They all snickered as if they didn’t get all tied in knots over Christmas and birthday parties.
“He’s not answering the phone,” Sandy said.
“He probably can’t hear it. When I left, he had the music cranked up in the garage. What’s the emergency?”
“I just got a call from Rudy. Alan is having some kind of crisis and SendDown may need a fill-in drummer to finish out the tour.” Sandy paused, giving all the women time to tense with concern, but not long enough for them to start demanding details. “Apparently, one of his drugged-out groupies just abandoned a child in a hospital somewhere, and he’s decided he needs to become a model father. Tessa, I’m going to need you on this right now. I’m too old for this crap. This is why I never let you boys get mixed up with drugs. We had enough problems with the alcohol.” Sandy glared at Marc for a second before stomping back down the hall. Tessa followed him out.
“But I never did anything!” Marc shouted after Sandy.
“You still smoke,” Sandy shouted back.
Actually, he didn’t. He hadn’t even suffered the need to fiddle with a cigarette since Alex. Since she’d vanished from his life, he’d just felt empty.
“Speaking of which,” Candy said. “How many times did you try to call her?”
“Alan has an illegitimate child abandoned in a hospital by a junkie groupie and I’m still the biggest elephant in the room?”
“Yes. As soon as Tessa gets the paternity tests back, I’ll get my assistant on it. Until then, how many times did you call her?”
The dead could be rising and angels descending from heaven, and they would still want all the details of his latest breakup. They were worse than the Internet. He settled back on the corner of Helen’s desk to finish the interrogation. “Once.”
“Once? Did you send her a text or an e-mail?” Candy tapped her lips.
“I don’t have her e-mail.”
Maureen snorted. “You wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Candy wailed.
“Because I didn’t see a point. She took off without a word. I called. She didn’t answer. If she wanted to call me back, I’m on her missed calls list, and she has the number.”
“But you called her once. That doesn’t shout ‘I want you back.’ Why not a text? If something terrible happened, she may need to know you want to hear from her,” Cassie said. “She may have seen that missed call and thought you were checking what time she wanted you to pick her up. And when you didn’t call again, she thought you moved on to the next groupie.”
“Cassie, not everybody barricades themselves into the house when they get dumped.” Marc smirked at her.
“First of all, I didn’t barricade myself in the house, the snow plow did, and second, it was a pretty spectacular dumping.”
“So was the reunion. You threatened to shoot him.”
“I took him back.”
“All very cute,” Candy said standing up. “Are you going to explain why you didn’t try to text?”
“I’m not going to end up as a social media joke.” Marc folded his arms.
“Please,” Maureen drawled. “Michael and I were on CNN. That woman Jason was dating before dumped him in People and you’re afraid of Facebook? Coward.”
“Look, I’m not going to chase after some little girl who freaked out because I mentioned marriage.”
“You what?” Jody ran to the door. “Tessa come here. You have to hear this. Marc asked her to marry him.”
“He what?” Tessa shouted down the hall. “Damn you, Marc. I already have one crisis on my hands, and I haven’t vetted this woman. What is wrong with you?”
The baby started crying and Andi sat up blinking. “Mama?”
“It’s okay, sweetie, Uncle Marc is just being a huge idiot.” Cassie picked up her daughter and sat down in the chair with her. Candy took the baby away from Helen.
“I didn’t ask her to marry me. I just mentioned a Joseph Campbell quote about relationships, and he used the word marriage.”
“And you decided, instead of replacing marriage with a less inflammatory word, to stay true to the original quote,” Helen said.
Tessa stepped through the doorway, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “The paternity test is done. It’s Alan’s. Jody, can you make arrangements for his parents to fly to San Antonio to pick the baby up? Helen, we need to contact that rehab facility for an immediate placement. Maureen, can you track down your husband and convince him to take over for the rest of the tour. Candy, your assistant has already sent me six e-mails and called three times that I know of. I think she’s in over her head on this one. Sorry, ladies and Marc, but we have a code-red emergency on our hands. And, Marc, if you’re going to propose to anybody else, would you try to give me a head’s up first? Honest to God, you’re turning into Tyler, and I can’t take two of you.”
