by Cynthia Kuhn
“So we could do the panel Thursday afternoon,” said Francisco decisively.
Norton raised his pipe again, wiggling it slightly, his signature gesture. “I’m still concerned about overloading the schedule. Von Tussel, should he manifest himself, is already committed to several events.”
Francisco rolled his eyes. “But Damon wouldn’t have to be there. It would be optional.”
The frown on Norton’s face deepened. “I didn’t mean only for Von Tussel. I meant for everyone.”
“What’s the problem?” retorted Francisco. “People can go to the panel if they want and skip it if they don’t.”
“Will the panel be the only additional activity?” asked Norton, sternly.
“Yes,” said Francisco. “Unless someone wants to take it upon themselves to do something.” He made it sound as though no one else ever lifted a finger around here.
“Shall we vote on it?” Norton asked, seeming to taking the high road but actually complicating the issue, as we didn’t really need to vote on it, as far as I could tell.
“Show of hands,” said Francisco, not backing down.
Everyone but Norton, who abstained to register protest without taking an overt stand, voted yes.
The panel was scheduled for Thursday, and we moved on to confirmation of the facility reservations, catering, and all the other hospitality-related issues. I was asked if I wanted to personally escort the author around from event to event, to which I replied—in a flash of inspiration, if I do say so myself—that it might be a better idea to invite some of our students to accompany him, which would give them a chance to talk to a famous writer.
It appeared we had most of the bases covered for the visit, except for actually having a visitor.
“In the unlikely event that we locate Mr. Von Tussel in the next forty-eight hours,” the chancellor gave Francisco a long look, “how do we convince him to show up without fail? We must be able to rely on his attendance.” He tapped his fingers on the desk lightly.
I heard myself grasp at an enormously unlikely straw. “What if we increase the honorarium we’re offering him?”
Francisco took up the baton. “Would you be willing to double the amount, Chancellor?”
After a long pause, the chancellor dipped his chin in affirmation.
“That would probably convince him,” Calista said. “Don’t you think, Lila?”
I shrugged. “Worth a try.”
“Why are you asking her?” Francisco demanded, clearly trying to reinstate his authority as The Damon Expert.
“Because she knows him!” Calista exclaimed.
Oh, crap.
When every head in the room turned in my direction, I straightened up in my chair and smiled. Only because that’s what was expected. What I really wanted to do was summon a handy puff of smoke into which I could disappear from this conversation.
Francisco was staring at me intently. “Think you could have mentioned this before?”
My cheeks flamed as I shot Calista a reproving look. “I don’t know him. Not really. We’ve met a few times.”
“How? Where?” I was fixed in Francisco’s burning gaze, with no chance of escape.
Calista answered for me, “Her mother dated him last spring.”
My cousin had already been out here in Stonedale teaching, so she’d never met Damon in person, but she had been fascinated by the relationship, following it faithfully across social media. Also, I suspected Calista spoke to my mother on the phone more than I did. We’d all been very close since Calista came to live with us at ten years old when her parents passed away. She felt more like a sister than a cousin, really.
“Hmmm,” Francisco replied. “And who is your mother?”
“Violet O.” It seemed as though she was always coming up in conversations. Then again, my mother was a public figure, and as far back as I could remember, people wanted to know about her or, more commonly, to get close enough to me to get to know her.
“Ah, yes. A very talented artist indeed,” Francisco said.
“Someday you’re going to have to tell me everything there is to know about your mother,” Nate whispered from the chair next to me. “I am most intrigued.”
I waved him off and shook my head.
“Ve haf vays of makink you talk,” Nate added, waggling his eyebrows. I stifled a giggle.
Francisco looked thoughtful. “Would you ask your mother to speak to him on our behalf? Make our case?”
“Wouldn’t it be better coming from the chancellor?” I ventured hopefully, not daring to look at the chancellor when I said it.
“Look,” Francisco said, not giving him an opportunity to respond. “Damon is extremely difficult to track down in the best of circumstances. If your mother knows how to contact him directly, we should go that route.”
I became aware of a strange energy in the room, like people were holding their breaths waiting for a response. Their heads swiveled between Francisco and me as if they were watching a fast-paced tennis match. Although he was an assistant professor, on the lowest rung of the hierarchy like I was, he already exuded an unmistakable aura of power. I wasn’t sure where it came from. Perhaps he was naturally confident. Or just plain arrogant. In any case, I wasn’t about to let him boss me around.
As I was deciding how to respond, the chancellor spoke. “The university would be most grateful, Dr. Maclean.”
Well, that clinched it.
“I would be happy to ask her,” I lied, the very picture of the cooperative tenure-track candidate.
Across the table, Simone smirked, clearly pleased I’d been obligated to do something I didn’t want to do, while Francisco glared, apparently annoyed that I was a few degrees of separation closer to “his” author than he was.
Ah, colleagues.
Calista came into my office as I was packing up to go home. Nate soon followed from his office next door—we had become fast friends last term, and he went out of his way to keep me entertained.
