Not sure what else to do, Eph was giving her “the tour,” a crisscross through the snowy pathways and quadrangles. He showed her the classroom where he was teaching his second-semester courses, and they walked by the occupied Stockbridge. Eph explained what was going on.
“What is it they want?” asked Ellie.
“It’s quite a long list, actually. Some of it is kind of out there.”
He decided not to tell her of his own misadventures. She would be supportive but wouldn’t understand.
Farther on they ducked into a stone archway, which led to the courtyard of Hewitt House. Hewitt was one of the larger residential houses and thought by many to be the most beautiful. The courtyard was almost a football field in length and had several weeping willows, which somehow hadn’t yielded their foliage to the assault of winter. Surrounding the yard were gracefully arched entryways that led to smaller courts, as well as peaks and turrets of varying height. At one end was a dining hall with a façade of stone and lead glass so airy and light it looked as if the two could dance. At the far corner rose Hewitt Tower, one of the largest freestanding stone structures in the world. Within its higher reaches was housed an immense carillon, which a handful of music students learned to play every year. Built in the most detailed Anglican style, the tower looked like an elaborate, vertical wedding cake.
“Students get to live here?” asked a wide-eyed Ellie, taking in the sweep of the place.
“Yes. This house, and others.”
“It’s so beautiful. I had no idea.”
Just then, the carillon began to play. The sound of the bells was peaceful and serene. Whatever was happening elsewhere in the world, this place, Devon, existed calmly outside time. The bells, this courtyard, it was all thus a century ago and would be thus a century from now.
They listened for a minute until the cold caught up with them, so they retreated into the dining hall to warm up. Medieval-looking pennants hung from the wood rafters of the twenty-five-foot ceilings. Around the walls hung formal portraits of housemasters past, only they didn’t call them masters anymore. They were heads of house now, lest anyone grow faint at the word master.
It was the afternoon lull between meals, but the dining hall stayed open for drinks and light food. Eph grabbed a coffee, Ellie a hot chocolate, and they sat in the almost-empty hall.
“I can’t believe this place,” Ellie said. “All of it. It’s like living in Harry Potter or King Arthur’s court.”
Eph smiled. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the campus compared to the Potter books. “Sadly, it turns out my skills as a wizard are wanting, so they’ve got me teaching English.”
“I read your book, you know.”
“Oh, you’re the one.”
They laughed, then sat in silence for a bit, getting warm. Ellie looked tired. They had avoided the elephant in the room all day.
“So how is he?” asked Eph.
* * *
The Russell farm had been in the family for three generations. Everyone was expected to help, including the children. Technically, the government says you can’t work the family farm until age twelve, but Big Mike didn’t take much stock in what the government had to say about much of anything. It was hard work, particularly during harvest season. Migrant workers helped, but the family couldn’t afford many of them.
Like most boys, Eph grew up in awe of his father, but it was Eph’s older brother, Jack, who was undeniably the chip off the old block. Jack and Big Mike had a bond that made Eph’s heart hurt in every way that it could. Eph tried things that he thought might win his father’s approval, but it never quite worked out. There had been Eph’s disastrous turn on Pop Warner football, of course, and then later he wrote a school paper on famous authors from Alabama, which he thought Big Mike might like given the family’s long history there. Big Mike looked at the paper and sort of grunted. “Never read any of them,” he said, handing the paper back. Eventually, Eph just stopped trying.
* * *
Ellie met Eph’s gaze. “He’s been better. To tell you the truth, I worry about him. Ever since we sold the farm, he hasn’t had a purpose. Men need a purpose.”
“I suppose they do.”
“He moved in with us, as you know, and mostly he watches TV or sits on the porch. On good days, he might go out shooting squirrels, but there’ve been fewer of those.”
“Is it hard on you?”
“We get by.” She paused. “I have a small confession to make. I didn’t really have to be in New York. Mostly, I wanted to see you.”
“Sis, you didn’t need an excuse. It’s always great to see you.”
“It looks like you have a nice life here.”
“Some of the people are a bit different, but this is a special place. It’s home now.”
“And your girl?”
“D’Arcy. She’s my angel. Can you stay for dinner? Let’s all three of us go somewhere. I’d love for you to meet her.”
“I can’t, I’m sorry. I have to get back for a flight this evening. Maybe some other time.”
The conversation flagged the way it can between two people who love each other but have drifted apart with life’s natural currents.
“You know, he won’t say it, but I think he might like to see you sometime.”
Eph suspected that was coming. “I don’t know, Ellie…”
“He’s not getting any younger, and you two just need to get on with it, if you ask me.”
“Hey, Sis, I know you mean well, but I’m crazy busy here—did I tell you I’m up for tenure?”
Things were, in fact, looking up for his tenure prospects. He knew Fred Hallowell and Titus Cooley stood in support, and Eph seemed to be making progress with Sophie Blue Feather. He did his best not to reflect on the costume he’d donned for the trans rights march.
“I am so proud of you, I can’t even say. He is, too, in his way.”
