Learning Curves (18 page)

“Surprising I didn’t see him inside then,” Gillian said, gesturing at the auditorium’s closed doors. “I wonder that someone so seemingly devoted would miss such an important day for you. But who knows? Maybe he wasn’t as in to you as he appeared to be at the dinner. Or maybe he just couldn’t get time off from his
other
job.”

“His other job?” The odd phrasing caught Leanne’s attention and her eyes narrowed.

“Come on, you know all about his other job. That’s how you met him, after all, at the Foxe’s Den.” She shook a finger in Leanne’s direction, admonishing her in a playful tone. “I should be angry at you for stealing my thunder. And let me tell you, it took me most of Saturday night to figure out where I’d seen that beautiful body of his before.”

The implications of Gillian’s revelation burst through Leanne’s brain like a mortar shell.

“You were the one.”

“Who revealed his moonlighting to the university? You betcha. The dean was very receptive to my concerns about the threat to the university’s reputation, should news of Brandon’s less than salubrious career choice leak out.”

“You bitch.”

“Sticks and stones, Lee, sticks and stones.” But suddenly the saccharine smile disappeared from her face and the true ugliness revealed itself, no less dark for all it was delivered from someone with perfectly white teeth and flawless skin. “You were so sure you could get away with ruining my chances with the sorority, weren’t you? Bet you thought I’d let it slide, especially after all this time?”

“This is about your sorority? But that was years ago.”

“I don’t care how long ago it was. You ruined all of my plans when you ratted me out. I was blackballed. Marginalized. And it was all your fault.”

“Let me spell this out for you. You cheated. You plagiarized. You terrorized those poor pledges into writing those essays for you and it was wrong. The consequences were always on your shoulders,” Leanne said unflinchingly. “All I did was try to stop you.”

If she’d hoped her speech would have any effect on Gillian, she was sadly mistaken.

“Spare me another lecture,” Gillian spat. “You turned me in because you were jealous. You wanted to ruin my chances because you never had a chance yourself.”

Gillian’s words were a perverse echo of Brandon’s charge and they rocked Leanne to the core. Adrenaline coursed through her. Her knuckles were white against the smooth leather handle of her attaché. She had never wanted to hit another human being as intensely as she wanted to right now.

Consciously slowing her breathing, she exhaled. “I try to live my life with integrity and self-respect. Concepts you know nothing about.”

Gillian laughed long and hard at Leanne’s self-defense. “Where did the dignity and self-respect come in when you were screwing the stripper?”

“Brandon has more worth in one finger than you’ve got in your entire body. He’s decent and kind and hardworking and—” She struggled to keep her voice from echoing through the hall.

“And he’s completely screwed,” Gillian crowed. “Well, you keep thinking all those nice things about him and about yourself if it gives you comfort.”

The auditorium doors opened and Dean Kessler gestured for Leanne to come in. Gillian stood aside and Leanne could feel her pale eyes marking her back as she walked, step by step, toward the waiting podium. At the dais, she stopped and looked back into the hall. Gillian was still there, but she’d put on her elegant wool coat and was buttoning it.

“Good luck,” she mouthed, hers eyes alight with a vicious glee, leaving Leanne standing in front of a room full of spectators, wondering just what havoc her rival had planned. Because if Lee had learned anything in more than twenty years of their forced acquaintance, Gillian never did anything nice. There was always an ulterior motive.

But there was no time to consider their altercation further, because the judges were preparing to give their opening remarks.

“We want to thank everyone here today for coming out and showing their interest for higher learning. The Walters Prize has been awarded annually since 1926 and counts among its recipients two Supreme Court justices, five Nobel Prize winners and more. Ms. Galloway represents the finest that this university and our academic system can offer and we recognize her accomplishments in becoming one the final five graduate candidates in the running for this year’s award.”

