“I met with President Fitch this morning,” she says. “He wanted to give me the heads-up that Senator Tucker Brenner will be on campus next month for a political roundtable discussion. There’s some speculation that he’ll announce his intentions to make a run for the White House at that time. That means we can expect a media presence in and around the music department in the days to come.”
“Why?” asks Barry Green, whose seat is squeezed so close to mine that I can smell his Old Spice. “What do they want here?”
“What do they always want?” I grumble. “They’re looking for a comment from the exalted Miss Brenner.”
Maureen shoots me a nasty look.
“What?” I demand, spreading my palms up toward the ceiling. “Come on, Maureen, you know it’s true. Honestly, I’m counting the days until she graduates and takes her paparazzi with her.”
From the far side of the room, someone shuffles. The tall, pale figure of Russell Atherton emerges out of the crowd of professors standing in the corner, wearing his signature ratty T-shirt with a long-sleeved plaid shirt over it. I didn’t even notice him back there. But then, that’s what he’s good at, isn’t it? Appearing and disappearing like a goddamn ghost.
I’m not the only one surprised to see him as a low murmur makes its way around the small room. Russell hasn’t attended a single faculty meeting in the time I’ve been teaching here. In fact, I’m not sure everyone in this room even knows who he is. Lucky bastards. Maureen twists around in her seat at the head of the table to see what everyone is staring at.
“Russell!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely happy to see him. “I didn’t realize you were here. Come, pull up a chair next to me. There’s no need for you to stand back there.”
But he shakes his head, making his ridiculous white ponytail swing from side to side.
“No thank you, Maureen. I won’t be staying long. I just wanted to be here in case someone needed to represent the interests of my student. And I can see now that someone does.”
“Which student? Kate?” Maureen asks.
“Who else would it be, Maureen? He only has the one student,” I point out and am met with a snarl from Russell.
“Russ…” Maureen cautions him quietly.
It’s a warning he chooses to ignore as he stalks to the table. Two of my colleagues scramble to roll their chairs in opposite directions so they can clear a space for the fists that slam down on the glassy mahogany table. The conference room is still, without so much as a breath or a blink to tip the tension.
“You listen to me and you listen good, Drew. I will not tolerate anymore of your bullshit. I suggest you lay off Kate Brenner, or you’ll have me to deal with. Understand?” he growls.
I wait a beat to see if Maureen will intervene. She doesn’t.
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Russell,” I say coolly. “I will enforce the policies of this university as I see fit. And I’ll thank you to mind your own business.”
All heads swing back toward Russell as if this is a round at Wimbledon.
“Yeah.” He snorts. “Because being a few minutes late for class is such a serious infraction.”
“It is in my classroom,” I inform him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of raising my voice.
“Apparently, seeing as how you threatened to fail her in her last semester of graduate school. I have to say, I read the student handbook cover to cover today and, as far as I could see, the only non-academic infractions that cause immediate failure and dismissal are cheating, criminal activity, and any kind of hate rhetoric.”
Now they’re all back to staring at me. Maureen raises a curious eyebrow.
“Is that true, Drew? Did you tell Kate you’d fail her for being a few minutes late to your class?”
“Really, Maureen? That’s the part of this exchange that you feel needs clarification? After he just came in here and threatened me in front of the entire music department?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Oh, come on!” I huff loudly, throwing calm and cool out the window. “She was late. I gave her a verbal warning. Isn’t that what professors are supposed to do?” I turn my glare to Russell who looks as if smoke is about to come out of his ears. “And, Russell, if your girl can’t manage something as basic as getting up in time for class, then maybe she’s got no business graduating from our program anyway. These students are a direct reflection on us.”
“Enough!” Maureen says loudly. She closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, and starts again in a lower voice. “First, both of you, please refrain from calling our female students ‘girls.’ They’re women. Kate is a woman, not a girl.”
“Oh, wonderful,” I say to no one. “I guess I’m a misogynist now, too.”
When I see the fire in Maureen’s gray eyes, I realize I may have gone a step too far. She sits back and surveys the room full of teachers before speaking in a chilling tone.
“I want to make something very clear to everyone in this room. There will be no discussion of Kate Brenner to anyone. Not to each other. Not to students. Certainly not to reporters. And let me remind you that there are unscrupulous members of the press who will try to get information by any means possible. They might call pretending to be another department or administrator on campus. They might come right out and offer you cash for inside information. There are to be no comments on or off the record to anyone. If I hear so much as a whisper about an ‘anonymous source’ within the music department, someone is going to lose their job. And make no mistake about it. I. Will. Find. You. Is there anyone in this room who needs clarification on anything I’ve just said?”
Silence.
“Good,” she says with a satisfied nod. “All right then, everyone, please be careful with the weather this weekend and let’s plan on meeting next Thursday if the university is open. Thank you all for your time. Drew, Russell, please stay.”
The room empties quickly as a few colleagues shoot sympathetic glances my way. Tessa is the last one to get up. But, instead of exiting, she stops in front of Maureen.