“Does anyone know what’s going on with Damon?” Calista wandered over to my overflowing bookshelves. “I mean, after you saw him, Lila.” I’d called her last night on the way back to Denver.
“I’m looking online right now,” Nate said, scrolling through things on his cell phone screen as he sat in the chair next to my desk. “Tell me what happened.”
I closed the flap of my satchel and leaned against the desk. “He gave a superb reading, then he tore off the stage during the question-and-answer part.”
“It’s so strange that he would bail during a Q&A,” Calista said. “If I had a book tour, I’d be thrilled to talk to the audience.”
“He didn’t sign any books?” Nate asked, still looking at his screen.
“No,” I said.
“Aren’t sales important?”
“You’d think so.”
Calista pulled a thick anthology from my shelf and flipped several pages, then returned the book to its place. “Lil, was he openly disrespectful to the people asking questions?”
“I’d say so. One woman was practically in tears.”
“So unprofessional,” she said, shaking her head. “You might even say churlish.”
“Well, he can be ornery in general,” I said.
Nate looked up from his phone. “There’s no change to the book tour listing on the publisher’s page. Maybe they haven’t updated it though.”
“Nothing in the news?” Calista asked.
“No, but it hasn’t even been a day yet—there’s a lag before you can claim that someone is a missing person,” Nate told her.
“But what if he was kidnapped?” I asked.
Calista nodded. “I thought about that too.”
“I don’t know,” Nate said. “He seems pretty capable of taking care of himself. Didn’t he used to be a boxer back in t
he day?”
“Still,” Calista said, “Someone could have waited for him in his dressing room and chloroformed him—”
“Or clocked him with something heavy,” Nate interjected.
“—then they could just drag him away.”
I shook my head. “There was a crowd of people right outside his dressing room door. No one could have done that without being seen.”
“Maybe there was another exit.” Nate looked thoughtful.
“Yes, a second door. Or,” Calista said, her voice rising, “maybe there were three or four people waiting for him, and after they knocked him out somehow, they tied him up and passed him through the window into the alley, where they had a van waiting.”
We stared at her.
A loud knock on the wall next to my door startled us all. Francisco poked his head into my office.
“You scared me, man,” said Nate.
“Me too,” Calista added.
“Sorry,” Francisco said, not sounding sorry at all. He jabbed his chin at me, the way high school jocks do when they acknowledge each other’s presence. “You’re on it, right? Von Tussel?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll call my mother tonight.”
“You don’t look much like her,” he said, staring at me. “Isn’t she a redhead?”
“Yes.” People were always pointing out that my dark wavy hair was unlike my mother’s. As if it were unheard of for parents and children to have different colored hair. Not to mention the infinite color options available at salons.
“Hey, my mom—Aunt Vi’s twin—had red hair too,” Calista protested. “And I’m blonde. It can happen.”
“Well, you’re blonde now...” I said, unable to resist teasing my cousin.
She made a face at me. “It’s been so long that I almost forgot I once was a brunette like you.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I said, putting my hand over my heart.
“Apparently, it’s not,” she said, in mock outrage.
“I mean from now on it will be. Now that I know it’s a secret.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Francisco leaned against the open door and crossed his arms over his chest, seeming both amused and annoyed by our exchange. “I still can’t believe Damon dated your aunt.”
Calista turned to him. “You honestly don’t remember? Aunt Vi and Damon were in all the magazines.”
“And by ‘all the magazines,’ do you mean People?”
Well, that wouldn’t do. I came to Calista’s aid. “And Vanity Fair and ArtNews. Their partnership was documented at all the events they attended together.”
“Whatever. Will you text me the instant you hear something?” Francisco reached out his hand in front of me, palm up.
I stared at it.
“Give me your phone and I’ll add my number,” he said impatiently.
“How about you tell me your number and I’ll type it in myself?” I countered, pulling out my cell.
Irritation crossed his face, but he didn’t say anything until I had created a new profile for him and poised my fingers over the screen. He gave me the information.
“What were you all whispering about, anyway?” he asked, with a slight sneer. “Got a secret?”
“We were talking about Von Tussel,” Nate told him.
“Yeah,” Francisco said, drumming his fingers against the doorframe. “I’m sure he’s fine. And we need to get him here.” He stared at me. “It’s all up to you now, Lila.”
No one said anything, and after a moment, he left.
Chapter 3
“What’s the deal with Francisco?” I asked Nate as we headed home through the snow, our breaths leaving little puffs behind us like steam from a train.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s an assistant professor, right?” I buried my chin into the scarf wrapped around my neck. My face was beginning to sting, and my mouth was resisting movement in that exaggerated way created by intense cold.
“Yes.”
“Then why doesn’t he…” I searched for words. It was one thing to admit to yourself that you were willing to play meek and unassuming as befits junior faculty in the pursuit of tenure, but it was quite another to confess it out loud to a colleague. I darted a glance at Nate, who took pity on me.
