The beader in the seat next to me, an older, graceful Indian woman, patted my hand and said, “She’s just trying to make you feel at home, dear.”
I smiled at her and my other classmates and gave Ariana a look that said we’d settle this score later.
Today’s workshop was not going well for me, in spite of my dipping often into one of the many small bowls of candy on the worktable. Ariana could never go too long without a sweet treat, and chocolate always had a prime spot wherever she held forth.
I let out an aggravated grunt, annoyed at how fumblefingered I was, trying to attach a short beaded string to a jump ring to make a key chain. When my cell phone vibrated on the table in front of me, I was glad for the break.
Until I saw the caller ID number. Courtney, the young administrative assistant in the academic dean’s office.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t being notified of a raise in salary or a reduced class schedule, which would allow me more time for research. I was nearly positive that Dean Underwood had another complaint to lodge against me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was ready to blame me for encouraging the sprites dancing in the water fountain.
I clicked my phone on and said “Hello” to Courtney, at the same time walking outside into the back alley, where a blast of heat assaulted my face.
“She wants to see you,” Courtney said, sounding apologetic.
It wasn’t Courtney’s fault the dean spent her days thinking of ways to annoy the Henley faculty. Especially me.
I’d forgotten to take my sunglasses from my purse when I exited the shop. I squinted against the intense sunlight and entertained ugly thoughts about Dean Underwood. First Keith Appleton, and now the dean was upsetting my day. Maybe I was the problem. Maybe I should try to earn a living making beaded key chains. Beads didn’t talk back or try to cramp my style.
“Is it urgent?” I asked.
“Isn’t it always?” Courtney asked.
I sighed, slightly resigned. There was also my puzzle work to fall back on for income, I thought. Ever since I was a college student, I’d been submitting puzzles and brainteasers on a regular basis to games and variety magazines. But while it was fun coming up with number play and logic puzzles, the pay was hardly enough to pay the bills. I realized Courtney was still on the line. “So, she wants to see me today?” I asked.
“Yesterday. I’m sorry, Dr. Knowles,” said Courtney, whose temperament did not match her flaming red hair.
“I’ll have to change my clothes,” I said, glancing down at my flowered crop pants and bright green sandals.
“It’s not about your clothes this time.” Courtney paused, as if considering whether to say more. She filled in with a nice offer. “Oh, I have your favorite lemon zinger tea in stock, Dr. Knowles. I’ll have a tall, cold glass waiting.”
At least I related well with the younger generation. I thought also of my wonderful friends on the Henley faculty and of the richly diverse student body I got to work with every term.
Maybe I wouldn’t turn in my Henley College ID card just yet.
Maybe I could get Keith and the dean to turn in theirs.
CHAPTER 2
As promised, Courtney had left a pitcher of iced tea on a small table in Dean Phyllis Underwood’s outer office. A note said, “Keep cool.” If the dean had seen it, I wondered if she knew how many meanings Courtney had in mind.
I poured a glass of lemon zinger and took a seat on the wooden bench outside the main office. The handsome leather briefcase my mother gave me when I received my doctorate rested on my lap. I wrapped one arm around it and thought of Mom. It had been just the two of us since I was a toddler, when my father died. My fingers traced the outline of the metal lock; my mind wandered to Mom’s last days and to our last puzzle together.
Never one to be left behind, Margaret (at her request, I’d used her given name since I was in high school, so she wouldn’t “feel so old”) had joined the sudoku craze. We had an ongoing match: each took on the challenge of creating a sudoku that would be declared “impossible” by the other. She completed one of my challenge sudokus two days before she died.
“Too many backtracks this time, though,” she’d said, honest to the end.
The finished puzzle hung on my office wall next to a photograph of the two of us on Cape Cod with the Sandy Neck Lighthouse as a backdrop.
Lemon zinger tea had also been Margaret’s favorite. I raised my glass to her and took a sip.
In spite of the urgency of the dean’s request and Courtney’s assurance, I’d made a quick trip home and changed to a more respectable outfit than the summery pants I’d taught in that morning. Nothing said professional more than close-toed shoes.
The last time I’d been summoned here had been about my “classroom appearance.”
“Your attire is much too casual, Dr. Knowles,” the dean had told me one snowy day, taking in my tasteful slacks, boots, and corduroy jacket in one sweeping, reproachful gaze. “You know we like to keep a dress code at Henley, no matter what the weather, and certainly no matter what the trends of the day may be.”
I’d been tempted to ask why the academic dean didn’t have more to do than monitor faculty wardrobes. Wasn’t there curriculum to watch over? The northeastern colleges’ accreditation committee to worry about? And it wasn’t as if I’d been showing cleavage. Not that I had any to speak of.
Like most of my faculty friends, I’d already caved on the clothing issue. The dean had met us halfway by allowing an exception for hot days during summer school and blizzard-like days in the winter.
So today’s call was definitely not about fashion. What, then?
I tapped the soles of my uncomfortable pumps on the cracked marble floor of the old Administration Building, a grand Gothic structure that, sadly, had had its marvelous interior chopped up to accommodate more offices than originally planned. Here and there a bulky air-conditioning unit had been wedged into an arched window, entering into an odd pairing with the radiator, and interrupting a lovely recursive pattern of gray stone rosettes.
As the minutes ticked away, I reminded myself that I was forty-four, not sixteen years old. This was not high school, when the principal had caught Ariana and me and two friends cutting class to take the subway to downtown Boston for a shopping spree.
I treated my back to a yoga stretch and took a deep breath, giving up on guessing what the dean wanted with me on a scorching Thursday afternoon. Too bad her recommendation was essential if I wanted to make full professor this year. True, I was relatively young for the title, but there was a rumor that a whopping four slots in math and science were open at Henley, and I wanted a place in line for one of them. Badly.
I’d paid my dues as assistant professor for six years, then associate professor for eight more. I had a decent list of publications on my differential equations research in nationally recognized journals and was often sought out as a speaker at conferences. I’d taken my turn as Mathematics Department Chair and served on a countable infinity of faculty committees. Plus-a big concession on my part-I’d yielded to Dean Underwood’s request that I write my puzzles and brainteasers under a pen name, though I bristled at her reasoning.
“We wouldn’t want anything frivolous to appear on Henley’s faculty publication record,” she’d clucked.
After fourteen years, I was finally used to being addressed as Margaret Stone, my mother’s maiden name, when a puzzler fan emailed me.
Now here I was wearing pumps and what could pass for a suit, with a dark brown skirt and an almost-matching jacket, hoping to please the person who held my career in her wrinkled old hands. The thought produced another wave of perspiration and new, sweaty smudges on my leather briefcase. I wasn’t this nervous sitting next to Bruce in his helicopter, even when he surprised me with a new stunt.