“I just want to say that I’m with Drew on this. As Kate’s advisor, I’ve found that it’s more trouble than it’s worth to have a high-profile student.”
I cringe for my friend. Way to kick a hornets’ nest, Tess.
“Oh? And why is that, exactly?” Maureen asks.
Tessa looks a little taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“What about Kate’s presence in this department has been ‘trouble’ for you?”
I can see the start of pink rising to Tessa’s cheeks.
“Well, I—uh—I’ve offered my services to her on numerous occasions but she’s determined to…” Her voice peters out before she can find a suitable ending to that thought.
“To what, exactly, Tessa? To keep her business private? To handle her own problems like a grown-up?”
“I…I, uh, Maureen, I still don’t…”
“Tessa, please stick to academic advising. Drew is more than capable of handling issues with his own students. Understood?”
Tessa nods with a sour face.
“Good. Now leave us. Please,” she says in a tone that doesn’t sound like “please” so much as “before I throw your scrawny ass out the door.” Tessa practically trips on her five-inch heels in her haste to get out of the room. Once she’s gone, Maureen turns her attention to a pissed-looking Russell.
“Russ, I’m so happy that you felt compelled to come out of your office and join us in the real world for a change. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Kate has no idea that you came here on her behalf. Am I right?”
“Maybe,” he grumbles begrudgingly.
Maureen gives a long sigh of resignation and when she speaks again, her tone is considerably softer than it was earlier. “Russ, you know very well that Kate is not only perfectly capable of handling this situation on her own, she’d prefer to handle it on her own. If you want to help Kate, then please keep an eye out
for those sneaky creeps who call themselves journalists. I don’t trust them to leave her alone, and some can get very aggressive. All right?” she asks.
“Fine,” he mutters grudgingly.
“Good. I’ll come by and see you in your office before I head out for the day.”
Russell takes the hint and leaves. And then it’s just Maureen and me. When she looks at me expectantly, I get up from the far end of the table and sit at her other side. She sighs and takes her glasses off long enough to rub the bridge of her nose.
“Drew, I’m going to advise you to tread very carefully here.”
“Why? Is the senator going to come after me next?”
“No,” she replies dryly. “I’d just hate for any complaints to complicate your bid for tenure. They’re not wrong, you know. Tenure is yours, so long as you don’t burn the building down. So stop playing with the goddamned matches already!”
I’m taken aback by the hiss in her tone. It’s very un-Maureen-like.
“Maureen, you don’t understand—”
“Please, Drew. I’m not blind. You’re not the only one who sees the resemblance. But Kate isn’t Casey.”
I feel my lungs suck in a breath that I didn’t tell them to take.
“Is that what you think? That I confuse her with Casey?” I ask, trying for indignant but coming up short. Instead, my words end up sounding petulant.
She smiles at me now. It’s a strange smile, though. Part pity, part fondness, and part insanity.
“I think that Casey still makes you furious even after all this time. And I think that Kate is a convenient proxy for your anger.”
“Oh, please. You know what, Maureen? I’m sick and tired of being painted as the villain—”
“No, stop right there,” she says, holding up her index finger in warning. “I am very fond of you, Drew. You know that. But do not make the mistake of thinking that you are above reproach. You harass, threaten, or coerce that young woman again and it just might cost you more than tenure. You might not have a job at the end of it. So get your act together and get over it. Get over her.”
With that, my boss stands up, grabs her belongings, and leaves me sitting at the table, wondering exactly which her she’s expecting me to get over.
Chapter Five
Kate
He’s handing back the papers. One by one, he peels the manuscript pages off the pile in his hand and folds it in half, discretely delivering it to its owner. I try not to look too interested as I watch my classmates surreptitiously. Joanie the flute player grumbles and rolls her eyes. Not the grade she was expecting, I guess. From the desk next to me, pianist Craig lets out a long sigh of relief. Not the grade he was expecting either, apparently, but for different reasons.
Markham passes the assignments back until there are none. Despite my efforts to remain disinterested, I can feel my face heat with the embarrassment of being excluded. I make a point of pretending to be engrossed in the notebook on my desk, hoping no one will notice. Well, he did say he wasn’t going to accept it. Just because I left it here doesn’t mean he even looked at it. In fact, it probably hit the trash can before the door closed behind me.
“Ahem.”
My head jerks up at the sound in front of me. He’s standing at his desk, reaching across it with my assignment in his hand. My hand is trembling slightly as I take it from him. God, I hope he doesn’t notice.
“Thank you, Dr. Markham,” I mutter quietly.
“Don’t thank me till you look it over,” he says in an equally soft tone.
He walks behind his desk to the board and starts to write out a few bars of music. With his back to me, I decide it’s safe to take a peek. Slowly, I pull the two ends of the folded paper apart, afraid of what I might find.
“Excellent inversion of the motif!” he’s written next to a fragment he circled. Further down the page I get “Yes!” where I have given the bassoons an unexpected solo. There are a few other scrawling compliments in red ink as I get down to the bottom and flip to the second page. And there it is. I skip past a few other remarks he’s made to get to the space under my last line of music.
