“It’s an amazing story. As a historian, I hope someone has kept a record of what happened.”
“You could always write the book.”
Sarah laughed. “Well, maybe not this year. I don’t even have a desk yet.”
“Well, let’s fix that. We’re now standing in the Small Quad. It’s little more than a place where sidewalks meet and cross, but if you turn and view the library as the front side of the quad, you’ll see that departmental buildings form the other three sides.
“Just as the destitute survivors of the Civil War turned to the nuns for aid, so soldiers returning from Europe and the Pacific after World War II turned to education to help them rebuild their lives. The G.I. Bill of Rights provided the educational benefits. All they needed was a school that would welcome them. And Smoky Mountain University was eager to lure students to its new campus by providing convenient dormitories and a full college curriculum.
“The dorms, built in the late 1940s, are in a separate enclave across the street. This long building in the center of the main campus houses all of our social sciences departments, including history. Bailey Hall bears the name of the state governor who approved the financing for it right after World War II. Shall we go inside?”
Martha led the way down a sidewalk to the center of the building, where a tier of steps and a broad patio marked the formal entrance to Bailey Hall. “Our first History Department Chair was an elderly gentleman who demanded that the designers include an elevator to his third-floor office—a request for which I am most grateful.” She pressed the call button, and they whisked to the top of the building.
“Stop a moment and get oriented. On your left are three classrooms, each with a different configuration—a lecture hall, a standard classroom, and a seminar room. The open area holds the departmental secretary’s desk. You’ll meet Gwen Le Pham on Tuesday. She and her husband, who is a resident doctor at the vet school, both come from Vietnamese families who escaped Saigon in the last years of that conflict. She is a bit of dynamite who can clear the pathway to anything you need. Ask for her help.
“The corridor to your right contains professors’ offices and leads to an open area at the far end of the building. As the school grows, that space will contain more offices and classrooms, but for now, there’s a kitchenette, a conference table, a small library collection, and an informal lounge area for reading or conversations. By tradition and departmental fiat, not university rule, the lounge is the bailiwick of professors and graduate students. No undergrads allowed. We can go down there and look around if you like, but you may be more interested in exploring the first door on your left.”
Chapter Three
An Office to Fill
Friday, August 15, 2008
Sarah’s hand covered her gaping mouth as she stared at the door. A brass nameplate read: “Doctor Sarah Chomsky, Assistant Professor of History.”
Sarah realized that she had still been seeing the campus through the eyes of a visitor, but this was real. She belonged here, not as a tourist, but as a member of the faculty.
Martha was still talking. “I have two keys for you. The larger one opens the outside doors of the building when classes are not in session. But you need to understand that it’s a temporary unlocking. You would not want to be in an empty building with the doors unlocked. And you don’t want to forget to lock up after yourself. Open the door and it will lock again as soon as the latch re-engages. The smaller key is to your private office. It’s just a normal key. Lock the door when you leave for the day.”
Martha handed over the keyring with its university fob and watched with a smile as Sarah unlocked the door and pushed it open. The room was larger than Sarah had expected, and it still smelled of fresh paint and carpeting. One side wall held nothing but built-in bookshelves. Against the opposite wall stood a large L-shaped desk with two levels. The arm of the L was lower and faced the door, while the other displayed a low hutch with empty shelves, drawers, and cubby-holes. An overstuffed and wheeled desk chair awaited her. A fourth wall displayed a bank of floor-to-chair-level windows, in front of which stood a plain work table with two folding chairs. Dappled sunlight flooded the room through the windows, but she also spotted small floodlight bulbs in ceiling cutouts.
“The office is all yours. If there is anything you don’t like, ask for a replacement. That desk chair, for example. The previous occupant of this office was a tall and burly gentleman who needed an oversized chair. You may not find it comfortable.”
Sarah turned the chair toward the middle of the room and perched on the edge. She bounced herself across the seat to rest her back. Then she giggled. “Look. My feet don’t even touch the floor.”
“That will be Gwen’s first task for Monday. I’ll leave her a note, asking her to exchange this chair for one more suited to a slender woman. Anything else that doesn’t suit you?”
“Well, I’ll need a filing cabinet, a low one, not one of those ugly four-drawer ones. And what about hanging things on the walls? Any restrictions on fasteners?”
“No. Do as you like. We can always fill holes. You can decorate your office to suit your personality. Add plants, pillows, pictures, do-dads, lamps, whatever you like.”
“Books! I mailed my library, such as it is, to the college mailroom two weeks ago. I wonder if the boxes have arrived.”
“We can check.” Martha reached over, picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory. “Gladys? Martha here. Have you received some heavy boxes for a Professor Chomsky? Wonderful. Here, let me introduce you to her. The two of you can work out the details.” Nodding her head at Sarah, she handed her the phone.
“Hello? This is Sarah Chomsky. You have my books? Yes, I’d love to have them right away, but . . . Oh, I see. And they will want to unpack them for me, too? That’s perfect. Yes, I’m in my office now. It’s . . . Oh dear, I don’t know. Just a minute. Let me look.”
