Chapter 9
Parker was at his computer. He’d been up for hours. His mind was skipping like a stone over water.
Mike delivered a third cup of coffee to him. “Your guest just left the cottage. She’s dawdling along the way, taking in the seascape, but she’ll soon be making an entrance.”
He had asked Mike to be on the lookout for her and acknowledged the report with a nod.
Mike was uncharacteristically careless as he replaced Parker’s empty coffee mug with the full one. Hot coffee sloshed out. The spill spread across the table and stained several sheets of handwritten notes. Parker stared at the mess, then raised his head and gave the older man a look.
“Sorry,” Mike said.
“I’ll bet.”
Mike snorted.
“Look, if you’ve got something to say, why not act like a grown-up and just say it?”
“I think you know what I have to say, Parker.”
“How about ‘congratulations’?”
“How about ‘get real’? Do you really expect me to congratulate you?”
“She’s here, isn’t she?”
“Yes. She’s here.” Mike looked none too happy about it, though.
Parker raised his shoulders in a shrug, asking impatiently, “What? The reverse psychology worked. She took the bait. Which is what we hoped she would do. If you had qualms, you should have thrown away her phone numbers when that deputy gave them to you. But you didn’t. You passed them on to me. I called her and she came. So what’s eating you?”
Mike turned away and stamped back into the kitchen. “My biscuits are burning.”
Parker returned to his computer screen, but the interruption had log-jammed his creative flow. He couldn’t focus on the last few sentences he’d written. They now seemed a jumble of words and phrases beyond translation. In an effort to assign them meaning, he forced his eyes to stop on each word separately. But no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t make sense of them. They could have been written in Sanskrit.
And then he realized why reading and understanding his own words had suddenly become a challenge: He was nervous. Which was odd, considering that everything had fallen into place more or less as he had planned. He’d made a few spontaneous adjustments to accommodate Maris Matherly-Reed’s personality, but she was responding to him and his situation even better than he had dared hope she would.
Now that he thought about it, getting her here had been almost too easy. He had pulled the strings, and, like a puppet, she had made the correct moves. He figured that’s what had Mike’s shorts in a wad this morning. Her innocent cooperation had lent her a certain vulnerability and made her seem almost a victim.
But she isn’t, he told himself stubbornly.
Yeah, he had tugged some strings to guide her in the direction he wanted her to go, but ultimately she was in control. Everything depended on how well she liked Envy, or if she liked it at all.
And that’s what had his shorts in a wad. Not only from the standpoint of the overall plan, but as a writer, he was nervous to hear what she thought of the pages she had curled up with last night. What if she thought they stunk? What if she thanked him for the opportunity to review more of his work but declined it and said her good-byes?
His plot would be screwed, and he would feel like shit.
Agitated, he turned his wheelchair on a dime and saw her picking her way along the path between the main house and the cottage. Originally it had been the detached kitchen of the plantation house. Parker had converted it into a guest house. Not that he entertained a lot of guests. Not that he planned to in the future. Nevertheless, the interior of the structure had been gutted and he had spared no expense to have it completely and comfortably renovated.
Accomplished with only one guest in mind—the one presently occupying it.
Maris glanced up and saw him watching her from behind the glass panels of the solarium. She smiled and waved. Waved? He couldn’t remember the last time someone had waved at him. Feeling rather goofy, he raised his hand and waved back.
She let herself in through the sliding door. “Good morning.”
“Hi.”
Her skin looked dewy. She smelled like floral-scented soap. Magnolia, maybe. She had his manuscript pages with her.
“It’s gorgeous here, Parker,” she exclaimed a bit breathlessly. “Last night it was too dark for me to fully appreciate the property. But seeing it in daylight, I understand why you fell in love with this place.” She looked out across the expanse of green lawn, the sugary beach, and the sparkling Atlantic. “It’s wonderful. So peaceful.”
“I forgot a hair dryer.”
Self-consciously she tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “I searched but couldn’t find one. Actually, it’s such a warm morning, it felt good to leave it wet. A hair dryer is all the cottage lacked, however. You did an excellent job on it.”
