“You think Natalie’s fling with Nick Hornberger has turned sour? And Natalie confided in Selena that she has accused her professorial lover of raping her, flunks off class, and Selena’s world is in shreds because to feel secure, she must have the lion lie peacefully and chastely with the lamb. Selena in tears, hushed whisperings among the grad students. Have I caught your drift?”
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
“Yes. Only you don’t know the half of it.”
“Will you tell me?”
“No.”
“Oh, unfair!”
Now he looks directly at me again, with a quick smile, as if he were surprised at something. As if he was surprised at me. But then he shifts on his perch and clears his throat.
“There’s something else I need to mention. It appears there is a spot of bother about your Gen Ed class.”
My stomach muscles, already tight in an attempt to resist his smile, clench with dread.
“Oh, no…Madeline Harrison?” Now I do walk over to one of the low chairs and flop down on it. “Of the Harrison family?”
“She went to see Hornberger. I’m to bring you in.”
“Bring me in? To be hanged at dawn, I expect.”
Cleveland says nothing, just gazes at me, his head cocked to one side.
“You really are…” He gazes, then shakes his head.
“A pain in the neck?” I offer bravely, not feeling very brave at all. “I’m sorry. It seems I misjudged them, and I also lost control a little, at one point. Am I in a lot of trouble? They’re not going to fire me, are they?”
“No, they’re not going to fire you.”
“What, then? A lecture, a dressing-down, a note in my file, presumably?”
“Something like that.”
As the shock waves ebb through my nervous system, I realize just how tired I am. It’s not the tiredness of the second week of term; it’s the deep exhaustion of an uphill struggle. When this feeling took over, four years ago, I fell into a lethargy that led me into some very irresponsible sex and the worst emotional and professional crisis I’ve ever been through. So with the exhaustion comes the fear.
“Did Hornberger say when? You needn’t come with me, you know. To be honest, I’d rather you didn’t.”
“So you can become dewy-eyed and distressed to soften Nick’s heart? Yes, that would probably work. He’s a complete pushover for beautiful young women. As we have current proof.”
So dry, so unexpected, so mean, this punch. And I’m reeling.
Whenever I have dealings with Giles Cleveland, I feel dejected afterward. Lonely. I don’t know what it is about him, unless of course it is the mean, hurtful things he says to me. He could be a friend, I am sure he could, but he doesn’t want to be. I, on the other hand, am summoned to appear before my department chair after just one week of student contact. I could do with a friend.
Interesting that Cleveland seemed convinced that Nick Hornberger is the rapist. You don’t know the half of it. The truth is, I don’t know a tenth of it. These people are all strangers to me. On Wednesday afternoon I see Hornberger walk down the Observatory steps accompanied by Ma Mayfield and an official-looking man. I give Elizabeth a diffident nod, but she either ignores me or doesn’t notice me; when I peek back at them, they are walking toward Rossan House, where the Provost’s office and central administration are located. It’s the first time I have seen Hornberger in a suit and tie, and he may well be wearing them in his capacity as department chair, requested by the Sexual Misconduct Hearing Panel to speak for (or against) a colleague. His rattled expression is easily interpreted as dismay that his term of office will not be as uneventful as he had hoped.
That, or I have witnessed the Dean of Studies and a plain-clothes policeman escorting a professor accused of raping his graduate assistant.
This whole thing is utterly bizarre.
On Thursday morning I dash into the library for some last-minute photocopying for my Parody class. I’m late because I tried a short-cut from the farm to the campus that took ten minutes longer, and because I keep forgetting that this library is a still unfamiliar labyrinth. When I locate the book from which I want to copy an essay, it’s two inches beyond the reach of my fingertips and there is neither a ladder nor an obliging basketball player in sight.
“Which one d’you want?”
As he stands there against the sunlight streaming in through the huge leaded windows, I finally grasp the echo of a