A polite smattering of applause followed this platitude and Leanne took a moment to peer round the lecture hall. It was surprisingly crowded. Near the front, a group of graduate students from the English department, Julia and Cassandra among them, were there to cheer her on. Dean Rose, Professor Armstrong and many chairs from across the humanities department were there, as well as other professors she’d worked under and studied with. Even, she was touched to note, a few of her undergraduate students, looking ill-at-ease and out of place in the company of such university heavyweights. And in the third row, next to the dramatic bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, sat her parents.

Her mother gestured with the tips of her fingers, mouthing broadly “Smile.” Leanne wasn’t sure just what her mother expected her to do—burst into a warbling rendition of “Tomorrow” or sashay past the judges in heels and a bathing suit?—but it touched her that Mom and Dad had made the effort to come out and support her today, on the biggest day of her academic career yet.

“We will begin,” the judge continued, “with the judges’ questions, which will be based in large part on the written responses on her academic field of interest that Ms. Galloway provided. After that, we will open the floor to the audience and individuals will be able to submit their questions for the candidate to the proctor, who will collect and read them randomly. And then finally, the candidate will be asked to provide her prepared closing remarks. Ms. Galloway, are you ready to proceed?”

The proceedings were being called to order. Gillian was gone. There was nothing she could do to disrupt the interview process now. She’d obviously thought her mere presence would throw Leanne off her game. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not today. Not ever.

“Yes, I’m at the panel’s disposal.”

It was showtime and she was ready to give the performance of her life.

By three o’clock, Leanne was feeling confident. She’d sailed through the first half of the interview, certain she’d answered the judges’ questions to the best of her considerable abilities.

It seemed as if her painful confrontations, first with Brandon and then with Gillian, had actually served an unexpected purpose. Far from unsettling her or leaving her emotionally vulnerable, they had served instead as a crucible of sorts, reducing her focus to the purest instinctual elements and removing the extraneous matter—emotions, doubt and regret—from the mix. She’d answered each question thoughtfully, her certainty and determination building as each response saw the judges jotting down their comments and nodding in agreement to the points she made. She was in her element and she knew her answers were winning over the Walters selection committee, impressing them with her academic prowess and intellectual commitment.

Smothering a premature smile, Leanne took another small sip of water and prepared for the second half of the evaluation—the public question-and-answer period. Audience members submitted their questions about her presentation and her research on slips of paper, handing them to the front, where they were read aloud by the committee members.

The first question was an easy one, word for word a topic she’d rehearsed with Cassandra during their intensive practice sessions. With a quick flash of gratitude to her best friend, she responded. Other questions followed, and Leanne found herself sketching out details of her research in clear, comprehensible English for the listening audience.

Thirty-five minutes later, there were only two slips left on the judges’ table. Unrolling the second to last slip, the lead committee member read it. A look of consternation passed over his face.

A murmur rose in the gallery as the delay stretched on. The selection committee conferred behind their hands. Uncertain what the problem might be, Leanne felt tension curdle her stomach. Reminding herself to breathe deeply, she could do nothing but wait until the panel read the next question. Finally, after an agonizing wait, they settled back in their seats, their faces studiously blank in the face of Leanne’s concerned scrutiny.

The judge cleared his throat and held the white slip aloft. “Ms. Galloway, the committee has just now received a very serious accusation against you about a matter that did not come to light during the application process. I would like to give you a chance to respond to the charges leveled by this audience member. However, given the nature of the charges, we would be willing to offer you the opportunity to respond in a private session. Is that how you wish to proceed?”

Privately? Leanne’s mind whirled. What on earth could they be talking about? There was nothing in her academic life that would warrant this level of concern. She certainly wasn’t going to slink away and give the impression that she’d done anything wrong. She hadn’t.

“Dr. Bernier,” she said, pitching her voice to carry to the farthest corners of the room, “there is no avenue of my professional life that I feel will not stand up to the most active scrutiny. I have no qualms about any question you might ask.”