Sarah glanced at Martha with wide eyes and pointed toward the office door. “Do I have a room number?” Martha shook her head in amusement and opened the door. Sure enough. The numbers were large. She just hadn’t seen them once she noticed her nameplate. “I’m back, Miss . . . uh, Gladys? I’m in Bailey Hall, room 306. Thank you ever so much.”
Sarah hung up the phone and turned back to Martha. “I can’t get over how easy everything is here. She said she had some football players underfoot in the mailroom, and they needed something to do. They are already loading the boxes onto carts and will be here soon.”
“That’s what I told you about coming in early. By Monday, lots of little jobs will be forming a queue of requests. Today, we can accomplish almost anything. In fact, I think I’ve done everything I need to do. I will leave you to deal with your football players and head back to my office. Here’s the phone number there if you need anything. And be sure to give me a call before you leave campus for the day.”
Sarah sat back in her oversized desk chair and spun it around, laughing to herself in amazement. Then she stood and smoothed her skirt as she heard the elevator doors open and the rattling of carts coming down the hall. Six large young men grinned back at her as she opened the door wider.
“Morning, ma’am. You're new here? Somebody said you needed some boxes unloaded.”
“Yes, I am and I do. But wait. We can at least observe the formalities. I’m Professor Chomsky, and I’ve been here for all of one hour. Who are you, and where did you come from?”
“Hi, professor. I’m Chad Overstreet, the captain of the football team. These are my teammates—Buster, Derek, Jackson, Richie, and Mac. We’re all doing ‘work-study’ in the mailroom this semester, and our duties started today. But when we arrived, there was nothing to do. Miss Gladys was about at her wit’s end thing to keep us busy when your call came in.”
“You must forgive me, but I’m unfamiliar with all of this. Why is the football team working in the mailroom?”
“Where did you go to school, ma’am?”
“Boston College, an
d then Columbia. Why?”
“That explains things. You come from big name schools. Little Smoky Mountain is only a Triple-A athletic school. We’re not allowed to have athletic scholarships. If the coach wants guys to play on his team, he has to find rich kids who can afford to pay their own way, smart ones who qualify for academic scholarships, or ordinary guys like us, who can work off our tuition bills by putting in set hours of work on campus. This year, it’s the mailroom for us.”
“Well, I, for one, welcome you. I don’t want to boss you around too much because I appreciate your muscle power. However, I’m also particular about my books. I have them organized by subject, and each box has a number. That’s the order in which you need to place them on the shelves. There are twelve sections of shelves here in the office, so boxes one and two go in the first section, three and four in the second, and so on. And for now, I want to leave the top and bottom shelves empty so there will be room to add new books. Besides, there’s no way I could reach anything on those top shelves.”
“Yes, ma’am. We can handle that. Come on, guys. Let’s stack the boxes in front of the shelves where they go. Then we can move the carts out into the hall and have room to do the unpacking.”
As they started to work, the phone rang, scaring Sarah for a moment before she located the source of the ringing. The caller was Martha, who had just realized that she had abandoned Sarah at lunchtime. “If it suits you and your boys, I will send over some pizza and lemonade from the Grub Hub. Consider it a welcome lunch from the dean. But you’d better check with your football players to see if they have any allergies or other problems. I’ll hang on.”
Feeling a bit as if she had just fallen down a rabbit hole, Sarah covered the phone receiver with her hand and asked, “Guys, is it OK if the dean’s secretary sends some free pizza and lemonade over for lunch while you work?”
Cheers met the question. “We eat anything, but pizza’s great. Tell her to make it pepperoni.”
“There are six of them, Martha,” She turned her back and spoke into the phone. “Make it pepperoni for the boys—and veggie for me, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Coming right up.”
Sarah’s world had spun out of her control at this point. Chad had assumed his natural leadership role and was calling out signals to the team as they worked. Understanding that she would only complicate matters if she tried to assist or make suggestions, she retreated to her oversized desk chair and watched as her library took shape on the shelves.
A half-hour later, a knock at the door caught everyone’s attention. “Did someone here call for pizza?” asked the freckle-faced delivery boy. He stared up at the football team in alarm as they rushed to relieve him of a stack of pizza boxes and seven lidded cups.
“Chef Pete must be back at work. This looks like his famous lemonade.” He handed a cup to Sarah with a bow. “We’d order sodas anywhere else, but the college chef is deadly set against sugary bottled drinks. Let’s see, we have six large pizzas, one apiece, I guess, and then there’s this smaller box with . . . uh, broccoli? This must be yours, ma’am.”
Ignoring the table near the window since there weren’t enough chairs anyhow, these bulky young men settled to the floor and began demolishing their pepperoni-studded lunches. Sarah had finished only one piece of her veggie pizza, delicious though it was, when Chad began tossing out paper napkins. “Wipe your hands well when you’re finished, guys. I don’t want to see any tomato stains on these scholarly books.”
“Thank you,” Sarah commented. “What shall I do with the left-overs?”