“It doesn’t sound like he’s exactly asking for me. It might be a long trip for a short conversation.”
“Will you think about it?”
“Sure.” Eph looked at his feet.
“Well, I should get going. There’s a bus I should catch.” Eph didn’t even know buses came to Havenport. “You have a wonderful life here. And I promise to make time to meet your gal next time. D’Arcy.”
Eph walked her out to the street to find a cab.
Ellie gave him a big hug. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Stillman Weathers
STILLMAN WEATHERS POKED at his tuna tartare and looked out the cabin window. With a cruising altitude of forty-two thousand feet, his company’s brand-new Gulfstream G650 didn’t offer much to see. Even the clouds looked far below. He rubbed the soft Spanish leather on his armrest. It smelled as if it had been tanned yesterday. The G650 seated eight, had a crew of four, and a top speed just shy of Mach 1.
He liked saying that. Mach 1. The speed of sound. The G650 waiting list was long, but Stillman’s company had always been a good Gulfstream customer, so they got the fourth one off the line. He noticed it was the only one parked at Davos last month.
With its final configuration, the tab to his company came to $72 million. This had given Stillman some pause, but he worked hard, and it wouldn’t do to waste half his days in commercial airports, not with what his time was worth. It wouldn’t do at all. And besides, his company, Broadreach Industries, made $3.2 billion last quarter. The shareholders wouldn’t squawk, that’s for sure. Not with numbers like those.
“Will that be all, Mr. Weathers?” asked Jenny, the plane’s flight attendant.
“Yes, thank you, Jenny. You can knock off for a bit.”
Today, Stillman was the only passenger. As the chairman of Devon’s Board of Governors, he was heading to Havenport for an emergency meeting of the Steering Committee, which was basically the small subset of the board that actually got things done. The board had forty-fi
ve members, a size that maximized financial gifts but rendered productive meetings impossible. When you got right down to it, the broader board didn’t do much, not that anyone on the outside had to know.
The unscheduled trip was an inconvenience, but Stillman was quietly pleased to think he was riding to the rescue. Being chair of Devon’s board pleased Stillman almost as much as being CEO of Broadreach. No, that wasn’t right—it pleased him more. For better or worse, the corporate world was tainted. They were moneymen, strivers, never completely respected in the corridors of media and political power. He’d given over $100 million of his shareholders’ money away last year to various charities to wash himself of the stain, and naturally he signaled his disdain for the current administration in Washington at every opportunity, but still … the stain remained. He felt it.
Academia, on the other hand, was still the province of an intellectual nobility, people who toiled in the pursuit of pure truth, not mammon. While Stillman projected an image of serene authority, he was secretly as thrilled as a little boy about his ascendency to the Devon chair. It conferred, in the circles he cared about, a legitimacy that could not be bought. And heck, he still loved the place, having spent his undergraduate years as a history major and heavyweight rower. In many ways, those were the best four years of his life.
The situation with the black students would have to be handled with tact. When he was a student back in the early seventies, there were minority students on campus, but nothing like today, what with outreach being such a priority. At his last reunion, a classmate of his—whose son had recently been rejected—quipped that back in their day, if you saw a black student, you’d whisper the person was likely a football or basketball player. Now, the joke went, if you saw a preppie blond kid, you might mutter, “Probably a lacrosse player.” Like most successful jokes, it had the air of truth. Times had changed, and part of Stillman’s job was to help the school navigate that change. He couldn’t allow anything to undermine Devon’s reputation and, not unimportantly, his own. In Stillman’s world, a well-maintained order was the most virtuous state of affairs.
But he wondered about Milton. What kind of show was he running? Events were spinning beyond his control. Stillman would bottom-line this thing and put it in the rearview mirror. That’s what he did. If some knuckles had to be rapped, so be it.
Since this was his first trip to Devon in his new iron, his people had had to call to make sure Havenport Airport’s lone runway had the necessary length. It did, if just barely.
Iron. It’s what CEOs called their planes when they were in one another’s company. He loved that word.
The G650 started its descent.
Busted
THE KNOCK ON Lulu’s door came at an unpleasantly early hour, not even ten o’clock. There had been a rally last night in support of the occupation and all the chanting from that rabble had kept her up. Song was long gone, of course, probably in a lab somewhere. Lulu rolled out of her twin bed and threw on a robe. The knock was irritatingly persistent.
“Just a goddamn minute!” She flung open the door, ready to vent her irritation, and saw it was two campus rent-a-cops. One was quite obese. Didn’t they have fitness tests for these sorts of jobs? The presence of campus gendarmes did not alter her general state of agitation, but she decided not be obvious about it.
“What!” She wasn’t successful.
“Miss Harris?”
“Yes.”
“We’re with campus security,” said the fat one. “We’d like to come in and look around, if you don’t mind.”
“Can you come back later? I was asleep. And why on earth would you need to come in my room anyway?”
“We just want to look around.”
“Well, this isn’t a good time. I’m not even dressed. And don’t you need a warrant or something?” Sheldon repped a few actors on Law & Order, so she knew a thing or two.
