Extra Credit

by Maggie Barbieri

  She nodded and turned toward the class. “I’ll be writing about my husband’s murder.”

  Eight

  I seemed to be the only person in the classroom who had any kind of reaction to Mary Lou’s topic, but I tried to remain impassive, muttering a noncommittal “ohhhh” in response to her statement. When I got back to my office, though, I threw every permutation of “Bannerman” and “murder” into Google and tried to find out who her husband was and how and why he had been murdered. I came up empty, which was even more of a surprise to me than the fact that she had lost her husband violently.

  All kinds of possibilities existed for why her name didn’t lead to anything on Google. She had remarried. She had moved here from somewhere else. She was in the Witness Protection Program. Did I really care, though? That was the question. I guessed the details behind the event would be revealed through her novel and my curiosity would be satisfied eventually. Until then, better to keep my nose to the grindstone, keep Meaghan out of trouble, and try to reestablish equilibrium in my own life after the events surrounding Chick’s reappearance and death.

  In response to Erin’s parting question to us—“Now do we get to keep the money?”—the answer was that we still weren’t sure. Crawford thought about putting it into each of their college accounts, while Christine thought we should just keep it handy in case of some unknown development, like someone else claimed it or it was impounded by some probate judge, neither of which seemed likely to us, but hey, I’m just the second wife. Nobody really listens to my opinion. Except when they do. We were all still a little uneasy about accepting the money, given that we weren’t sure of its origins. Why would someone who had so much money—two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the apartment alone—live in such dire conditions when he could obviously better his situation? It just didn’t make any sense.

  I could tell that Crawford was torn up about it. Since we had missed the opportunity to have dinner at my favorite restaurant the night that Chick died, we’d decided to do it tonight. We were seated at a table by the window, the Hudson just a few feet away. I had a perfectly prepared martini and he was drinking a beer while we waited for a plate of oysters. “Did you talk to the detective who was at the funeral?” I asked. “That Minor guy?”

  “That’s the first thing I did this morning.”

  “And?”

  “He said to keep it.”

  I looked out the window. “So there’s your answer.”

  “It just doesn’t feel right.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, “but there are worse things in the world than being told you have to keep ten grand.” I pulled a thick chunk of bread from the basket on the table and tore into it. “What happens to the two hundred and fifty thousand?”

  “It goes to someone called a public administrator who will evaluate any claims on the money.”

  “Who might claim it?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know, but I suspect once word gets out, a few people will materialize.”

  “Like the brothers?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Christine?”

  “Doubtful.” He looked in the breadbasket and saw that I had made short work of its contents; I handed him half of what was left on my plate. “Can we talk about something else?” he asked. “And don’t ask me about work.”

  “So ask me about mine,” I said, polishing off my drink.

  “How’s work?”

  “The usual. Sister Mary hates me, the kids are bored already,” I started. “Oh, but I’ve got this lovely middle-aged lady in my creative writing class.”

  “That’s great. Now you have someone your own age around to play with.”

  I cocked my head to the side and gave him a look. “You think I’m middle-aged?”

  “What would you call yourself?”

  “An adult. With a bangin’ bod.”

  “Who’s middle-aged,” he added. “Do the math. If you live until you’re—”

  I put up my hand. “Stop right there. Let’s leave it at this: She’s a little bit older than I am.” I looked out the window again and muttered, “You’re middle-aged, but I am—”

  “Middle-aged,” he repeated.

  A drink magically appeared in front of me. “Do you ever want to sleep with me again?”

  He raised an eyebrow questioningly. To him, that was a rhetorical question, but I meant business.

  “Then stop referring to me as middle-aged.”

  Our oysters came and we dug in, him dousing his with way too much hot sauce, and me making mine just the way I liked them with a lot of lemon and a little horseradish. We finished them up in record time, and he leaned back and rubbed his stomach.

  “So,” he said. “Who’s the lady, and why is she taking your creative writing class?”