“Thanks.”
He continued to scrutinize her, and, as he intended, his scrutiny increased her self-consciousness. “The furnishings are charming. I especially like the iron headboard and the claw-footed bathtub.”
“Mike’s ideas.”
“Good ones.”
“Yeah, he’s into all that. Iron beds. Bathtubs. Mantels.”
“He has an eye for detail.”
“I guess.”
The conversation lagged for several moments, then they spoke at the same time.
He said, “Your blouse is wet.”
She said, “I read the new pages.”
“What’d you think?” he asked.
“My blouse?”
“It’s damp.”
She looked down and saw what had held Parker’s attention from the moment she stepped inside. She was dressed in the same skirt and blouse she had arrived in. Following supper last night, Mike had wheedled and pleaded, then insisted that she stay in their guest house. She had finally accepted the invitation, but because of the hour, it had been impractical to try and retrieve her luggage from the hotel in Savannah.
Consequently she had dressed in the same clothes this morning, except for her suit jacket, which she’d left off in deference to the climate. A damp pattern had appeared on the front of her blouse in the exact shape of her bra.
She rolled the sheets of manuscript into a tube, probably to stop herself from using them to shield her chest. “I washed out some things last night.”
Things, plural. If she’d washed out things, what had been left for her to sleep in? Surmising made Parker go a little dewy himself.
“I guess they didn’t get quite dry,” she explained lamely.
“The humidity.”
“I suppose.”
Their eyes connected but only for a millisecond before she looked away. She was embarrassed, and that was good. In fact, that was excellent. He wanted to keep her rattled and off balance. Too fucking bad if Mike disapproved of the strategy.
Leaning forward from the wheelchair, he reached out and took the rolled pages from her. “You read them?”
“Three times.”
He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
“I have some comments.”
His chin went up defensively.
“Who’s ready for breakfast?” Mike asked.
He appeared in the doorway pushing a wheeled cart on which were platters of scrambled eggs, bacon, and wedges of pastel melons. Fresh from the oven, the biscuits had been wrapped inside a towel and placed in a wire basket. A gravy boat was filled to the rim, and a dish of steamy grits had an island of melting butter in its center.
Parker’s stomach growled and his mouth began to water, but Mike’s timing couldn’t be worse, which Parker was sure had been deliberate. Mike avoided making eye contact with him until Parker said, “I’m on to you, old man.”
“What?” Mike asked innocently.
Parker shot him a wry look, which Mike ignored and instead motioned Maris toward a small table on which Parker sometimes took his meals when he was writing.
“Good Lord.” She watched in dismay as Mike filled her plate. “A bagel and coffee usually do it for me.”
Scoffing, Mike reminded her that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. “Do you like grits?”
“I’m not sure. What exactly is a grit?” Parker laughed along with Mike as she took her first tentative bite, which she gamely swallowed. Politely she said, “Maybe it’s an acquired taste.”
“Break open your biscuit and let me ladle gravy over it,” Mike told her.
Bacon gravy was also new to her, but she declared it delicious. “Do you eat like this every morning?”
“This is a special occasion,” Mike said.
“He’s trying to impress you,” Parker told her.
“It worked.”
She flashed a smile at Mike that should have caused his heart to melt and made Parker irrationally jealous. He grumbled into his plate, “You could’ve impressed her by remembering to put a hair dryer in the guest cottage.”
She and Mike took their time, chatting about this and that as they ate, but he cleaned his plate in record time. Feeling fidgety, he wheeled himself into the kitchen—“No, don’t bother,” he told Mike when he was about to get up. “I’ll get it.”—and returned with the carafe of coffee riding on a tray on his lap.
He refilled their cups, then impatiently sipped from his while they exhausted the topic of cultivating rhododendrons, as if flower bushes mattered a shit. He lasted through a discussion on the merits of Cats over Sunset Boulevard and a heated debate over whether women should be allowed to play in the NBA before he rudely interrupted.
“Can we talk about my book now?”
“What’s your rush?” Mike asked.
“We’re not running a bed and breakfast here.”
