by E M Kaplan
“School’s already in session?” Josie asked. While a few students—most in navy and white Bader logo shirts and hoodies—sauntered up and down the narrow pathways alongside the road. A mini wave of anxiety swept over her as she remembered the incredible amounts of pressure some of her classmates had placed on themselves. Pre-Med, pre-Law, pre-whatever. Their angst had been palpable.
But these students…she looked around. They appeared mellow, happy, and at ease. Even their poster-board signs protesting an ultra-conservative speaker were cheerful, in bubbly hand-painted letters. These kids were blissed out zombies. Drones in collegiate sportswear.
Maybe they were stoned—had medical marijuana replaced Ritalin for these millennials? Or maybe Josie was just removed enough, by life experience and the passage of time, from understanding how it was for people this age now. Maybe they were better at hiding their stress than she was.
“The semester began three weeks ago. You’ve missed orientation, but we’re meeting with the Dean of Humanities to go over the logistics of your situation.”
Josie rested her chin in her hand as she stared out the window. “How am I going to pull this off? I hate authority. And I’m way older than these kids.”
Greta’s silence had Josie glancing back at the woman. She was sure she’d missed an eye roll. “You hardly look twenty-one. I think you’ll manage.” The implication, also, was that Josie didn’t behave much older either. I beg to differ. In the last couple of years, she’d seen a lot of horrible things. Dead people. Murderers. Filthy kitchens. Things that would make a normal person’s skin crawl right off her bones.
“How long do you think I’ll be staying here? I mean, will I actually have to take exams and write papers?” Deadlines and homework? That was a weird idea after all this time. She didn’t even know if she was still teachable. She could barely tolerate authority of any kind…maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“You won’t need to take any exams. Just do enough to keep up the pretense, I should think.”
“I don’t have any clothes. What about my laptop?” She didn’t even have aspirin for a headache. Not even her birth control packet, which helped her stay on a hormonal even keel—well, relatively speaking. A dog to breathe in her face in the morning. A warm body to snuggle up with at night—although given the Lisa Incident, Josie wasn’t sure how much longer said warm body wanted to stick around.
And didn’t that just depress her to death. Her chest squeezed at the thought of Drew dumping her.
Concentrate on the matter at hand, she told herself. Because that’s why she’d agreed to come. Although “agreed” was a loose concept.
“Henry will buy you a toothbrush while we’re at lunch.” Greta’s tone sounded sarcastic to Josie. Maybe. It was hard to tell. However, the woman had never left her in the lurch before, so maybe she should blithely not worry about the details. Worrying is definitely not my style…yeah, right.
And on the other hand, this might be an easy assignment. Deep breath. She could do this. It wasn’t like she was giving up her life with Drew completely. She was just putting it on hold for a few days. She was still Josie Tucker, food blogger extraordinaire—not some helpless, clueless freshman about to get the education of her life. She was not giving up her identity for this job.
As Henry parked the car, Greta dug around in her Fendi bag one more time. With her lean, blue-veined arm, she pulled out an armful of fleece fabric, which she handed to Josie.
A navy and white hoodie with bold, collegiate letters.
“Welcome to Bader.”
Oh, lord.
Chapter 4
Dean Handley met her and Greta at the Roth Executive Club, the pristine and, dare Josie say, snazzy dining hall where the college entertained fat-cat alumni and other deep-pocket donors. Whoever Mr. or Ms. Roth was, he or she was a class act. White pleated curtains ran the height of two full walls, from floor to ceiling. Another full wall of windows opened up to an idyllic scene of the campus lawn with some immaculate landscaping.
In her blue jeans—and the new Bader zippered sweatshirt—the white upholstered seats freaked Josie out. Didn’t they ever serve red sauce in this place? Red sauce was what Drew’s Italian mother called spaghetti sauce “gravy.”
She started down a mental path about Drew dumping her in which she never had the chance of eating his mother’s amazing red marinara sauce again, but shook the thought from her mind. Later. Now was not the time for an internal horror show. She needed to stay focused. For the sake of the professor.
