Bring the Rain

by JoAnn Franklin

  “If you and I are going to work together, we have to trust each other and look out for one another. I can’t have a spy reporting back to the dean or to my colleagues.”

  “I won’t tell anyone”—she looked up at me—“what happened this morning. Or that the Sentinel drove you to work.”

  I smiled. “The unconscious drives everyone to work. No one has a clue.”

  “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  More than she realized.

  Upstairs in my office, I set Brown Bear on top of the small round table I’d brought back with me from the farm. My father had made it, and I’d placed the table atop the antique silk Persian rug with muted threads of turquoise, aqua, and Santorini blue because those colors brought out the warmth of the cherrywood. I shouldn’t have bought such an expensive rug because at the time I bought that rug in a shop in Turkey, I’d been an impoverished graduate student, at age forty-three, divorced, alone, without any spare cash.

  Sometimes, like now, as I lost myself in the pattern of repetitive symbols and colors, I couldn’t believe how naive and innocent I’d once been about higher education. Now I knew academics for what they were. When they patted you on the back, they were looking for a soft place to slide in the knife. But no, that was too caustic. Not everyone here was like Kathleen Hendrix.

  Sitting down on one of the small chairs around the table, I pulled Brown Bear onto my lap. Kicking my shoes off, I relaxed as the plushness of the rug embraced my toes and the softness of fur against my fingertips soothed me, as Brown Bear always did.

  Across the expanse of my desk, I looked out the window that framed the expansive sky. This had been a day for inconsistencies, I thought, as my fingers found comfort in Brown Bear’s fur. I couldn’t see the ocean from my third-floor window, but I knew the water was just a short distance away. Odd that something so powerful existed without evidence of its presence.

  Like the Sentinel.

  I did have a panoramic view of the roof of the library, which was located in the center of the campus. My writing cubicle was at the library. I should walk over and complete that article on how internships within the workplace don’t work all that well despite the prominent belief that they do. Plus, I still had to do some research on conscientiousness and poverty. Then there was the research for the chapter Lea and I were writing.

  Patterns shifted in my vision as I stared at the library. NCUW had renovated the place last year to include a cafe, snack bar, and lounge areas amidst the plethora of computers and stacks of books, both new and obsolete. I was disturbed by the new trend, although I couldn’t articulate why eating while researching in a library didn’t seem right.

  The sky looked as if it might rain, which meant I’d get wet if I went outside, so I got up, retrieved a bottle of water from my small refrigerator that the dean didn’t know about, and sat back down at the desk. I didn’t want to talk to colleagues about the administration or editors about publications or folks who wanted me to speak about Raindrop . . . which left students.

  Looking at all that brick and mortar, I couldn’t fathom how something so permanent could be replaced by online learning. My father had had the same repugnance about no-till farming. He’d been the last holdout in Hawthorne County against what he called newfangled nonsense.

  Beliefs again. No matter the erosion studies that indicated less topsoil was lost or the improved yield results with no-till, Dad had been a staunch defender of fall and spring plowing. Thinking about the amount of topsoil we’d lost from the Illinois farm because of his stubbornness made me nauseous.

  Exposure to knowledge was supposed to produce as much growth as sunlight and rain, not the opposite. I was lost in thought, and, before I noted the time, and instead of what I thought had been minutes, an hour, two had gone by.

  This wouldn’t do.

  I’d always been conscientious about my work. Several dissertations awaited my input, all of them in different phases, but I didn’t have the energy for that tedious pursuit. At a press of the power button, the computer revved up, just like a car engine would, and the screen went blue, then black, and then two silhouettes appeared. Facing one another across a chasm of white space, the caption between them read: “Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became . . . will meet the person you could have become.” My productivity as a professor had skyrocketed once I’d put that screen saver on my computer.

  The Sentinel believed that silhouette watched me. That made him, and thus me, productive. Lea had escaped Cabrini–Green because the eyes that watched her as she grew up were nurturing of the woman she would become. As a result, at twenty-eight, she was a post doc student with an opportunity to become an assistant professor at a prestigious university.

  On the other hand, Ellen’s church family watched for evil and, when they found it, threw verbal stones. The result of their watchfulness was a woman who wasn’t sure she should live.

  Public shaming, humiliation, and condemnation break our will. We’re hardwired to care about what others think of us. When my research on insight and civilization collapse stalled because of the usual emotional persuasions—ridicule, shame, and fear—passion for others’ well-being kept me at my quest. I’m not a coward trapped by emotion. I don’t stumble away from trouble.

  Conscientiousness—more and more, I was beginning to think something was there.

  My fingers tapped the keyboard. Inside my mind, the roiling, conflicting emotional storm I’d experienced that morning threatened to capture me once again.

  Pay attention.

  I straightened in my chair. My first idea, that insight could be used to think through complex messy problems, the idea that had started The Raindrop Institute, seemed puny when placed in conflict with this force within me that I couldn’t see or hear. My second idea for TRI’s rejuvenation, that conscientiousness could be the key that unraveled poverty, had the power to transform TRI, but conscientiousness no longer worked for me. A silent, powerful, deep, abiding fury resided within my brain. It threatened everything I thought I was. Like the gentle rustle of leaves we don’t hear when we walk in the woods, we aren’t aware of our inner turmoil.

