“The young call it ‘friends with benefits.’”
He smiled at that. “I do sleep better when you’re beside me.”
“It was just the one time, and we can’t be doing that again, Ash.”
He rested his hand on top of mine and squeezed it to reassure me. “I’m your friend, Dart, but I want to be more.”
“Maybe you should start dating again, Ash. Find someone you like who doesn’t remind you of Jennifer.”
He gave me that deep blue glance that broke my heart. This time I squeezed his hand. “I care about you, you know I do, but I want someone to love me for myself, and you’re in love with your wife. You always will be.”
“Jennifer has a special place in my heart but she’s gone, and I’m not. When I’m with you I’m not so sad, and with your health issues you need me, Dart. We need each other.”
I didn’t want to be desired because of my health issues. “Are you here this weekend? Maybe we can talk then.”
When he drew his hand away, I was surprised. “I can’t make that work, as much as I want to. Roger,” and I knew he meant NCU’s president, “put together an impromptu trip to California to meet with Stanford regarding the MOOC collaboration. We’ve got an opportunity to engage in more collaborative educational efforts with their university system than the class you’ve been doing. I don’t know the details, but he’s asked several deans to drop everything and go. I wanted to stay here, but he thinks it’s necessary I travel because this college has been so successful with the initial course. I couldn’t leave without seeing you again, though. I want to move beyond the babysitter relationship the faculty thought I needed.”
“I think we got past that the night we slept together.”
He didn’t understand, but when his administrative assistant opened the door and said the president was on line one, I took my reprieve. I told Ash I’d talk with him when he got back from California. I would tell him then that I wanted to be loved for myself, not because my health issues made him pity me. I wasn’t as alone in the world as he thought, and he didn’t have to take care of me because I had taken care of him when he plunged into grief after Jennifer’s death.
I buried my thoughts about Ash in work and put together the MOOC lecture for the following Monday. Two hours later, I was ready for a break. That meant walking down and up four flights of stairs, twice. The hallway on the third floor was quiet, except for the squeak of my shoes on the high-gloss floor. It looked smooth and shiny, and I almost bent down to touch it, thinking the surface would feel good, smooth and liquid against my fingertips as if I had dipped them in a lake.
Would it ripple? Would it be as cool as the water in the water fountain? What would that feel like if I let the water splash against my fingertips? Then reason caught up to my strange musings. The floor was dirty and who knew how many students had used the fountain for something other than getting a drink. Striding by a colleague’s open doorway, I waved in passing, but the response back was a half salute minus the smile.
Now that was odd. Paula Schafer hadn’t invited me to stop and chat. In fact, she’d ducked her head as I went by, pretending to be focused on reading a paper, maybe something on depression, which was her research area. Despite the gloomy research, Paula was the friendliest professor we had on staff.
Another open office door. Mark Stevens also at his desk. Mark was an assistant professor who would be entering his third year at NCU when classes began next fall. The third year was when the administration would decide whether to let the assistant prof go or stay and move further into the uncomfortable thorns of expectations regarding promotion and tenure. I put a little English on the finger spin this time when I waved, but the result was the same, that return half wave and a no smile before breaking eye contact.
The signs were clear, don’t come in.
What was going on? These professors weren’t that busy. Hendrix?
She’d been talking to more people than just Lea. I descended the first flight of steps to the second floor. Ignoring her poison had been a bad tactical decision. People always believed the worst of others as well as themselves because the brain had a built-in negativity bias. Ash had told me long ago that the best way to handle Hendrix was to let him deal with her, but he’d been gone a lot lately, he was leaving again soon, and that left me vulnerable to her rumor and innuendo.
Lea’s door on the second floor was half open. On impulse, I knocked and pushed the door open with a smile. Seated behind her desk, Lea gave me a startled glance that was not the greeting I’d expected. She didn’t look happy to see me.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Sommers.” She straightened her shoulders. Blond braids this morning tumbled about her face—she’d changed her hair, again. Those braids made her green eyes pop, and I clenched my fists against the itch to trace the patterns in those fat braids of glossy hair. That urge to straighten out the corkscrews was almost overpowering because I had to feel them, had to touch them.
To quell the impulse, I grabbed for the armrest of the wooden chair that sat in front of her desk, folded my tingling fingers around the hard substantial wooden structure, and almost sighed in relief as the urgency lessened.
“What’s going on? I walk by colleagues’ offices, and they duck their heads and pretend to be busy. You don’t seem that happy to see me either.”
“I’ve been warned again to keep my distance from you, Dr. Sommers.” She looked scared, and she wouldn’t look at me. Her eyes were focused beyond my left shoulder, on something or someone out in the hall.
“By whom?” I sat on the edge of my chair, my hands clasped together in my lap because the itch had become a demand to touch her hair, and maybe that’s why I missed what she was trying to tell me.
“One person thinks it’s time for you to retire.”
“Retire?” I tried to get her to laugh that off, but she never smiled or blinked or showed any compassion for my confusion.
“Older professors like yourself who delay retirement hamper our enrollments, destabilizing cutting-edge research, and until you retire, nothing will change.”
