Bring the Rain

by JoAnn Franklin

  That was a lie. At home, I stared out the window at the ocean, contemplating little, and letting my thoughts wander.

  THIRTEEN

  AS THE SEMESTER DWINDLED to an end, my research stopped, my preparations for Salzburg withered and died. Perhaps this was what burnout felt like.

  Big difference.

  This wasn’t burnout. The toxic social environment I found myself in heightened the clash of values within myself. No one at the office took my side against Hendrix. My humiliation continued because administrators feared her and the turmoil she could stir up. Only Brown Bear stood beside me. He sat now, on my lap, unafraid. That’s what I liked about Brown Bear. He didn’t know fear.

  The person I was becoming preferred to obsess about patterns, counting, textures, and Brown Bear. I would tape the last MOOC later this morning, and then the course would be over. The experiment had gone well, all things considered. Maybe I should act on that other idea I had, an e-book from the lecture notes that I could post on my website as a how-to book to see around poverty, to prevent generations from making decisions that trapped them in hunger, fear, and resentment.

  Teaching the course had convinced me that poverty remained our biggest threat to stable civilizations, at least until the environmental violence went nuclear. Then there was my idea for TRI, the one that had once seemed too odd, too big, but that wouldn’t go away. Who I used to be said write that e-book from the course as a primer for book clubs to use when they accessed insight.

  But I only thought about it. I didn’t do anything about it.

  I taped the last MOOC with Lea. She was the only reason my teaching retained some semblance of normality. I summarized the high points of my lectures and also discussed the suggestions and rationales that students had come up with for ways that Southern poverty might be eradicated. I proposed that small things can make a difference and that those solutions originate with the individual, then I turned to a final insight, burnout as a metaphor for poverty.

  Basically, the research defined burnout as a state of being, not as a physical or psychological or intellectual failing. Poverty could also be thought of as a state of being, I suggested. And if burnout as a state of being robbed the individual of the ability to pursue a productive professional life, then could poverty as a state of being wear one out to the point that they are exhausted with the effort to just be, thus investing less in their jobs, as a result accomplishing fewer things, becoming less effective?

  That would increase the feelings of cynicism and inefficacy . . . and so I continued at that last lecture, highlighting how to look at poverty from the perspective of decades of research on the syndrome of burnout.

  My commentary must have stirred something in Lea because after the taping she said, “That feeling of being unappreciated. Why is that so harmful to humans?”

  “Brains are wired that way. To encounter evidence that you are not of worth—be it a promotion you didn’t get, resources you needed and didn’t have, coupled with what seem like random events that affect promotions and awards or wealth and keeping food on the table—that feeling of being unappreciated depletes energy. One tipping point for burnout in the workplace is fairness in the environment. Anyone can see the implications of that for fighting poverty.”

  “Workplace civility?”

  “Yes, that decreases burnout.” And the self I’d started consulting said, It’s not that simple.

  “What’s not that simple?” Lea looked confused.

  I didn’t realize I’d repeated the words aloud.

  “It’s more than civility,” I said. “If we’re kinder toward one another we would enjoy what we do and find value in it.”

  “Dr. Hendrix hasn’t read the research. She’s asking the doctoral students what it’s like to work with you on dissertations or as research associates. She wants to know if you’re overbearing, or distant, or mean, or unresponsive. . . . she copied about six of us in that email trying to get more information.”

  I looked at her and my heart sank. “You didn’t stop at my request, did you?”

  “We didn’t stop, Dr. Sommers.”

  She’d involved others. This is bad.

  “Her vita is a fake, and if you don’t do something, we will.”

  “You can’t. She’ll destroy you like she’s trying to destroy me. Credibility is everything. That’s how women like Hendrix win in academe.”

  “Then help us out.”

  “None of you can be involved in this.”

  “Graduate students spend time and money to get a degree from this college. We deserve the best from those who teach us. No one wants to learn from a liar and a cheat. You can’t let that happen, Dart. If you don’t do the right thing, the toxicity will get worse.”

  Listen to her.

  Graduate students deserved the best we could be. Their minds were as sharp as ours, sharper, and they deserved a helping hand, not a push off the ladder of success if they disagreed with Hendrix and her plans for them.

  “Do something,” Lea said.

  Although I said I would, I could tell she didn’t believe me.

  Maybe Lea’s disappointment spurred me to take Hendrix’s vita home that afternoon, but the pattern I found kept me working through the night, making sure I hadn’t missed anything. Those embedded lies, just enough to make a difference, not enough to scream cheating, were difficult to expose. Sneaky, hiding evidence in plain sight. And brilliant, no one would ever have looked if she’d behaved herself, if she’d been good, kind, and helpful.

  But now that I knew, the pattern became obvious. The evidence had to be solid. She’d moved her name on some of the publications from fourth and fifth author to first or second. But at least she’d done the work, I thought as I flexed my cramping fingers. With other publications, most published in lesser known psychology journals, she’d added her name to the list of authors. That meant they’d done the work and she’d taken the credit. And then with some pubs, she’d added her name and removed the real authors’ names.

