and squeezes her hands until the knuckles turn pale.
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere else.”
Part of the anger I’ve felt toward her melts into sympathy; part of it stays intact. I don’t press on with questions, but I make up my own story, which may or may not be true. Unfit single mother, kid taken away, downward spiral to demotion and bitterness. It makes more sense to believe this.
I don’t know whether she senses my questions, but she answers. “It’s a job, Dr. Fairchild. I get paid to do what I’m told. Exactly like your husband gets paid to do his work. There are rules, and I follow them.”
Rules. Orders. What’s the difference? I think.
She unfolds her hands and wills herself back into administrator mode. Cold, matter-of-fact. “Anyway, I received a call from your husband this morning. He took the early flight from Reagan National.” She checks her watch. “He’ll be here in an hour, so you might want to get ready.”
I expected Malcolm would come to make me return home. I just didn’t expect it would be today. Now. In an hour, which is, more or less, my immediate future.
“Thanks,” I say, and I stand up.
Before I leave her office, she says, “We all do what we have to, Dr. Fairchild. Best advice I have is to try and get along.”
I want to tell her that if getting along means going back to Maryland to live with Malcolm, I’d rather not, but I only nod before shutting the door and running back to the faculty residences, weaving my way between brick buildings and dodging the tree roots that have turned the paths into obstacle courses. The only humans in sight are small, distant figures out in the cornfields. Farm help, I guess.
I need to talk this out before Malcolm arrives so I know how to play it.
Ruby Jo and Lissa aren’t in the apartment when I arrive. The note stuck to the fridge says Gone for a walk before they lock us up again with a smiley face drawn instead of a signature.
In a normal world, I’d call my mother. A neighbor. Dr. Chen, the chemistry teacher in my old silver school. Anyone with an ear and a mouth. In a normal world, I’d have a phone and a laptop and Wi-Fi at the nearest Starbucks. I’d tweet and Instagram and FaceTime until someone, somewhere, answered. What the hell, I’d grab the closest bike courier on the street and force-feed him my story.
The problem with my current port of call is that I’ve seen exactly one telephone since I arrived, and it’s snugged up between a pencil sharpener and a stapler on Martha Underwood’s desk.
Also, I do not look my finest.
The gray shirt-and-skirt combo has more wrinkles in it than a shar-pei, and there’s a yellowish blotch of I don’t know what on my collar. My breakfast, most likely. After changing back into my blue dress and throwing the rest of my clothes into my suitcase, I twist my hair into a horse’s tail, splash my face with icy water from the kitchen tap, and leave the apartment with my bags, taking the outside path around the admin building to give my heart a chance to downgrade to something like a regular beat.
As soon as I see the taxi idling near the front entrance, I paint a smile on, straighten myself out, and rehearse the now, now, Elena, what in the world am I going to do with you? scene. I’ve already decided to make the best of it, to play along, as Mrs. Underwood said, until I can convince my husband to bring Freddie home.
Malcolm is still in the backseat of the car, making no sign of either getting out or opening it for me, so I walk through weeds and puddles to the taxi, reaching out with my free hand to open the rear door. It cracks a few inches, and then Malcolm pulls it closed again.
My smile twitches, straightens, and reverses itself into a confused frown as he shakes his head. Right, left, right, middle.
Then he pulls a legal-sized envelope from his briefcase and passes it to me through