“Overall, a very well-thought arrangement. I hope you’ll continue along these lines as you complete the project. And I hope you’ll bring it in on time.
Grade earned: 95. Grade Received: 0. –D. Markham.”
When I glance up from the paper, he’s watching me. Everyone else is so busy reading their own comments that they don’t notice when he raises a single eyebrow at me. It’s a question. And a dare. I don’t answer, nor do I bite. I tuck the pages into the back of my notebook and pull out a piece of blank manuscript paper so I can copy down the phrase of music that he’s written on the board. I suppose I should be grateful that I got the comments out of him.
“All right, enough ogling the papers,” Markham says after a few minutes. “I’ve been getting a lot of questions in regards to the midterm assignment. And, quite frankly, I’m alarmed by them. You should be just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s at this point. Not emailing me questions about basic music theory. So, I’m going to do some one-on-ones with you for the rest of the class, to go over a few key points that appear to be throwing several of you off.
“You are graduate students, not freshmen. Everything we’re doing now is built on the foundation of the last three semesters. And the last four years before that. This isn’t anything new that I’m pulling out of thin air. These are concepts we’ve studied in other composers’ music at length. Now, I’m asking you to apply them here. Okay, if you’re not doing a one-on-one with me, then please copy the measures that I’ve written on the board and give me a quintet orchestration of it.”
When he seems satisfied that we’re all clear, he sits down at his desk and pulls up a chair next to his, inviting each student to check in with him to address their questions. Time is almost up and I still haven’t decided if I’ll take a turn or not. Sitting so close to him, I have the advantage of hearing him speaking with my classmates. And, so far, he’s been nice enough to everyone. Helpful, even.
“You can’t have the violins playing a C-natural while the violas are playing a C-sharp,” he’s telling a bassoon player named Evan.
“I, uh—I don’t understand,” Evan replies, scratching his perpetual bedhead.
I try to keep from smiling as I work on the assignment in front of me. I can’t help but notice that Markham doesn’t give Evan a nasty lecture or a warning about failing.
“You’re running out of time, Evan,” Markham begins candidly, his concern obvious in his tone. “I think the best use of what little you have left is to just start over. Don’t come at it from a twenty-first-century composer’s perspective. Pretend you’re one of Mozart’s students. Write it the way he would want you to write it. The way it would have been written in his day. Does that make sense?”
“Uh, yeah, I suppose…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see our professor pat my classmate’s arm supportively. “Take another run at it tonight, then come see me during office hours tomorrow and I’ll have another look. You can do this, Evan. I know you can.”
I sneak a quick glance and see that Evan is as surprised by this offer as I am.
“You’d do that? You’d see me two days in a row?” he asks, clearly stunned.
Markham’s expression is perplexed. “Of course. That’s what office hours are for. That’s what I’m here for.”
A stunned Evan nods, taking his paper and shuffling back to his seat. I’m still watching him walk away when I hear my name.
“Miss Brenner?”
“Y-yes?” I ask and immediately berate myself for stuttering. What’s wrong with me? Why do I let him make me like this?
“Did you want to go over your paper?” Markham asks.
“Sure,” I say a little hesitantly. There are some furtive glances from my classmates as I put the staff paper on his desk and pull up a chair so we can both look it over.
“You really d
id an excellent job with this,” he says quietly. “If the midterm assignment is as good as this, there’s no reason you shouldn’t score an A.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, keeping my eyes fixed on the paper in front of me.
“Do you understand why I gave you the grade I did?”
I’m on guard immediately. Such a simple question could so easily be a setup. I clear my throat to buy myself another couple of seconds while I consider my reply.
“I am disappointed that you wouldn’t accept the assignment,” I begin slowly. “But I appreciate the fact that you took the time to look it over and give me your comments,” I conclude at last.
There. Diplomatic, polite, and the truth.
“But you understand my reasoning?” he presses.
Oh, come on, really? Clearly, he is not going to let this go. I sigh and angle my chair a little so I can look directly into his eyes. They’re so brown that they almost look black when you get up close to them.
“No, Dr. Markham, I can’t say that I understand it, because I don’t. It seems unreasonable to me,” I say with as much sincerity as I can muster. “That being said, I’ll just have to respect whatever decision you make.”
Markham’s jaw clenches into a hard line and his dark eyebrows draw down into a harsh V. Clearly I will not be benefiting from the same kind concern that Evan just received. When my professor speaks again, I can hear the frost in his soft voice.
“Miss Brenner, if that were true, if you really did respect my decision, you wouldn’t have gone crying to Russell Atherton about me.”
I can actually feel the blood as it drains from my face.
“Dr. Markham, I swear to God I didn’t say anything about our conversation. He’d heard about it from someone else. And I asked him—I pleaded with him—not to discuss it with you,” I explain in a hushed tone.
For a long beat he seems to be looking for something on my face. Sincerity, maybe? I hope so, because that’s what it is. That and abject horror. Finally, he gives a long sigh of reluctant acceptance.
Solo (Symphony Hall) Page 4