  Once I found those patterns, I hadn’t been able to look away. And I was glad I did, for I found the presentations were padded as well: Hendrix hadn’t been at Salzburg at all. She had either tried to get in twice and they wouldn’t take her, or she’d fabricated both invitations. Lea was right. Hendrix had to be stopped.

  The clock struck one in the morning when I put the marked-up vita in a folder. I put the file in my briefcase. I’d give the evidence to the dean when I went back to work on Monday.

  Ash refused to see me.

  He was busy.

  He was out of town.

  He had to eat, didn’t he?

  Lea texted later that week that unless I met with the dean, the students would request a meeting to discuss the matter. That’s when I camped out in his waiting area with the hope that he might fit me in. I’d walk him out to his car when he left at five to go to some celebrity author event the university was hosting that evening if I had too, but I wasn’t going away.

  And I waited, the bright red folder on my lap, until Ash appeared at 4:50 p.m. and beckoned me into his inner sanctum. I hefted the red folder which was weighted with more than I wanted to bear of my own doubt and reluctance.

  “What’s on your mind, Dart?” He didn’t even sit down at the table. Instead he started gathering papers and folders from its surface, shutting down the computer as well, in a hurry to make the event. He hadn’t looked my way. Translation: I’m busy and this had better be good. Make this short.

  If that’s how you want this played. With a slow slide, I pushed the red folder toward him. The movement slowed my mind until that was all I could see and hear, that bright red folder slipping, sliding, scraping, gaining momentum, leaping over my reluctance, and breaking free of restraint. It was done now, I thought, watching the movement. That’s how the worst catastrophes that come your way start, don’t they? With something so ordinary, like standing on a ladder watching the paint brush you dropped spattered droplets of white pain
t on green leaves.

  “What’s this?” Ash looked up as the folder slid into his peripheral vision. He reached out.

  I came back from counting that past pattern of dots. “Evidence.”

  “Of what?” His hand hovered but didn’t touch the folder.

  “Dr. Hendrix’s lies and deceit.”

  He drew his hand back. “Dart, I don’t want to get into the middle of this little argument with you and Kathleen. I’ve told you, don’t respond to those emails. That will extinguish the behavior.”

  “This isn’t about that.”

  “She’s a whistling teakettle in the tornado that’s your life. Ignore her.”

  “She lied.”

  “I know you think she’s been disrespectful, but she’ll get tired of the game. Kathleen is a respected professor, and she’s justified in expressing her views.” He stuffed some more papers into his briefcase and checked to see that he hadn’t forgotten anything on the desktop. He picked up the red folder. “I’ll look at your documentation, but there’s little I can do.”

  “Don’t blow this off, Ash. What you’re holding is evidence.”

  “This isn’t copies of the email exchanges you’ve been having?” Surprise, then distaste, flickered across his face, but awareness came too late. He’d already picked up the folder. “What’s in here?”

  “Evidence of a falsified vita.”

  He stood there, his thoughts suspended, his eyes glazed, holding the red folder he’d grabbed in his haste to get me out of the room. The folder fell back to the desk with a soft plop. Some of the papers slid out. My gaze and his tracked the fall, then the cascade of papers. No way to hide from her culpability now, not with all my red ink imploding the building blocks of her career.

  “She’s the most prolific writer we have in the college.”

  I showed him precisely how she’d cheated to become that prolific.

  “This doesn’t make sense.”

  It was inconceivable that a professor of Hendrix’s standing would do such a thing. This was a forty-year career of a highly respected professor, who keynoted conferences, held positions of power in organizations, including administrative duties at the college. If anyone had positioned themselves to become a public intellectual it was Hendrix. Couple that with the fact that she was an inspiration to students of color, and no wonder he was confused. He’d believed in a false logic that professors who held positions of power, respect, and trust wouldn’t lie to keep their jobs.

  “Some of those falsifications,” I indicated the folder, “started long ago, when she was an associate professor with a family to support and one paycheck coming in. People do crazy things when food and shelter are on the line. She probably promised herself each and every time that she wouldn’t do it again. Except, she got away with it, and it was easy to slip in another falsified paper.”

  I hated to see his disappointment because he was the one who would have to clean this mess up. I watched as he thought through any number of scenarios. When he reached across his desk and picked up the phone, I felt nothing. After telling his assistant to cancel his event that night and make his apologies for other commitments, he asked her to call the provost’s office for an appointment in the morning, then wished her a pleasant evening and said he’d see her tomorrow.

  When he sat down, opened the folder and started to read the first of the notes I’d stuck to relevant pages of that eighty-page document that was Dr. Hendrix’s professional life, I braced myself for the argument. He wouldn’t take my accusations as truth unless he could prove them himself. And that was okay. The one thing I’d learned about Ash was that if he did this for Hendrix, he would do it for me, or Lea, or any of the faculty who served under his watch.

