Divine: A Novel (26 page)

Margaret’s building still smells like
cookies and rubber cement when I enter through the back door. And unlocking her
office and entering her space is eerie. Even though she passed away at home, I
can sense that she’s here, in this building. It’s an odd feeling stepping
inside and an even odder feeling going through her things.

She has an ancient computer, one that
college kids today would think was an old television set. Bulky, square, with a
curved screen and a giant keyboard. There are a few folders on her desktop
including her syllabi, class rosters, and, ug, a folder of baking recipes. How
dreadful to think parents are spending thirty grand a year for their kids to
learn to make pancakes.

I turn to her filing cabinets and exhale
when I start to count... eighteen. She has eighteen, four-drawer cabinets in
her office filled with papers.

There are decades upon decades of student
files, paperwork from committees, receipts, scholarship applications, emails...
she printed every email she received! That’s no joke. She has folders going
back to the ‘90s of emails from people on campus. I don’t get why she didn’t
store these on her computer. But then again, I can picture Margaret trying to
figure out the internet when it was first invented, and being worried that once
she opened her mail the message might disappear forever. It’s just like her to
have a hard copy of... shit, those are my initials. DH. Sure enough, I have my
own folder full of emails she’s printed, starting with my first day as a
faculty member when she welcomed me aboard to what she termed as the
great crazy train.

Our emails back and forth get nastier as
the years go by and I’m in no mood to read any of them right now, or ever.

There’s a Donor folder, but it doesn’t
contain anything unusual. She actually had everything documented and the
photocopies of the checks show they were made out to the university, not to
her.

I keep looking. It’s obvious she made a
copy of every word she ever received so something’s gotta be here.

What a hoarder.

Yep,
like you.

No, this is fucking extreme and
obsessive. Everything’s been organized alphabetically, as well as by date. She
was OCD or something.

After an hour of looking at every label of
every folder, I come to the last one in the final drawer. The name Hannah Zorn
stares back at me.

I pull it out and begin sifting through
every interaction, conversation, final grades, a three-page paper on how to
repair a sock with holes, thank you cards, Christmas greetings to her favorite
professor, emails detailing the assignments in
my
classes and what was said in my classroom from day to day, an
email about creating a petition for the Dean.

What
an asswipe!

But in the back of her folder are a group
of emails that make my eyes widen and my heart race.

“Fucking balls,” I gasp. “That wench!” I
stand and pace with the folder in hand. “I can’t believe this! I’ll kill her!”

I slam and lock Maragaret’s back door,
stomp to
my
office, grab an important
item off my desk, and walk furiously to the alumni center.

“Get the fuck out of my way!” I yell at
the sorority girls gathered out front. “Move. Now!”

I push my way inside, not caring that I
step on the toe of the one wearing sandals, or that I
accidentally
butt into the one with the full soda that spills down
the front of her dress. I feel so humiliated, and angry, and so goddamn
deceived by this human being.

She’s
not human.

Dan’s talking to one of his employees and
he can tell immediately when I rush toward him that something’s wrong.

“Div, what the heck happened, your face
is bright red.”

“Here,” I shove the folder into his chest
and turn swiftly in Hannah’s direction.

I approach her and her oozing, pus-filled
performance she’s been putting on for weeks, look down at the item in my hand
(the brown paper bag from my office), and dump all the dead flies that I’ve
been gathering from my windowsill onto her head. She screams as her father
rushes over and grabs my hand, but it’s too late. The decaying flies are stuck
in her hair, on her shoulders, and have fallen down inside the front of her
dress.

“I hope you rot in Hell, you fucking
liar!” I yell.

I turn and see that Richard has eyes the
size of cantaloupes, and then I toss him his keys and say something I’ll
never
regret.

“I resign.”

Dan clutches my hand and pulls me out of
the room and through the back door. I’m pressed against the side of a Keller
catering van and my mouth is forced against his in a devouring kiss.

“This is crazy, Div. Where did you find
this?” he opens the folder and looks inside once more. “I just can’t believe
this is happening. You’re like my four leaf clover.”

