The Grim Steeper

by Amanda Cooper

  Rosalind had called and offered to come when Rose was sick, but she hadn’t a lick of good bedside manner; they both knew that. And with Sophie and Laverne to help, she wasn’t necessary. Maybe that was the problem; Rosalind was never necessary. Being needed was one of the great gifts of life, and Rose’s daughter had been denied that for most of her life. Or had she managed her life so she would never be counted on? It was an interesting thought.

  Regardless, that had to change. Whether either of them knew it or not, Sophie needed her mother, and Rosalind needed her only daughter. Rose would give anything to see the two mend their rift.

  The Silver Spouts arrived, and the volume of chatter in the room rose. They had their talk and discussed the Fall Fling Townwide Tea Party. Snacks were served, and the most enjoyable part of the evening for many commenced, with several of them breaking off into smaller groups to chat. Horace Brubaker and Laverne’s father, Malcolm Hodge, both nonagenarian but active and busy, sat apart at a table with two of Rose’s friends, Annabelle and Helen. Thelma and Gilda sat at the table right next to them and shamelessly eavesdropped on the foursome.

  Rose and Laverne were enjoying a cup of tea with Cindy and Sophie when Josh, who had had his reddish-brown hair closer cropped so he looked older and more mature, approached. He said hello to each, then turned to Laverne.

  “Miss Hodge, I was wondering, now that Cindy is, uh . . . has turned fifteen, if it would be okay if she accompanied me to a natural sciences exhibit at the college.”

  Seventeen going on forty, Rose thought, smiling at the boy. He had an old-fashioned air about him, as would any teenage boy who collected teapots. Cindy blushed and looked down at her cute shoes, a pair of Mary Janes in light blue.

  Laverne regarded him sternly, her handsome face set to avoid smiling too broadly. “Well, Mr. Sinclair, I’ve discussed this with her parents and we’ve decided that since she is now fifteen, it’s up to Cindy, so you will have to ask her yourself.”

  He looked a little shocked, and his freckled cheeks flushed pink, just as hers were. But he turned to her and said, “Cindy, would you like to go to the traveling exhibit at Cruikshank next week?”

  With an unexpectedly shrewd look, she cocked her head to one side and said, “What kind of exhibit?”

  “It’s uh, it’s amphibians and reptiles of the rain forest.”

  Rose stifled a sigh. He was inviting her to go see lizards and frogs? Did he not know girls at all? She waited for the sniff of disgust.

  Cindy hopped in her chair and said, “I’d love to go, Josh! I like snakes best. Will they have snakes? Pythons? Anacondas?” She paused and clapped her hands together. “Boa constrictors?” Her dark eyes were wide and sparkling.

  Josh smiled broadly. “I hope so. I like lizards better than snakes. Do you mind frogs? Some girls don’t like frogs.”

  Rose burst out laughing. “Well now, in my day if any boy had asked me to go see snakes and frogs with him, I would have bopped him on the nose.”

  Josh and Cindy broke away and sat together discussing the exhibit, words like herpetology, semiaquatic, neurotoxins and tetrapod floating toward the adults.

  “She’s interested in many kinds of animals,” Laverne explained. “Cindy wants to be a zoologist and travel to Africa someday. She may be the last kid to benefit from the Laverne Hodge college fund.” Laverne had always set aside some money for her nieces and nephews; those who needed it could apply to her for a school loan, which was eventually repaid, no interest needed, to benefit the younger nieces and nephews.

  They chatted with some of the others about the Fall Fling tea stroll.

  “I think we’re ready for it, aren’t we, Sophie?” Rose asked.

  “We’re better than ready,” she said, with her special brand of brisk confidence, revitalized by being in charge of the menu at Auntie Rose’s once again. “We’re setting up a table outside for the strollers, with tea and snacks; I’ll be manning that. But the tearoom itself will be open, too, with you two inside for those who want to sit for a moment, or warm up.”