“I wish we were.” Mike began collecting their used dishes and loading them onto the service cart. “At least I’d have someone pleasant to talk to now and then.”
“I’m pleasant.”
“As a skin rash.”
Laughing, Parker balled up his napkin and tossed it onto the cart as though shooting a free throw. “Hurry up with those dishes and get back in here. You’ve been a good and gracious host, but I know you’re itching to hear what Maris has to say about Envy.”
Mike went out, muttering under his breath.
“Bet I came out none too well in that monologue,” Parker said when Mike was out of earshot.
“Are you two related?”
“Not by blood.”
“He loves you.”
Parker looked at her sharply. When he saw that she wasn’t being caustic, he bit back a snide retort. He pondered her simple statement, then said slowly, “Yes, I suppose he does.”
“You never considered it?”
“Not in words.”
“Has he always taken care of you?”
“Not always.”
“I meant since your accident.”
“Accident?”
She gestured toward his wheelchair. “I assumed…”
“What made you assume it was an accident?”
“Wasn’t it?”
Mike reappeared but, sensing that he’d walked in on a serious conversation, hesitated on the threshold. Parker waved him forward, this time grateful for the man’s timing. Again, he figured it was intentional. Not much escaped Mike Strother.
Parker took a deep breath, blew it out, and, turning to Maris where she had sat down on the rattan sofa, said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
She laughed lightly. “It’s not an execution, Parker.”
“It’s not?”
“Not at all. What you’ve written is good. Very good.” She paused, glancing from him to Mike and back to him.
“Why do I feel that there’s a ‘however’ in my near future?”
She smiled, then said quietly, “You’ve written a terrific outline.”
Mike coughed softly and stared down at his shoes.
“Outline?”
“What you have is excellent.” She wet her lips. “But it’s… It skims the surface. You haven’t delved deeply enough.”
“I see.”
“This isn’t bad news, Parker.”
“It’s pretty bad.”
Turning his chair around, he rolled it closer to the wall of windows and watched the shallow waves break against the sand. St. Anne Island didn’t have much of a surf at any time, but especially not on a day like today, when the wind would barely qualify as such and there wasn’t an offshore low pressure system churning up the elements.
“I’m not in the least bit discouraged by what I’ve read so far,” Maris said. “Quite the contrary.”
Her voice was even quieter now than before and sounded timid in the uncomfortable silence. From the kitchen came the swishing gurgles of the dishwasher, but otherwise the house was hushed.
Parker’s shoulders began to shake. He covered his mouth to trap in the sound that issued up out of his chest.
Maris was instantly alarmed. “Oh, Parker, please don’t.”
Suddenly he spun his wheelchair around and looked at Mike, who joined in his laughter. “You win, you old son of a bitch. Fifty fucking bucks.”
“I told you,” Mike said, chuckling. “I’ve got great gut instincts.”
“Along with a knack for alliteration.”
Mike executed a neat, quick bow.
Maris, who had come to her feet, divided an angry look between them. She planted her hands on her hips—which she really shouldn’t have done since the stance drew the damp cloth tighter across her chest, detailing lace beneath it.
“Obviously I’m the butt of an inside joke. Would you kindly let me in on it?”
“Not exactly a joke, Maris.” Mike curbed his laughter and even looked a little sheepish. “It was more like an experiment. A test.”
“Test?”
“A few months back we read the article about you in the publishing magazine. To me you came across as a knowledgeable editor and publisher. But Parker said that your daddy probably paid for the article—”
“I said bribed.”
“—then commissioned your publicity department to write the piece.”
“Which explained why it was so flattering.”
“He said that you were no doubt riding on the coattails of your daddy’s reputation, that you looked too young and… uh… inexperienced—”
“Actually, the word I used was ‘shallow.’ ”
“—to know good writing from bad. That your reading was probably limited to magazine articles.”
“On how to multiply your orgasms.”
“And that you probably wouldn’t know a good book from a good… uh…”
“Fill in the blank,” Parker concluded with a beatific smile.
