True Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I guess I should just go talk with her once she arrives. Find out if there are any oddments –’ she was proud of herself for not using the word scraps – ‘that I can focus on.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ Thorpe slapped the folder closed. ‘Only, one thing.’ He looked up again. ‘As a member of the department, you will be invited both to her talk on Sunday and to the master’s reception that will follow. I will make a point of introducing you, if you would like, and you may be able to arrange a private conversation after, if she can spare the time. However, please do not disturb her before her presentation, Ms Schwartz. As a visiting scholar under the aegis of the associate dean for research in the humanities, Ms Sloane Harquist is to be considered a VIP, and she has specifically asked to be left alone to conduct her research.

  ‘Oh, and one other thing: all other work at the Mildon is to be suspended during her visit.’

  EIGHT

  Dropping her books on her desk wasn’t polite. Neither was it as loud – as horribly cataclysmic – as Dulcie hoped.

  ‘Dulcie?’ Her office mate, Lloyd, looked up from his reading. ‘Bad morning?’

  ‘Bad day. Bad week.’ Ignoring the student papers that had cushioned the books’ landing, she flopped into the chair and put her feet up. ‘Bad five years. And that electronic gate thing upstairs? That’s bad, too.’

  ‘Well, it will be a good thing.’ Lloyd looked like he wanted to say more. Dulcie knew what it was: the new security system, at the entrance to the basement offices, had been installed in part because Dulcie had been attacked down here. ‘The card reader isn’t fully calibrated yet.’

  ‘I had to swipe mine three times,’ Dulcie said. ‘I felt like a criminal myself.’

  She knew she was sulking – and that her office mate had problems of his own. Right now, however, she needed some sympathy. And so when he started to disagree, elaborating on the installation at the top of the stairs, she cut him off. As she caught him up on what had happened, he finally responded as she’d hoped: with a gratifying display of sympathy and, in her defense, righteous anger.

  ‘Can they even do that? I mean, close the Mildon?’

  She nodded. ‘It seems someone has special permission from a special friend.’

  ‘That’s crap, Dulcie. I’m sorry.’ Lloyd sat back in his chair, shaking his head and rubbing his chin. For a moment, Dulcie had a vision of him in twenty years, a tenured professor, weighing a dialectical argument while stroking an as-yet-nonexistent beard. ‘Any idea who the friend is?’

  ‘That new dean of research, Haitner.’ She shook her head. ‘Seems he wants to make his mark by bringing in his own scholars. Loyal to him.’

  ‘Thorpe.’ Lloyd spat out the word with a bitterness only another grad student could give it. ‘If he were half the adviser he’s supposed to be, he’d be fighting for you. He’d at least get you into a conference room with this Miranda person.’

  ‘Melinda – and thanks.’ Dulcie went over it all in her head. ‘I’m not even allowed to contact her. I guess that doesn’t matter. Sunday is only two days from now, and I don’t even know where she’s staying.’

  ‘Wait, I might.’ Lloyd pulled open a desk drawer and began rummaging through it. ‘You know Rafe Hutchins? Senior tutor at Dardley House?’

  Dulcie nodded. Rafe was a few years older, an American by discipline if not birth. He’d designed the English 10 syllabus that all the section leaders still used.

  Lloyd registered her assent and kept talking. ‘We were supposed to go to that Peruvian film-fest tonight – he was telling Raleigh about it.’ He still flushed a bit as he mentioned his glamorous girlfriend. ‘But now he has to host some kind of bigwig this weekend. Has to make sure the guest suite is all cleaned up.’

  ‘Could be her.’ Dulcie thought about it. ‘She’s not a dignitary, but she is a visiting scholar. Would you be willing to give him a call?’

  ‘That’s why I was looking for this.’ Lloyd held up a small leather address book. ‘I’ve got his cell number here.’

