What Grows in Your Garden

by Carolyn P Schriber

  “Bits of filet mignon on skewers, interspersed with mush. . .”

  “Don’t say it, Sarah! It’s bad enough they have ruined a delicious piece of meat by flavoring it with a common fungus. We shouldn’t want to call attention to it.”

  Giggling, they moved away from the tables and wandered through the ever-growing number of guests. Beth nudged Sarah and whispered, “There’s Julia. She looks as elegant as ever in that silver tunic over harem pants, but who is that big, awkward guy with her?”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders, but David heard the question. “That’s Bertrand Wheeler, Smoky Mountain’s famous basketball coach.”

  “Famous?”

  “He’s a local boy, but he also used to be a Harlem Globetrotter. Don’t let his big hands fool you. He’s bright, hard-working, personable, and a charmer with the ladies.”

  Sarah caught Julia’s eye and waved them over. Bert headed straight for David, reaching out to shake with one hand and clasp his elbow with the other. “Good to see you, David. Been following your police career with pride for an old classmate.”

  “You two know each other?”

  “Grew up together. Lost track when we went off to college. Davey here headed to Harvard, while I claimed a basketball scholarship at Memphis State—two different worlds. Then he stayed on in Cambridge to do law school, and I ended up in Harlem with the Trotters. The old hometown reclaimed us both, although I don’t know how he has escaped the clutches of his old man’s law firm.”

  “Long story, Bert. One for another time. And this must be Julia. Sarah sings your praises.”

  “I admit I do, Julia, but I didn’t know . . .”

  “Know what? That I was dating someone? We haven’t kept it a secret, but we figured it would already be obvious to anyone looking at the so-called diversity of the college’s faculty.”

  “It’s not that we are the only African-Americans, you understand. But we’re both so tall that we’ve become natural partners.” Bert chuckled and changed the subject. “How’s the food look?”

  Lyle couldn’t resist the perfect quip. “It’s . . . diversified.”

  “Forgive us for not extending this joke fest, but Bert and I both need to exchange pleasantries with the trustees. He needs a new bus for the basketball team, and I need that promotion to tenure. You guys have a good time, while we get back to business.”

  Julia took Bert’s arm to urge him away, but at the last second, she turned around. “Look. For the past several years, some younger faculty have made it a practice to leave these formal occasions and reassemble across the square at Isolde’s for dessert and coffee. Why don’t the four of you join us? We’ll be in the back, monopolizing the piano bar and recovering our dignity after spending the first part of the evening toadying to the bigwigs. Please come!”

  Chapter Twenty

  A New Fixation

  February 2009

  Monday morning, Sarah dropped into Julia’s office. “I wanted to thank you again for including us at Isolde’s.”

  “What was that concoction I saw you devouring?”

  “My dessert? Two fluffy crepes filled with an intense Kona coffee mousse and drizzled with hot fudge sauce, topped with sweet whipped cream and fresh raspberries. It’s like the one they do with Nutella but designed for people with nut allergies. They called it ‘Eat Your Heart Out, Nutella!’ I’ve already informed David that if he wants to take me out for Valentine’s Day, I want to go back there and have that dessert again. It was a lovely way to end the evening. It was a congenial group, too—interesting people I might not have met otherwise.”

  “I thought you’d fit well. And everyone enjoyed getting to know David. He’s a sweetheart, isn’t he?”

  “Well, I don’t call him that, but you’re right. He’s a great guy and has a knack of making others feel comfortable around him.”

  “Did you have time to talk to Jim Grollinger from anthropology? I wondered if he mentioned anything to you about our students?”

  “You mean about Cassie? When he learned I was in history, he grimaced and said something about our department being the home of the university gadfly, but I didn’t want to spoil the evening by pursuing it.”

