Campus confidential, p.27
Campus Confidential, page 27
“Yeah,” she said. “Look, we really will look into what you told us, but...”
“I get it,” I said. “I really do.”
“And anyway, you didn’t tell us the whole truth, now did you?”
“I told you all the really important stuff.”
“I get it. I really do.” She smiled. “Is that someone you know?”
She pointed to where a skinny figure was standing next to the two crumpled cars, talking animatedly into a cell phone.
“Yes!”
“You feel safe for me to leave you here?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind.”
“We’ll be in touch. Stay safe, now.” She stopped and let me out of the car, and waited as I ran up to Alex.
“You’re okay! How’s Madison?” I shouted.
“Gotta go,” he said into his phone, and threw his arms around me.
“You’re alive,” he said into my ear. “When you ran off...And Madison went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and I had to perform CPR by the side of Route 1 with tractor-trailers roaring by...”
“Is she okay?”
“She was alive when I left her at the ER. Her dad came and found her, so I came back here to look for you, but all I found was John Greene being carted away in an ambulance.”
“Is he okay?”
“He broke his arm when he crashed his car into yours.” Alex laughed into my ear. “His finest hour. We can never hate him again. He figured he was going to be tortured and shot and so were you, so he rammed your car with his. He told me he saw you get out and run away.”
“Yeah,” I told him. “I got out and ran halfway across town, till I found a police station.”
“John said they sent people after you.”
“They couldn’t catch me.”
“I’m glad.” Alex tightened his arms around me, and then let go and stepped back. “Shit,” he said, looking at his phone. “I never hung up. You still there, man? Yeah, yeah, everything’s okay. I found her. Actually, she found me. She’s okay. You’re okay, right?”
“What’s a little run in the snow? I’ll be fine. But I lost my purse. Have you seen it anywhere?” I went off to search around for my purse, hearing Alex telling the person on the phone that I must be okay because I was looking for my purse, and no, I wasn’t the kind of woman who would value a purse more than her own life, and he had to come help me search.
“A buddy of mine from the Navy became a state trooper after he got out,” he explained, looking slightly sheepish. “I’ve been screaming in his ear for the past hour to come help find you.”
“No need. I found myself. And my purse!” I picked it up where someone must have found it and leaned it against a streetlamp. Even brand-new at TJ Max it had not been very nice. Now it was considerably less nice.
“I can never take this to an interview again,” I said in dismay.
“Whatever. Buy a new one.”
I gave him a look.
“Okay. But still, whatever. It’s good that you dropped it when you needed to in order to run away.”
“It’s better than that,” I said. “I threw it at someone and stopped him from coming after me.”
“Good purse,” said Alex, reaching out and giving it a pat. “You should hang onto it, keep it in retirement and feed it only the best treats.”
“That’s what I’ll do, then. My phone is probably unsalvageable, though.” I fished it out of the purse and held it up. Alex winced.
“Does it work?”
“It didn’t earlier.”
“Shit! That’s, like, a $500 phone!”
“I know.”
Our gloom and doom was interrupted by the screech of the two cars being pulled apart.
“We don’t even have to be here,” said Alex, as we watched the cars being winched onto the tow trucks. “We should go home.” He paused. “Let me spend the night with you. Not like that! I mean, you don’t have a phone. You couldn’t call for help if someone came after you. And frankly, I don’t feel like driving home to my parents’ place tonight, and I sure as hell ain’t spending the night in the office.”
“Um. Okay. You’re right. It’s a good idea. I’m just not very set up for guests.”
“You got a floor?”
“Sort of.”
“Good enough for me. Let’s go.”
We checked with the single remaining patrol officer that we were free to go, and then Alex drove me back to the parking garage, and hovered anxiously while I got into the car, and followed me closely all the way home, despite my warning that he shouldn’t get too close in case of sudden stalls.
Fevronia came out to greet me when I stepped through the door, but took one look at Alex, hissed, and ran away.
“Jeez,” said Alex. “Am I that much of a mess?”
“Yeah, but I’m worse.”
He eyed me critically. “True. Into the shower with you, and I’ll order pizza.”
“Pizza’s expensive!”
“I’ve got, like, $167 left on my credit card limit. I can afford it.”
“I have pasta.”
“Pre-cooked?”
“No.”
“I don’t feel like cooking even if I could cook, which I can’t. So delivery pizza it is. Plain cheese, right?”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll, um, go take a shower then.”
When I got out of the shower, wearing, after a certain amount of dithering over the message it sent, my pajamas, the pizza was waiting. We devoured it with unseemly haste, remarking over and over again how unbelievably tasty delivery pizza was when you hadn’t had it in months, and lamenting the lack of beer to go with it, but beer was for people with real paychecks.
When we were done Alex broke a silence that was growing uncomfortable to ask if he could use the shower. When he came out, looking cleaner but no less awkward, we tried to stretch my meager bedding into something that wouldn’t be horribly uncomfortable for him, at which point I burst into tears over the general shittiness of my life and all the adrenaline rushing out of my system.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Alex said, putting his arms around me. “I’ll just get my coat or something.”
