11
THE OLDER WOMAN WHOSE LIPSTICK had marked off her mouth greeted me Monday afternoon with another levitated smile—the fillings in her molars glinted at me from the very corners of it. As I sat in the lobby, Jillian’s blazer scratching the back of my neck, I tried not to watch her typing at her desk, a pair of glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Then, as if God himself had tapped her on the shoulder and told only her that it was time, she stopped typing and tugged off the glasses, stood and said, They’re ready for you.
Before she opened the second set of wooden doors that led into the conference room, she told me, Don’t be worried, sweetheart. The last thing I felt before stepping through the doorway was the cold replacing her warm hand, which had, without me registering it, rubbed a circle on my back to push me forward.
It was the sort of room you only really needed when staging the ceremonial signing of a new constitution—ornately carved wood panels reaching halfway up the walls, paintings of someone else’s wigged ancestors groaning against their frames—old and regal in a way that stunned me even this second time inside, though as I entered I didn’t repeat my original mistake of staring at the ceiling, something that afterward I worried made me look like I didn’t care that the committee was already there, seated around the massive table taking up most of the room. This time, I mostly ignored the elaborate masks huddled up in each corner, looking at them only just long enough to see that I’d been wrong—the masks, I saw now, were actually shields.
Each member of the committee sat in the exact same spot as the first time, which gave me the very freaky feeling that they’d never moved, that they’d skipped their own Thanksgivings to instead stay right there and talk about my case. I laced my fingers and put the ball of my joined fists on the table. The wood was lacquered with something thick and yellowish that reminded me of the cheap bottles of clear nail polish into which Mami and Leidy dropped chopped-up chunks of garlic, the resulting phlegmy goop supposedly making your nails grow twice as fast. I knew, because I’d looked it up after my hearing, that the table was very old; it had been built for this room (and in this room, its builders foreseeing that it wouldn’t fit through the doors), commissioned by the college’s first president for this—the college’s first conference room.
—How are you, Lizet. Did you have a nice break.
I nodded double-time though I didn’t know if I should, as the phrases didn’t sound like actual questions. Still, I wanted them to see I was listening. I made sure to look each of them right in the eyes: four white men and one white woman, each with the word Dean in their title. The men spanned maybe thirty years, their hair creeping along various stages of gray except for the bald one, who was, ironically, the youngest-looking of them all, the tufts ringing and dolloping his head still black. He was officially my faculty advisor, though I’d only met him once before, during orientation week. The woman—seated closest to me, to my right—looked around forty, a faint streak of gray-blond darting up and over her otherwise dark head. Nothing sat on the table now; the last time, they’d each had a thick folder in front of them containing copies of all the same documents. I leaned forward in my seat, using as little of the chair as I could, feeling the strain of this choice in my thighs.
The oldest man, seated directly across from me at the head of the table, said, I’m sure you’re anxious to know the findings of the committee.
He twisted his nose in a lazy attempt to work his glasses back up his face. He went on, As I’m sure you’re fully aware by now, we take our duties very seriously, and we have given your case in particular very careful attention.
—Lizet, the woman said, almost interrupting him. This case is unusual for a variety of reasons. On paper it seemed pretty clear-cut, but the facts that surfaced during the hearing itself brought with them new considerations.
I kept slowly nodding during all of this, throughout each sentence.
—So please don’t be alarmed by what we’re about to say, she said.
Like telling Omar to calm himself down, this too had the opposite effect.
—What Dean Geller is saying is that we have indeed found the claim of egregious plagiarism justified, the oldest man rushed forward, leaning up in his chair with his words. However, he said, while the penalty of that charge is normally quite severe, it’s absolutely clear to us, based on your testimony and on your initial response to the charge when your professor confronted you, that this penalty should be mitigated, and that’s our recommendation.
When no one spoke, I said, Okay.
Under the table, I shifted my weight to my right leg, ready to run out the door. I wasn’t sure what they were telling me. I was waiting for the word expelled.