  “This tea walk . . . yet another attempt by Cruickshank to improve relations between town and gown,” Horace, who had been listening in from the next table, croaked, his voice hoarse from a cold he was finally defeating. He cleared his throat. “I know Dale Asquith; his family had a home by the lake, and he spent summers at it. Even then, his parents insisted he keep up with his schooling. He was one of my troublesome piano students back when I taught. He always was a pain in the tush, and from what I hear, he still is.”

  “Horace, people do change with time,” Rose said.

  The elderly man tapped his cane on the floor and chuckled a rusty sound. “Now, Rose, you are too sweet and gentle a lady. Take everything I say about him and multiply it to the power of ten. One of his greatest faults is a tendency to not take responsibility for those faults. It was always someone else who kept him from practicing: his brother, the maid, a door-to-door salesman.” He glanced over at Sophie and his smile disappeared. “You make sure he doesn’t try to do that to your young man with this grading problem, because he will, if it will save his butt.”

  The meeting broke up. Sophie sent her grandmother straight up to bed, and Laverne home, since she had to drop off Cindy first. She rearranged the tearoom for the next day’s business, but it was only nine when she was done and trotted upstairs. There was a text on her phone from Dana to call her, so she did.

  It was odd, Sophie thought as she listened to it ring; Cissy Peterson was the one who had wanted to be friends when they were teens, and they were, but now that they were all adults it was Dana who Sophie gravitated toward. Dana Saunders had once been jealous of her, she had admitted, because of Sophie’s wealthy family, but recently they discovered that they clicked.

  “Hey, Dana, what’s up?” she asked when the phone clicked.

  “I’m so sorry, Soph. You must be worried sick!”

  “Worried? What are you talking about? What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake; hasn’t anyone told you yet? It’s the article in the Clarion. I’ll send you the link.”

  A few seconds later, Sophie looked at her phone screen and clicked on the link from the Cruikshank College newspaper, the Clarion.

  PROF’S FRIEND ADMITS POSSIBLE GRADE HIKE FOR MAC

  By Tara Mitchells

  Sophie Taylor, instructor Jason Murphy’s “friend,” insists that while he would never knowingly do anything to jeopardize his position at the college, he could easily have hiked Mac MacAlister’s grade if he wasn’t aware how it would impact him. She further stated that the fun-loving prof, who as a wild youth was known to drink, smoke and steal on occasion, has cleaned up his act and is desperately trying to stay on the straight and narrow . . .

  “Oh, no!” Sophie wailed, not able to read further.

  “Damn straight, oh no,” Dana said. “You’d better call Jason. I’m hanging up right now. Call him!”

  Jason answered immediately.

  “I saw the article. Jason, I’m so sorry! It sounded . . . I didn’t mean . . .” What could she say?

  “One question: Did you really say I could easily have hiked Mac’s grade?” His voice was filled with tension, and harder edged than normal.

  “I said nothing of the kind.”

  He sighed. “Okay. I didn’t think you would. Tara needs to be told she’s wrong.”

  “More than that! They should print a retraction, Jason.”

  “What I want to know is, where did they get the stuff about drinking and stealing? I don’t get it.” When she didn’t respond, Jason said, “Sophie? What’s up?”

  “Okay, the night of the basketball game I didn’t know who she was. I may have said something . . . I mean, you remember that incident with your cousins’ boat? You took off for a joyride and got in trouble?”

  He was silent.

  �
��And I mentioned . . . remember the summer you and Phil Peterson hung out together?” Phil Peterson was Cissy’s older brother, a lifelong troubled soul who was now apparently living out of state trying to get his act together. But when they were teenagers and even beyond he was always trying to smuggle booze into school events, and had been known to sell an ounce of weed occasionally. He had dragged Jason into his mess once or twice, though Jason wised up to the danger of inappropriate friends pretty quickly.

  “Why did you get into that with a student?” he said.

  “I don’t even know,” she said, feeling about two inches tall. She put her head in one hand. “I don’t normally babble; you know that. But I was uncomfortable, and she looked so harmless. I’m sorry. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.”

  He sighed heavily. “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known the girl was a writer for the newspaper.”

