“Tell it! Tell it!”
Scott:
“So I’m taking time this morning to ask for reports. This may be the last time you get to address your peers. So I need volunteers from the new administration. People who will get up here and do an oral status report on your area.”
Hands went up. Tom Scott gestured:
“Mary Alexander!”
“I’m here!”
“Come on up to the podium!”
A tall, slender, dark-haired woman strode to the speaker’s stand and took the microphone.
“I’m Dr. Mary Alexander. Some of you know me, some don’t. I have my Ph.D. from Yale, and I teach two sections of remedial English here. At our last meeting, I assumed the position of Assistant Vice Chancellor for Internal Growth and Development. I wish to inform you all that, as far as I can tell from research I did yesterday afternoon and this morning, we are growing and developing internally at a very nice pace.”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
“Up with Internal Growth and Development!”
It was now Mary Alexander’s turn to call for quiet, which she ultimately got.
“I can only say though that there is indeed room for improvement.”
“Sure there is!”
“Huzzah for improvement!”
“I can tell you now without fear of being gainsaid, that we have, in my expert administrative opinion, the possibility to attain and maintain not only a healthy state of internal growth and development, but an admirable and consistent level of external growth and development!”
Wild cheering at this.
“Yes! Yes! External growth forever!”
To which, Mary Alexander, still appealing for quiet, said over the clamor:
“There is, as far as I can tell, only one major impediment standing in our way. And that is, the size of the Office of Internal Growth and Development is, at present, too limited. We have only a Chancellor for Internal Growth and Development, a Vice Chancellor for Internal Growth and Development, and my own position, and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Internal Growth and Development. To these few people, as well, of course, as the eight administrative assistants assigned to work with us, fall the entire burden of growing and developing internally. Without additional help, growing externally must remain a—well, a mere pipe dream.”
“Nooo!”
“Down with the pipe dream! Bring in more people!”
“I am thus officially submitting, as of this afternoon, if by that time, I am still Assistant Vice Chancellor for Internal Growth and Development, a proposal calling for the creation of a new official: Associate Assistant Vice Chancellor for Internal Growth and Development!”
“Yes!”
“This new associate will associate with me, as I assist the vice chancellor, who assists, of course, the chancellor. As we grow, and as we develop. Not only internally, but externally.”
Tom Scott, applauding, as was everyone else in the gym, took the microphone from her and announced:
“An extremely exciting proposal, Mary! The thought that this great university may someday begin to grow externally as well as internally…”
Mary corrected him:
“Grow and develop, Tom.”
“Sorry, grow and develop both internally and externally—this boggles the mind. Mary, are there any other universities in the county that are actually doing this currently, growing and developing both internally and externally?”
She took the microphone back and said into it:
“Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.”
He took it back.
“What a wonderful group to join!”
“You may know, Tom, that a good many people in Mississippi already refer to Ellerton University as the Harvard of the South.”
“I had heard that, Mary. Do you know if many people in Boston refer to Harvard as the Ellerton University of the North?”
“I’m not currently aware of that, Tom. But it’s certainly one of the things we shall have to look into, if we are to grow and develop both internally and externally, as our potential newly expanded office seeks to help us do!”
“Wonderful! And now, adjuncts, I suggest that we not make Mary wait. Let’s vote right now! All in favor of creating the new administrative position of Associate Assistant Vice Chancellor of Growth and Development say aye!”
Raucous response:
Aye!
Aye!
Damned right! Aye it is!
And finally, Tom Scott:
“The ayes have it; the office is created. The job pays ten dollars a year. Who wants it?”
“I do!”
“No, I do!”
“Pick me! Pick me!”
Scott:
“Eenie meenie, mynie moe—You!”
“Yes!”
“What’s your name?”
“William Alexander!”
“What’s your background, Bill?”
“Chemical engineering, Ph.D. from MIT.”
“And what do you teach here?”
“Remedial math, one section, hope to get a second one in the spring.”
“Of course you do! What do you know about internal and external growth and development, Bill?”
“My wife is pregnant. There’s a lot of internal development now, but we hope it will become mostly external development.”
“You’ve got the job!”
“Thank you! Thank you all!”
“Great. And now: we’re going to hear from a few more administrators. I know I can count on reports from the Assistant Vice President for Financial Services, the Assistant Vice President for Administrative Services, the Director of Operational Review, the Associate Vice-Director for Operational and Contractual Services, the Assistant Vice President for Financial Services—and many others. We’d like to hear from all nine hundred or so of you, of course, but time constrains us. What we do want to do now is invite a special person to the podium. Before this person comes down, I’d like to say that all of us hope President Herndon’s appointments remain valid. But if they don’t, there is a chance that, by the end of the day, we will move from being aristocrats—real, full-time professors at the university—to fools, adjuncts who scurry around like rats, trying to cobble together livings in academia’s alleyways and sewers.”
