Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 06 - Death without Tenure (23 page)

Chapter 27

The following Friday

“I think I must have been hallucinating,” I told the group of friends gathered around the table in Rudolph’s private back room. “It was as if I were surrounded by a tribe of phantom warriors. I must have been in a waking dream. What else could it have been?”

We were out for a celebratory dinner. Felicity had arranged the party. Mom was here, shepherded by my former student, Sophia Warzek, whom I’d hired to live with us and care for Mom while Sophia worked on her MFA thesis. Greg and Irina were present, and Earlene, unexpectedly with Fareed Khan in tow. Hmm. Even Jill had come up from New York with Eloise, her little red-headed imp of a daughter. Miles and his formidable wife, Dolores, arrived late, rather sweetly uncertain about their welcome. The wine was on the department, he said, and proceeded to order the best in the house.

Amanda was present only in spirit; she had called, as promised, from Kathmandu, and, weary of world travel, was on her way home. She was the only one I’d told about our Native ancestry, but I hadn’t yet told her about my ordeal with McCutcheon.

***

The past week, since I’d clobbered Clark McCutcheon, had indeed been an ordeal. I was on sick leave, recovering from shock. The shock of almost killing a man. The shock of almost having been killed myself. The brand-new PhD who’d been hired to cover Joe’s classes had been assigned my classes as well. I objected; I was perfectly capable of teaching. Just because I couldn’t eat, and couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop shivering, and couldn’t stop crying whenever I heard music, there was no need to think I was in anything approaching a state of crisis. Was there?

People treated me as if I were made of porcelain. Sophia took good care of Mom. Together they baked a different variety of scone for me every day. Greg brought mystery novels. Monica held all my calls. Earlene cooked wonderful meals; she was into Mexican cuisine at the moment. I was, to say the least, well cared for.

***

After all the bone and all the blood and all the sirens; after the official questioning, the shaky answers, the appearance of a savvy college attorney; after the treatment for shock, the medication, the psychological evaluation, I finally had been released from both police and medical custody. Before taking me home, Earlene accompanied me to my office to retrieve my purse and briefcase. There, holding place of honor on the desk, was my black-and-white-speckled tenure box, its documents intact. The attached memo from the director of custodial services read:

Professor Pelletier, we apologize for misplacing your file box. Ricardo, the new custodian for Dickinson Hall, misunderstood the order to pick up a box for storage from another professor’s office. We hope this mistake hasn’t caused you any inconvenience.

Inconvenience
? No. I would say not. Not inconvenience. Major life trauma would be more like it.

***

In any case, here we were, my friends and I, celebrating the submission of my tenure case to the English department, celebrating the solution of Joe Lone Wolf’s murder, celebrating—what?—the spiritual epiphany that had strengthened my warrior arm. I’d slammed McCutcheon good with that tomahawk, the butt of it, thank God, not the blade. It had whacked him in the left temple and knocked him cold. A copiously spreading pool of blood at first convinced me that I’d killed him. When Lieutenant Boylan showed up at the scene, he’d said, with his usual personal and political insensitivity, “Geez, what the hell you tryin’ to do—
scalp
the man?”

But McCutcheon would live to go to trial, Felicity assured me, even though the case against him wasn’t quite rock-solid. Spaced out on pain killers, he’d confessed from his hospital bed that he’d supplied peyote for the anti-Columbus Day after-party, but had added a side treat for Joe of a dried poisonous mushroom—Destroying Angel—one cap of which was lethal. As he had told me, Joe was blackmailing him, threatening to publicly expose his plagiarism and thus scuttle his career. And since Joe was prepared to make the transition to a new persona, Clark didn’t have anything to hold over his head. Joe could simply vanish at will.

“But,” I asked Felicity, “Will a confession obtained under the influence of palliative drugs hold up in court?

With my testimony and that of the students who would testify that McCutcheon was at the party, Felicity said, the D.A. would make damn sure it did.