She had listened without interrupting or altering her expression. Now she came around slowly to face Parker, and he could fully appreciate all the metaphors he’d read about sparks shooting from someone’s eyes.
Maris’s eyes were bluish gray, like the rain clouds that rolled in from the west on summer afternoons and benevolently blocked the hot sun. They were basically benign, their turbulence only temporary. But even if short-lived, the turbulence was occasionally fierce. Her eyes had darkened to the hue of a storm cloud about to spawn a lightning bolt.
“I’m sure you’re pissed.” He shrugged, an unrepentant gesture. “I did everything I could, said everything I could think of to say, to discourage you from coming down here. But you came anyway. Last night when I…” He glanced at Mike and immediately decided not to mention kissing her. “When I tried convincing you to leave, you chose to stay.”
His explanation fell short of earning her forgiveness. “You are an unmitigated son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” he said agreeably.
“You tried to trap me.”
“Guilty.”
“If I had gushed over how good your writing was, you would have known I was insincere.”
“Or a lousy editor.”
“But I knew better,” Mike interjected. “I’ve read books that you edited, Maris. I told Parker, made a fifty-dollar bet with him, that his low opinion of you was unfounded and just plain wrong.”
Maris heard all this, of course, but she hadn’t even glanced in Mike’s direction. Her anger was fixed on Parker. He smiled the sly grin of a gator that had just devoured a nest of ducklings, a grin that he knew would only make her more angry. “Sorry you came? Want to call the boat to take you back now?”
She tossed back her damp hair. “What caused Todd’s father’s death?”
Parker’s heart gave a little flutter of gladness and relief. His wicked grin had been a lying indicator of the anxiety he’d been harboring.
“Was his death sudden or did it follow a lingering illness?” she asked.
“Does this mean you’re still interested?”
“Did Todd take his death hard or was he glad to see the end of him? Was his father his idol? Or did the death release him from years of emotional abuse?”
She pushed an armchair close to him and snatched the pages from his hands as she sat down. “Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
“The characters need to be fleshed out.”
“Precisely. Where do they come from? What were their families like? Rich, poor, middle class? Did they have similar upbringings or were their childhoods vastly different? We know they want to be writers, but you haven’t told us why. Simply for the love of books? Or is writing a catharsis for Roark, a way for him to vent his anger? Is it a panacea for Todd’s unhappiness?”
“Panacea?”
“Are you listening?”
“I’ll look it up later.”
“You know what it means,” she snapped.
He smiled again. “Yes. I do.” From the corner of his eye, he noticed Mike leaving the room and pulling the door closed behind him.
Maris was still in high gear. “Life in the fraternity house—”
“There’s more of that in the next chapter.”
“There’s a next chapter?”
“I worked on it this morning.”
“Great. I liked that part. Very much. It’s vivid. As I read, I could smell the gym socks.” She shuddered delicately. “And the bit with the toothbrush…”
“Yeah?”
“It’s almost too outrageous to be fiction. Personal experience?”
“What else needs work?” he asked.
“Ah. I get it. Personal questions are disallowed.”
“If you washed out your undies last night, what did you sleep in?”
She sucked in a quick breath, opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. Her teeth clicked softly when she closed her mouth.
Tilting his head, he squinted his eyes as though to bring her into sharper focus. “Nothing, right?”
She lowered her eyes to her lap. Or maybe to his lap. He was tempted to say, Yeah, it works, but if you’re curious, why not touch it and find out? But he didn’t because she just might summon that boat to the mainland after all.
“You’ve made your point,” she said gruffly. “No personal questions.”
Picking up the manuscript pages again, she thumbed through them to refresh her memory on the notes she had jotted in the margins. “I’d like to see you expand, well, just about all of it.” She glanced up at him to gauge his reaction, and when he declined to respond, she sat back with a sigh. “You expected this, didn’t you? You knew what I was going to say.”
He nodded. “I skimmed the surface, just as you said.”
“To test my competence.”
“Hmm.”
“You auditioned me.”
“Something like that.”