“All right then!”
“Up the rats!’
“If that happens, there’s one person we’ve only recently met, that we want to invite to join our ranks. We want to make her an official adjunct. Because we’d be happy to have her as one of us. And so I invite to the podium—Ms. Nina Bannister!”
Shocked, she sat for a time.
Then she found herself at the podium.
Along with Tyra, who was holding out her arms and offering her something.
What was it?
Then she realized.
“We all wanted you to have this,” said Tyra, “in honor of Nick’s and so you’ll always be an adjunct and remember us part-timers.”
She reached out for it.
“Thank you so much! Thank you so much!”
“You have to read the note, too.”
She clutched it to her.
It was furry and about a foot in circumference.
It was a green frog.
She read the note:
“If I have to show you this one more time…”
And she was an adjunct.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE
She loved her frog, knew that it could co-exist with Furl, and resolved never to ask it to do anything further. She also loved the adjuncts, who, once they listened to two or three sham reports from sham administrators, really did get on about the business of organizing themselves into a political union of sort, with ties to other such national organizations, and with even the possibility of striking, should the need arise.
She was torn out of the business of academic power politics by the buzzing of her cell phone, which she flipped open, and into whic
h she said quietly:
“This is Nina Bannister.”
A pause. She could hear the sound of breathing at the other end of the line.
“I said, this is Nina Bannister.”
The husky rasp of a relatively deep female voice:
“I’m—I hate to bother you. I wasn’t certain that I had the right to call.”
“I’m sorry, who’s…”
“This is Barbara Richardson.”
It was Nina’s turn to hesitate.
Probably because she knew nothing to say.
The woman at the other end, though, did have something to say:
“I wonder if we could possibly talk.”
Nina surprised herself somewhat by answering:
“Yes, if you want.”
Why should she talk to this woman, who had lied in public and helped to create the circumstances which now enfolded Rick like a moccasin?
Why?
But Nina did not understand her own motivations at times, and here she was saying:
“Where would you like to meet?”
“Could you come to my hotel? It’s the Forest View, right downtown.”
“Yes, I could do that.”
“I’ll have them send a car if you wish.”
“No. I’m at the old gym. It’s no more than half a mile from downtown and it’s a pleasant enough afternoon. I can walk.”
“All right. I’ll see you soon then.”
And Nina flipped the cell phone closed.
The Forest View was the city’s oldest hotel, and in many ways the only establishment in a collection of Ramadas and Holidays that deserved to be described as in any way elegant. Its dark mahogany and mohair interior made one wince upon leaving the bright Mississippi mid-day, and Nina enjoyed the feeling of sinking into the carpet as she crossed to the reception desk.
The clerk smiled at her.
“Checking in, ma’am?”
“No, I’m expected. Richardson.”
“Ah. That would be room 259.”
“Thank you.”
She ascended the stairs, turned right as the small sign instructed her to do, and in another minute was knocking at the door.
“It’s open.”
She pushed it and entered what was clearly a suite.
Tobacco smoke hung in the air, filtered gray and swirling in light that poured through a large picture window.
Barbara Richardson, from whose cigarette the smoke was emanating, turned from the window and faced her.
“Thank you for coming, Nina.”
“It’s all right.”
The red brick buildings of the university lay spread behind and below the window. Barbara Richardson, dressed in a brick-colored business suit, seemed a part of the campus as she gestured toward the sofa.
“Please sit down.”
“Thank you.”
“I hope you don’t object to the smoke.”
“No. It’s all right.”
“I can call down if you’d like something to drink.”
“I’m fine.”
In a few seconds, the two women were seated, Nina on the sofa, Barbara Richardson on a brown leather chair. A glass-topped coffee table sat between them.
“I hardly know how to begin this. But when one thinks of it, there is just one way. I have to apologize and hope you will accept it.”
Somehow words did not come for a second or so, and when they did, they seemed awkward.
Finally:
“Exactly what are you apologizing for?”
Although she knew very well.
But Barbara Richardson played gamely along.
“The account of yesterday’s board meeting that I gave to the press last night was inaccurate.”
“I know. I was at the meeting.”
“Dr. Iverson—the provost––”
“I know who Dr. Iverson was.”
“Of course. At any rate, he instructed me about what I was to say.”
“And you went along.”
“He’s a very forceful man. At any rate, I felt it my responsibility to put the institution in the best light possible.”
“Even if you had to lie to do so?”
“A university is in many senses merely a corporation. If you had been for many years in the corporate world, you would realize that in many instances appearances have to be maintained.”