  “Sarah, Cassie’s been causing him real problems. She started last semester, hanging out around his office and classrooms, listening at the door, and turning up at odd moments.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Yes, but this semester, on opening day, he found her sitting in one of his classes. He confronted her because she was not on his roll, and she informed him that she planned to audit the class. They argued, with him telling her he didn’t accept auditors and Cassie insisting that she had a right to sit in on any class she chose.”

  “Where’d she get that idea?”

  “From that horrible meeting about language requirements. If you remember, Brokowski said that people with prior language courses might audit a class or two to refresh their vocabulary before taking a competency test.”

  “Yes, he did, but that was to be via special permissions from the language department, not carte blanche.”

  “Try telling that to Cassie. And there’s more. Last week, I stopped in the Grub Hub for breakfast and found our grad students with their heads together. Cassie was holding forth on a theory that every grad student falls in love with a professor, and she was raving about how handsome and sexy Jim Grollinger is. That was the first time I heard her single him out. As I listened, I gathered that both Ellie and Denise are having some marital difficulties, and Cassie was recommending a professorial crush as a remedy. In particular, she was pushing Ellie to make a play for Kevin.”

  “Our Kevin? But he’s married.”

  “Very much so. Victoria Chalmers may have struck you as a bit of a shy mouse in those Pepto-Bismal pink ruffles, but she and Kevin are a devoted couple. That, however, wouldn’t bother Cassie. Jim’s married, too, and she’s still targeting him as her current crush.”

  “Oh! She’s impossible!”

  “To break up the tone of that discussion, Jean made one of her astute observations. She said that she was in love with John Cleese, too, but that didn’t mean she would hunt him down and seduce him. Cassie’s reaction was classic. She perked right up and asked what department he taught in. Everyone laughed and Jean tried to explain that Cleese was a famous English actor. But when she caught on, Cassie went flouncing off, predicting she would sleep with Jim before the end of the semester. Our girl does not like to be the butt of a joke.”

  “No, I’m sure she doesn’t. But maybe it’s just the season of the year. With Valentine’s Day coming up, there’s a lot of romantic hype—ads for flowers and candy, sappy romantic comedies, and happy couples everywhere.”

  “Maybe so, but it worries me. You once called her a stalker, and that’s what she’s doing with Jim. I’ll breathe easier when we see the last of her.”

  “I agree, but speaking of romance, tell me more about you and the coach.”

  “There’s not all that much to tell. We get along well, we enjoy one another’s company, but there’s no future in our future.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re both career-oriented, and those careers have two very different trajectories. I come up for tenure at the end of the year, and if I fail, I must move on.”

  “To what?”

  “Another job, maybe at a historically black institution like Spelman where I did my undergraduate work. Spelman offered me a position when I completed my doctorate, and they left the door open a crack when I turned them down in favor of applying to state universities with a more diverse enrollment. I can always go crawling back. But that would mean moving away from here, and Bert wouldn’t be willing or able to go along. There would be no place for him as a coach at an all-girls school. In fact, Spelman is talking about getting rid of all sports. Smokey Mountain is Bert’s dream job—his home town. And I couldn’t ask him to give up his career for mine.”

  “I refuse to believe they will fir
e you, and even if they do, Atlanta isn’t all that far away.”

  “So, a long-distance relationship? No, thanks. There’s another side of the coin. If I get tenure, it’s a lifetime commitment. People who walk away from one tenured position are not likely to win a position elsewhere unless the big-name school recruits them first. But, Bert will move on from here. It’s what coaches do. After a few successful years at a small school such as this one, he’ll be ready to advance to an NCAA school, and then maybe even into the NBA. So I’d have to give up my career for his. Either way, it just doesn’t work.”

  “Life seems very unfair, sometimes.”

  Several days later, Sarah looked up when someone tapped at her office door. “Do you have a few minutes for a consultation?”

  Kevin Chalmers seemed hesitant as he came in. “Do you mind if I close the door? This is a somewhat delicate situation.”

  Sarah’s first thought was that Ellie might have taken Cassie’s advice. Instead, it was Cassie herself that worried him.