Her smile was self-deprecating. She was being a good sport and letting him off more lightly than he deserved. Actually he would prefer that she rant and rave, lambast him with foul language, haul off and let him have it right in the kisser. What he had to do would be easier to do if she were as much of a bitch as he was a bastard. They were unequally matched opponents. She was out of her league and didn’t even know it.
He said, “You had every right to tell Mike and me to go fuck ourselves.”
“My father would never have tolerated that kind of language from me.”
“So you are a daddy’s girl?”
“Big time. Because he’s such a good daddy. He’s a gentleman and a scholar. He would like you.”
He laughed harshly. “Not if he’s a gentleman, he wouldn’t.”
“You’re wrong. He would admire your audacity. He’d probably even call it ‘balls.’ ”
Parker smiled. “A man after my own heart.”
“He read your prologue and liked it. He encouraged me to pursue this project.”
He gestured toward the manuscript pages. “So pursue it.”
Consulting her notes again, she resumed. “Take your time, Parker. There’s no page limit. Leave the trimming and editing to me. That’s my job. You don’t need to reveal all the background information in the first few chapters. It can be scattered throughout, but learn what the lives of these characters were like prior to the time they met.”
“I already know.” He tapped his temple. “Up here.”
“Excellent. But the reader can’t read your mind.”
“I understand.”
“That’s it, for now.”
She evened up the edges of the sheets, then laid them in her lap. “I’m glad I passed that silly test of yours,” she said candidly. “I’ve missed being involved in this stage of the process. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until I began making these notes last night. I love molding the story, brainstorming with the writer, especially a talented writer.”
He pointed to himself. “And that would be me?”
“That would be you. Definitely.”
Her gaze, so candid and earnest, made him uncomfortable. He looked out toward the ocean so he wouldn’t have to see her sincerity, wouldn’t have to feel… so he wouldn’t have to feel, period.
Maybe he was the one playing out of his league.
Leaning toward him, she nudged his knee and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about letting me know which character—”
“Beat it, will ya?” He spun his chair away from her and pushed it toward his worktable. “I’ve got a bitch of an editor and she’s piled a shitload of work on me.”
“Envy” Ch. 4
1985
That Tuesday morning two days before Thanksgiving dawned cloudy and cold. As though on cue, as though roasted turkey and pumpkin pie would be incompatible with mild weather, a cold front lowered the temperature just in time for the holiday.
Roark’s alarm clock was set for seven-thirty. By seven-forty-five, he was shaved, showered, and dressed. By ten minutes to eight, he was downstairs in the residence dining hall, drinking coffee, glancing through his manuscript, and wondering how much abuse Professor Hadley was going to inflict on this creative effort into which he had poured his heart and soul.
The quality of his Thanksgiving holiday depended upon the outcome of the conference. He would either spend the long weekend relaxed and comfortable in the knowledge that his work had met with his professor’s approval or foundering in the lake of misery called self-doubt.
Either way, he didn’t have much longer to wait. The verdict would be read soon. Whether Hadley’s remarks were good, bad, or ugly, hearing them would be a relief. This anticipation was hell.
“Sweet roll, Roark?”
He glanced up to see the house mom standing beside his chair. “Sure, Mom, thanks.”
Soon after pledging, Roark had ordained the fraternity house mother the most long-suffering woman alive. Mrs. Brenda Thompson had given up a peaceful widowhood to voluntarily move into a three-story house with eighty-two men who behaved like miscreants sent away to a nine-month summer camp.
They respected nothing, neither persons nor property. Nothing was sacred—not God or country, one’s hometown, one’s pet, one’s sister, or one’s mother. It was open season on anything an individual held near and dear. Everything was subject to ribald ridicule.
They had the decorum of swine. As male Homo sapiens tend to do when gathered in groups of two or more, these eighty-two had regressed to the level of cavemen not nearly as refined as Neanderthals. Everything their mothers had forbidden them to do at home, they did in the fraternity house. Zealously and with relish, they celebrated rude behavior.
Mrs. Thompson, a soft-spoken and dignified lady, tolerated their language, which was foul, and their personal habits, which were fouler. Her maternal nature invited their confidences and earned their affection. But, unlike a parent, she exercised no discipline over them.