“Grovel and stoop like the rest of us?” He grinned.
“Exactly. I mean, he didn’t really do anything out of order, but he just had an air about him which seemed…”
“Overconfident?” Nate suggested.
“Okay, let’s go with that. Is there a reason he isn’t showing…er…”
“Proper humility?”
“Yes. And I appreciate how you know exactly what I mean before I even get to the end of the sentence.”
Nate laughed. “I’m just very in tune with wanting tenure. I like having a job.”
“I wish I could stop thinking about it. It’s down the road, lurking. Like a warrior, I will have to battle. Or a—”
“Monster?”
“Exactly.”
“I know how you feel, Lila, but you cannot live every day fearing tenure. I mean, many of us secretly think about it far more than we should, of course, but you have to at least try to push away the anxiety until you come face to face with it. Otherwise, you’ll go mad.” He kicked at a pile of snow.
“I love how you said ‘mad’ instead of ‘crazy.’ It’s far more literary.”
He halted at the corner of Haven Street, where my rented bungalow was located, and University Boulevard, home to his apartment on the second floor of a shabby but comfortable Victorian. “The tenure thing is simple: be professional and do what’s expected of you.”
“Sure, if you don’t count the personality conflicts,” I said.
“And all of the political subcurrents,” he replied.
“Or the jealousies.”
“Or the secret alliances.”
“Or any number of factors we know nothing about.”
“Yeah,” he said, “not counting those.”
We looked at each other for a moment and burst out laughing.
“Well, thanks for the advice, Nate. I feel better now.” And honestly, I did. “But back to Francisco...”
“Right,” he said, as snowflakes coated his watch cap. “He does come across as arrogant, but some academics are like that. And he is really smart. Loves critical theory. He may even be obsessed with it.”
Intriguing. “What do you mean?”
“His real name is Robert Franco, but he changed it during graduate school to Francisco de Francisco in order to…” He looked up at the cloudy gray sky for a moment, thinking. “Something about ‘mirroring the postmodern condition’…or ‘signifying the destabilization of nomenclature’…or something like that.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. He’s a hardcore theory boy.”
I laughed. “Theory boy?”
“Sorry. Theory man.”
“That makes him sound like a superhero.”
Nate struck a heroic pose, hand on hips. “Theory Man: here to save the world from the suspension of disbelief!”
I applauded his performance—my gloves muffling the sound—and he bowed gracefully.
“Anyway, Fran’s a good guy,” he said. “Once you get to know him.” He said goodbye and loped down University toward his apartment. I wondered why we had never talked about the fact that he’d kissed me last semester. Just once, but still. I was relieved it hadn’t seemed to affect our friendship but was also confused about why we both were acting as if it had never happened.
I trudged the final steps from the icy street to my bungalow. Although I was usually thrilled to be able to walk to work, I was less excited about the prospect when it was ten degrees below zero. Inside, I went straight fo
r the hot cocoa. If I was going to beg my mother to contact her old boyfriend on behalf of my new university, I needed reinforcement. After a few minutes of puttering around in the kitchen, I settled at the small brown oak table with black legs I’d bought for fifty bucks off Craigslist, sipping the cocoa gratefully, savoring the sweet taste and enjoying the warmth of the mug in my hands.
I wasn’t sure how my mother would feel about contacting Damon, given their past. Theirs was a tempestuous romance played out in lurid headlines in the many tabloids interested in that sort of thing. The gossip columnists took great delight in heralding every move. They were a high-profile pair and regularly attended events stuffed with paparazzi, so there was really no possibility of privacy—not that either of them would have wanted it. They made their debut as a couple at a New Year’s Eve Masquerade Ball. He broke up with her at a hospital fundraising gala, then begged her forgiveness by having a hundred orchids delivered to her Chelsea brownstone. Then she broke up with him at the La Boheme after-party, where the two of them had a spectacular fight during which my mother famously threw Damon’s cell phone over a balcony into a bubbling fountain three stories below.
I’d met Damon a number of times in New York City while they were dating, but one particular incident stood out in my mind. My mother had been invited to give the keynote address at an upcoming art conference and was in high spirits as she gave me the details over drinks at a bar near her brownstone.
“Are you nervous about giving your speech?” I asked, after she described the weekend ahead.
“Not at all,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Been there, done that.”
A snort came from Damon’s chair. After my mother introduced us, he had been checking his phone the entire time while intermittently stroking his neatly trimmed triangular white beard, which prompted me to wonder how much time he had to spend grooming it. He texted furiously, making a variety of grunting sounds as he did so. He was much older than my mother’s usual companions—somewhere in his sixties, I’d guess. Although she was in her early fifties—she’d had me when she was only twenty—she tended to date thirty-somethings. And there was no shortage of candidates. My mother had retained every bit of her youthful charisma and, with gentle assistance from her hairstylist, the famous red curls that fell to her waist.