“Miss Tucker, have a seat. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, though his pinched face said just the opposite. “When our highly esteemed patron, Mrs. Williams, mentioned she was bringing someone to help Professor Sanborn with his little problem, you weren’t quite what I was expecting. Obviously, we’re happy,” he said, clearing his throat, “to accommodate Mrs. Williams’s request to look into this situation, but we thought you’d be more of, well, a seasoned professional.”
What an ass.
Josie’s snap judgment was not just because he’d insulted her abilities—even if he were right about her being not only an amateur, but amateurish as well. It was one thing to be new at a job and entirely another thing to act new.
However, she also didn’t like his obsequious bowing and scraping toward Greta. And most of all, she didn’t like how his words were the opposite of what he was thinking. Liars always annoyed the ever-loving crap out of her. And everyone, on some level, lied, which spoke volumes of how Josie felt about the entire human population.
For her part, Greta barely acknowledged the man. She sat in silence, her face impassive. Perhaps she was more used to dealing with sycophants. Josie liked to think part of the reason Greta liked her was that she was anything but a yes man. Yeah, I like to err on the side of obnoxious.
The dean’s thin arms jutted out at sharp angles from his short-sleeved dress shirt, and sandy brown hair dusted the backs of his hands. He sat back down and gestured for them to join him at his table, a thin-lipped smile stretching his face.
As a female student in server black-and-whites filled their water glasses and then plunked down four utilitarian head-lettuce salads swimming in Ranch dressing—absolutely drowning in the Kraft, which was gross—Josie analyzed her gut reaction to the dean, trying to mitigate her immediate dislike of him. He was pretty run-of-the-mill for a college dean, as far as she could tell. Not quite a businessman, not quite an intellectual, but enough of either to interact with either demographic. Kind of like a cheese substitute product. Only a person desperate enough to try ingesting it might accept it as a passable alternate for the real thing.
“Bader’s president—President Olsen—was unable to attend this lunch, but he sends his welcome. We intend to treat you exactly as we would any other transfer student—at least outwardly. I’ve had my admin register you for classes starting tomorrow morning. Here’s your schedule.” He slid a paper across the tablecloth toward her as he speared a forkful of watery lettuce and crammed it into his mouth, splashing white salad dressing on his chin in a grossly visceral and graphic display worthy of a horror movie. Lunchtime gore.
Glancing at the page, Josie took a sip from her water glass. The first class began at 9:30 tomorrow in the Wright building—wherever that was—which wasn’t a horrible hour. However, she hadn’t lived on someone else’s schedule in quite a long time. Being a blogger and moderate Internet sensation had spoiled her in that regard. Sleeping in. Going for walks with Bert. Eating a scone with a chai latte at the local coffee shop. Wearing her pajamas all day if she wanted.
“What’s my major?” She was half-joking. After all, she wouldn’t be around long enough to care, would she?
“Religious Studies,” he said, which made her choke, joke or not. Yeah, that is so not me.
Back in her undergrad days, she’d toyed briefly with being an Anthropology major, which was characteristically perverse of her since she’d left Arizona, an area of the country tee
ming with untapped, potential anthropological discovery, for Massachusetts. But then she’d landed on Philosophy, which had seemed like a good fit for her tendency toward overthinking things, albeit a useless specialization to list on a resumé. But Religious Studies… the idea of it made her a tad uncomfortable.
Why? Maybe it was her uneasy relationship with organized religion. Her dad had never been a big church-goer. Josie didn’t have anything against people who wanted to be spiritual or to seek a deeper meaning to this wacky rollercoaster called life, but people who liked to justify their actions based on an ancient written prescription made her…wary.
Perusing the schedule further, she saw a Western Religions survey course, something called Good and Evil—which she figured she had plenty of personal experience with—a general education music survey course, and then something called Independent Study. Four classes in all, a full load of credit hours.
“Both Religion of the West and the Independent Study hours are with Professor Sanborn, obviously. We want you to have time to work with him on this issue, but also we suspect the stalker is a Religious Studies major simply because of her interest in him. But that’s all we’ve managed to surmise regarding her identity.”