She turned a blind eye to the drinking, cussing, and fornicating, in which they participated with wild abandon. Without a complaint from her they could play their sound systems as loudly as they wished. They could sleep on their sheets for a semester or longer before laundering them. When they shaved the fraternity letters into the fur of a cat belonging to a girl who had jilted one of their members, Mom’s only comment was on how nicely they had lined up the letters.
In her presence, particularly on Wednesday evenings during their one formal meal of the week, where jackets and ties and some semblance of civilization was required, they apologized for their expletives, belches, and farts with an obligatory and questionably sincere, “Excuse me, Mom.” With a patient little smile, she always pardoned the offender, even though a similar offense would be forthcoming seconds later.
In her they had the Dream Mom.
Roark suspected that she favored him over some of the others, although he couldn’t imagine why she did. He’d been as crude and badly behaved as any. After a toga party his sophomore year, he had passed out under the baby grand piano in the downstairs parlor and woke himself up choking on Jack Daniel’s-flavored vomit.
Mrs. Thompson appeared in a long flannel robe and slippers, patting his shoulder and asking him if he was all right. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, although clearly he wasn’t.
Without censure and with the dignity of a nun, she removed the blanket that someone had tossed over an inflatable doll, the anatomically obscene, unofficial house mascot, and carried it back to Roark. She covered him with it where he lay, miserably cold, sick as a dog, and stinking to high heaven.
From that night forward, Mom seemed to have a special fondness for him. Maybe because when he had sobered up, he thanked her for the kindness and apologized for disturbing her sleep. Maybe because he’d had the rug beneath the piano cleaned at his own expense. No one else in the house had noticed—either that he had soiled the rug or that he’d had it cleaned. But Mrs. Thompson had noticed. He supposed these nods toward common decency demonstrated to her that he was redeemable, that he had at least some breeding.
“You’re up earlier than usual, aren’t you?” she asked now as she placed a jelly doughnut on a paper plate beside his coffee mug.
Ordinarily she didn’t serve the boys food. They served themselves from a cafeteria-style line, taking what they wanted from the fare a surly cook put out for them in the manner of a farmer filling the feed trough for his herd.
“I’m meeting with my senior advisor this morning,” he explained. In deference to her, he remembered to use a napkin instead of licking the doughnut’s sugar glaze off his fingers.
She motioned to his manuscript. “Is that the book you’re writing for your capstone?”
“Yes, ma’am. What I’ve got so far.”
“I’m sure it’ll be very good.”
“Thanks, Mom. I hope so.”
She wished him good luck with his meeting, then went over to say good morning to another boy who had just straggled in. He was the most handsome member in the house and attracted girls like moths to flame. His brothers wanted to hate him for his unearned good fortune, but he was too nice a guy to hate. Rather than exploit his movie-star looks, he downplayed them, seemed almost embarrassed by them. He glanced over at Roark and raised his cleft chin in greeting. “What’s up, Shakespeare?”
“What’s up, RB?”
Everyone had a nickname, and the accepted house greeting was, “What’s up?” To which no one ever replied. That’s just what they said.
Roark’s nickname—to everyone except Todd—was Shakespeare. His fraternity brothers knew he liked to write, and William Shakespeare was the one writer that most of them could possibly call to mind if a gun were held to their heads. He had never tried to explain that Shakespeare wrote plays in blank verse, while he wrote stories in prose. Some concepts were just too complex to grasp, especially for individuals like the fraternity brother who, upon being asked by his English lit teacher to identify the bard by his portrait, had responded, “How the fuck you expect me to know all the presidents?”
Roark was flattered by the nickname, but this morning it seemed particularly presumptuous. Checking his wristwatch, he saw that he had fifteen minutes to reach Hadley’s office. More than enough time. Nevertheless, he drained his coffee, stuffed his manuscript back into its worn folder, put the folder into his backpack, and left the dining hall.
Not until he got outside did he realize the drastic change in the weather that had occurred overnight. The wind chill put the temperature down around the freezing point, not cold enough to freeze the pond in the center of campus, but enough to make him wish he had grabbed a heavier coat before setting out.
