* * * *
Although I watched faithfully on Friday, I still missed the exact moment of his coming. I had cleared my desk of all work. I was ready for him.
My day had not gone well. Garry Hamblin, a tenure-track professor from Biology, felt his third-year review committee had not fully appreciated the published research he had produced, especially in light of his teaching load. When I backed the committee – of course his research was good, but we continually expect fresh ideas – I saw the moment of change in his eyes. He had come to my office planning to confirm his career with the College was on track; he left mentally revising his vita for a new job search.
I nearly called him back. Motivation – that’s why I’d taken the tone I did. Faculty must be continually motivated or they turn soft. Garry Hamblin was exactly what I wanted, an energetic teacher, professionally productive. What if I had lost him?
“Maynard, why do you come? What lesson am I supposed to learn?”
Maynard had shed yesterday’s melancholy and was back to his genial, superior self. “Oh, ho! Do I look like Jacob Marley to you? I’m certainly not the Ghost of Christmas Past. To tell you the truth, I was never much of a Dickens fan, myself.”
“Then what –?”
He chuckled. “Do you think this is all about you? Oh, I suppose it must be partially about you, or I’d be somewhere else. But all? Not even close.” Maynard wandered about my office, his eyes lingering on the bookcases. “I’m fairly sure I’ve figured it out. Which of these books are your favorites, Jason?”
Bile filled my throat. “My books have no bearing on this matter.”
He shrugged. “I suppose not.” His meandering took him to the window, and he gazed at the quad below. “I loved this place. In my early forties, I came to think of myself as a salamander.”
“As a slippery little amphibian, Maynard? How appropriate.”
“Well done, Jason, well done. No, I was thinking of the Middle Ages. The salamander was an alchemical creature, a being that lived in fire. I thought of living in a college campus as living in fire. So many minds sparking, recognizing the small choices and thoughts for the significant possibilities they actually are. It was one of the purest joys of my life, seeing it: energy, spark, fuel, air, the transition of one thing to another in a fabulous blaze.
“And more than I’d like, I’m responsible for letting those embers die. The salamanders left here are gasping for those last few flames.” Maynard stared through the clear glass. “I supported your candidacy, Jason. Did you know? You seemed like a man of vision to me.”
“Are you saying I’m not?”
“Yours is the vision of a CEO making profits for the stockholders rather than the vision of the alchemist changing lead into gold. It’s a pity, although maybe that’s a vision we need, too.”
I clenched my fist until joints crackled. “So you’re here to insult me? To tell me to throw everything away for some reactionary fairy-tale of pure education? I won’t have it!”
“You truly don’t listen, do you, Jason?” Maynard’s eyes glittered feverishly in the pale gold tilting through the windowpane. “I told you this isn’t about you.”
“Then what exactly are you doing here, taking up my time, invading my office?”
Maynard grinned. “Have you never heard of Purgatory, Jason?”
My spine fused solidly from seat to brain. “I am a Presbyterian.”
“And I was an Episcopalian. It makes no difference to what is.”
Maynard rocked forward, his gleaming eyes fixed on me. “That last time I met with you here – in life, I mean – I didn’t say everything I should have, and that was nothing new. For all the words I spoke in my life, there were so many things I should have said and didn’t. I should have pushed harder for Josh’s promotion. Oh, I had my excuses, and it wouldn’t have changed anything, but playing politics, dealing with you, banging my head against your office wall for nothing didn’t seem worth my trouble anymore. And now I don’t know, maybe I didn’t see everything as clearly as I thought. But I should have spoken. I could have lived better with myself.”
Heat surged up my neck, and I used every ounce of hard-won control to hold my face rigid. I would be ready for the fight.
But Maynard dismissed me with a blink and turned back to the window. The late afternoon sun glinted off his silvered hair. “Well. Regret is a fine thing, in its place, but it’s got to go sometime, too, doesn’t it? I’ve done what I’ve done, and . . . .”
He leveled his shoulders and turned to me. “Thank you, Jason. You’ve helped me a great deal. It’s been enjoyable, actually.”
“What? You’re not leaving? For good?”
He smiled. “I believe I am. After all, Spring Break is starting. I never stay on campus for Spring Break. I can stay for a bit longer, though, if you like.”
I dropped weakly into my chair. I didn’t know what to say. “What is that abominable smell?”
Maynard tilted his head back. “Camellias. Camellias from my Aunt Clemmie’s garden.” He walked toward his chair, as though he might sit, but he didn’t. “Where are you going from here, Jason?”
“I’m going to my house, of course, like I always do. I do have a plan, you know, though you seem completely uninterested in it.” But my voice sounded flat, and I was suddenly tired. I felt half-faded into the leather of my chair.
Maynard watched me keenly. “I’d recommend a vacation, Jason. You could go anywhere you wanted, you know. Within reason, that is. Best of luck to you, Jason.”
The quarter-hour bells sounded, and Maynard vibrated like water vapor above a hot road, then his shadow snapped away.
I locked my office and walked unsteadily toward the stairwell.
I think I missed him.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Sarah Huffman, Whitney McArthur, Jennifer Michael, and Michael Muth for reading early versions of “A Spring Break Carol.”
If you enjoyed this short story, please consider leaving a review.
To hear about future releases, sign up for my newsletter at https://benitasbooks.blogspot.com/
Watch also for my novel Telling Fortunes, the first book in the “Cedar Spring Psychic” series, coming soon.
Telling Fortunes
Psychic Cassie James can no longer use her talents to find missing women, but an ordinary desk job in her Tennessee hometown doesn’t solve her problems, either. The church-going cousin who raised her wants to save Cassie’s soul, and ten-year-old Nate wants her to replace the mother who abandoned him. Teen girls want her to read the future in their palms, and Ed McBee, her science-teacher neighbor, wants to discredit her – or does he want to date her?
Rumors of romance between the psychic and the science teacher create a local scandal that may cost their jobs and uncover facts better left hidden. The truth about Cassie’s power threatens her new life, and old family secrets endanger those she loves. How does a psychic who reads the future deal with the sins of the past?
A Spring Break Carol: A Short Ghost Story Page 6
