At times like these, even a mature adult woman tries to reach her parents. I had my cell phone in hand, about to call my mother, when I realized there was some emotional opportunism in play—a person does that sometimes, uses a bona fide crisis to reach a person who’s nominally disappeared.
I left a message, the urgent kind even a hermit father with an artistic temperament can’t ignore. “Dad! Call me back as soon as you get this! . . . Where are you? Call me. Something happened and I need advice. We’re all fine—I mean, no one’s hurt. It’s about work! Call me!”
Did he? Not immediately. Wondering what my particular probation meant, I considered e-mailing Human Resources. Simultaneously, and possibly in shock, I waited for Nick to return, or my father to call, or for one of the heretofore friendly security guards I’d known since my student days to escort me to my car like a company loyalist suddenly, unfairly, tragically sacked.
10
What Do I Do Now?
I REACHED MY BROTHER, WHO was in the process of towing a car that died on an off-ramp. As swiftly as I could, I summed up my predicament. After only “They thought I was raising money for myself!” he yelled, “What the fuck!” and then to an apparent passenger, “Excuse my language but my sister just got fired.”
I said, “No, I didn’t! They’re threatening probation,” then I supplied a few more details of my dilemma.
“Did you say the check was for a hundred grand?”
“I actually said a hundred thousand dollars, but yes.”
“I swear to God,” he said. “If I didn’t have a client in my truck and her SUV hooked up to the back, I’d race over there and—I don’t know—make somebody apologize.”
Next thing I knew, he was saying to his passenger, “You wouldn’t know a good lawyer, would you?”
“For what?” I heard.
“It’s my sister. She raises money for Everton Country Day and a big check came in made out to her instead of the school.”
I said, “Joel! That was confidential! She could be a reporter for the Echo for all you know.”
“I’m not,” a woman’s voice said. And then another muffled sentence, which Joel amplified for me. “Her brother-in-law and his wife are lawyers, both with fancy firms.”
“In Everton?”
“In Boston,” the woman said.
“Boston’s good. Big-city lawyers. That’ll scare ’em,” said Joel.
Next I heard this passenger ask therapeutically, “What’s her name?”—the prelude to Joel passing her his phone.
“Faith? It’s Paula Gabriel. My car died coming off 495. Sorry to hear about your troubles. One question re the hot water you’re in. Forgive me, but . . . did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Arrange for the check to be made out to you? I have to ask because neither my brother-in-law nor his wife are criminal attorneys.”
I sputtered, “I’m not a criminal! I worked and worked to get this donation, and the husband died and the wife—because she was grief stricken or just in a fog—wrote a check. To me. Because she was confused. She just copied the name from my business card!”
And then, as if we were acquaintances or even intimates, she announced, “Your brother seems upset. I don’t think he should be talking about this while driving.”
Joel yelled, “You’re damn right I’m upset.”
I asked if I was on speaker.
“It’s okay,” he said. “What’s said in my cab, stays in my cab. Right, Paula?”
I said, “I hope so. The whole day has been a nightmare. A meeting in a fun house . . . in an insane asylum.”
That last reference inspired Paula Gabriel to confide that she was a psychiatric social worker specializing in family counseling.
Though ten seconds earlier Joel had been spitting mad, he now let out a hoot of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“This! My sister’s flipping out, and whose car breaks down but a shrink’s?”
“I am not flipping out and you have no discretion. None!”
I detected a change. Joel’s voice was now sounding closer. “It’s just me,” he said.
“Good! Did you hear what she asked me? Was I guilty?”
“Sorry,” he said.
“I have to go. I don’t know why I called you.”
“I’m your big brother. I beat people up for you. I bet it’ll be settled without a lawyer. Are you on paid leave?”
“I don’t know anything.”
Paula was expounding again. Joel translated. “She’s asking if you’re faculty and if there’s a faculty union. Because then you’d get representation.”
“No, I am not. I’m not faculty, and FYI Everton faculty isn’t unionized. I’m getting off.”
“Look . . . sorry. It’ll be okay. I’ll call you tonight. Wanna do dinner?”
I said, “I guess so. Not in public, though. Come down.”
“I’ll bring pizza.”
Paula was talking again, but I only caught “relationship.”
“Did you hear that?” Joel asked. “She said she envied our relationship.”
“I couldn’t care less what she thinks.”
“Roger that,” said Joel.
Nick returned, looking anything but victorious. I asked where he’d been and whom he’d talked to and . . . anything good? Anything?
He shook his head sadly and plopped into his chair.
“Speak,” I said.
“I went to see Dickenson. He was in a meeting, which I barged in on, and it was totally unrelated . . . architects . . . additions . . . so I had to back out, apologizing, looking like an idiot. Then I went looking for the chaplain. Good idea, right? Did you know he teaches two classes every morning?”
“Meaning you didn’t speak to him?”
“Correct. But I thought he’d be sympathetic . . . would want to do the right thing. Ethics and all that.”
“What about Reggie?”
“What about Reggie?”
“You left here chasing after him.”
“I caught him. He’s not the one who can fix the probation part of it. That’s only Dickenson.”
“I’m fucked.”
“No, you are not fucked. Did you do anything about getting a lawyer?”
I told him I’d made a call, which went nowhere.