  “What can you tell me about Cassandra Jernigan? This is my first contact with her, and I don’t know how to read her. First, she’s an Americanist, so I wondered why she had signed up for my seminar on Medieval Monasticism. Then, from the beginning, she admitted she is a devoted fan of the ‘Brother Cadfael’ television series. She refers to him as an authority every time I mention an apothecary. The last of those shows aired in 1998, when she would have been—what—maybe twelve or thirteen? An impressionable age, I understand, but now she’s re-reading all the books and taking them as historical gospel. She’s not the least bit interested in theology or church hierarchies or the political interactions between church and state. All she wants to do is talk about apothecaries, herb gardens, and their medicinal concoctions.”

  “Oh, dear.” Sarah winced as she recognized an ethical dilemma in the making. “There's an explanation, but . . . I don’t know how much I’m free to tell you.”

  Kevin’s eyes widened in surprise. “So there is more to this fixation of hers than she is telling me?”

  “There may be.”

  “You’re not helping me much here, Sarah. I understand your reluctance to violate student confidences, but . . .”

  “Give me a few minutes to think this through. I’m trying to view it through the eyes of a lawyer. There are several layers to what I know—a few verifiable facts, quite a lot of questionable stuff she has told me in confidence, and some of my own conclusions, which may or may not be correct.”

  “Let's start with the facts.”

  “Cassie has in her possession—and I have seen it, although not up close—a small notebook full of handwritten notes and recipes for home remedies. Someone I do not know gave it to her. Cassie claims that the handwriting belongs to her deceased grandmother, who called herself a wise woman.”

  “That’s not just a woman who was intelligent, but a wise woman in the sense of being a healer?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And what is Cassie doing with this . . . formulary?”

  “I understand that she is trying to use it as her grandmother did.”

  “To make up potions and use them on people who are ill?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Using things like . . . what? What plants? Herbs? I assume we’re not talking vitamins here.”

  “I can’t answer you because she did not tell me. She suggested that knowing the ingredients was part of a secret process. One also has to know the right words to speak, the right gestures.”

  “To have some secret knowledge passed along, some contact with the occult?”

  “Yes.”

  “Witchcraft?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t need to.”

  Kevin closed his eyes, shaking his head at the turn this conversation had taken. “She came in to see me today with a proposal for a class project. She said she lives on a farm and has lots of room, so she wants to plant an herb garden like the monks did and then study and classify the herbs according to their usefulness. I told her I didn’t think it sounded like a true history project, but I suggested she might enjoy raising and using the common herbs available today—things like parsley, chives, thyme, garlic, rosemary, sage, oregano—the herbs you find in seed packets this time of the year or bottled on the grocery store’s spice rack. In fact, I thought I was being clever when I suggested she might get together with Toni Youngblood and add the information to the recipe book Toni’s writing.”

  “Not a bad deflection, that!”

  “Except it didn’t work. It turned out that what she wanted from me was a suggestion for where she could get the seeds of the plants that Brother Cadfael used—things like hellebore, castor beans, valerian, foxglove, monk’s hood—that one fascinated her! The problem is that most of those are poisonous, and several are now on a list of banned plants that scientists may only use under tight security for medical research. She flounced out of my office, declaring that if I would not help her, she’d find someone else who would—whatever that threat meant.”

  “Wow! Why do I want to announce, ‘Houston, we have a problem here?’ Do you think we ought to report her?”

  “To whom? And for what? She has done nothing. It’s all just talk, as far as I can tell. And you’ve made me even more certain that she is not thinking like an academic. I won’t approve the herb project. Even if I thought it had historical value, she wouldn’t have time to plant a garden and get it growing before the end of the semester, and she’s used up all her allowable incompletes. Let’s just write this off as another student annoyance. Sorry to bother you.”