He cleared his throat. “While I’m sure that’s the case, this issue actually pertains to your personal life,” he said. Glancing at the remaining panelists, he reluctantly elaborated. “Ms. Galloway, please tell the committee if you have ever engaged in the solicitation or hiring of a male escort during the course of your enrollment at Wellington University.”

Leanne froze.

“I beg your pardon?” she croaked.

Gillian.
She’d naively thought Gillian had been satisfied ruining Brandon’s chances and ensuring that any connection between them was decimated, that torpedoing their burgeoning relationship was her goal. Now Leanne saw that her revenge was much more far-reaching than that. She hadn’t come today only to see Leanne’s reaction to Brandon’s destruction; she’d come to lay the seeds for Leanne’s downfall too.

If she didn’t give the answer of her life, it would derail everything she’d worked for. She had to stall, give herself time to work out a solution.

“I’m afraid,” she said carefully, “I don’t understand the relevance of the question in this context. Any relationship I may or may not have with the individual in question is wholly unconnected to my abilities as regard the Walters Prize, is it not?”

The second judge spoke up. “Of course they are. We value diversity of experience and pride ourselves on the inclusiveness of the selection process…”

Her voice droned on, dancing around the heart of the matter, trying to dress up their revulsion as a matter of academic integrity.
Platitudes,
Leanne thought ruthlessly,
nothing but platitudes.
Armstrong had been right. The committee cared less about academics than they did about the absence of scandal. In their minds, few things were more scandalous that being involved with a stripper.

The dean’s reaction should have made that clear but she hadn’t thought through the ramifications of Gillian’s attack. If she had, Leanne would have realized the charges would impact every facet of her life that mattered. The mere accusation, true or not, had effectively poisoned her professional future.

The irony of course was that she was no longer involved with the “individual in question.”

Because he knew this would happen.

Not that Gillian would exact her revenge like this, but Brandon understood as that his continuing presence would put her academic advancement in jeopardy. That was why he’d been so adamant about distancing himself from her when they’d clashed in the Graduate Office.

He’d done it for her.

He’d capitulated without argument. He’d sacrificed his chance at a defense in order to give her the best possible shot at the prize she wanted more than anything.

Her heart bled.

The interview process was a sham. They weren’t looking for the next great mind. They were looking for the next great mind that was just like theirs. Dry. Contained. Uncontroversial. If she wanted this prize, she would be trapped by the chains of expectation forever.

She tried to focus. In the audience, the faces of her colleagues and peers swam before her. Kessler was apoplectic. She could see her mother’s face, pale and wide-eyed, but she looked away. This had to be her decision to make. No one else could make it for her.

The Walters Prize was everything she’d ever worked for.

Except…

She’d been working toward the wrong prize.

Brandon was the prize she needed.
Because she loved him.

Because with him, she could embrace
all
the pieces of her life.

It was too late, though. She’d thrown it all away in pursuit of a prize that didn’t really matter.

With her back against the wall, she couldn’t deny the overwhelming impact he’d had on her life. He’d freed her and—despite the personal heartbreak she knew was waiting for her and the professional chaos she would certainly unleash—she couldn’t turn her back what she felt for him.

The buzzing in her mind intensified. On the table in front of her lay her meticulously crafted closing statement. It was a masterpiece of public speaking. It had taken her days to perfect.

It wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

Licking dry lips, she finally spoke. “My personal life has…It has…” She slowly found her stride. “My personal life should have no bearing on my reception before this committee. Clearly, it does. Yes, I have been seeing a man who works as an exotic dancer. I have not, now or ever, paid for his sexual services. I will not apologize for how I spend my life outside of this university or who…I love. Life is too short for dishonesty. If my achievements can be so easily overshadowed, I’m not interested in defending them.”

She stood, her voice carrying clearly over the chaos in the room. “Therefore, I respectfully withdraw my candidacy in this competition. I no longer wish to be considered for the Walters Prize.”