“Left-overs? I don’t think that will be a problem, ma’am.” He gestured as a boy was already collecting empty boxes containing little more than a few grease spots. “We seldom leave anything behind, although you can take the rest of your rabbit food home for supper.” He gave a mock shudder at the very idea of a vegetarian pizza. And then the team was back at work, finishing the job in quick order.
When the boys had finished and returned to the mailroom, Sarah leaned back and enjoyed her new office even more now that it contained her own possessions. Her books filled the shelves. She noticed that Chad had directed the unpackers to leave uneven spaces on each shelf so she could add new books or, until that was possible, some other types of memorabilia to remind herself and others of her field of expertise. Somewhere, she knew, she had a small collection—a teddy bear wearing a Union Army uniform, a reversible slave/mistress doll, two model cannons, a brass pineapple from Charleston, a branch of dried cotton bolls. She’d bring them in as soon as possible.
The bank of sunny windows had a low sill that seemed ideal for some potted plants. Maybe cactus, she thought, or other kinds of succulents, things I can’t kill from neglect. She had no ideas yet about wall decorations, but she could wait to find the right posters. In the meantime, the walls were at least painted, although she now noticed that the smell of paint had disappeared. In its place came the pervasive odor of tomato, grease, and garlic, touched with a faint but unmistakable whiff of teen-aged boys. It was already starting to feel like home.
A tap at the door startled Sarah out of her reverie.
“Sarah Chomsky? Are you busy? May I come in?” A young woman stood at the door, her bleached hair pulled into a tangled ponytail. She wore flip flops, a flimsy blouse, and cut-off—very cut-off—jeans.
“Yes. What do you need? I’m new here myself, but I can try to help.”
“Oh, I don’t need anything. I just came by to say hello and introduce myself. I passed your doorway earlier, but you seemed to be busy . . . uh, entertaining the football team, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
There was something off about the tone of her remark—something with an edge to it, a suggestive hint that the speaker might tell this tale to her friends with more imaginative details. Sarah felt her hackles starting to rise, but she put on a determined smile.
“And who did you say you were?”
“I didn’t.” Her tone was argumentative. “I’m one of your new students. My full name is Cassandra Jernigan McGehee, but you can call me Cassie. Everyone does. And you are . . .? What name do you use? Is it Sarah, or is it Sally?”
“Professor Chomsky will do.”
“Ah, . . . I mean, what can we call you? We don’t like formalities here.”
“I’m sorry, but I do. I come from a university where the faculty receives much respect, and I rather expected the same attitude here. You are the first one to raise the issue. I don’t know you, Miss . . .”
“It’s Mrs.”
“Mrs. McGehee. We have just met, and we are not on a first-name basis. So why are you here?”
“I’m just trying to be friendly. You shouldn’t take things so seriously. I graduated from here in June and applied as a graduate student. I thought—since I am familiar with the college—that I could be of help to you. We have much in common. You are the youngest and newest member of the faculty, and I am the youngest and newest of the graduate students. We need to band together and protect each other’s interests.”
“I’m sorry, but no. Why would I need anyone to protect my interests? Against whom? Or what?”
“Oh, wait till you see how cut-throat things can get around here. You’ll be a target from day one. You’ll need me to have your back. I’m the one who knows where they've buried the bodies. You won’t believe the stories I can tell you about your colleagues.”
“Again, no. I don’t know what your game is, Mrs. McGehee, but I’m not playing it. I’m not interested in gossip, and I don’t like gossipers. You’ve overstepped the bounds of polite academic behavior, but since you are very new to graduate studies, I will overlook it—this one time. The next time we meet, I suggest we start from scratch. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a busy schedule ahead of me.” Sarah held the door open as the girl flounced out, casting one malevolent glance her way.
“Good gracious, that girl just tried to gaslight me! Doctor Kaplan didn’t warn me about this situation.�
�� It startled Sarah to hear herself speak with such a tremor in her voice. The girl had given her more of a fright than she realized. She latched the door and turned to the bookshelves, trailing her fingers across the familiar titles. These were the role-models she followed, the scholars who defined her field, the teachers she trusted to guide her career. “You are the people I trust to have my back,” she murmured to them.
She waited for almost a half-hour before she dialed Martha’s number and announced that she was leaving for the day. “My car is outside your office, so I’m headed your way. Can you spare me just another few minutes?”
Sarah locked her office door and turned toward the elevator before she realized that her disturbing visitor was sitting on the department secretary’s desk. She tensed, a shiver of panic running down her back, but there was nowhere to go but down. She tossed what she hoped was a warning glance at the young woman as she approached the elevator and pressed the call button.
“Hi. I don’t think we’ve met, but I remember you from your job talk. You’re Doctor Chomsky, aren’t you? I’m Cassie McGehee, one of your new students. Welcome to Smoky Mountain. We’ve been looking forward to your arrival.”
Taken aback by the change, Sarah eyed the young woman. “Nice try. A much better approach. And thank you for the welcome, although I’m on my way out for the day. The dean’s secretary is expecting me.”
She turned away, but the girl persisted. “You don’t mind if I ride down with you, do you? I'm going that way myself. I can serve as your guide.”
What Grows in Your Garden Page 3