  Living all these years with the Sentinel made me think of him as something I could control or relinquish control to. Not so. The Sentinel isn’t a gentle giant. He’s a silent significant force, and he hadn’t given me any choice this morning in the classroom or that weekend on the ladder.

  System 2 had taken all day to process that data, and I still didn’t want to face the conclusion. I had underestimated—no, that word is too insipid—I had never fathomed the power residing within me.

  I’d been hijacked—my body moved without my permission because the Sentinel believed me to be in danger when I wasn’t. My mind raced through the facts in an effort to bring my fear under control. My fingers trembled, and my core went cold.

  What other shouts from my Sentinel had I never heard but acted upon?

  SIX

  A KNOCK ON THE DOOR. Before I called out “come in,” I had the presence of mind to open a desk drawer and shove Brown Bear inside.

  Ash opened and then closed the door behind himself. That was the first indication I had that something was wrong. He never visited the third floor. He didn’t believe in management by walking around. I liked the pin-striped suit. His broad shoulders made the suit jacket fall just right.

  How many stripes were there in the fabric between his lapel and shoulder seam? Too many not to count, but I resisted and, this time, won.

  “I thought you had left, Ash.” That he hadn’t was the second indication something was wrong. Something, or someone—and I had a sneaking suspicion it was me—had kept him on campus.

  “I leave tonight.” He ran his hand through his thick gray hair. “Dr. Hendrix was in my office just now, Dart. She’s concerned you’ll drive Lea Wilson away like you did Rosa, and we’ll lose another professor of color.”

  “Rosa didn�
�t leave because of me. If Hendrix has told you that Lea feels threatened, she’s wrong about her also. Lea has no intention of leaving. She likes working here.”

  He didn’t believe my denial. I could tell by the stern set of his lips that, despite everything we’d come to be to one another, he wasn’t sure who was lying, Hendrix or me.

  “Rosa Gonzales went to Harvard, Ash.” He didn’t look impressed. Everyone else had been impressed with Rosa’s new position, but not Ash.

  “Kathleen thinks she would have been happy to stay here except for your harassment.”

  “Much as I love NCUW, if Harvard called me up today, and said I had a job waiting for me, I’d leave. So would Hendrix. I was on sabbatical that semester Rosa was here. I hardly knew her at the time, though I’ve come to know her well since, but you’ve heard the rumors. I know you have.” He looked pained. He’d heard the rumors and he ignored them, just as he was ignoring me. Easier and less political hassle to blame me than Hendrix, but I didn’t let that stop me from trying to convince him. “Hendrix used Rosa to make herself look good. They wrote two research papers together. Rosa did all the work, and Hendrix took the credit because her name came first.”

  “You don’t know that’s true.”

  “I looked up both of those articles.” And in the process found other discrepancies I would have to investigate further, but I couldn’t mention that. Not now. “Hendrix’s name is first on both publications,” I said.

  He looked surprised.

  “Did you check out the fact that I was on sabbatical when Rosa was here?”

  He shook his head.

  “Hendrix has a reputation for complaining about her colleagues, did you take that into consideration?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “She’s in your office talking about the rest of us more than any other professor you have on staff.”

  He didn’t bother answering that one, and he didn’t need to because we both know I was right.

  “Hendrix’s moral intuitions weigh more to her decision-making than factual accuracy. They always have, Ash. She’s a master at the framing effect.”

  He frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Framing. A common psychological trap. First, she anchored your impression of me five years ago when I went up for promotion and tenure by advising you that I didn’t deserve the honor. I’ve been fighting that initial impression she made on you since day one of our professional relationship. Then she built on that pernicious mental phenomenon by framing the problem of why Rosa left around racial discrimination, when the facts and the evidence indicate that’s not why Rosa left. I’m not a racist and Rosa didn’t feel discriminated against.”

  “I supported you for full professorship.”

  Only because I fought back. “The provost insisted.”

  He looked wounded. “You’re ignoring all sorts of evidence that indicates I think highly of you.”

  “Then why are you in my office chastising me about Hendrix’s accusations when they have no basis in fact?”

  “I don’t want her in my office complaining about you again.”

  What did that mean? He didn’t want to be bothered.

  “Whether Hendrix comes into your office is her choice, not mine.” I didn’t appreciate him treating me as if I were to blame. I’d brought more prestige and honor to this college than any other professor, but he always took someone else’s opinion about me.

  “Let me finish,” I said as he started to interrupt. “She knows you’re busy, she comes to you, complains, and you, being you, address the complaint without thinking it through. Action is a great management tool, but she’s using you because you’re too busy to question what her motive is. You yank the accused into your office and chew them out.”

  “What would you have me do?” he asked in that cold voice I heard only when he realized he’d acted hastily.

  “I want you to ask me if I bullied and chased Rosa away because of the color of her skin.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “No.”

  “So, what does that prove? It’s your word against Kathleen’s.”

  “Now I want you to ask me if I’ve had any further interactions with Rosa since she’s left NCUW.”

