by Clea Simon
‘I’m dead. Dead!’ She’d collapsed on the stage by then. In doing so, she’d moved enough into the spotlight for Dulcie to see black hair, its spikes rumpled further by her desperate gestures. ‘He’s out to destroy me! Destroy me!’
Dulcie turned to Trista, who stared back. Horrible things happened in academia, and not all rivalries were kept on the bloodless page.
From the stage, Kelly cried out. ‘You, back there! Get a doctor! Quick!’ She was on her knees now, bending over to examine the woman, who had curled into a fetal position as she wailed.
‘No.’ The cry changed, becoming lower, more a reprimand than a scream of pain. ‘Don’t be silly. I don’t need a doctor.’ Kelly sat back on her heels, and Dulcie and Trista waited, frozen by this latest turn. The woman on the stage – Stella Roebuck – looked up at Kelly and then out at Dulcie and her friend. ‘What I need is a witness. You there – who’s out there?’
Dulcie stepped forward. She could sense Trista by her side. ‘It’s me, Dulcie Schwartz,’ she said. ‘The grad student you met before?’
‘You can’t help me, then. But, wait – you must have seen him.’ She sniffed, audibly. ‘If you’ve been lurking out there.’
Dulcie shook her head, then, realizing that she might not be visible, found her voice again. ‘Seen – whom?’
‘My ex.’ The words dripped venom. ‘Paul Barnes. He’s sabotaged me. Again. Just like I knew he would. That man won’t be happy until I’m utterly destroyed.’
THIRTEEN
‘Wait, what?’ Dulcie looked at Tris, who shrugged. Dulcie and Trista were on the stage by now, Dulcie hoping against hope that the distraught Stella was talking about somebody else. ‘You don’t mean …’ A look from the academic let her know that she meant the intent, if not the literal interpretation of her words. Dulcie swallowed, hard, and answered. ‘If you’re looking for Professor Barnes, I did see him here, but that was a while ago. I thought you two were talking.’
Kelly looked up from Roebuck’s laptop. ‘He was with you?’
‘He was hanging around. I was not encouraging him.’ Roebuck’s grief seemed to have given way to a sullen resignation. It wasn’t pleasant, and Dulcie winced as the visiting scholar looked around and settled her gaze on Dulcie. ‘You wouldn’t know what it’s like.’
‘What what’s like?’ Trista sounded more curious than intimidated, and Dulcie was grateful for her friend’s presence.
‘When you’re a woman.’ She paused, looking pointedly at Dulcie. ‘A certain sort of woman, men see you in a certain way. And they feel they have rights.’
Dulcie bit back her response. Yes, she had picked up on the intimacy between the two. But if anything, she thought Barnes had been the suitor, and the woman before her had been the one with the power.
‘Huh, tell me about it.’ Trista, clearly, didn’t hold the same opinion. Then again, she hadn’t seen the two together.
‘Tris—’ Dulcie tried to draw her friend away.
‘Wait, I think I found it.’ Kelly was still playing with the keyboard. ‘No, no, sorry.’
‘What’s going on, anyway?’ Dulcie was confused. ‘What happened, Ms Roebuck? What’s Professor Barnes supposed to have done?’
‘Supposed to?’ The academic swooped down on the phrasing, eyes like a hawk. Dulcie swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Was this what deconstruction of meaning came to? But the raven-haired Roebuck turned away, releasing her. ‘No, you can’t know. Not yet.’
Dulcie wasn’t going to venture anything more, so it was up to Trista to ask. ‘Know what?’
‘My presentation,’ Stella replied. The anger seemed to drain from her voice as she continued. ‘My paper, “The Look of Love”. The key to my future – maybe to everything. Everything in our backward-looking discipline anyway. It was on my laptop. I was reading it through a moment ago. Practicing in my mind how to give the opening statement the proper emphasis. I stepped away and now it’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ Dulcie wasn’t intimidated any more. The woman sitting on the floor looked tired – and every day of her thirty-plus years. ‘How can that be?’ Stella just shook her head. Even her hair had gone limp. ‘Sabotage? I don’t know. I didn’t want to think Paul could do something like this.’
Dulcie looked from her up to Kelly. ‘Kelly, is this true? Is it really gone?’
