Shades of Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘Oh, sorry. A client.’ He hoisted the boxes back up, and raised his voice to carry over them. ‘Go down that hallway to the right. Sorry for the mess. August 1. New interns start today. Everything is crazy.’

  ‘I gather.’ But he’d already gone, leaving Dulcie to pick her way over more boxes and into what must once have been a formal dining room. The layout was familiar from other university offices, a good number of which were housed in equally old, quaint, and impractical converted homes. In this building, every available inch had been turned to office use. Cubicle-like desk spaces lined the walls, leaving only a narrow walkway around a central table that was itself covered with papers. Three women were pecking away at laptops, not even bothering to look up as someone – the round-faced young man? – dropped something heavy in the next room. The entire house – admittedly, not particularly big – shook slightly, and the low, muttered sound of cursing filtered through the wall into the room.

  ‘Dulcie!’ At the sound of her own name, Dulcie spun around. There, in the open doorway, stood Luke. He was smiling. ‘I left a message for you last night.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry.’ She felt flustered and fought it. She would not care that this man was handsome and smiling. She would not. ‘I had just the worst day. Which – well – is why I’m here.’ She gestured at the activity going on around her, and realized she was saying more with her hands than with her voice. ‘I mean, I ran into some issues yesterday that made it seem like I should get some legal advice.’

  ‘Follow me, then. We can talk back here.’ He opened a door she hadn’t seen before.

  ‘No, I mean, from legal aid.’ She wasn’t making herself clear. Luke was a law student, but she wasn’t asking him, personally, for help.

  ‘I figured that out.’ He was smiling more broadly now. ‘I’m working here for the rest of the summer.’ He saw her puzzled look. ‘I’ll be a 3L when I go back to Stanford, my seminar doesn’t take that much time, and one of the August interns fell through. So,’ he gestured again to the open door, ‘would you like to chat?’

  It wasn’t like she had a choice, she thought to herself, as she walked past him into the back office. Dulcie wasn’t sure it could even be called a room. Almost windowless, with one high cut-through that let in some air and the sound of soft chatter, the tiny space must have originally been a pantry or even a large closet. Small as it was, it had been divided into three workstations, each barely big enough for a computer. Bookshelves climbed up the wall and a filing cabinet behind the door kept it from opening entirely. Luke motioned for her to roll one of the chairs toward a lit computer screen, and took a seat beside her. After the bustle out front, this space felt quiet and intimate.

  And so Dulcie dived right in. ‘Well, Luke, I’m here about two legal problems. The first is criminal. I seem to be under investigation for Tim’s murder.’

  Luke blanched, but when he spoke his voice was calm. ‘I should give you the legal aid spiel, Dulcie. First, we don’t actually handle criminal cases. Work, housing, various forms of discrimination – that’s it. But, off the record, tell me more.’

  Dulcie felt herself flush. Her obnoxious room-mate had been this man’s brother, after all. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just dropped that on you. But, well, the police have heard that he and I didn’t get along. They brought me in for questioning on Saturday and they implied that I went over the edge.’ She didn’t want to add that they’d also suggested that she might be jealous. Her lack of a sex life was not Luke’s business. She swallowed. ‘I want to make it clear, Luke. Tim and I did have our disagreements. But I did not – I could never – have killed him.’ She paused. That sounded odd. ‘I mean, I couldn’t kill anyone.’

  He smiled. ‘I believe you, Dulcie. It’s just still hard to get my mind around what happened. But I can’t seriously imagine the police are considering you as a suspect. You’re too gentle.’ He looked away from her, down at the keyboard.

  ‘Thanks.’ This was awkward. Why couldn’t they be out in that busy front room? ‘Suze, my room-mate, says they’re probably talking to everyone and that if they don’t call me back, I’m in the clear.’

  ‘That sounds reasonable.’

  ‘I just hate waiting.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s like you want them to make a positive declaration of your innocence. You don’t want to feel like you escaped.’

  He got it. Dulcie breathed a small sigh of relief. ‘Anyway, the other problem I’m having really might fall under your jurisdiction.’ He raised an eyebrow at her phrasing and they both laughed. ‘I mean, maybe you can help me?’