  While Lloyd made his call, Dulcie tried to get to work. It was early in the semester for most student papers, but English 10 kicked in early, and since she was teaching two sections this fall that meant a double load of three-pagers.

  ‘Hey, Rafe. I’m calling to ask a favor for a friend.’

  Dulcie winced, wishing that Lloyd was a bit more discreet. Better he should lead up to her request than start with it.

  ‘And that’s this weekend? Before the tea?’

  Dulcie turned away. If she couldn’t see her office mate, it should be easier not to listen. Besides, she’d been waiting all day for a moment to herself. Pulling the laptop from her bag, she watched it boot up. Chris’s program should have finished running by now. If it had found anything . . . No, she was getting ahead of herself.

  The little machine whirred and glowed, and she bit her lip, waiting. As the screen assembled its usual desktop visuals, she thanked Lucy’s various deities for the foresight that had led her to type in the fragment from the Mildon. Even if the program tied that text in with something her author had written, she’d still have work to do. Before she presented her evidence to Thorpe, she’d have to look up the correlating passages. She would, she admitted, pretend she had found the connection the old-fashioned way – by reading – but it wasn’t like that would be false. The program simply gave her a leg up. And with the Mildon closed to her for the foreseeable future, the work of verification would be a good use of her time.

  Finally, the program appeared, a smiling Cheshire cat face – courtesy of Chris – greeting her. She clicked for her results, and got, instead, a familiar prompt: Insert text? The cursor blinked in anticipation. Insert text?

  This made no sense. She had typed in that fragment, the bit about the ‘life’s elixir staining the red-gold hair.’ Insert text? She scrolled down further. There was a blank, where the copy should have been. Where the copy had been, she was certain. But now all she saw was white space, down to the bottom of the form. Insert text?

  She hit ‘Search’, typing in ‘life’s elixir’ and ‘red-gold’. Nothing.

  This wasn’t possible. Chris had designed the program for her. It was easy to use, and he had taught her to save. She clicked on ‘History’. There she could see several passages from ‘The False Hope of Love’ essay, bits she had used in her paper. And, yes, one newer file – only identified by a string of numbers.

  ‘Here’s hoping,’ she muttered to herself, maneuvering the mouse. She clicked.

  Corrupted file, the screen said. Insert text?

  The cursor blinked, and Dulcie fought the urge to curse. Lloyd was still on the phone, and their shared office was small, too small for one woman to have a meltdown without disturbing her colleague. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a moment. Something had gone wrong; it wasn’t the end of the world. She’d ask Chris about it tonight. In the meantime, she’d simply enter it again. She should have time to locate it again this afternoon. The Mildon wouldn’t be closed yet.

  ‘They’re not using the cream sherry? That’s crazy.’ Lloyd’s voice reminded her of just why she couldn’t research at her leisure. She had to admit, it stung.

  Dulcie found herself staring into space, both trying to and trying not to listen. Melinda Sloane Harquist was getting the royal treatment, while she was laboring – trying to labor, anyway – in a basement. Even with her desk lamp on, the office felt gloomy. Partly, that was the dearth of natural light; partly it was the dust that never quite got cleaned away. The office wasn’t entirely windowless, but the slanting rays from the one deep-set casement window – high above their shared, smaller bookcase – only highlighted the swirling dust.

  ‘No wonder my computer is messed up; this place is filthy,’ she said to herself. ‘Probably why the card reader doesn’t work, too.’ Lloyd looked up, and she waved him away. ‘Instead of working, I’m staring at dust,’ she murmured more quietly. ‘Dust and . . . whiskers?�
�

  There, on her desk, sticking out from beneath a pile of student essays, she saw it: the thick white whisker of a cat. ‘That’s funny.’ She moved the papers aside carefully, so as not to send the filament flying. ‘Must have come in on my coat. Or . . .’

  She paused and looked up. Lloyd was still talking, but she no longer cared to eavesdrop. Instead, she carefully excavated the paper that the whisker had lighted upon. It was a sheet from a yellow legal pad, the kind Dulcie used for rough notes.