  “She wants to write a novel.”

  He sucked in some air; he knew how much I hated working with budding novelists. The buds usually never flowered into anything resembling a beautiful novel, let alone a decent grade. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m trying to have a new attitude about it. Maybe she’s the second coming of Virginia Woolf.”

  “I hope she is, for your sake.” He signaled the server for another beer. “Any idea what the novel is going to be about?”

  “Her husband’s murder,” I said and watched as he had the same reaction I’d had. “Funny thing is that I did a Web search on her name to see what came up, but there’s nothing. Zilch. Nada.” I eyed the bread on his plate. “You going to eat that?”

  He responded by sticking the whole thing in his mouth.

  “Maybe she has a different name than her husband did?” I wondered aloud.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Did she say what happened?”

  I shook my head. “Nope, and I didn’t ask.”

  “But you’re curious.”

  “Of course I’m curious,” I said. “Have we met?”

  He held out his hand. “I don’t think we have.” We shook. “My name is Bobby Crawford, and I’m a middle-aged stiff.”

  “Alison Bergeron. Adult with a bangin’ bod.”

  He leaned over the table and gave me a very uncharacteristic public kiss. “Are you easy?”

  “The easiest.”

  “Then I think we’ll get along just fine.”

  Nine

  With everything that had gone on, I had almost forgotten my concerns about Mr. Super Senior and his relationship to Meaghan and a possible cheating scandal, or Meaghan’s close-to-failing grade in Forensic Psychology. Or maybe I was just employing selective memory, trying to forget that this situation hung over my little world like a black cloud. I hadn’t thought of it much until the Forensic Psych professor, Joanne Larkin, showed up in my office a few days later, a smile on her normally pinched and pained-looking face.

  She poked her head in as if she were a flamingo taking a drink. “Alison?”

  I stood. “Hi, Joanne.” I gestured toward one of the chairs across from my desk. “Please come in.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” she said. She plopped down in the chair, crossing her legs. It looked as if she would be staying a while. “I just had to stop by and tell you how well Meaghan is doing in my class. I’m thrilled with her turnaround.”

  “Meaghan Crawford?” I asked. There had to be some mistake. The Meaghan she’d described a few weeks earlier was in danger of flunking the class, despite it being early in the semester, and the girl I had spoken to about this dire situation didn’t seem terribly concerned. To think that she had been able to execute some kind of miraculous 180, given the fact that she had missed almost a week of school after her uncle’s death, was a stretch. “Really?”

  Joanne nodded vigorously, making the helmet of hair she usually sported move just the tiniest bit. “It’s truly amazing. She got a perfect score on her midterm.”

  My stomach did a little flip. “She did?”

  Joanne peered at me from behind the most unflattering glasses I had ever seen on a person
; big and round with the outdated half-moon bifocal at the bottom of each, the top half making her eyes look the size of an owl’s. “You don’t seem happy, Alison.”

  “I don’t?” I asked, wondering where she had gotten a sweater with three-dimensional jack-o’-lanterns sewn on it. That had clearly taken some investigation. It made the workmanship on the cat sweaters look like child’s play. “I am. Happy, that is. I’m thrilled. Her father and I will do a celebratory dance of joy tonight.”

  She pursed her lips together in a way that suggested disapproval. “Alison, you know, I think more people would like you if you dropped the sarcasm every once in a while.”

  “People don’t like me?”

  She stood. “The sarcasm. Drop it.”

  Ouch. I stood as well. I tried to put on my most sincere, least sarcastic voice. “Thank you for coming by, Joanne. I appreciate your letting me know earlier about Meaghan’s failure to perform in your class, and now I thank you for taking the time to let me know that she’s doing better.”

  She regarded me coolly. “Go back to the sarcasm. The sincere thing isn’t working for you either.”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Joanne: Without the sarcasm, I’m an empty husk.” I smiled sincerely. “I don’t really have a personality to speak of.”

  This didn’t impress her. “Interesting,” she said.