The media tech was still typing. ‘As far as I can see.’ They all heard the disheartened sigh as Stella let her head hang down. ‘I mean, I’ll take this back to the lab. We can do a search through the hard drive, but as far as I can tell it’s gone.’
‘You didn’t back it up?’ Dulcie had learned that lesson the hard way. It helped that Chris had set her up with automatic programs that did the work for her.
Another shake of the head. The voice, when it emerged, sounded like it was coming from a great depth. ‘Back up. You say that as if it had no implications. But I know, you see. At Tech, the humanities aren’t isolated. The latest technologies have been called back from their exile. From my colleagues’ (from the stress she put on the word, Dulcie knew she didn’t count as one) ‘I have also learned the dangers of your so-called standard back-up. I have disconnected from the Cloud. It was, it is too insecure, and I knew – I’ve long known – that I have enemies.’
Dulcie latched on to that last word. ‘So it wasn’t necessarily Paul Barnes.’
The eyes that rose to meet hers were ringed and sad. ‘Who else?’ She shook her tousled locks, as if answering her own question. ‘He was here, and he was … well, I hadn’t been kind to him. I was angry, I confess. He has a new woman; you’ve probably seen her. She’s been hanging all over him. He should have been happy. I didn’t think much of her, but you know men. He couldn’t be alone. But I – I have a new man, and what we have is real. I didn’t want to hear his sad tale.’
‘But why go after your work?’ Nothing about her story was making sense.
‘He was getting over his new crush. Realizing that it was rebound romance, nothing more. But you know Paul.’ She said it with such confidence that Dulcie didn’t have the heart to disagree. ‘He’s soft-hearted. He wants to let her down easy. If she can’t have him, he wants her to get her dream job.’ A shrug. ‘I mean, he’s not going to get it. So, isn’t it obvious? This is all about Renée Showalter.’
FOURTEEN
‘Whoa.’ Dulcie heard Trista’s exclamation, soft as it was. ‘Paul Barnes and Showalter?’
Stella did, too. She shook her head sadly. ‘So I hear. Paul, of course, denied everything.’
Of course he did, thought Dulcie. If what she suspected was true, the two hadn’t been closeted for romantic reasons but to talk about her – and her future. But until she confirmed any of it, she couldn’t say anything. What she could do was try and save Paul Barnes’s reputation. ‘Kelly?’ She’d start with the basics. ‘Could someone really erase all traces of a file that quickly?’
‘Erase is the wrong word.’ The tech was powering the system down, carefully detaching the cables that linked it to the auditorium’s system. ‘This looks more like a virus. Someone downloaded something on to her laptop that ate away at the hard drive. In fact,’ she disconnected the last cable, ‘I’m going to have to check and make sure it didn’t get into our system.’
She shook her head sadly. ‘This is not good timing.’
Timing! Dulcie jumped up. ‘Good goddess, I forgot!’ All eyes turned on her, and only Trista was smiling. Dulcie felt the blush rising to her cheeks. Under pressure, she did tend to channel her mother. ‘I was supposed to meet Marco Tesla here. He must be outside. He’s probably wondering where I am …’ If he hadn’t wandered off already, she thought. If he complained to Thorpe, there would be hell to pay.
She stood up and turned toward the back of the auditorium. A hand reached out for hers and she turned, thinking it would be Trista.
It was Stella. ‘Don’t tell him.’ She looked more than tired. She looked desperate. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘There’s already be
en too much drama.’
Dulcie opened her mouth and then realized she couldn’t say what she was thinking. Any drama here had come from Stella Roebuck. And whatever else the elfin academic might be, she was a guest here – a featured speaker at the conference her department was sponsoring. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and, with Trista in tow, headed back to the atrium.
‘That was crazy,’ said Trista breathlessly, as she struggled to keep up. ‘Can you believe we’re in the middle of a romantic triangle?’
‘There’s nothing romantic about it.’ Dulcie said as she pushed the back door open. ‘I don’t know what Stella Roebuck’s on about, but I doubt every man she meets is that much in love with her.’
‘You’re jealous.’
Dulcie stopped short and turned to her friend. Trista looked as surprised by her own words as Dulcie did.