  With Valentine’s Day approaching, Sarah focused her attention on more personal matters. She had accepted David’s invitation to dinner that Saturday night, but she also warned him that she did not want candy or flowers. “Valentine’s Day should be about feelings, but not about enriching every florist and confectioner and greeting card merchant,” she declared. He had agreed, but when her doorbell rang early on Saturday morning, she found a tall white box on her doorstep. Inside was a narrow silver vase containing a single red rose, a fern frond, and a spray of baby’s breath. The handwritten card read, “This flower reminded me of how beautiful you were in your red dress the other night. And the baby’s breath is to remind you of the pile of whipped cream awaiting you at Isolde’s tonight.” A chill ran down her spine and tears filled her eyes. Ready or not, she was falling for this man.

  The evening went well. They talked about their families, their dreams and aspirations, their favorite books and movies. Stories that revealed their foibles and follies made them laugh at themselves. Sharing bites of their favorite dishes took on an intimacy that belied the few months they had known each other. And by unspoken agreement, they avoided any discussion of police work or university-related problems. Time passed, and they discovered they were the only customers left in the restaurant. With apologies to their servers, they strolled outside to continue their conversation by moonlight and star shine. At her doorway, David offered a tender kiss and a whispered last gift: “You make me happy.” His gentleness made Sarah feel so cherished that she floated off to sleep on a soft cloud.

  The good feelings carried Sarah through a Sunday’s worth of chores, only to shatter soon after she arrived at Bailey Hall on Monday morning. She had climbed the stairs rather than taking the elevator to work off some of her exuberance. But at the third floor landing, trouble awaited. She entered the hallway into the graduate student lounge to find a worried group of women huddled over the conference table. They jumped as if startled when she cleared her throat and asked, “Am I interrupting a private meeting of some sort?”

  “Oh! No!” That is . . . uh, good morning, Doctor Chomsky.”

  “Right.” The comment was only a whisper but clear.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Have you heard?”

  “Heard what? Would somebody please tell me . . .?”

  “Cassie’s in jail!” />
  “And Brokowski and Chalmers have headed down to the courthouse to learn whether they can bail her out.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Move over. Let me sit down and then start from the beginning.”

  “It’s my story, I guess,” Ellie began. “I came in early this morning to print some quiz papers. The phones were ringing, both in Brokowski’s office and on Gwen’s desk. I answered and heard a hysterical Cassie screaming that someone had to come and help her. She said she was under arrest and had spent the night in a jail cell. Her husband, whom she had called when she was first arrested, was angry and refused to come to the station to rescue her. So, she had used up her only call allowed on Sunday night and had to wait until this morning to call someone else. She wanted Brokowski. I promised to find him, but he didn’t answer his home phone, so I called Denise. I knew her husband was somebody important in the city and might help.”

  At that point, Denise took over. “I have to admit John wasn’t happy to hear about one of Cassie’s dramas, but he called the police station and learned that she was facing several charges—loitering, stalking, posing a threat to private citizens, assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, and breaking a bond, whatever that means. That’s all they would tell him. I came to campus, hoping someone would know more. By then both Brokowski and Chalmers had arrived, and they called that fellow in the police department—the one you took to the faculty reception.

  “Anyhow, Lieutenant Cohen arrived at his office to learn that they had arrested Cassie for staking out Doctor Grollinger’s house all weekend. You remember, Grollinger’s the good-looking guy in anthropology that Cassie has had a crush on. According to what your fellow told John, she spent both Friday and Saturday nights sitting in her truck at the foot of his driveway so she could watch him and his family. By yesterday, the family got upset enough to call the cops. A patrolman arrived and told Cassie she would have to move on, but she just drove around the block and came back. Two more cops arrived and arrested her, but only after a struggle. Your Lieutenant Cohen told Brokowski that there was nothing to do for the moment, because they were loading her into a paddy wagon and taking her to court for a bail hearing. So Brokowski and Chalmers have gone down to the courthouse to find out what happens next.”