  I decided that in addition to some children, I didn’t like psychology professors very much.

  She left in a huff, clearly not satisfied with my strange reaction to her news. Had Meaghan studied really hard to get a good grade, or had Mr. Super Senior—her tutor—provided her with a test from years gone by to help her boost her score?

  I sat down and took a deep breath. First, I didn’t even know if Mr. Super Senior was involved in the cheating caper, and second, I didn’t know if Joanne was the professor who was too lazy to vary her tests from year to year. One thing I knew for sure, and that was that Meaghan wasn’t one of the students I had overheard. I talked myself down, something I’m getting better and better at the more time I spend on the proverbial ledge.

  Still, I needed some confirmation. I don’t know why I called Max; she’s notoriously contrary. “Hi,” I said after she picked up and let it be known that she was doing several things at once, “quick question.”

  “Shoot.”

  I thought of a way to phrase the question so that I could get an honest answer from my sometimes obtuse friend. “Does the fact that I use sarcasm ever make it difficult to like me?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  The alacrity with which she answered took my breath away. “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Sometimes all we want is an honest conversation instead of one filled with your ironic asides and sarcastic nonsense. It’s annoying. We hate it,” she said, speaking for the masses, it would seem.

  That was pretty much to the point.

  “You’d be doing yourself, and all of us, a favor by not trying to be so funny all the time,” she said. She was, as she liked to say, as serious as a heart attack.

  I was stunned into silence.

  “Kidding!” she hollered into the phone. “Got you!” Her guffaw was as annoying as the sound of a buzz saw at six o’clock in the morning. “Had you going, didn’t I?”

  “That wasn’t very nice,” I said, my voice husky with the weight of uncried tears.

  “Oh, lighten up,” she said. “What’s this all about?”

  “One of my colleagues told me that nobody likes me because I’m too sarcastic.”

  “Well, that may be true, but don’t change. You work with a bunch of cadavers who wouldn’t know sarcasm if it bit them on their dead, numb zombie asses.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “Who is this person, anyway?”

  “Meaghan’s Forensic Psych professor.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe you should tone it down a bit until Meaghan gets out of the class.”

  “Thanks, Max.”

  She put something in her mouth and then attempted to talk. I couldn’t really understand the specifics of her next question but knew that it had to do with Chick’s money.

  “It’s with the public administrator. From what I understand, that person decides who gets the money.”

  When it came to business—or money—she was as sharp as a tack. “Did he have a will?”

  I didn’t know.

  “That would clear up a lot. Anyway, why did he keep that much scratch in his apartment?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “What did you do with the girls’ ten g’s?”

  “Crawford put it in a safe deposit box at the bank, just in case it turns out it’s not ours after all.” I tapped my mouse and saw that in the space of a half hour, I had twenty new e-mail messages. “I’ve got to go, Max.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to mess with you,” she said.

  “Yes, you did, but it’s okay. Thanks for reminding me that I work with a bunch of zombies.”

  “De nada.” She paused. “That means ‘I’ve got your back.’”

  No, it doesn’t, but I didn’t tell her that. Before we hung up, she jumped in with one more little detail.

  “I forgot!” she said. “My parents are having a little get-together at their house on Sunday afternoon.”

  I didn’t know if that qualified as an invitation, so I waited.

  “For my birthday?” she said, as if I were supposed to know.

  “You have a birthday coming up?” I asked, just to get a rise out of her.

  She didn’t take the bait. “Two o’clock. Early-bird special. There will be cake.”

  “Well, as long as there’s cake, I’m in,” I said. “Anything in particular that you want?”

  “Just your smiling face next to me as I blow out the candles.”

  We hung up, and I turned my attention to my e-mail. Just to let her know that I was still paying attention, despite the fact that her mother was back in town, I shot Meaghan a message. It was short and sweet: “Good job on your Forensic Psych midterm!” Hopefully, by the next time I saw her, I would have more information on this situation and be able to discuss it with her. For now, creative writing students awaited, and I was in danger of being late.

