My heart is racing in my chest, and I can’t tell whether it’s fury or fear. Afraid of the fear, I act on the fury and hammer my fist against Professor Corvin’s door, calling out his name, but there is only silence and the giggle of two students loitering by the water cooler down the hall.
Calm.
Making a fuss would make me look like an idiot and the department admin like assclowns. But I can’t help telling Yvonne as we are walking back to the Observatory at the end of the day.
“But if he has a key to your office, can you leave personal stuff in there? Purse, laptop, flash drive? It’s not safe, is it?”
“No, I guess it isn’t. There is a lockable drawer in the desk, but he may have a key to that, too. He hasn’t taken anything, so far, or destroyed anything that belongs to me. He just wants me out, I think.”
“I have no idea what I would do if I were in your shoes, Anna, I’m not going to lie. D’you think—no.”