  As succinctly as possible, she explained the Priority Insurance situation while he took notes on a yellow legal pad. Although she’d felt embarrassed at first by the very nature of the job – temping in a clerical position! – he put her at ease. Asking simple, direct questions and nodding as he listened to her answers, Luke seemed as much like a counselor as a soon-to-be-attorney, and she found herself warming to him. She even told him about the apparent theft of her sweater.

  ‘So what you’re saying, to use a technical term, is that your boss is a bitch?’ He looked up at her, pencil poised, face serious. But then he broke into another wide grin and they both laughed.

  ‘Yeah, that about says it all. But seriously, Luke, what can I do? I mean, I need this job – or at least I need to not be totally discredited with the temp agency that sent me there. And I really do not need to be accused of embezzlement or computer malfeasance.’

  ‘Computer malfeasance, I like that. Sounds Victorian!’ They shared another smile.

  ‘Why me, though? I’m just a temp.’

  ‘That’s a good point.’ He drummed his pencil on the pad. ‘Do you think that could be why you’ve been accused?’

  Dulcie nodded and explained Suze’s theory; that perhaps the company was simply looking for a scapegoat, for insurance purposes.

  ‘I’m afraid to say it makes sense, in an awful sort of way. I mean, unless you think someone has it in for you personally.’

  Dulcie shuddered. ‘God, I hope not. But . . . why?’

  ‘To cover for themselves, obviously.’

  Himself – or herself, Dulcie silently corrected him. Grammar aside, Luke’s logic made her shiver. Still, she forced herself to focus. It was Joanie who had shown her how to get on to the server, and Joanie definitely had an anti-authority streak. But she was a friend, wasn’t she? Or at least a kindred spirit? Dulcie knew her instincts had been off recently, but she liked the kohl-eyed Goth girl and shook her head. ‘No, I can’t think of anyone.’

  ‘Let’s tackle this from another angle, then.’ Luke looked down at his notes. ‘How are you supposed to have hacked into the system? Does your terminal have a disk drive or even a USB port?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Dulcie grimaced and tried to recall exactly what her workstation looked like. ‘I just go in there and type. I mean, I’ve never noticed. But I think they were accusing me of getting the virus in through the email.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound likely.’ He bit his lip as he thought it through. ‘I mean, I don’t know for sure, but doesn’t it seem likely that a large corporation, an insurance company, would have all sorts of firewalls and virus detection programs at work?’

  ‘You’d think.’ Dulcie was feeling better by the moment. And the privacy of the little room had grown much more comfortable, too. ‘You know, I never asked them and I should have – I mean, I will. I’m going to confront them about my so-called methodology.’

  ‘Great.’ Luke’s eyes lit up when he smiled. ‘But let’s arm you properly for battle. I want to find out a little more about these computer worms and how they work. I want you to be able to march right in there and explain how you couldn’t have done whatever they’re saying you’re falsely accused of.’ Dulcie had a brief urge to correct his phrasing, but she was enjoying his enthusiasm – and his attention – too much to give in to it. ‘You know who you should talk to about this?’ He was rummaging
in his canvas briefcase now, obviously looking for a phone book or cell. ‘Stacia – Alana’s friend.’

  Dulcie was grateful that he couldn’t see her face fall.

  ‘She may look like an airhead, but she actually knows quite a lot about computers.’ He continued rooting around in the bag. ‘She’s really sharp.’

  Great, so she’s not only beautiful, she’s smart, too, Dulcie thought as she worked on composing her face. By the time Luke had surfaced with his cell phone, she believed she looked cool as a cucumber, or an unencumbered client.

  ‘Here’s her number.’ He scribbled on the bottom of the page and tore it off. ‘Have we covered everything?’