“This isn’t your property, miss, so no.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you want? And shouldn’t you be over at Bingham making sure those people don’t start a riot?” Lulu couldn’t imagine what this was about. She didn’t have any drugs. Drugs weren’t really her thing ever since she went to the ER after that Lower East Side rave a year ago. She had ingested more than the doctor-recommended amount of ecstasy.
“We’ll just be a minute.” They walked right around her into the room. The sight of fatty rummaging around her things made her nauseous. When he leaned over, his uniform shirt rode up, exposing a roll of corpulence. Yuck. Lulu had no patience for fat people. If they didn’t respect themselves, why should she have to? Mostly, though, she just found them unattractive. Maybe she should call Sheldon.…
“Got it,” said the not-fat one, who had been digging in her minuscule closet. He turned, holding the Fellingham scepter.
“That’s what you’re looking for?”
“Yes, miss. It was reported stolen.”
“It’s from my club. Of which I am a member. It can’t be stolen if I’m a member, now can it?” Officer Blart, she wanted to add.
“Well, all we know is that it was reported stolen by the club, which filed a report, and then we got a tip it might be here. So here we are, and now we need to take this thing with us.”
“And then what?”
“Miss?”
“I mean, you’re just going to return it and that’s that?”
“Miss, our only job was to come find this here … scepter. Anything else, you’ll need to take up with the university. We will need to file a report, and that’s the end of it as far as we’re concerned.”
They left. The fat one had to turn slightly to fit through the door, Lulu noted with horror.
The scepter. She’d taken it one night out of boredom. No other reason. She frequently took things out of boredom. She would have given it back, but after everyone at the society started bitching about the goddamn thing—Win and Frazier were being dreadful bores—and then there was that story in the Daily, she just hadn’t found a moment to return it discreetly. She’d never heard people go on so much about something so silly. They should be happy she had it and not some common thief, who would have thrown the damn thing in the trash as soon as he found out the jewels were fake.
But how did someone know she had it?
She found out that bit of information the next day. Returning from her American Studies class—a new offering, American Precarity in the 21st Century—she came upon an oversize envelope at her door with her initials on the outside. No other markings. Curious, she opened it up and out fell a small gold plaque. Her plaque.
She grabbed her phone and immediately texted Shelley: “What the hell is going on?”
There was no immediate answer and Lulu grew anxious, texting again: “?????????????”
A few minutes later the reply came: “Meet me at the Dix in 30.”
The Dix. Not Fellinghams. Shelley almost never set foot in the Dix other than to grab coffee at the Starbucks kiosk. Lulu threw on her black Moncler coat, the one with all the puffy rows of down, her Stuart Weitzman boots, and trudged over.
Anxious, she found herself there early. She sat down in a pod, but then decided she felt ridiculous, so she went and waited in line at Starbucks even though she didn’t want anything. At the head of the line, she ordered a short latte (skinny, vanilla), paid with her phone, then considered where to wait. She imagined everyone was looking at her, but that was silly. Settling on the end seat of an empty nearby table, she got out her phone again and tried to look busy by scanning her Snapchat. One of her New York friends had sent her a snap from an East Village party, which didn’t make her feel any better.
“Hi.” Shelley dropped her class books on the table and took a seat. Lulu hadn’t seen her walk up.
Lulu reached into her bag and pulled out the plaque. Might as well get right to the point. “So what’s with this?”
“That’s their way of telling you,” Shelley said matter-of-factly.
“Telling me
what?”
“That you’re out, of course. Off the Wall of Belonging and all that.”
Lulu had feared as much, but what the hell. “Out of the society? Over the fucking scepter?”
“You knew how they loved the damn thing. You knew it!”
“Oh, come on. It was just a prank. I was going to return it.”
“Well, frankly, it didn’t seem that way. It was in the paper weeks ago and you’ve heard the boys going on about it, and when they specifically asked if anyone knew where it was, you didn’t say a thing.”
“I just wanted some time to return it, you know, quietly. I didn’t know it would be a thing.”
“That was a month ago. You need to get real about this. That scepter is the society’s symbol. I think that was pretty clear.”
“It’s not even real. The jewels are glass! Someone probably bought it on goddamn eBay.”
“I’m not sure anyone thinks that matters. The society may be a bit of a lark, we all know that, but some things they—we—take seriously. People feel betrayed. Plus you took that other stuff, you know, from OTA. Seems like a bit of a pattern.”
“The stuff OTA gets for free?”
“You don’t know that, and I’m fairly certain Wendy Faircloth wouldn’t see it like that.”
“So, what, I’m out? Just like that?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so.”
“This is so fucking unfair. I actually like the place, you know.”
“That’s awfully big of you.”
“Oh, stop. You know what I mean.”
There was a pause.
“Well, if that’s all…” Shelley started to get up.
“You can’t do this.”
“It’s done.”
“Won’t you help me?”
“Lulu, I agree with it. No one trusts you anymore. And they think you’re a bit of a climber.”
Campusland: A Novel Page 18