“What concerns me is your secrecy. We are a team in this department, and that includes every single person. I know that I’ve been busy the past six months and I haven’t pressed you as hard as I should have, but you have been damned illusive, Jill.”
“That’s not my intention. I just get focused.” Jill’s hands were wrenching each other like wrestlers in her lap. She noticed it and made them unclench, placing them loosely on her thighs.
“If it’s not your intention, then you won’t object to showing Chuck and me around your lab.” Chalmers rose to his feet as if to say that settled that.
“Next week I have some time—” Jill looked at her watch helplessly.
“Right now.”
“Right now? But I have to prepare for—”
“Right now.”
Grover stood up, smiling nastily, as if to say, Boy, are you going to get it.
As they left Chalmers’s office, Jill wracked her brains for some way out. Passing by the corridor to her office, she said, “Just a second. I need my briefcase,” and ditched in there, closing the door behind her. She raced to the phone, picked it up, and dialed the lab. She was relieved when Nate answered on the first ring. “Nate,” she hissed, “Chalmers is on his way down. Hide everything!”
She put the receiver down just as Chalmers cautiously opened her office door, scrutinizing her suspiciously. Thank god she was a female. Worries about indelicacies had probably given her one moment of privacy at least. She picked up her briefcase from beside her desk. “Coming.”
She led them over to Smith as slowly and circuitously as she could. Even so, it only took about five minutes. While they walked she thought over her options. As much as she bristled under the scolding, she knew Chalmers was right. She did have an obligation to the university to keep them informed. But the memory of Ansel inhibited her, and beneath that were memories of her own, older scars. She would not be laughed at. Besides, she didn’t want to spill it under the gun like this; it ought to be a planned, triumphant moment. And she wasn’t at her best, had felt muddled and tired all week, with the sharp edge of a headache pressing into her brain. No, she needed time to write up her findings professionally, the breathing room to present them with clarity and confidence. And she certainly didn’t want to try to explain her work to Chalmers in front of Chuck Grover. Her only hope of saving the one-minus-one from his clutches was to publish her findings before he heard anything about it. Then again, she might not have a choice.
“Here we are,” Jill said lightly. She opened the door.
The rubber curtain sucked toward them as they pushed through. Nate was seated at the long table with his computer. He looked up at them casually. “Oh, hey, Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Grover.” Was Jill the only one who could see that he was breathing hard?
Chalmers squinted at him, confused by the hair. “Um… Good morning, uh…”
“Nate Andros.”
“Ah! Yes, of course, Mr. Andros.”
Jill couldn’t believe what she was seeing—or rather, not seeing. The middle of the room was entirely bare except for the subject table. On top of it was one of their old charts that Nate had taken down from the wall. It was laid flat, pencils on top of it as though in recent use. The white board (and the grid) was covered up by another of the huge charts. On the folding table where the mice had been there was only their old coffeepot, dying a slow death. The radio equipment was gone; the subjects were nowhere to be seen. Jill was caught in a surprised smile when she saw several of the platters of fruit near Nate on the equipment table, as though they were for eating. She lifted her eyes to Nate, who was sipping a cup of coffee and looking doggedly at his computer screen. His collarbone rose and fell and his nostrils flared as he tried to catch his breath without being obvious about it. He looked up. Their eyes met.
“What on earth are you doing down here, Jill?” Chalmers sounded perplexed. Grover was stalking the room’s perimeters like a drug-sniffing dog at an airport.
Jill waved an unsteady hand at the charts. “We needed room to spread out. You know how tiny my office is.”
“Well, this is a ridiculous waste of space!”
“No one was using this room, Dick. It was full of old junk. We cleaned it ourselves.”
“It’s still a waste! I’m sure there’s someone who could put it to better use.”
Grover had reached the equipment table. He looked over the top of it, paused where the transmitter had been, looking at the oh, so vacant tabletop. Jill watched him, wondering if there were dust outlines there. She glanced at Nate. He looked worried, too.
“Dr. Grover, how’s it hanging?” he asked.
Grover ignored Nate utterly. His face was a blank. He moved toward Jill and Chalmers at the door.
“Well, Chuck?” Chalmers asked.
Grover fingered the rubber curtain. “What about all this insulation?” He looked up toward the ceiling, pulled the rubber curtain toward her. “Jill? Could you explain why you’d need all this if you’re doodling equations? This looks like sound insulation to me—for radio waves, perhaps?”
“Radio waves!” She huffed, as if this were the silliest thing she’d ever heard. “No, of course not. It was here when we moved in.” She couldn’t meet Grover’s eyes, so she looked at Chalmers instead. She tried to act normal, but “normal” for her meant hardly any facial expression at all and that didn’t seem quite right. She smiled.
“Really? That can be verified, you know. Who had the room before you?”
“I just said; it was empty.”
“Ah! Still. Someone would know. A janitor. Acquisitions.”
She could have socked good old Chuck. He was right. The acquisition of the insulation could easily be traced to her, but she couldn’t back down now. She bit her lips.
Grover turned to Chalmers, his face hard. “You must see this is bullshit, Dick.”
Chalmers grunted. “Jill, I want a full—and I mean full—report of everything you’ve done for the past six months, and I want it on my desk by Friday.”
“But that’s only two days!”
“Five P.M. Friday. And I think you should consider the kind of unproductivity your reclusiveness provokes. Really, this is untenable! From now on I want everyone in the department to know clearly what you’re doing, even if they don’t care. And that goes double for Chuck. When someone in my department makes a commitment to a fellow faculty member, I expect her to keep it.”
Chalmers put a hand on Grover’s arm supportively. “Let’s go, Chuck.”
They left, but not before Grover shot her a venomous look, a look that said, I know you’re lying, bitch.
Jill locked the door behind them and collapsed into a chair. She hid her face in her hands. “Oh god! What an asshole!”
“Are you okay?”
“I think we survived. Thank god for you, Nate. How’d you do it? Where is everything?”
Nate didn’t look relieved. His dark eyes were full of concern. “There’s a storage closet across the hall. Jill, this is not good. They’re going to find out sooner or later and Chalmers is going to be pissed. I really don’t get what you’re afraid of. This is great work. Brilliant, actually.”
Jill couldn’t help feeling a rush of pleasure at the compliment. And he was absolutely right. She’d just outright lied to her department head. She felt sick about it for a moment, a swimmy light-headedness like she was looking over the edge of a precipice. She could visualize getting fired, being thrown out of university life forever.
But surely all would be forgiven if she pulled this off. It would be so huge they’d have no choice. And she could explain to Chalmers about Ansel, about Chuck’s blackmail, about how she’d wanted to be sure before she spoke out. He might understand.