  As much as she now hated Stacia, Dulcie remembered her promise to look for the compromising photos. Despite Stacia’s movie-star looks, she was human, too; they were both single women, trying to make their way in a rough world – and Stacia was only trying to look out for her friend. ‘Actually, there’s something else, Luke. I really would like to look at Tim’s laptop, if you don’t mind. I think he used my computer and messed up a file, and I’d like to take a peek at it.’ Considering what might be on it, she didn’t want to be any more specific.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I know you’d mentioned it before. I’ll bring it over when I pick up the rest of Tim’s stuff, if that’s OK. It’s funny, Stacia asking about it was how I found out she’s into computers.’

  Dulcie almost told him not to bother. If Stacia had already seen the laptop, maybe she had already found – and deleted – any compromising files. But then she remembered her own compromised file – and her lost photo. Maybe there was a virus on Tim’s computer that he’d put on hers, and maybe she had sent it to Priority without knowing about it. At least, if she could trace it to her late room-mate’s computer, she wouldn’t be liable, would she? Was Typhoid Mary ever cleared of evil intent?

  Luke was scribbling on a form and seemed unaware of the shift in his erstwhile client’s mood. When he looked up, he was still grinning.

  ‘OK, so, forty-five minutes. That’ll be $750.’

  Dulcie blanched.

  ‘Bad joke! Bad joke, sorry. But you do have to sign, so they know I’m not just sitting in here flirting with you. And, well, you don’t have to, but I would like the chance to take you to dinner. Maybe after I finish packing up Tim’s stuff?’

  ‘Maybe.’ She signed her name and stood to go. Just what she needed, another dinner date with another man who wanted another woman. ‘But I’ve got to take care of this business first. Thanks for this, though. You’ve really helped me figure out where I stand legally.’ And with you, she almost added, as she hurried away.

  Sixteen

  The day had returned to its first promise: breezy, not too hot, the deep-blue sky holding a hint of autumn to come. The walk back into Harvard Square was a pleasure, the dream summer day. But Dulcie had too much on her mind to enjoy the obvious comparisons. If she wanted her interior landscape to be this beautiful, there was only one place to go. Sliding her ID through the silver gate, she smiled at the guard and ducked into the tiny back entrance of the library. Nothing could get to her here.

  The cool hush of the library greeted her like an old friend, as did some of her actual old friends. Mona, at the circulation desk, nodded and smiled as she walked past. Frank, who had been working on his dissertation since the Paleozoic, looked up as her flip-flops slapped softly on the marble steps. In minutes, she was deep in the stacks, descending below ground level to where the British history books were stored. Context, that’s what she needed. If she could immerse herself more fully in the time frame of The Ravages of Umbria, maybe she would find a clue about why it mattered so to her. How many ‘she-authors’ were writing then, exactly? How many of their works had been lost to the ravages of time, if not to evil monks and critics? Research, not gut instinct, was the key.

  She’d use this time to catch up on her colleagues. Maybe she’d become so involved in her primary sources that she’d lost track of what other scholars were doing, what they were thinking and writing about.

  Not that Dulcie wanted anybody else’s ideas. This wasn’t just Lucy’s DIY ethos, ingrained into her daughter through years of making her own everything, from clothes to candles. Coming, as she did, from a decidedly non-traditional background, Dulcie also knew she’d be more open to accusations of plagiarism, if she wrote a line that echoed another, published paper. The spectre of such accusations hovered over the entire department, like its own jealous ghost. Trista had confessed that she had nightmares which Dickens scholars from the past 150 years began pounding on her door, demanding co-bylines. She woke up sweating, she’d told Dulcie, shaking with the uncontrollable urge to footnote everything.

  But sometimes reading academic works could snap Dulcie into thinking more like an academic. Mr Grey had told her to look carefully at relationships. She recalled that charming photo, cat inverted, one fang exposed. Well, maybe she wasn’t looking from the right angle.

  But halfway through a journal article, ‘Exemplary Characters in the Middle Gothic Novel’, Dulcie wanted to throw up her hands. Yes, Demetria, Hermetria’s attendant, was a bit too perfect. So what? Did Dulcie care that she was a stereotype, a flat cut-out of a character, particularly compared to the full-blooded Hermetria? She let the book fall flat and shut her eyes. So much of this had been written about, the character types analyzed to death. Yes, the supernatural themes were a reaction to increasing industrialization, valuing emotion over pure intellect. Yes, the Gothic novel was a response to the Enlightenment; the beginning of Romanticism, with all the connotations that entailed. But the work to which she had decided to devote her academic career was more than what she was finding in these papers, wasn’t it?