“Cole’s office,” I smirk. “Campus
Operations will be able to track it as well. Those are campus email addresses
so there’s a record.”

“Jesus!” he laughs with a drunken
shit-eating grin on his face. “Is this legal? I mean that you took it, can I
use it?” he speaks anxiously. “This is good. This is fucking amazing. This...
this is, no
you
, YOU ARE incredible.”
He grips my shoulders and I collapse into his arms.

I have tears in my eyes. Not from his
words, but from the expression on his face. His joy is starting to slowly
subdue some of my anger.

“I was asked to look for donor
information Margaret might have stockpiled in her cave. And considering today’s
event, my Chair’s request to look for those files isn’t unusual. Money’s on
everyone’s mind. I wasn’t over there sneaking around, the keys were handed to
me in plain sight of everyone at that luncheon, and I came across the folder
legally. Use it.”

Evil did I dwell: lewd I did live.
A palindrome, just like Hannah. She’s
the same from the left as she is from the right and she’ll always be that way.

Dammit,
I’m mad.

That’s another one.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

B
ridgette admitted to the detectives working
the case that she was involved in taking the Cherokee, but that Hannah was the
one behind the wheel, not her.

That would’ve been impossible to prove.
Hannah would’ve denied she even saw Bridgette that night if it hadn’t been for
the emails I came across in Margaret’s office; a string of emails between
Hannah and Margaret about Luke’s death. I only saw a few pages before storming
out of the office, but it was enough to know I had struck gold. And then, when
I read the rest... holy fucking shit!

Basically Hannah thought Luke was
cheating on her. She got wasted with Bridgette, then the two of them followed
him on his bike ride to see if he was off to be with another woman.

Hannah knew Luke would recognize her car,
so Bridgette suggested they
borrow
,
as she so eloquently put it, Dan’s Cherokee.

Ah, those wonderful college days filled
with gossip, broken hearts, and jealous women. Luckily, I never got involved in
any of that shit.

What a mess.

But Luke Barnes wasn’t murdered. No one
set out to kill him. It
was
an
accident. Hannah and Bridgette took a drive along his usual route near the
outskirts of town and they didn’t see him until it was too late.

I’m sure being drunk didn’t help much
either.

Both girls were in a panic and they
turned to Margaret for help. And Margaret... dear old hag-bag Margaret Cole was
her usual conniving self, promising to get them out of the pickle (her term in
an email) they were in. The
pickle
.

And her suggestion? Keep your mouths
shut. That’s what she wrote. Don’t say a word to anyone, even if someone else
is falsely accused; save yourselves instead. Go about your normal business and
come up with an alibi for the night.

That email was just a few hours after it
happened, and Hannah really did play drunken volleyball with her friends, going
about her normal routine.

This town is full of fucking halfwits.

Wait, it gets crazier. Here’s the kicker.

According to Bridgette, Margaret was the
one who asked her and Hannah to break into my home to look for something,
anything, she could use to get me fired; a totally separate incident from
Luke’s death. What the fuck? I mean, seriously? What would be in my place? Did
I walk off with one of the Macs from the computer lab? Or steal artifacts from
the campus museum and stash them in my house?

Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

Damn her to Hell!

Okay, I have to keep reminding myself
that the woman was fucking senile, because if I don’t, I’ll wind up going
completely insane.

After everything, I’m at a loss for words.
If I did have anything left to say about Margaret Cole, it’d be -
ding, dong, the witch is dead
.

And Dan’s just flat out furious that his
sister only came forward because of his arrest, not to mention it took her four
days even after the fact. We get that Bridgette and Hannah were scared shitless
after it happened, but that’s no excuse. I don’t remember being
that
immature at nineteen, but at the
same time I know people like that exist in this world (or inside my head).

Hey!

I was immature in other ways. We all did
stupid shit at one time or another, or recently, like dumping a bag of flies on
someone’s head. But this was someone’s life and I hope, for once, Hannah gets
what she deserves.