  “She said she was there in support of you! That she wanted to start a petition to help you.”

  “She’s a muckraker. She ought to do well in media.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay. It’s all right.”

  “Jason, who do you think did it?”

  He was silent for a moment. “I wouldn’t want to accuse someone unjustly.”

  “I promise I won’t say a word to anyone. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “It has to be someone who either loves the basketball team or cares about Mac personally. I’m thinking either Heck Donovan or Mac’s academic adviser.”

  “Kimmy Gabrielson. She told me herself that she was one of the few people who could have done it and had access to the content management computer program. Would she tell me that if she had done it? If you know what I mean?”

  “Would she have said that to you if she was the one who changed the grade? She’s smart. It would be a great bluff.”

  “True. She didn’t think Heck Donovan could have done it. She said she’s not sure he would even have had access to the software.”

  “You’ve discussed this in depth, haven’t you?”

  “Jason, you never told me a thing. I was blindsided and shell-shocked,” she said, stung by his acerbity. She flung herself down in a chair in her living room and tossed a pillow at the wall. If he wanted to get into it, then she’d tell him the truth. “I think that’s why I talked about it; I was so taken aback.”

  There was silence from his end, and she worried she’d offended him. But then he said, “You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m just . . . this is a mess. Anyway, as you know, Mac was benched pending the investigation, and Heck is furious. He and the dean had a battle royal, I guess. Dean Asquith’s secretary spread the tale across the campus. Heck came storming into my office this afternoon and gave me what for.”

  They talked a few minutes more, then said good night. Unsettled by the whole thing, Sophie was tired but edgy. She watched some TV, her favorite true crime stories, and then went to bed to toss and turn with wild dreams of running through the halls of her old boarding school, plaid kilt flapping around her knees, escaping from some maniacal killer who specialized in schoolgirls. After that disquieting night she was happy to awaken in the pretty bedroom and descend to the sunny kitchen to bake scones and cookies and make soup and stew.

  Before the tearoom opened she called Dana. She wanted to tell her friend what Jason had said about who he thought was responsible, but Dana didn’t even let her finish her first sentence.

  “Soph, I hate to say it, but I just heard from Kimmy. The dean made a public statement to the students and press this morning. He said in light of the grading scandal, that the one responsible has been discovered and will be dealt with summarily.”

  “But that’s good, right? If they’ve found out who did it?”

  “I’m not so sure of that. Kimmy thinks they’re going to scapegoat Jason.”

  Chapter 6

  Sophie hung up quickly, told Nana she’d be down to open with her, then ran upstairs and texted Jason to call her. She didn’t want to bug him, knowing that weekends were filled with course work, grading tests and essays, and work on his doctorate, but she needed to know what was happening. She paced and fretted, biting her nails, an old habit she thought she had grown out of. He called back ten minutes later.

  She breathlessly asked him about the dean’s address to students and the media, and he said she had heard correctly. He sounded tired and worried; she wished he was beside her so she could give him a hug.

  “I haven’t been suspended from teaching yet, but it’s not looking good. I don’t think he’s brought in outside help, but the dean has one of the college staff sniffing around asking questions. One of my buddies in the science department said someone told him that he was asking if I’ve been behaving any differently lately, or if I bought anything unusual.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I guess they think there may be bribery involved. I don’t know! It’s making me crazy. I can’t even defend myself because no one is saying it outwardly, they’re whispering behind my back!”

  “Oh, Jason, this is awful. As if you’d ever do anything like that!”

  “Anyway, even if they don’t suspend me, I feel like everyone is watching me now, judging me, thinking I cheated. I don’t understand what’s going on. I didn’t do anything, so I know there’s no evidence against me. Unless the dean’s got someone else in mind and he’s just not saying, I don’t know what to think. He and I have never gotten along, but I don’t think he would take it out on me to cover up the problem.”

  She didn’t say what she was thinking, which was, what if it was the dean himself who did the grade altering, not expecting it to come out? “What will you do if the worst happens?”