“No! You can sleep in the bed.”
“Um,” he said, sounding as uncertain as me. “Okay. I’ll just...” He let go of me and sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. “I’ll just sort of be on top of the sheets, okay, over here in the corner.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him, sliding under the covers on the other side of the bed and motioning for him to join me.
“Yeah. Right. I mean, I’m supposed to have that whole officer and a gentleman thing going, right? Only without the looking like Richard Gere thing. But that’s okay. Right now it’s okay. And frankly”—he slid over next to me and put his arms back around me—“I’m too wired—that sounds better than scared, right?—to fall asleep by myself right now.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
“Okay. So, we’ll just, like, relax and go to sleep like this, right?”
“Right,” I said. For a long time I could feel the low-level quivering I always sensed when he was nearby vibrating through me, but eventually that stilled and we both fell asleep.
48
The next morning Alex got up, and, looking awkward and embarrassed, although I wasn’t sure whether that was from spending the night in my bed or from spending the night in my bed without anything remotely sexual happening, said he should go home and let his parents know he was okay, but that he’d be back tomorrow, and that he should have an old flip-phone around somewhere I could borrow if I needed to.
“That’d be...that’d be great, actually.”
“Great. I’ll see if I can dig it out, bring it by tomorrow. Well, uh, bye.” He tousled my hair as if I were a dog, and left.
As soon as he was gone I gave into the temptation that had been tormenting me since last night, opened my computer, and entered an email address that had been burning a hole in my brain the past year.
From: Rowena Halley
To: Dmitry Kuznetsov
Subject: You saved my life
Do you remember when we went running in Gorky Park last winter? It annoyed me then [I originally wrote “I was boiling with rage,” and then erased it], but last night it might have saved my life.
I expected either nothing, or an explosion of...something, but in fact what I got was an almost immediate reply.
From: Dmitry Kuznetsov
To: Rowena Halley
Subject: I’m glad
I’m glad. Keep running.
I stared at the response for several minutes, willing it to reveal its secrets to me and tell me whether I should be beside myself with outrage, throw up my hands and walk away, or hit “Reply” and start a reconciliation. The Russian teacher in me automatically noted that the form of “run” Dima had used had been the multidirectional form used for recreational running, not the unidirectional form used to mean “run away.” Or “run to me.” So maybe he was telling me to keep exercising, not to run away? But he also wasn’t inviting me to run straight to him. And he hadn’t even asked what I meant or what had happened to me. Righteous indignation filled me. If he wanted a reconciliation, he could ask for one, or at least ask why running had saved my life. I didn’t care; it was all on him. Yeah, absolutely.
Telling myself this, I shut my laptop and examined my footwear options. My running shoes were still soaking wet from last night’s adventure, and battered beyond repair. My boots were no doubt just as leaky as they had been the day before. I looked out the window. A good two inches of slush. Ballet flats were out of the question. I pulled on my boots, and, trying not to wince at the soreness that was making itself felt throughout my whole body, made my way at a slow walk to True Grit.
Just as I hoped, I found Mike and Jimmy there, eating grits and eggs and drinking coffee. I went over and sat down at their table.
“Thanks,” I said.
They shared a look. “It was nothin’, baby girl,” said Mike.
“Just don’t get us mixed up in it,” put in Jimmy.
“Your secret is safe with me,” I promised.
“We was comin’ back from our shift, runnin’ a little late, and we seed you runnin’ down the road. Well, your bright blue shoes. And we seed that car comin’ after you, so...”
“Thanks,” I said. “Really, I don’t know how to thank you enough. I don’t know what I can do for you, but if there is something, just tell me.”
Mike and Jimmy shared another glance. “I reckon buyin’ us breakfast would be enough,” said Mike.
“Long as you let us buy you breakfast back, baby doll,” said Jimmy kindly. “There ain’t a lot o’ meat on them bones.”
“Fat don’t fly,” I told them. “How do you think I outran all those people?”
Grins split their faces. “You sure did, baby girl! You outran all those men, and a car too! And you jumped onto our truck like you’d been doin’ it all your life. You’d never think those skinny little white arms and legs could do a thing like that.”
I winked at them. “We all have our secrets,” I said.
There was some laughing and thigh-slapping over that, and then I let Jimmy buy me a plate of grits while I paid their bill, and we all finished our breakfasts and I promised once again that I wouldn’t involve them with anything to do with either the police or the Angelo/D’Annunziato families.
The grits and coffee gave me a temporary carb lift that was sure to result in a carb crash later, but I used it to go home and go through all my emails. Nothing there of interest, except...was that a UNC-Charlotte email? From the chair of the search committee?
I opened the email, expecting a form rejection letter. At least that would be more than I usually got.
Dear Dr. Halley, I read.