And since resigning, I’ve had plenty of
time on my hands to think about all of this, but I haven’t had more than five
minutes with Dan since last weekend at the alumni luncheon. We’ve been texting
and talking on the phone each day, but he’s taken over his parents’ business
while they’re dealing with Bridgette and he’s still doing his usual marketing
from home. In other words, he’s fucking working his ass off. But, we meet on
the sidewalk for a kiss in the early morning while he’s stretching for his
morning jog and today he asked if I had any free time later on to hang out at
his place.

Free time? I think he was joking.

I haven’t done much besides look for a
new job. I don’t have a lot in savings and I couldn’t collect any life
insurance money after my father’s death because he committed suicide. I wonder
if he was aware of that or if he thought I’d be okay without it?

He
really
should’ve left a note.

The money I received from selling his
house, our house, got me through college, but nothing more. My books sales are
steady, but it’s not going to be enough. So I’m looking. I’ll find something
soon. Even if it means working at the grocery store, so be it. And I won’t be
embarrassed if that’s where I end up, as long as I’m happy and no longer
dealing with the craziness of academic life, I’ll be fine.

I already cleaned out my office and
turned in my keys. The sooner I had everything out of there, the better. And no
one said a word to me while I was there as if I didn’t even exist, and there
have been no emails or phone calls, not even from Richard. I guess that’s fine.
Fucking assholes.

And now, after spending most of my day
going over finances and looking through job postings online, it’s time. James
Daniel Keller... fuck yeah! I’ve got to get ready for my man.

It
seems like forever since you’ve seen his dick, and thank God your period’s
over. Stay naked so you can get down and dirty right away. And touch up your
vag area so it’s pretty.

It’s only four and he’s already knocking
on my door. I told him I’d be over at four-thirty. What the... oh crap. I’m not
even fully dressed and yeah, the vag, I’m not ready.

I close and tie the front of my fleece
robe and race downstairs to peer through my peephole. Kristen Keller. It’s not
Dan, it’s his mother and she’s holding a pie.

I open the door gripping the neck area of
the robe tightly and stand in my doorway in order to conceal my home. My place
is better; less cluttered, especially the front room, but I’m still torn as to
what to do with my dining area.

“Divine!” His mother steps forward and
squeezes through. Well, that didn’t work. She scurried inside like a tiny
mouse.

Her eyes stay focused on me instead of my
home. And she’s happy. Ecstatic actually.

“I just had to stop by and tell you in
person how much you mean to this family. James Daniel said meeting you has been
like winning the lottery and I don’t disagree. Here, have a pie.”

I’m sure my cheeks are flush, and as
usual, the Keller family is just downright weird.

“Thank you,” she pulls me into a hug,
nearly squashing the pie against my chest. I hold it off to the side as she
finishes her friendly embrace and steps back with a giant smile. “Thank you for
coming across that information and for giving it to James Daniel. Our
daughter’s still in a heap of trouble, but she shouldn’t see any jail time
since she wasn’t behind the wheel.”

“You’re welcome and thanks for the pie.”

“Apple. Dan’s favorite. He said he was
seeing you tonight and so I thought I’d leave you two with a little treat.”

“Sounds great.”

“He’s not home or I would’ve left it
there. He’s probably out buying you something special for the evening, like
beer.”

“Did you tell her how much our son enjoys
pie?” Dan’s father says, as he walks through my front door. “Whoa, Holy Moses.”
He covers his eyes. “She’s wearing that robe again.”

“Oh shut it, Greg, she wasn’t flashing
you, she was flashing our son. And I didn’t buy them a pie as a sexual
reference.”

Okay. I really love Dan’s parents. Even
with everything they’re going through they’re still happy and playful. What
wonderful people. They’re twisted and silly, but wonderful.

Greg uncovers his eyes and follows
Kristen into my living room. Where the hell are they going?

“Umm, I’m sorry, I need to get ready.”

“Oh pfft,” Kristen throws her hand
downward. “James Daniel can wait. Are these your parents?” She points to the
photos.

“Yes.”

“You look just like your mother,” she
says.

“She was pretty. Uh,” I pause. “I didn’t
mean that in an egotistical way, she, about me I mean, she was, she.” I stop
and just nod. “I should get dressed, Dan said four-thirty, so...”