“Here, Candy, let me help you get the kids to the car. Andi, honey, help me put the blocks away.” Cassie scooped the blocks June had been playing with into their bucket while her daughter pushed the blocks that had gotten scattered toward her. “Marc, I never knew Alex very well because she only visited in summers, and she’s quite a bit younger than I am, but she always seemed like a real nice girl. I’m sure whatever happened, she had good reasons to leave town the way she did.”
“I think you really love this girl, Marc.” Candy settled the baby in the crook of her arm and adjusted the strap of the diaper bag over her shoulder. “You’re never this sloppy. I think you’re going to have to take a page from the Jason Callisto Big Book of Stupid and jump in with both feet regardless of the consequences. Sometimes, that’s the only way good stuff happens.”
“Says the woman who went to China for one child and came home with two.”
Helen’s printer whirred to life behind him.
“Exactly. I wanted a family, and I went to China to get one.” She patted his arm before taking June’s hand and starting for the door with Cassie and Andi right behind her.
Marc turned to Helen. “And what are your words of wisdom, den mother dear?”
“No words. Plane ticket.” She handed him a paper. “Go.”
“I don’t know. She’s not calling me. What makes you think she wants me to show up on her doorstep?”
“Marc, darling, you came in here today to get permission to do just this.” She stood and kissed his cheek. “Your flight leaves at seven forty-five tomorrow morning. I’m pretty sure Tessa has her address for you. Maybe you could try calling her to tell her you’re coming. Go now. I have work to do.”
“Before I go, why didn’t you tell me sooner that Dez was cheating on me?”
Helen lost some color. “Oh, honey, I thought this was old news.”
“I looked like an idiot for at least six months.”
She leaned back in here chair. “I don’t know why this is still bothering you.”
“You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“You were touring, and it was such a tough tour. I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“Unnecessary roughness.”
“You had a lot on your plate with that album doing so poorly, and the band being out of style. There didn’t need to be any reason to cause unnecessary pain in the name of truth. I just assembled the evidence for when you were ready for it.” She gave him a sad smile. “If you remember, I did drop a lot of hints, and I didn’t tell anyone else here.”
“Thanks, Helen. You handled it the right way.” He held up the paper in his hand. “Wish me luck.”
“Only the best.”
He went down the hall to Tessa’s office, but she was on the phone and deep in conversation when he stopped at her door. She held up a paper and rattled it at him. Handwritten in the middle was Alex Perkins, a PO box number, a building name, and the Chicago university. “Hang on.” Tessa put her hand over the mouthpiece. “I couldn’t get an exact address, but that’s the building she lives in at least. You’ll have to do
a little of your own legwork on this one. No, I wasn’t talking to you. Did it sound like I was talking to you?”
Marc walked out to his car. They were right. He had come here looking for permission, but he’d thought it was permission to let it go. But if he’d wanted to be told that he’d been right to let her go after she walked away from him, he should have gone to Tyler or Bear. They would have taken him drinking and told him how, if she wanted him, she would have stuck with him and not made him run after her. The women—they were designed to tell him to chase true love.
He scanned the papers. One-way plane ticket and part of an address. That would get him most of the way there, and then he’d have to camp out until she told him what happened. Even if it sucked, he needed to know the truth this time.
Chapter 9
“So everything is scheduled? No going back?” Alex asked, clutching the counter of the English office. Her stomach wanted to crawl up her throat, leap out her mouth, and run screaming into the street. Her heart agreed.
“All set. You look so excited.” Annabelle, one of the English department secretaries, grinned at her, displaying crooked teeth along with her stunning lack of observational skills.