That stung. My reputation was stellar. “No one on this faculty is doing what I’m doing.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but you do have to admit that older professors who hang on past their prime prevent the administration from hiring younger professionals.” Again, her gaze went to the hall.
“That’s a leap in logic. You’re equating youth with better teaching, better research, better everything.”
“Not at all. It’s a simple matter of making way for the next generation.”
“My students don’t think so.”
“Your students have grandparents your age. Some professors tell me the students tolerate you.”
Once retired, old professors were forgotten seconds after they stepped away from the building. That was a jolt to those of us used to thinking ourselves irreplaceable. For the lucky ones—myself included I hoped—the work lived on, but unless I could launch this new revised version of TRI that focused on poverty, even that might be gone.
“You’re resentful that older professors are hanging onto their jobs?” I couldn’t believe this conversation was happening. And she kept looking at the doorway, and I didn’t understand that either.
“Jobs are scarce in academe, and it’s my turn. You’ve had yours.”
Anger had me standing, unable to sit any longer. Lea also stood, meeting my gaze without blinking, but she nodded, a slight nod only I could see, toward the open doorway behind me.
Something wrong here.
She wants what you have.
No, something else going on.
She’ll take what she wants and she wants what you have.
Another slight nod toward the door.
“Hendrix,” I whispered.
“The students feel sorry for you,” Lea said, her focus on me, willing me to understand.
Hendrix is older than I am.
Don’t believe this, said that other r
ational voice that knew Lea was on my side.
Don’t you dare criticize me.
The ferocity of the fight inside my mind left me confused. I didn’t know which voice spoke the truth.
“My teaching evaluations are excellent.” I put both of my hands on her desk and leaned closer to make my point. “The students don’t think I’m obsolete.”
“They feel sorry for you.” Her eyes again went to the doorway.
She was wrong. The students didn’t feel sorry for me. “Lea, you and I are writing a chapter together. Every week in class, you’re behind that camera, and I couldn’t teach that MOOC without you. And as young as you are, there’s gray in your hair as well.”
Her hand went up to a fat, glossy braid and my attention centered there on the pattern she’d revealed. The conflicting conversation in my head, the strain of talking about one thing without forgetting the other deeper message, loosened the control I had on my compulsions and, without my being aware I was touching her, guiding her fingers to the tantalizing pattern, tracing the silkiness of her hair, and following the single strand of gray hair in one blond plait.
Lea’s eyes went wide. Her hand pushed mine away.
“What are you doing?” Hendrix asked from the doorway.
Why did you do that, what were you thinking?
“She saw us, Dr. Sommers,” Lea whispered. Her eyes were on the open doorway, but when I turned around to look, no one was there. Hendrix was gone, straight to Ash’s office was my best guess.
“Hendrix?”
Lea nodded. “She was there all along. I tried to warn you.”
I stepped away from her, away from the temptation to touch her hair again.
“You should leave, because if you don’t, she’ll make my life hell.”
“Of course.” She was right. Hendrix could run her off like she ran Rosa off, like she was trying to run me off.
Beautiful patterns.
Tell her you’re sorry, that you couldn’t help yourself.
Touch her hair.
Protect her from Hendrix.
Leave.
I made myself listen to the rational voice and left Lea’s office. Lea stood still, her hand to her hair and that single, glossy, satiny strand of beautiful gray I’d inappropriately touched.
TEN
HENDRIX’S EMAIL about the incident crossed my desk within the half hour. She hadn’t wasted any time reporting the incident.
From: Kathleen Hendrix, PhD
Sent: Monday, 4:15 p.m.
To: Dart Sommers, Lea Wilson
Subject: Sexual Harassment
Your behavior is inexcusable, Dr. Sommers. Had you treated me with the disrespect you showed Dr. Wilson, I would have called the police and had them arrest you.
Once again, you are creating a hostile environment for junior faculty. This time, though, I will not stand by. I know what you are, and I will not let you destroy another young woman’s promising career.
I suggested Dr. Wilson file a grievance and document this incident as sexual harassment. Dr. Wilson chose not to follow my advice. While I applaud her restraint and good will, I know she is afraid of you and feels threatened by you, and you are undeserving of any courtesy from her.
Kathleen Hendrix, PhD
I hit reply all and responded.
From: Dart Sommers
Sent: Monday, 5:00 p.m.
To: Lea Wilson, Kathleen Hendrix
Subject: RE: Sexual Harassment Misunderstanding
Dr. Wilson accepted my apology for invading her personal space. If my behavior was perceived as sexual harassment, Dr. Wilson did not share that insight with me. And I am troubled that you feel she intimated as much to you. Perhaps, in response to your misunderstanding of what transpired between Dr. Wilson and myself, we should meet to discuss these accusations in person.
I look forward to the conversation at a place and time of your choosing.
Kindly,
Dart
From: Kathleen Hendrix
Sent: Monday, 5:15 p.m.
To: Lea Wilson, Dart Sommers,
Subject: RE: Sexual Harassment Misunderstanding HA!