***

As the appetizers were delivered, the student server placing a small turquoise plate of ceviche in front of me, my friends listened to my tale of mystical warriors with various degrees of amusement and concern. The amusement ticked me off. Spearing a perfect, coral-hued shrimp, I continued, “I’m a rational twenty-first-century scholar. I don’t believe in the supernatural. It
must
have been a hallucination. But…” I finished up, my voice wavering. “It was such a powerful experience. Somehow it changed me.”

“Sure you didn’t partake of the magical mushroom yourself?” Greg asked, taking a bread stick from the basket and winking at me.

Jill frowned at him. She snitched a marinated scallop from my plate. “
How
did it change you?” She bit the scallop in half and shared it with Eloise. “Other than that you became a red-hot tomahawk-throwing mama?”

I hesitated—I’d had a second glass of wine—then answered. “There was
that
. But otherwise…” I felt my shoulders shrug of their own volition beneath my denim jacket. “Otherwise—well, I seem to have come to my senses. Being tenured at Enfield is no longer the most important thing in my life.”

Miles Jewell clapped his hands over his ears. “I didn’t hear that.”

“No?” Jill gaped at me with mock consternation.

“Yeah—can you believe it? If I don’t get tenure, then I don’t get tenure. Enfield’s loss.” I glanced over at Miles with faux bravado.

***

I truly meant what I said, but I was being somewhat meretricious in saying it. Midweek, Avery had come to visit, bringing a dozen white roses and a first edition of Sylvia Plath’s
Ariel
. “About tenure…” he said, biting into a ginger scone. At his request, Sophia and Mom had gone for a walk. He took a sip of tea. “Don’t fret about it. Cooler heads than Hilton’s are evaluating your extremely impressive case.”

“Oh?” What else was there to say?

“You understand me, I know,” he concluded, setting down his half-empty cup and rising from the couch. Everything the man did was graceful, including inserting his arms into the sleeves of his wool topcoat. “And,” he continued with a half-smile, pointing a finger at me, “remember, this conversation never happened.”

***

I could make a life for myself away from Enfield, I thought, if I’d had to. As long as I had Charlie and Amanda, I’d survive. I let my gaze light briefly on each face: my old colleagues—Earlene, Greg, Jill—and, Felicity, my new friend. I would have missed them if I’d had to leave. But Charlie was the one essential. From the Iraqi hinterlands he’d finally returned to Baghdad, and he’d called me, four times, listening quietly while I sobbed. But it had been three days since I’d heard from him, and I didn’t understand why.

Felicity, awkward among all these academics, shifted in her seat and checked her watch. She probably couldn’t wait to get away from the shop talk. I’d expected Lombardi to join us, but he hadn’t. I hoped he and Felicity weren’t still on the outs.

***

I lifted my glass of Cabernet and drank. Through the arched door to the main dining room, I could see the restaurant begin to fill with its usual Friday evening crowd. Ayesha entered the room along with a stylishly dressed older woman, whose dark hair was uncovered. The woman’s arm was around Ayesha’s shoulders, and she was smiling. Must be Ayesha’s mom. They sat at a large, round table, their heads together, laughing at some private joke.

I stood up; I couldn’t help it. Either I’m an incurable Nosey Nancy, or I care deeply about the lives of my students. Same thing, probably. “Back in a minute,” I said.

Ayesha, in a festive peppermint pink robe with a sequined bodice, saw me coming and whispered into her mother’s ear. Mrs. Ahmed glanced up, smiled, and then patted the seat next to her. I sat, with Ayesha on my other side. Both women smelled of jasmine.

“I’ve heard so much, Professor, about how you help Ayesha.” The older woman’s English was lilting and a bit formal. “You will be first one I tell. My daughter is to be married soon. We are here tonight to celebrate.”

“Is that so?” I looked at Ayesha with questioning eyes.

“Yes,” my student said, glancing modestly away from my direct gaze. “We’ll have the wedding during winter break. I hope you’ll be able to come.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, a million questions assaulting my mind.

Two dark-skinned young men entered the dining room, one in jeans and a leather jacket, the other wearing a beige linen tunic and an ornate medallion. Mrs. Ahmed raised her hand, and they headed in our direction. I glanced from one man to the other, hoping my scrutiny wasn’t too obvious. Which one was Ayesha’s husband-to-be? Both were handsome, and each carried himself with impressive confidence. Whichever one it was, this must be the father of her unborn child.