“Thrilled,” Alex lied. Hey, she’d been doing it all day, why change tactics now? “Tuesday then. The Harper Room in the Student Center.”
“Tuesday.” Annabelle rattled her pen on the glass counter top. “I heard that Dr. Gregor has been telling everyone how insightful your thesis is. I had no idea you were even interested in Sylvia Plath.”
“Yes, well, I guess when Melanie killed herself, it struck a chord with me.” The lies felt like bathtub ring, waxy and vile.
Annabelle sniffed. “Poor Melanie. She really got caught up in The Bell Jar when we were in high school. Her father died when she was young, too.”
“I didn’t know that.” Plath’s or Melanie’s? Great, now she needed to bone up on Sylvia Plath so she wouldn’t get caught unaware at faculty mixers.
“I suppose it’s not that surprising that you would develop an interest in Plath after studying Eliot. Plath had a deep interest in Yeats. I think she killed herself in Yeats old house, didn’t she?”
What did Yeats have to do with Eliot? It’s not like they were drinking buddies. “You know, I’m not sure.”
“Dare I eat a peach, you know.”
“Yes. Dare I.” The thought of peaches made her want to puke. “You know, I’d love to stay and chat, but I have an appointment with my advisor.” If the bastard was in his office. Then she could strangle him and go to jail instead of defending a dead girl’s stolen thesis on a subject she knew nothing about to a committee who would endorse her if she’d typed the alphabet over and over again.
“Oh, sure. Last minute prepping. Good luck.”
“Thanks!”
Alex tried to trot inconspicuously, but couldn’t pull it off. A family touring the school turned to stare as she gave up and took the stairs two at a time. Roger’s office door was closed. She hesitated outside. What did she expect to hear? Heavy breathing? Would Roger have the gall to cheat on the woman he was cheating on his wife with? Too bad the stolen thesis wasn’t on Wodehouse. Her funny bone appeared to be at an all-time sensitivity. She knocked and waited. Roger was supposed to be working on a critical reading of The Wasteland. Because the world didn’t have enough of those. Besides, he hadn’t done most of the research. She had. He knew less about The Wasteland than she knew about Sylvia Plath.
Melanie had killed herself. She’d studied Plath so deeply that it killed her. Taking her thesis went beyond evil.
Dr. Gregor’s office was one floor up. Dr. Gregor might have something to say about a thesis stolen from her dead graduate student on her area of concentration.
Alex ran for the stairs. From the hallway, she could hear soft jazz and the sound of muttering. Dr. Gregor stood on her desk in a pair of baggy jeans and a Cubs T-shirt, reaching for a book on a shelf that grazed the ceiling.
“Dr. Gregor?”
The professor shrieked and took a step back, planting her foot on her cup. Coffee splattered around the room as the mug went flying, and she tumbled behind her desk, knocking the chair into another shelf and bringing a pile of magazines sliding down on her.
“Oh, my God!” Alex ran around the desk. Dr. Gregor lay in a heap under the magazines with one foot hooked through the arm of the chair and her arms over her head. Alex reached for the magazine lying over her face. “Are you all right?”
“Alex Perkins,” Dr. Gregor said. “Amazing what one misstep can do to you, isn’t it?”
Had she hit her head on the way down? “Are you all right?” Alex repeated.
“My ego may never recover.” Dr. Gregor glared at the bookshelf. “Didn’t even manage to bring the book down with me. Shut the door will you?” She disentangled herself as Alex swung the door closed.
“I need to—” Alex started.
“I know.” Dr. Gregor straightened her Cubs shirt and sat down in her chair. “I know what’s going on. You’re going to pass your thesis defense with no trouble, and from what I’ve heard, you’ll be teaching freshman English by fall term.”
“But it’s not my thesis.”
“Shhh!” Dr. Gregor looked around like someone might be hiding in her cramped office. “Welcome to the wonderful world of academia. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Capiche?”
“What does he have on you?”
Dr. Gregor glared at her. “Never you mind. Just remember that I have something on you now.”