“I,” Nina replied, “have been many years in the high school world. We try to maintain being honest. At least, that’s what we tell our students to do.”
A thin smile from across the table.
Then:
“Hopefully, none of your students will go on to––”
“Be you?”
“Lead a large corporation. Or a major university. If they do, they may find their illusions shattered.”
“Well,” said Nina, shaking her head, “I found mine pretty well shattered. So did Rick He’s not a corporate guy either. He just gets paid to tell the truth. And the truth is, of course, that you let yourself be persuaded by a huge amount of money to go right along with Lucinda’s ideas. Then, when you needed to back her up publically, you chickened out.”
“Yes. I suppose that’s as good a way as any to put it.”
“That’s the only way to put it, Ms. Richardson.”
She could have said Barbara, but she didn’t want to.
Nor, she realized, did she care much to be called Nina again.
Barbara Richardson stubbed her cigarette out on an ashtray which sat in the precise center of the coffee table. She turned slightly, so that she was looking out of the window and over the university. She either saw or failed to see something, Nina was not sure which. She either followed it for a time or gave up looking for it, then turned back and said, quietly: “We end so far from where we started. One border crossed. One step taken. Against our better judgment. After a time we forget who we were, who we ever wanted to be.”
Nina did not speak, happy, she realized, because those things had not happened to her.
Nor would they have happened last night.
She had no regrets about who she was, or had ever been.
Because they were the same thing.
And they would have been, even if the couch in Rick’s house had been bare.
This was not the case for Barbara Richardson, though, who now was looking at her, very intently.
“I have to ask you something. And it’s very important to me that you answer as carefully as possible.”
“All right.”
“Is it possible—even remotely possible—that Richard Barnes could have killed Dr. Iverson?”
“No.”
“You don’t know where he was for those two hours.”
“That’s true.”
“The story was on his computer. As I understand it, a detailed story.”
“I know.”
“He and Dr. Iverson were fiercely antagonistic.”
“I know.”
The woman across from her looked at her watch, then seemed to sigh.
“I’m sorry. I must catch a flight back to Vicksburg in little more than an hour.”
She rose, as did Nina.
“Thank you for coming. It meant a lot to me. I needed to apologize, though I’m not certain it does much good. It certainly has not helped Mr. Barnes.”
The two began walking toward the door.
“Rick will be all right.”
“I hope so. I sincerely do.”
“He didn’t do this thing.”
Barbara Richardson opened the door, and Nina went through it, out into the hallway.
“I had my doubts. The way all signs seem to point. Despite your trust in Mr. Barnes, there is a part of me that wishes him to be guilty.”
“What?”
“I said there is a part of me that wishes him to be guilty.”
“Why for heaven’s sakes?”
“Because,” said Barbara Richardson, “if he’s not the murderer, then I know who is.”
&nb
sp; “Who?”
“I am responsible for the whole thing,” she said, and shut the door.
A few minutes later, Nina was in the middle of downtown, standing on a sidewalk, talking on her cell phone with Jackson Bennett.
“Jackson, I’ve just heard something very strange.”
A pause.
She could hear his heavy breathing.
“I have too, Nina. I was about to call you.”
“What did you hear, Jackson?”
“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. We need to meet.”
“All right. My bungalow?”
“No, too many people know you live there. I want it to be private.”
She thought about that one for a time and finally said:
“There’s the old bell tower. I think it’s open to the public. Let’s meet up there, maybe in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Done.”
And she snapped the two halves of the phone together.
The bell tower was a huge obelisk located in the exact center of town, and one was forced to negotiate more than a hundred steps to reach the top. Nina climbed slowly, holding the dark metal handrail and trying not to get dizzy as she circled, paused, breathed hard for a bit, circled, paused…and, through the thick, semi-circular openings in the wall that could have served as gun-ports in a fortress, watched the middle of the trees, then the tops of the trees, then the nearer buildings of campus, then the outlying buildings of the campus, then the city, then beyond the city…and then the autumn sky, now completely blue except for a few wispy clouds.
Finally, she was there, the bell hanging before her like a great ugly brass evening gown with no glitter, and the somber, dark-stained copper look of a thousand dead pennies.
Wooden benches lined the walls on each side of the tower, which, at night was illuminated by dimly-glowing bulbs attached to fixtures just below the roof line near each corner. About two feet above each bench, and precisely in the center of the wall, were the windows, looking out on the campus.
She walked around the bell, leaned her elbows on unyielding dark red granite…the walls were a foot and a half thick—and peered through.
Golden and blue on campus, rainbowed beyond, where the town still glowed and midwayed, its fast food restaurants, car lots, intersections, freeways, and river bridges twinkling, flashing and radiating one garish color after another, with red red! red! clearly predominant.
Mind Change Page 20