The female server, a fair-haired, freckled girl, was back with three covered dishes. As she removed the metal lids from their plates, she caught Josie’s eye and made an exaggerated face of disgust, one eye squinted shut, tongue stuck out, and mouth pulled into a grimace.
Grinning into her napkin, Josie wasn’t sure which the girl disapproved of more, the food or her company.
While Josie gingerly poked a fork through some overly cheesy vegetarian lasagna and a pile of dried out, cross-cut carrots, the dean had no compunction about their unattractive meal and dug in. Dean Handley chewed like a billy goat and waited until the server girl left before he continued.
Through a mouthful of noodles, he said, “Joshua is late. He finished class about a half hour ago, so he should be here any minute.” The dean swallowed the glob of pasta in his mouth, making his scrawny Adam’s apple bob like a fishing lure, and shoveled in the next forkful. “He’s always late, but never more than ten or fifteen minutes. The students don’t seem to mind waiting for him. He never misses an office hour or a class, but sometimes he’s on his own schedule—oh, here he is now.” He waved his napkin in the air, raining cracker crumbs on the tablecloth. Apparently he’d had a Saltine appetizer while waiting for them to arrive.
A fortyish year-old man stomped across the dining hall toward them with a heavy leather bag in tow—an oversized man-purse so stuffed with papers its pockets couldn't close. From the outset, he seemed normal enough. Good shoulders. A strong jaw line with a dimple in his chin. A little frazzled and disheveled.
He yanked out the white chair next to Josie and sat down with a heavy sigh, the resultant breeze puffing a combination of clean sweat and aftershave at Josie, and… Holy pheromones. He smelled really good. Not Drew-level good, but then no one measured up to that standard, as far as Josie was concerned. And apparently as far as that Lisa doctor-woman was concerned, too. Hrumph.
Before he’d even had a chance to say hello or straighten up from dropping his bag on the floor, the female server was at his side, sliding a covered plate in front of him. “Here you go, Professor Sanborn,” she said, bright and cheery.
The girl’s eyes never left the professor’s face. It seemed he had somewhat of a fan club. A large gravitation pull. When he thanked the girl by name, her face lit up.
Once again, the dean waited until the server was out of earshot before he continued. “Joshua, this is Josie Tucker. We’ve enrolled her in some of your classes, including some Independent Study hours, during which she’ll be working on your little issue.”
Professor Sanborn looked up and nodded at Josie, gazing at her with the bluest—turquoise, actually—eyes she’d ever seen. Aha. That was definitely part of his appeal. The rest of him was fairly rumpled and nondescript. Flyaway, wispy hair receded from his forehead and hinted at the memory of a youthful golden mane. A t-shirt under a v-neck argyle sweater and cargo pants completed the aw-shucks persona. Her gaze swept over him. Nice hands, too.
His words and expression seemed to have opposing purposes as he smiled, eyes crinkling in the corners, deep dimples creasing his face. “This whole situation has been just horrifying. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Trapped in the young Kenneth Branagh force field of his smile, Josie felt her eyebrows shoot up as a blush crept up her neck. “I’m happy to help,” she heard herself say. What the actual heck? She was neither happy nor even sure if she could help. And why did she feel like purring?
She cleared her throat, disgusted with herself. Did she crave approval that badly? She’d lost her father many years ago. Maybe this was a horrible, delayed after-effect. Or something. “Can you tell me what’s happened to you so far? Start at the beginning, since I’m new to this situation, please. If you don’t mind.” Good lord. She was being polite? She shook her head to try to clear it.
On the other side of her, Greta Williams sat with an impassive, stony expression. She hadn’t bothered to lift a fork. Her silence was intense and a presence in itself, as if to say all their silly dramatics were beneath her. At least one of them was keeping her wits about her.
“Things started happening during the very first week of classes,” the professor began. His meal sat untouched and he played with his fork, lining it up with the other utensils, straightening them and adjusting them until they lay in a perfectly spaced row. “The first thing was a letter.”