  I raced up the stairs, and I found Mary Lou Bannerman waiting for me outside of the classroom; all of the other students were in their seats, all of them looking at some kind of handheld device and busily working their thumbs into a frenzy. If only we could harness that kind of energy for good. Mary Lou smiled at me as I approached. She was in a pair of expensive-looking jeans, soft leather driving moccasins, and a cashmere turtleneck. She dressed like I would if I had money. Or any fashion sense whatsoever.

  “Hi,” she said. “I wanted to catch you before we went into class.”

  I shifted my heavy messenger bag from one shoulder to the other. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s great!” she said. “I’m really enjoying your class.”

  “Good. We love having you,” I said, and it was true. The kids seemed to have grown to like her in the few days she had been in class; she was familiar enough, like someone’s mom, yet she was one of them, having a tough time with plot and structure just like they were. I was proud of my mixed class of sophomores and juniors and happy that they had brought her into their postadolescent fold.

  “Thank you for saying that,” she said, seemingly touched. “Listen, can I buy you lunch? After class today?”

  “It would have to be in the cafeteria downstairs because I only have fifty minutes. Would that be okay?”

  Her face lit up. “That would be perfect.”

  We went into class, and I started my lesson. I thought about Mary Lou inviting me to lunch; in all my years of teaching, a student had never done that.

  Maybe Crawford was right. Maybe I would enjoy having another middle-aged person to pal around with; I had worn out my welcome with my colleagues, obviously. Maybe I’d get really lucky and Mary Lou would b
e the kind of woman who appreciated some good sarcasm.

  I didn’t have high hopes.

  Ten

  Marcus was surprised to see me on a nontaco day accompanied by someone he had never seen before. I introduced Mary Lou to Marcus, the head chef, and I have to say, she was quite impressed that I had such an in at the cafeteria. I noticed a new guy behind the grill, tall and handsome, filling out his chef’s coat in a way that suggested that there was a nice body beneath it.

  In all my years teaching here, I had never seen anyone new. I asked Marcus, “Who’s the new guy?”

  He called over the counter to the grill. “Briggs! Say hi to one of our most valued customers!”

  The guy, a strapping blond who looked like he had just gotten off the boat from somewhere in Scandinavia, put a finger to his chef’s hat and gave me a little salute. “Ma’am.”

  The grill was fired up and making a bit of noise. I leaned over toward Marcus. “Please tell him to drop the ‘ma’am’ stuff. I hate that. ‘Alison’ will suffice.”

  Marcus grimaced. “You know we can’t do that.” Our president was very formal and insisted that college staff refer to each other by their titles and nothing else. “How about ‘Professor’?” he asked, knowing I was really a “doctor” of letters.

  “I guess,” I said, hating that the cafeteria staff were made to address professors by their titles rather than their given names. Marcus usually didn’t call me anything, except what I ordered. One day I was “Hey! Ham on Rye!” and the next I was “Chicken Parm!” It worked for us.

  I looked at Briggs and thought that with his steady job, good looks, and ability to cook, he’d be perfect for my stepdaughter Meaghan, who seemed to have been born with seriously bad taste in men.

  “So, do we order?” Mary Lou asked, interrupting my daydreams about having a line cook as my son-in-law. She was obviously unaccustomed to moving down a food line with a tray. I wondered where this woman had gone to high school; hasn’t everyone experienced a meal or three hundred in a cafeteria over their lifetime?

  “I prefer to let Marcus surprise me,” I said, hustling past an old, stooped nun whom I recognized as Sister Frances from the Nursing Department, frantically counting the number of croutons on her plate. Nuns take a vow of poverty when they enter the order, and believe me, teaching at St. Thomas does nothing to relieve the financial burdens that they face. Salad was weighed and charged by the ounce, so the more croutons Sister Frances took, the heavier—and more expensive—her lunch would become.