You and I do not need to meet, because I have no misunderstanding of what transpired between you and Dr. Wilson. Such behavior, sad though true, is typical in individuals who do not respect diversity.
Kathleen Hendrix, PhD
From: Dart Sommers
Sent: Monday, 5:30 p.m.
To: Lea Wilson, Kathleen Hendrix
Subject: Zero Tolerance
Are you calling me a racist?
Dart Sommers
From: Jarvis Asher Wright, PhD, Dean of Psychology
Sent: Monday, 5:45 p.m.
To: Dart Sommers, Kathleen Hendrix
CC: Lea Wilson
Subject: Meeting requested
Dr. Sommers and Dr. Hendrix,
Please be in my office tomorrow morning at 9:30 to discuss what has transpired.
I have cleared my calendar to accommodate you both. I have not invited Dr. Wilson to this meeting because she has responded to me by email and indicated her preference to not to be involved in the disagreement between the two of you.
Sincerely,
Dean Wright
I hit reply all and typed I look forward to the confrontation. Then I read and reread, changed “confrontation” to “meeting,” read and reread, and then deleted everything. I typed three words I’ll be there.
Lea met me in my office early the next morning before my meeting with Ash and Hendrix. When she came in, I glanced up, said, “Close the door behind you,” and went back to pondering how I could protect her in the upcoming meeting.
Since you were stupid enough to drag her into the mess.
I hadn’t meant to.
When Lea put the file folder she’d brought with her on top of my desk, she said, “Dr. Hendrix is a liar.” She pushed the folder toward me, and my eyes went there, hoping it contained the evidence I needed, and yet, paradoxically, dismayed that she’d validated Hendrix’s stupidity.
“I printed the documents on my home computer, as you requested. I did not use any of the equipment here at the college.”
“That’s good.”
Her eyes grew wide as she caught the nervousness in my voice.
“She’s dangerous, Lea.”
With a swirl of black skirt, Lea sat down in the chair opposite my desk and crossed her legs, combat boots without socks on her feet, a bomber jacket over her skimpy T-shirt as she waited for me to open the folder.
“Only three?” My surprise made her stiffen. I’d asked that she check on sixteen articles because I suspected that Hendrix had falsified those publications. Just enough to make a difference but scattered across forty years of a career, not enough to draw unwarranted attention.
“Those three are fine. It took some digging but I found those to be as she noted them on the vita. The other thirteen articles you asked me to find didn’t have her name on them, so I put them in this folder.” She dug into her briefcase and brought out a very thick folder. “These are all the articles that didn’t have her name listed on the original publication.” She put the file on my desk. “But she has put her name on those same articles when she listed them in her vita.”
She’s a year from retirement.
Another foray into the briefcase and, this time, Lea withdrew Hendrix’s vita, almost eighty pages in length.
“She’s been lying for a long time, Dr. Sommers.” Lea shoved the vita, opened to the publication pages, across the desk. The red ink that circled Hendrix’s name on thirteen of those listed pubs matched the thirteen publications without Hendrix’s name in the folder. “Looks like she made associate professor through her own efforts, but she added her name as last author to one article, a very minor pub, but it counted, right before she went up for full, and she included the others over the next twenty or so years.
“She’s been at NCU her entire career, and once she reached full, it appears no one in adm
inistration checked to see if she was telling the truth,” Lea said. “We can’t let her get away with this.”
I looked up from the vita and across the desk at her. “I promise you, I will not drop my investigation or ignore the results, but I want you to forget what I had you do. I should never have involved you.”
“How could she do this?”
I reached across the desk and took her hand.
She raised startled eyes to mine. “I know. Professors aren’t supposed to touch postdocs, but I need you to listen to me.” I continued to hold her hand in both of mine. “Don’t talk to anyone about this.” She started to protest, but I gripped her hand tighter, and she slumped in defeat. “I want you to forget that we talked. Promise me?”
“She was listening outside my door yesterday, Dart. That’s why I pretended to be mean to you. Everything I said, that’s what the students are telling me about her. They want her gone. Lies like this”—she indicated the vita—“hurt the university.”
“Yes, they do, which is why administration may not act on the evidence, assuming there is evidence.”
“But of course there is. I found it.” She tapped the papers on my desk.
“No,” I told her, “you didn’t find it. I did, and it may be nothing. There are places that research can hide, and I need to be certain of the evidence before I act. You don’t know anything about Dr. Hendrix’s publications. Rumors will start flying once I take this to the dean, and that will make Hendrix angrier.”
“But I want to help.”
“I won’t let her hurt you.”
And if what I had in mind worked, Hendrix would be gone from NCUW long before Lea needed her support for securing the assistant professor position. I sat there trying to figure out what I should do, how I should proceed. If I turned Hendrix in, the administration wouldn’t be happy. Ash would be furious, and he was already mad at me. I released Lea’s hand and pushed myself away from the desk a bit. Then I spun the chair around to look out the window and considered the impossible, not using the evidence I had to bring Hendrix down. I shouldn’t be thinking like this, but if my mental health issues grew worse, I wouldn’t have the stamina to push The Raindrop Institute where it needed to go.
Bring the Rain Page 14