  When he booted up the computer again, I knew we would be in his office for a while. A bit of tension uncurled itself in my stomach. I noticed his hands as he typed one of Kathleen’s false titles into the computer. Then I watched the screen as the machine spun— although that was all in my mind because the screen remained blank then brought up the list I’d found. I relaxed because I hadn’t screwed up.

  All he needed was to go further, and that’s just what he did, finding the journal’s website, looking for any and all verification of the published article, and when the journal’s website revealed nothing, he went to the library’s search engines, and again nothing turned up. The title was there and the article had been published, but Hendrix’s name was not on it, or on any of the sites that he searched. The facade would hold up through cursory glances, which would satisfy those of us in a hurry, because as Hendrix knew, reputations were shortcuts the brain used to categorize people.

  An hour later, he closed the folder and said, “She’s had a long and distinguished career. Do you want to end that for her?”

  That wasn’t fair. What would happen next wasn’t my fault.

  “It’s not what I want. If you are looking for me to give you permission to pretend that neither of us know, I won’t do that.”

  “This will hurt the college and the university.”

  “She might leave quietly.”

  “You know she’s never done anything quietly. There might not be enough here to justify firing her, even if all the dirt you’ve dug up is correct.”

  “Have the lawyers double- and triple-check my investigative work. Do it yourself.”

  “That’s why I made the appointment with the provost.”

  “Don’t let them convince you to ignore this.”

  “I know that Kathleen has been unkind to you.”

  “Unkind?” I laughed out loud at that. “I let the Raindrops know that if something happened to me, they should inform the police that Hendrix pulled the trigger.”

  “It isn’t as bad as that.”

  “What she did to me was humiliating and demoralizing. And it’s been going on for years, and you allowed it.”

  “You wanted to pay her back.”

  No. I didn’t falsify her vita. She did that. This isn’t my fault. I brought this to your attention. I didn’t create the mess. I hadn’t ever wanted her destroyed. I just wanted her to shut up.

  “You found a way to get even.”

  “I didn’t falsify her vita, she did that.”

  “I’ll be checking.”

  “You should check everyone’s vita. They are posted online for the world to see. You should go further than I did.” I tapped the folder. “I didn’t read every publication to see if the conclusions she reached matched the data she collected.”

  “She wouldn’t do that. You had motive to go after her.”

  “She intimidates people.”

  “Not you.”

  “I’ve known about this for several months now and couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”

  “So why now?”

  “The students know.”

  “Oh hell . . . How many?”

  “Her doctoral students.”

  “She’s been warned to treat them with more respect and courtesy. I’ve told her time and time again whenever complaints were lodged.”

  “Maybe she wanted to be caught.”

  “After all these years?”

  “She can’t claim a mistake. The lies have been in black and white for a long time. Lies get bigger and secrets get harder to hold the older one gets.”

  “And that’s why you brought this to my attention?”

  I stood up and gathered my things. He would do the right thing now. I could see it in his eyes. He didn’t like it but he would see this through.

  “Does it matter? The why of it?” I pushed my chair in against the table. “I don’t think so at this point. You have a personnel issue that I’ve brought to your attention. I trust that you will take the appropriate action. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  “Whether she’s fired or not, she’s done as a professor. The students won’t trust her, and the faculty will be wary of her,” he said.

  “I take no pleasure in this, Ash.”

  “If I were you, I
would.” He flipped the folder shut with one finger and shoved it away from him as if he wanted nothing to do with this. “And you’re not wrong.”

  “She thought she was smarter than the rest of us,” I said, as I stood up. But I wasn’t thinking of Hendrix any more. I’d moved on to my own problems. The essential morality that was me was still there fighting back, but if what I suspected was true, that my brain was wasting away, Ash would have cause to let me go one of these days.

  The thought didn’t bear thinking about.

  I was almost at the door when he said, “I’m still expecting you for dinner this weekend.”

  I looked back at him. Considering.

  Maybe this is how Hendrix started. She put down that first small lie on her vita, adding her name to the list of authors on an obscure publication, to keep her present a reality. And when she got away with it, she lied again, to herself and to others, because there was so much at stake she didn’t want to lose.

  He smiled at me, as I left him sitting alone with the red folder. Before I shut the door behind me, I told him I’d have dinner with him this weekend. As I closed the door, I told myself I was all kinds of a fool, because I still had hope that I would always know that I loved this man.

  And it was already too late for that.

  Whatever was inside my brain had begun to erase the empathy I’d once felt for other humans. Within those last minutes of conversation, I’d realized that had this situation occurred a few years ago, I would have gone to Hendrix, not Ash, and told her, not him, I knew of her deceptions.

  The reasons why that wasn’t a good idea flooded my brain. The truth remained stable in the midst of that chaos. Maybe if she resigned, the university wouldn’t bring other charges, like fraud, against her or revoke her pension. But to resign, she had to know that her duplicity had been uncovered. When I got home, before I became distracted or changed my mind, I sat down at the computer to compose a message to Hendrix.