  “The worst? You mean, what if I’m fired? I don’t even know if he can do that to me, but I know he’d love to. We don’t get along, and everyone knows it.”

  “When do you find out?”

  “He’s going to make the official announcement after the weekend. He doesn’t want anything taking attention away from Fall Fling, he said.”

  “What are you going to do in the meantime?”

  “I’m going to go ahead as if all is okay. I didn’t do anything. If he tries to pin it on me, I’ll fight it, but who knows what’ll happen from there?”

  “I know it’ll be okay, Jase, really. You didn’t do it, and they can’t prove you did.”

  “I guess you have more faith in the system than I do. Oh well, there’s always Paris.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to France. Maybe I’ll go there to work.”

  * * *

  Thelma Mae Earnshaw prodded Gilda with one boney finger. “Now get on over there to Rose’s joint, cozy up to Laverne and find out what they’re doing for that dumb tea fling. I know what we’re doing, but I couldn’t overhear a thing at the Spouts meeting about what they’ve got planned.”

  “What am I supposed to find out?” Gilda wobbled over to peer into the oven, then tugged at her frizzy hair and sighed. “I don’t know what you want, Thelma.” She grabbed two mitts and opened the oven door, giving the scones a poke.

  Thelma ducked her head and eyed the side entrance to Auntie Rose’s through the smeared window. “I need to know what they’re serving to folks, and when they’re making it. And how are they going to keep tea hot all evening for the strollers. Hmph. Sounds like they’re going to be carrying babies; strollers!” She picked up her cell phone. Cissy had programmed in some numbers and said all she had to do was find someone’s name and she could call them. She had also explained a few other nifty features, like the camera.

  A camera on a phone! She was like a modern-day spy, and could take photos while pretending to call or text, whatever that was, but Cissy said it all the time. Thelma found the little gadget on the screen that looked like a camera, aimed the phone at Gilda’s butt as
her employee pulled the tray of scones out of the oven, and hit the little button, but the darn thing jiggled and all she got was a blur. Dang!

  Gilda plunked the tray of scones on the counter and pulled off the oven mitts, grumbling under her breath. Then she cast Thelma a sly look. “I guess I could go over and have a cup of tea with Laverne. Maybe pick her brain?”

  “And find out what they’re doing. Now, scoot! Just don’t be too long. We got a tearoom to run.”

  When Gilda had tripped out the wide door in an all-fired hurry, Thelma pulled some sugar packets out of her pocket. Maybe she could pull a few harmless pranks on Rose, just so she’d stay on her toes.

  * * *

  It was the end of a long day that had started badly, with the news about the dean’s press conference and Jason’s worries, and continued weirdly, with Gilda, from Belle Époque, coming over and quizzing them all on their Fall Fling plans. Sophie and her grandmother had eaten dinner together, but tomorrow was a big day. Nana was going to bed early to get a good sleep.

  Sophie pulled on her skinniest skinny jeans and her beloved pair of Uggs, wound a scarf around her neck and slipped on her blue jean jacket, then paused. October in upstate New York; it could get kind of cold in the evening, but still . . . she was driving the Jetta, it had an excellent heater, and she’d be going directly into Barchester Hall to meet up with Rhiannon Galway and help at the Galway Fine Teas booth. She’d be fine, she decided. She closed her apartment door, raced down one set of steps and nipped through Nana’s apartment to her bedroom, where her grandmother was tucked in bed with Pearl on her lap, a cup of tea at her side and Jessica Fletcher on the DVD player.

  She stuck her head in the door. “I don’t know what time I’ll be home. You have my cell number if you need me, right?”

  “I do,” Nana said with a sleepy smile. She stroked Pearl’s head gently.

  “You haven’t been overdoing it have you?” she asked, watching her grandmother.

  “No, Miss Bossy,” Nana said with a chuckle. “I’m getting up there in years. Everything takes twice as long and is twice as hard. But it’s so nice to be back in the tearoom again.” She eyed her granddaughter. “I hope you know how much I appreciate you coming back here, but . . .”