“Let me jump in here because actually, it was flowers, Josh. First day of class,” Dean Handley said and turned to Josie. “Someone—this same person, I think—left him flowers outside his office.”
Professor Sanborn ran a hand through his wispy hair. “Well, I guess so. I mean, maybe. I don’t really know if that was part of it. But I’ll include that for your benefit, Miss Tucker.”
“You can call me Josie if you want.” Her voice sounded unusually friendly—and completely out of character. Well, this was awkward. She was so used to her own natural misanthropy, she had no idea what to do with the urge to be pleasant to this man.
Under the table, she flicked the palm of one hand with her other fingers. Hard. The last thing she wanted to do was get caught up in some hormonal magnetic pull. It was like a tractor beam sucking her into the Death Star, as far as she was concerned, and she needed to fight it, kicking and thrashing.
“I think I’d prefer Miss Tucker, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Under the circumstances.”
“Sure. Of course.” Which was a good thing because her judgment had officially gone off the rails. What is wrong with me? Maybe it was the whole Drew thing. Because she kind of sounded like she was revenge-flirting. Which was horrible. “What flowers?”
“It was a plant, actually. A potted plant sitting outside my office door on the first day of class. It showed up before my first class, before I even got to my office, which was about eight in the morning. My first class is at nine. I mean, it was just a plant, so I didn’t think anything about it even though it was sitting right in front of the door. I had to push it to the side to get in.”
“So it’s a big plant?”
“Yes. One of those rubber plants or whatever. A big potted one.”
“Anything unusual about it? Did it have a card or a message?”
“No. Not even a bow. I just thought another teacher had brought it in and put it in front of the wrong office. I mean, we have some new staff just settling in.” He picked up his fork as if he were going to poke at his plate, but then he put it down again and resumed his straightening and spacing routine. Was he OCD when nervous? His messy book bag said otherwise, but he certainly was fidgety.
“Do you still have the plant?”
“What? No. It didn’t fit in my office, so I pushed it out to the admin’s desk area. Jane takes care of it. Lord knows I’d kill it. I don’t remember thi
ngs like that. I can’t even take care of my wife’s cat properly, and it hates people.”
“I think the plant has something to do with it,” the dean cut in, again through a mouthful of pasta. If Josie’s initial gut reaction was to dislike him, bad table manners pushed her over the edge on her assessment of his character. Say it, don’t spray it, buddy.
“Enough with the fucking plant, Edward.” The f-bomb came out clipped and intellectual-sounding, really out of place like someone passing gas in church. Professor Sanborn’s face flushed an unattractive, blotchy pink, making his eyes glow neon blue.
“Okay,” Josie said, moving on. She had no idea if a potted plant could be considered a significant threat, but it seemed unlikely. “After that there was a letter?”
“Yeah. You know what? Why don’t I show it to you? Everything is in my office. And I’m not hungry anyway.” The professor shot an irritated look across the table at the dean. “I have office hours soon and we can chat on our way there.”
Greta was already gathering up her belongings. “Josie, I trust you and Professor Sanborn can discuss the specifics of what you plan to do. In the meantime, I’ve had your things delivered to your room. Here’s the key and a map to get there. I have an appointment back in the city so I’m leaving now.”
Josie felt a surge of panic—more so than she’d felt as an actual freshman, stepping off the plane from Arizona at Logan Airport for the first time. Greta was leaving her here at the school. With no car. With no adult companionship. With no clue as to how to find this man’s stalker.
Okay. Deep breath.
“That’s fine.” Josie forced a confident smile. “I’ll take it from here.”
Chapter 5
Although Professor Sanborn was medium height, maybe 5’ 10” or so, he was still a head taller than Josie’s 5’ 2”. She had to trot to keep up with his pell-mell pace across campus. His rapid gait, punctuated by the occasional unseeing wave when he heard his name called, was slightly forward-leaning, though she didn’t know whether that was due to his overloaded shoulder bag. With one eye on the interested faces of the passing students, mostly females with a handful of males as well, Josie realized she was attracting some attention just by following in his wake.