While the committee regrets very much to be unable to continue with you as a candidate for our tenure-track position, we do have a temporary position opening up for the spring semester at our new UNC-Matthews satellite campus. We realize this is very short notice, but we are inviting our most impressive first-round candidates to apply to the job first. The job description and the link to the application are below. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Brent Whittaker
Associate Professor of French
Department of Modern Languages
UNC-Charlotte
P.S. We greatly enjoyed speaking with you in particular during the interview in San Antonio, and we understand that you will be free for the spring semester, so if that is still the case, we particularly urge you to apply. I will be happy to answer any questions you have about the program. My number is below.
I punched the air in triumph, and then felt like an idiot for rejoicing over what was so
clearly not only a consolation prize but a terrible, crappy, awful job. I clicked on the link. Yep. Three courses, although only three credit hours each, so I would be teaching the same load as at TLASC, temporary part-time employee status, no benefits. But I should apply anyway. Or was I better off falling back on John’s charity and spending the spring in his maybe-empty, maybe-not apartment in Jacksonville? I thought about how academics reacted to people who were “wasting their time” by being unemployed and out of the loop for even a single semester. Taking this job meant I could send out my spring applications on UNC letterhead. Okay, UNC-Charlotte. Okay, UNC-Matthews, which was probably one step above a community college, if that. But I should take the job anyway. If I could afford to. I couldn’t even afford to hire a moving pod, let alone put down first and last month’s rent on a new apartment. Maybe John could loan me the money.
I was just opening up a new email to send him a begging letter outlining the situation and asking for his help, whatever help he cared to offer, when there was a knock at the door.
Thinking Alex must have come back, I ran over and checked the peephole, grinning to myself at the news I had and—I had to admit—the idea of seeing him again. Screw Dima! Alex was the one who had come through when it counted. Plus, he was entertaining.
It wasn’t Alex at the door. It was Provost Johnson.
49
“I just came here to thank you, Rowena,” he said into the door. He held up his hands. “I’m here alone. It’s safe, I swear.”
A childish urge to tell him to go to hell rose up in me, but I quelled it and opened the door.
“How’s Madison?” I demanded.
“She’s stable. She”—his face pinched, making him look for a moment like a terrified father who’d spent the night in the ER with his only daughter—“maybe you heard, she went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital, and again in the ER, but they say she’s stable now. I was with her all night. They sent me home around five this morning. Madison’s mother is supposed to be on her way to sit with her today. She might even be able to summon up a little maternal concern for once. Can I come in?”
“Um. Okay.”
I stepped back and let him in, acutely aware of how shabby and cramped my apartment was, and also that the empty pizza box was still sitting on the table, and the door to the bedroom was open, revealing the unmade bed. Normally I was a neat freak. But today I’d had other things on my mind. I almost said the words out loud, and then bit down on them. I didn’t need to be apologizing to Provost Johnson for how I kept my own home. And maybe he should see how his instructors lived.
He looked around. “Is Alex here?” he asked.
“What makes you think he might be?” My voice was more prickly than I would have liked. I owed him no defensiveness for anything that might or might not have happened between me and Alex.
“He didn’t come home last night. His father was calling me and demanding to know where he was half the night. I told him he was probably with you. He was, wasn’t he? You didn’t eat all of that pizza yourself.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Well, do you know where is? Is he safe?”
“He went home this morning,” I said. “My phone broke,” I added, relenting slightly. “Last night, during...Alex didn’t want me to be by myself with no phone. And he didn’t want to drive home so late, after...everything, either. But he left first thing, so he should be home by now.”
“Good. Although it means another trip for me.” He made an indecisive motion with his body, and then said, “Look, Rowena. First of all, I wanted to say thank you. You saved Madison’s life last night.”
“Alex saved her life. He was the one who did CPR by the side of the road.”
“Yeah, but you did too. You both did. And I heard about what you did. How you ran off to act as bait so they would go after you instead of her. I wish”—he swallowed—“I wish I could repay you for that, but I can’t.”
“I didn’t do it for money. Or anything else.”
“I know. But I do want to help you, Rowena, so let me start with this.”
He held out something. I took it. It was a folded check for $5,000.
“You’ve got to fucking kidding me,” I said, and tried to hand it back.
“No, keep it. Listen to me! Keep it. You’ve more than earned it. For starters, it should have been part of your salary. You think I don’t know how pathetically we pay you? Who do you think signs off on it? So consider this...reparations, or something.”
“What do you want?” I asked warily.
“I want you to take the check, Rowena, and then I want you to cash it. It’s good. Or is it not enough?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, by my calculations, that’s just a week’s worth of suits for you.”
He laughed in spite of himself.
“But I really didn’t do it for the money. And $5,000 isn’t nearly enough for your daughter’s life. So I don’t know how to respond to it, other than to say you need to be making the same offer to Alex too.”
“Where do you think I’m going next?” He closed his hand around mine, closing up the check inside it. I jerked my hand back, out of his grasp.