  Awareness and embarrassment and that oh crap look sent spots of color high on his cheeks.

  “I’ll need proof.”

  I went to my bookshelf, grabbed several journals from my published works shelves, and threw them down on the desk in front of him. Flipping one after the other open, the headlines and the authorship in black and white made quite a statement.

  “Rosa and I have written together, a series of articles for businesses on the hidden traps of decision-making. By the way, in case you’re wondering, this conversation between you and me has tapped all of them—the anchoring trap, the status-quo trap—all of them. You should read some of our work. It’s getting international acclaim, and you’ll notice,” I tapped one of the articles I’d opened and then another, “that Rosa and I alternate first authorship between those articles. We threw a coin for the first article and then alternated our names on subsequent publications.”

  And if I get the Salzburg gig, Rosa will be the first colleague I call.

  “So what’s with Lea?”

  I threw my arms wide. “You’re ignoring everything I said.”

  “Kathleen is delusional about Rosa and you. You’ve made that clear. We’ve laid Rosa to rest. She’s your best friend.”

  “She’s a wonderful colleague. I wish she were still here and Hendrix had left.”

  “What about Lea?”

  I drew a deep breath. “She’s scared to death. She doesn’t like Hendrix, doesn’t trust her, and she feels vulnerable because Kathleen has put her in the middle between the two of us.”

  “What are you going to do about that?”

  “Continue to mentor Lea and protect her as best I can. I asked Lea to write with me. Hendrix also asked her to write. Lea doesn’t have to choose, she can write two chapters, but my advice to her was to write with me. I can take her farther than Hendrix.”

  “Does Kathleen know about Rosa?” He gestured toward the journals.

  “Everyone who reads my work knows I write with Rosa. Lea knew. I’m why Lea came here. I courted Lea, brought her here, hired her, and I’m mentoring her to the best of my ability. This university has one of the most racially sensitive environments I know. We use racial preferences to admit minority students. You tell me that Lea has been in your office complaining about encountering hate, and I’ll resign. Has she?”

  He shook his head. “Just watch yourself, Dart.”

  Threat? Or did he care?

  “I don’t want you hurt,” he said, and the stiffness went out of his shoulders. “You should stay away from Kathleen. She has no filter where you are concerned. All this stress will aggravate your health issues.”

  “I don’t have health issues, Ash. I’m just tired and overworked, and I have this dean who won’t let any of us rest.”

  He didn’t return my smile, but instead sat down at the table I used for student conferences and beckoned me to join him.

  Now what? Had he seen me counting the stripes in his suit jacket? I couldn’t help myself.

  I pushed the pattern compulsion from my mind, stood up, and went to him with a brief touch to his shoulder. “I know you’re doing your job, and addressing complaints is what makes you a strong administrator. But Ash, Hendrix is the only one on staff who’s complaining about me.” He nodded as I pulled out a chair from the table. “And Hendrix is the only one who’s complained to you about Lea and me, isn’t she?” He nodded again. “Doesn’t that make you wonder about her perspective, because if there was something to her story, you would have had others in your office, especially the minority professors. And they haven’t been in your office, have they, Ash?” He shook his head as I sat down beside him.

  Up close, the compulsion to count the stripes overwh
elmed me.

  “Kathleen said you had that scruffy brown bear with you. Where is he?”

  “In the desk drawer.”

  He looked so sad, I felt bad, but that couldn’t be on my account. In this relationship, I took care of Ash, not the other way around, and I liked it that way. It couldn’t change. I wouldn’t let it change.

  Now who’s falling into a psychological trap?

  “I’ve seen you carrying him myself.” He drew a deep breath and I sensed his nervousness and determination. “Dr. McCloud is the physician who referred Jennifer to a specialist. I want you to see him.”

  “I don’t need to see a doctor. This is just stress, and overwork. That’s all it is.”

  “You were counting the stripes in my suit coat, weren’t you? Jennifer used to do that.”

  “It was nothing, a momentary thing. Nothing to worry about, Ash. See, I’m over it,” I said, and wrenched my eyes from the silver threads that fascinated me to stare into his eyes so that he had the proof he needed.

  “Then one day Jennifer stopped counting threads and asked if I was married.”

  I didn’t know why she’d ask that, until after a bit, I did. Ash suspected I had what his wife had died from, frontotemporal dementia. Talk about falling into confirmation bias. That’s when I looked away from that possibility and focused on something else, anything else.

  “I won’t go see Jennifer’s doctor.”

  I couldn’t face what I feared, not this time.

  He knew my resolve because he stood up when I shook my head. I turned away hoping—no, dreading—that he would leave me alone, give up on me since his ploy hadn’t worked, and then he turned back. Cupping my chin with his hand, that gentle strong hand, he lifted my face to his.

  Relief rushed through me. I looked into his eyes and then closed my own at what I saw there. Those blue eyes looked sad, defeated, and scared. The brief touch of his lips on mine, the gentleness of that caress, I didn’t know what to do but endure and savor what I couldn’t have.

  That brief touch ended all too soon. “I made an appointment for you at nine in the morning. I’d go with you, but I have to leave for China. I’m trusting that you’ll be there, Dart.”