  Dulcie thought of all the books she loved and tried to take some notes. It would help if she could figure out why she so adored these ghost stories and horror tales. It wasn’t just . . . she paused, afraid of continuing. It wasn’t just because they were fun, was it? Folding her arms on the study carrel in front of her, she let her head sink down. Had she wasted two years of her postgrad life, not to mention all those undergrad semesters, trying to justify a simple diversion?

  There had to be more in her attraction to the genre. There had to be. She went back to reading. Two hours later, she was more lost than ever. She was also famished. Breakfast had been a long time ago. But the extra time had paid off, and rather than wait for the elevator she hit the stairwell to mull it over. It was barely a thought, more of a whim. But, some vague, half-starved brainwaves were coming together. As she climbed the stairs, she looked around. The roots of her beloved Widener reached back to the eighteenth century. Libraries weren’t public places then, or even well organized. But the books she adored had launched the system she knew so well. Even with the rise of chapbooks, the 1700s’ equivalent of mass-market paperbacks, novels were expensive. And so readers, largely women, had gathered to share and circulate the newest adventures. Maybe those gatherings – those early book groups – were the key, the basis for that almost sisterly relationship. Life hadn’t been easy in those days, before antibiotics, painkillers, or the widespread use of flush toilets; but then, as today, the thrill of sinking into a good book had offered an escape, and something to share, for those who could read.

  And that hadn’t included too many people, she admitted to herself, as she faced the final flight of stairs. In some ways, access to literature was as narrow as, well, Widener. Not just in the sense of limited access to the university either. Because of the cavernous library’s strange layout only two elevators serviced all ten levels, and Dulcie rarely bothered to wait. She’d forgotten what a drag this could be though, particularly in flip-flops. Ah, well, what she had found had been worth the slog. If she could think of a way to tie in the early Goths to the rise of literacy among the middle classes, or simply among women, she might just have a thesis yet. Could Hermetria be a stand-in for the average reader? Or, more likely, the mealy-mouthed Demetria? Dulcie mulled the idea over
as she emerged from the stairwell into the small entrance chamber that separated the stacks from the Circulation room.

  Maybe she was too much in the past, she thought as she walked, not taking any notice of the three marble steps that led down to Circulation. Maybe – she caught herself as she began to slip, her flip-flop taking off ahead of her like a small rubber glider. Those marble steps, few as they were, were worn to a concave polish, and they would be the death of her if she wasn’t careful. Hoping nobody had noticed, Dulcie slipped the other sandal off and stepped carefully down the remaining slick stones, retrieving the errant flip-flop and donning both again, as she stepped into Circulation. No, nobody had noticed. The big room was a buzz of activity, but all of it focused around the checkout desk where Mona, the queen bee, reigned supreme. Half a dozen people – unusual for a summer day – had clustered around her friend’s computer terminal, and even their lowered voices made an audible buzz.

  ‘What’s going on?’ She turned toward Frank, who was craning his neck to see.

  ‘I’m not sure. Something with the system.’ They both turned as one of the hovering men pulled out a cell phone and started talking.

  ‘Wow . . .’ Frank was whispering and Dulcie didn’t need to ask why: a cell phone in use and nobody challenging it? This must be official, and it must be serious.

  ‘I’m so glad I don’t have anything to check out,’ Dulcie whispered back. ‘But still . . .’ She walked up to Mona’s desk and waited until she could catch the librarian’s eye. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve been invaded!’ Mona, a large woman, had a flair for the dramatic. ‘By aliens!’ Her bright-red lipstick exaggerated her grimace of disgust. Perhaps to show off her bejeweled nails, she also raised both hands in the air in exasperation. ‘It’s crazy.’

  ‘Bookworms?’ Dulcie said with a smile. While the paper-eating pests had been the scourge of libraries in the past, she doubted they’d survive in such a well-kept library.