“Congratulations, Ayesha,” I said, squeezing her hand, fondly. I must admit, however, I felt cheated. When Ayesha became a married woman and a mother, I’d lose my pet student, and she only in her sophomore year.

Mrs. Ahmed went on, “These are my sons, Professor.”

I nodded at them. Her
sons
, I thought. It must be the custom in their culture to accept the groom completely into the family. But which one
was
he? The men sat together, across the table, the guy in the leather jacket reaching out to shake my hand. Neither sat next to Ayesha. Perhaps another custom? I was beginning to feel very provincial.

“And now my husband arrives, as you can see.” A tall, dark, older man, impeccably dressed in a gray pin-striped Western suit, walked toward us. He looked every inch the diplomat Ayesha had told me he was. And then it struck me why Ayesha had been so nonchalant about Lieutenant Boylan’s suspicions of her. She was a member of a diplomatic family; could it be that she had diplomatic immunity?

I leaned over in her direction, gesturing at the two young men, and asked, “Which one is the lucky man?”

She gazed first at one, then at the other, and her eyes sparkled. At first I thought it was a sparkle of joy, but a second glance convinced me that, for some reason, my student was deeply amused. But, why?

Now Hank Brody had somehow gotten into the mix, trailing Mr. Ahmed by a few feet. Hank must have a job at Rudolph’s now, I thought; probably as a part-time maitre d’. He looked surprisingly good, dressed in a sport jacket, shirt and tie. His jeans were ironed. And—could it be?—he’d even had a haircut; his dreads were now short and shiny; Hank must have really wanted the job. That boy worked entirely too hard. I’d have to speak to Earlene about him. But, nonetheless, Hank looked happy—if a little…what?…dazed?

Then Ayesha jumped up from her seat, threw her arms around Hank, and hugged him tight. “Behold,” she said, grinning at me, “the bridegroom cometh.”

***

“Joe Lone Wolf may have been a liar and an opportunist,” I said to my friends, as the server came around again with the coffee pot. “But, you know, it’s strange, I don’t think he was a total fraud. He seemed to have loved his work and cared deeply about what he taught his students. He couldn’t say a pleasant word to his colleagues, but he seems to have opened whole new worlds for those kids.” It was almost ten p.m., and I was waiting for my slice of chocolate espresso layer cake. Coffee
and
espresso cake: there’d be no sleep for me tonight. But, what the hell.

“How can you say that?” Greg asked, scowling. “He was completely bogus.”

I’d gotten to the mellow stage of the evening. “I’m not sure about that. I think it’s not so much that he was a fraud, but that he lived within…a self-constructed identity fantasy. I think that by the end, he must have felt his spirit being eaten away by falsity.”

Miles squinted at me. “You know, I’m afraid the department is somewhat to blame, here. We never really saw Lone Wolf—we simply imposed on him an image of what we thought he was supposed to be. We never even checked into his bona fides, as we would have with anyone else. We wanted an Indian, and he said he was an Indian, so we saw an Indian.”

“Indians?” My mother, who’d been drowsing throughout the evening, suddenly looked up at Miles, and spoke. But Miles continued before she could go on. “I believe that in so doing,” he said, carefully enunciating his words, “we were practicing an egregious form of racism.” He began to pour more wine, but Dolores pulled his glass away. The old academic warrior sat there a moment with the green bottle tilted. Then he set it back on the table.

Mom said, “It’s a different time now—we’re proud to be Indians.”

Everyone looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“Indeed we are, Mom,” I said, smiling at her. Connie had finally called. She’d gotten the job as Lowell WalMart manager, would be flying home from Arkansas tomorrow, and would pick our mother up on the way back from Bradley Field. I told my sister that Mom had done well with me and asked her if I could take Mom again for the six-week break between semesters. That would ease her transition to the new job, I said, and help ease my loneliness with Charlie gone. And, by the way, would she like to bring her family for Christmas? Amanda would be home and she adored her cousin, Courtney, and I could make a real old-fashioned
tortière
for dinner. Connie said she’d think about it.