“Please, what we have is mutually assured destruction.”
“A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse.”
Alex straightened. “You’ve been watching too many spy movies.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re in it now, too. You out me for giving you Melanie’s thesis and everyone knows you didn’t write it. We’re linked forever.”
That would explain how Roger got his hands on Melanie’s thesis. “But I didn’t—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Dr. Gregor blushed. “All the university sees is a couple of cheating English professors, and what do you suppose they’re going to do?”
“Fire us.” For the first time in her life the thought of being fired didn’t horrify her. It might even become a life goal.
“If it were only that easy. You and I, we’re going to be trapped here for the rest of our lives doing whatever scut work no one wants. Just keep your mouth shut and neither of us spends the rest of our career going to inner city schools where you’re more likely to get stabbed for your purse than recruit the next inspirational student.”
Alex took a step back. Dr. Gregor, now Diana, as Alex would never be able to think of her as Dr. anything ever again, needed serious psychological help. “Well, I’ll be going. See you Tuesday.”
Diana narrowed her eyes and spoke in a super-villain voice. “Yes, you will.”
Alex tried to grab for the door handle behind her, failed, and tried again. She knocked it open with her back and half fell out the door. The only other reliable place to look for Roger was his house. Carla might be there, but she’d have to take that risk.
She gave up all pretense of calm and ran to the bus stop. The two early arrivals already waiting took one look at her and stepped out of the shelter. Six years she’d been at this campus. Six. It had never looked so dangerous and shadowy before. On the bus, no surprise, she got a seat to herself. Through the windows, she watched the scenery slide by. She had never been to Roger’s house before. He never invited her to mixers or had her bring anything from his office. Roger didn’t want her around Carla, as Carla was such a harpy. She’d only met the woman twice.
See, that was the first mistake. Believing Roger’s take on Carla when he went to such extreme lengths to keep them apart. Maybe she should have been watching more spy movies.
The bus left her two blocks down from the house. It was a beautiful neighborhood at the peak of summ
er lushness. Sprinklers swishing away, half a dozen little kids in bright bathing suits leaping through the water under the watchful eye of a slim older man with a copy of the Wall Street Journal under his arm, the dean of the psychology department trimming his hedges. How normal. The front windows of Roger’s house were open and white curtains billowed through them. Bob Seger wailed about how rock and roll never forgot.
Hopefully, it did. Marc needed to forget all about her before he found out what she really was.
Before she could chicken out or Bob Seger started to sing another song that would remind her of Marc, she marched up to the front door and knocked.
The woman who opened the door had short strawberry blond hair in a kerchief. Carla. Where the hell was Roger?
“Alex!” Carla said. Her smile did not look out of place. Her face seemed to naturally fall into that expression. Hmm. “Hi. Come on in.”
“Hello, Carla.”
“I am so happy for you. Roger said you’d finished your thesis and were seeking treatment for your social anxiety this summer.”
My what?
“Roger just ran out to get another gallon of paint. We’re doing the dining room. You can join me for some iced tea while you wait.”
Carla escorted her through the house to the kitchen. She was healthier than Alex expected, like she’d just walked out of a spinning class on her way to Zumba. “Jamie is at the neighbors and the baby is asleep upstairs. I feel like I haven’t had five minutes adult conversation in a year. Roger tells me you switched your thesis to Plath. Poor Melanie. She used to babysit Jamie for us.” Carla poured a tall glass of tea for Alex. “What drew you to Plath?”
Alex tried to open her mouth, but her lips were sealed shut. Roger described Carla as this depressed creature who was only interested in their child and spent her days watching soaps in a darkened house. Of course, Roger had also told Carla she had crippling social anxiety. Roger should start writing fiction. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?” Carla’s gaze was wholly innocent and curious. “Am I overwhelming you? I’m sure it’s not easy to deal with social anxiety.”
Waiting for a Girl Like You Page 13