The Language Arts Building, like most on campus, was basically Georgian in design. Older and statelier than the newer halls, it had a wide portico with six white columns. The aged red brick on the north wall was completely covered in Boston ivy that had turned from green to orange in a matter of days.
As soon as Roark was in sight of the building, he picked up his pace, more for warmth than for fear of being late. Despite his conservative upbringing, which had included church on Sundays, he was ambiguous about the existence, nature, and disposition of a Supreme Being. He wasn’t certain that an entity with the omniscience attributed to God would give a flip about Roark Slade’s daily trials. But today wasn’t the day to reject any possible advantage, so he offered up an obscure little prayer as he crossed the portico and entered the building.
He was assailed by the burning-dust smell of old furnaces. Apparently they’d been cranked up to full capacity this morning, because the building was uncomfortably warm. He shrugged off his backpack and jacket as he jogged up the stairs to the second floor.
He was greeted by several students with whom he shared his major. One, a rail-thin hippy with pink-tinted John Lennon glasses and stringy hair, loped up to him. “Yo, Slade.”
Only girls called him Roark. Except for Todd, he wasn’t sure there was a male on campus who even knew his first name.
“Coffee later? We’re getting together a study group for finals. Ten o’clock in the Union.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be free. I’m on my way to see Hadley.”
“You mean like now?”
“As we speak.”
“Fuck, man, that sucks. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Later.”
“Later.”
Roark continued down the hallway. The jelly doughnut hadn’t been such a good idea. It felt like a bowling ball in his stomach. The coffee had left a sour taste in his mouth, and he admonished himself for not having a breath mint. When he arrived at office number 207 he paused to draw a deep breath. The door was standing slightly ajar. He wiped his damp palm on the leg of his jeans and knocked softly.
“Come in.”
Professor Hadley was seated behind his desk. His feet, laced into a pair of brown suede Hush Puppies, were propped on the open top drawer. A stack of reading matter was in his lap, which was only one of myriad surfaces in the room that was stacked with reading matter. An inestimable number of trees had sacrificed their lives to provide the paper that filled Hadley’s office. Per square inch, it was probably the largest consumer of paper globally.
“Good morning, Professor.”
“Mr. Slade.”
Was it just his imagination, or did Hadley’s greeting sound peremptory?
The advisor’s manner could never be described as friendly. Unlike some instructors, he didn’t get chummy with his students. In fact, it was customary for him to treat them with barely concealed contempt. Even a respectable grade on a writing assignment didn’t inoculate one against his scorn.
His teaching style was to make a student feel like an ignoramus. Only after the student had been knocked off the pedestal of his self-esteem, and the pedestal itself reduced to rubble, did Hadley drive home his point and teach him something. He seemed to believe that abject humility sharpened one’s ability to learn.
As he stepped into the cramped office, Roark reassured himself that the curtness was a habit with Hadley and that he shouldn’t take it personally.
“No, don’t close the door,” Hadley told him.
“Oh. Sorry.” Roark reached back to catch the door, which he had been about to close.
“You should be.”
“Sir?”
“Is there something wrong with your hearing, Mr. Slade?”
“My hearing? No, sir.”
“Then you heard me correctly when I said that you should be sorry. You are now…” He glanced at something beyond Roark’s left shoulder. “Fifty-six and one-half minutes late.”
Roark turned. On the wall behind him was a clock. White face. Stark black numerals. A dash marking each of the sixty minutes. The short hand was already on the nine. The minute hand was three dashes away from the twelve.
The old man’s lost it, Roark thought. Something’s pickled his brain. Paper fumes, maybe. Is there such a thing?
He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m right on time. Our meeting was scheduled for nine.”
“Eight.”
“Originally, yes. But don’t you remember calling and changing it to nine? You left a message with my roommate.”
“I assure you that my memory is in perfect working order, Mr. Slade. I made no such call.” Hadley glared up at him from beneath dense eyebrows. “Our meeting was at eight.”