‘I’m sorry,’ Trista added. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘It’s not …’ Dulcie shook her head. ‘It’s not what you think.’ She didn’t have to explain herself to Trista. Despite her friend’s long-term relationship with Jerry, she was always indulging in at least the illusion of other romances.
‘But you and Professor Showalter?’ Trista sounded a little shocked. ‘I mean, I always figured you …’
‘No,’ Dulcie cut her off, then caught herself, as she looked around the atrium. ‘I mean, not like that. I find it hard to believe that Professor Showalter would find herself caught in some trashy romantic comedy.’
‘Romantic tragedy is more like it.’
‘What? ’Cause Stella Roebuck didn’t have the sense to back her work up?’ The atrium seemed strangely empty, and the few people who passed by were clearly not the hip professor. Dulcie started walking toward the front of the building. ‘Besides, she’s just making a fuss. The media tech will find it.’
‘You think?’ Trista matched her pace to Dulcie’s. ‘So you think this was all show?’
‘I think somebody is used to being the center of attention.’ Dulcie paused at the entrance to look back at the white and open space. No, no Marco Tesla here. She went for the big glass doors. ‘Blaming Paul Barnes? She reminds me of Esmé. No, even Esmé isn’t that desperate for attention. But she also likes to bite to get people to notice her.’
‘Then why didn’t she want you to say anything to Tesla?’ Trista followed her out. ‘Word is, they’re a couple now.’
Dulcie nodded. The matching wardrobe, even the hair – it made sense. ‘Who knows?’ She looked around. ‘Maybe he’s sick of her drama. Sick of having to compete with every past lover, real or imagined.’
‘Or maybe she’s afraid it was really Marco who sabotaged her presentation and not Barnes.’ Trista’s voice had gone soft. ‘After all, from what you said – he was here earlier, too. And now he’s not.’
FIFTEEN
‘I can’t believe you lost Marco Tesla.’ Thorpe was furious, flushed all the way up to his scalp. ‘Lost him!’
‘I didn’t lose him.’ Dulcie knew she’d messed up. Knew she needed to report right away, even though she had wanted to seek out Paul Barnes for his side of the story. But there had been extenuating circumstances. And besides, she hadn’t asked to be Thorpe’s errand girl. ‘He is not lost. Simply missing. Maybe he chose not to wait, figuring we’d catch up with him later,’ she clarified. ‘Maybe he heard Stella Roebuck yelling and thought it best to get out of there.’ It would have been, she decided, the sensible reaction.
‘And Stella Roebuck … oh, lord.’ He had his hands in his hair, pulling at what was left. ‘The conference … our reputation. My reputation.’ Dulcie waited, hoping he’d calm down. He had actually spun around by then, which saved her from having to fake a sympathetic look, and walked toward the back of his office. There, over by the window, she saw a large box of some sort, covered by a blanket. There was something strangely homey about it, a feeling that Thorpe seemed to share. She could see his shoulders lowering to somewhere near normal as he got closer. But before he could reach it he stopped and turned back toward her with a fierce expression.
‘That’s another thing.’ Thorpe glared at her, as if she were supposed to be able to decipher his meaning. ‘What happened there?’
Although his meaning was, in fact, clear, Dulcie was tempted to play dumb. Any person who strove to lead the department of English and American Literatures and Language ought to be able to articulate a question better. For a moment, she considered feigning confusion. But beneath his anger, Dulcie knew, lay deep fear. Besides, he had a cat now; the thought suddenly popped into her mind. Everyone who cohabited with a feline was part of a special group. She’d help him out.
‘She thinks that someone –’ Dulcie was not going to blame Paul Barnes – ‘erased her paper. Infected her computer with a virus, or something. Though she had the flimsiest rationale for not having backed up.’ As she talked, she found herself staring at the box. Almost, she thought, the blanket moved.
Thorpe was waving his hand at her, pulling her attention away from the curious structure. ‘Wait – a virus?’
Dulcie nodded. ‘Actually, it was Kelly, the media tech, who—’
He didn’t wait to hear the end. ‘This is great.’ His face lit up and, just for a moment, Dulcie thought, he glanced over his shoulder at the box. ‘We can salvage this. Maybe make the whole conference! Dulcie, get your boyfriend on the phone.’