“Wow, now those are something else. Look
at all those things, Greg.” she says, heading toward the dining room.

I’m trying my best to be polite. I can’t
kick them out. That would be rude. If the photos were still on the walls
Kristen would’ve been out the front door immediately, but these
things
are kind of pretty, they’re just
a bit overwhelming.

“I’ve been meaning to put them away,
somewhere, you know, they’re big and take up a lot of space, well, some are
small, and I know they’re in the way, look, you can barely walk through to get
to my kitchen, and it looks like a mess because there are so many of them, and
they can’t go in the basement because I don’t want them to get moldy or smell
like mildew, and...” I ramble on.

“Has Dan seen these?” Greg cuts in.

“No,” I reply. “They’re sort of, um, shit
they’re just embarrassing, don’t you think? I’ve never shown them to anyone. I
had them in storage until I moved here.”

“Oh Divine! You have to show him!”
Kristen insists. “He’d love these. Have you seen what’s in his basement?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m unsure if I
want to go down there.”

“She read the books,” Kristen says to her
husband. “Don’t worry, I promise he doesn’t have any women in cages,” she
laughs.

“You’ve read the trilogy?”

“I’m his mother. Of course I read it.”

“Not me,” Greg cuts in. “I love J.D. to
death, but I knew after the first couple of chapters it wasn’t my kind of book.
Too much cock and pussy on every page, and I don’t think he would’ve written it
if he was getting laid.”

“Gregory!” Kristen scolds. “He explained
to us in great detail what that story was about and I’m proud to have such an
intelligent son.”

“Nope,” Greg says. “It’s still a lot of
cock and pussy.”

Kristen rolls her eyes and I laugh. It’s
good to finally joke about Hayden Night.

“Come on Kristen, stop meddling,” Greg
says. “Let’s be on our way so Divine and J.D. can enjoy their pie.”

I lead them out and say goodbye as well
as thank you, still holding my robe closed with one hand and a pie with my
other.

Sweet people.

And as soon as they disappear out of the
neighborhood, I race inside, set the pie down, run up my stairs, and throw off
my robe. And here I am, wearing only underwear when who the heck do you think
would be approaching my back door holding something behind his back? Oh fuck.

Dan taps lightly on the glass, standing
within eyeshot of my tits. Yes, my tits.

I look down, then he looks down. I cover
them and he waves his finger with a grin, then I open the door to laughter,
which I’m glad I was able to offer. I forgot for a second that we’ve fucked.
He’s seen it. He’s seen
all
of it.

“I wasn’t flashing you.”

“Uh-huh. You know if you’re going to look
this hot every day, it’ll make me feel like I’ve already made it to heaven.”

I blush, and see he’s dressed nicely in the
outfit he wore last time we catered that evening party - dangling cross and
all.

“Here, I got you something today from
Hobby Barn.” He presents me with a bunch of flowers.

I smile and take them from his hand.
“They’re fake,” I laugh.

“Yeah, they’ll never die.”

“Sweet... holy fuck, they’re scented?” I
sniff away and he continues to stare at my body.

“What are you doing here?” I pick up my
robe and quickly cover myself before putting the flowers on my dresser. “I
understand I always tell you to go around back when you come over, but I
thought I was meeting you at your place. Are we going out or something?”

He shakes his head and steps inside. “I
really wanted a night off, a night just for us, but the guy I put in charge
just cancelled on me twenty minutes ago. He said he’s sick. I’m
really
sorry, Div. And I hate to seem so
crass like I’m just using you for a fuck, but do you think I could see you in
about four hours? I know that sounds awful, but at least it’s something.”

I look at him standing before me in an
exhausted state with his eyes half open. I wonder if his parents realize how
hard he’s been working. Two full-time jobs and worrying about his sister,
driving here and there and taking care of random everyday things like laundry,
groceries, and bills. God, I have to help him. I feel so bad.

Div?
Are you thinking about serving cheese again?

I open my closet and dig through my
clothing, pulling out a white blouse and a black skirt, a staple in every
professional woman’s wardrobe.