‘Chris? But why?’ Even as she asked, Thorpe’s reasoning dawned on her. She’d been too distracted. ‘No, Mr Thorpe. Really. Working with damaged hard drives isn’t what he does. And Kelly sounded quite confident—’ She hadn’t, from what Dulcie remembered. Not really. Still, Dulcie didn’t want Chris to be dragged into this departmental craziness.
‘Dulcie, Kelly is an hourly employee. Chris Sorenson is, by all accounts, one of the rising stars of the department.’ Thorpe was standing up straighter and smoothing his hair back, always a bad sign.
‘Computer sciences isn’t the same as computer repair.’ She felt her protest losing steam. Hearing Chris praised like that had taken her by surprise. ‘The media department really is more prepared to do more specialized work.’
‘Please, Ms Schwartz.’ Thorpe’s voice had gotten softer too. ‘I can’t – I can’t explain, exactly. But I know this is the right thing to do. For – for Tigger’s sake,’ he glanced back once more at the box in the corner, ‘please call him.’
That did it. The little marmalade tabby bonded her more strongly to the balding academic than any of her studies. It also raised a question.
‘Is Tigger here?’ She had seen a movement.
Thorpe had the grace to look down, momentarily abashed. ‘Yes, he is.’ He peeked back up. ‘I don’t like leaving him alone all day at home. And, well …’ He blinked. ‘I find I concentrate better when the little fellow is in my office.’
‘May I?’ She motioned toward the blanket-covered box. He nodded, and she approached, kneeling on the floor beside it to lift the edge of the covering.
‘Hello, little fellow.’ What she’d thought was a box, she could now see, was really a large cat bed, complete with pillow and numerous catnip mice strewn throughout. The blanket, draped over the high sides, allowed the occupant some privacy, but the back was open toward the window, to allow prime bird watching. But even though the afternoon outside was bright, the little orange kitten was curled up on the cushion. He looked up to meet her eye as she peeked in. ‘Were you listening to us?’
‘He must have been drawn to our voices,’ said Thorpe, bending beside her. ‘Weren’t you, Tigger?’
The little cat turned to his person, batting at his outstretched finger in the approved kitten manner. But after about thirty seconds, he returned his attention to Dulcie. She, too, reached out, if just to feel that soft orange fur. Tigger, however, was having none of it. Ignoring her fingers, he simply sat and stared at her. With, she could not help but feel, some serious intent.
‘What is it, Tigger?’ She kept her voice low, but stil
l Thorpe turned and looked at her. ‘Do you have something to tell me?’
‘He does have the most eloquent eyes, doesn’t he?’ Thorpe couldn’t hide the pride in his voice, but Dulcie didn’t respond. This cat had something to communicate, she was sure. And if that meant shutting out the person who had taken him in, well, so be it. If she could just tune him out …
‘We do not all choose our teachers.’ The voice, soft and yet clear, startled Dulcie. ‘We may choose what we learn.’ She caught herself before she responded out loud, however, and instead found herself staring into the young creature’s eyes. ‘Keep your eyes open.’ They were blue, so blue that they looked unnatural. Or no, uncanny, like they were really a portal to a different world, a world where nothing was what it seemed …
‘Ms Schwartz?’ Thorpe’s voice broke her out of her reverie. ‘Are you feeling ill?’
‘What?’ She shook off the dizziness that had in truth crept over her. ‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Open …’ Was it the voice again, or simply a memory? Resigned, she sat back on the floor and looked up at her adviser.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just so easy to get caught up in a kitten.’ Part of the message was clear. She needed to show more respect. If there was more going on, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t get it with Thorpe hovering possessively around the little cat’s enclosure. ‘Isn’t it?’ She turned back to the cozy box for one last try. But the kitten had curled up in his bed, pink nose tucked under the edge of the striped orange tail, his loyalty clear.
‘I think we should let him rest now, don’t you?’ Thorpe was already pulling the blanket down to shield the enclosure from prying eyes. ‘And, well, you need to call Chris.’ The way he was looking, Dulcie knew there was no avoiding it. He’d given her time with Tigger, and the kitten had made her duty clear. She owed Thorpe at least a call to her boyfriend.