  With a frantic intake of breath, Dulcie spread the sheet out before her. But, no, it wasn’t the rough copy of that excerpt. Without even deciphering her cramped scrawl, Dulcie could see that she’d written with black ink, not the pencil allowed in the Mildon.

  She reached for the edge of the paper, the better to start crumpling it up. At the very least, it would make a satisfying projectile. One that Esmé would love to chase. Or . . . she paused. That whisker . . .

  ‘Mr Grey?’ She was whispering now, leaning over the long, lined sheet as if talking directly to it. ‘Are you here?’

  Nothing. Nothing beyond Lloyd’s voice, that is, which now seemed to be agreeing to something or other.

  ‘It was probably one of Esmé’s,’ Dulcie realized, with a sinking feeling, and turned her attention back to the page. There was nothing of import here, just some old notes from the previous semester. Her handwriting really was atrocious. Not at all like . . .

  She stopped, frozen. That was it. What she had found in the Mildon was a handwritten draft, perhaps the first version of the book. And if the Mildon had the first draft in its collection, that gave Dulcie, as a resident scholar, an edge. No matter what else this Melinda Sloane Harquist may have found at Ellery University or wherever, she wouldn’t have the original manuscript. Even if she had more of the complete book, in its final printed form, she’d have a harder time proving that the author of The Ravages had written it without the handwritten manuscript. Of course, during her stay here, it was possible she might stumble upon the same page that Dulcie had. But Dulcie had another advantage: she’d been familiar with that handwriting. She’d seen it often enough in her dreams. If only she could get back in and keep looking . . .

  The gruff sound of Lloyd clearing his throat broke into her thoughts, and she looked up, annoyed, momentarily forgetting the reason he had been on the phone.

  ‘Dulcie?’ Lloyd was looking at her with a questioning gaze, and she realized he’d probably been speaking to her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She brushed the curls back from her face. ‘I got caught up in an idea.’

  He nodded absently. ‘Well, that’s good, I guess. And I have some good news, too. For starters, Rafe confirmed it is Melinda who’s coming to stay in the guest suite. And as far as getting in to talk with her, he’ll do what he can. She’s giving this talk on Sunday – you probably know about that – and then she’s supposed to go to the monthly master’s tea later that day, too. So you could meet her there, if you wanted to deal with a house’s worth of undergrads. But he told me there’s also going to be some kind of private welcoming reception for her tomorrow, Saturday. Seems she or – no, the dean – has ordered that they get a proper drinks cart from the student bartenders. The master’s sherry isn’t good enough for our visiting scholar.’ He paused. Under ordinary circumstances, they’d both be thrilled by this little bit of gossip.

  ‘Too good for Harvey’s Bristol Cream?’ As distracted as she was, Dulcie managed a smile.

  ‘Top shelf all the way, I gather.’ Her balding office mate leaned in. ‘I wonder what the deal is? No offense, Dulcie.’

  ‘None taken.’ Lloyd had learned from Dulcie about the prejudice against the Gothics. ‘And I don’t know. I mean, a new work would be important to me, but it’s not like we’re going to find out she really wrote Shakespeare’s sonnets.’

  Lloyd looked interested for a moment. Then – as his quick mind calculated the dates – he came back to the moment.

  ‘However, I may be able to help you. Rafe says he can’t get you in to the drinks party. That guest list is set. But he thinks you might be able to talk to her first. Turns out, he was asked to have her suite ready by two. The party is at five. She can’t take three hours to get ready for a party, can she?’

  Dulcie held her tongue. Ever since leaving the commune – what Lucy called an arts colony – she had learned that most of her gender was capable of doing just that and more. But if gorgeous Raleigh hadn’t initiated Lloyd into the finer points of mainstream American primping, then Dulcie liked her the better for it.

  ‘So, will he introduce me?’ Now that meeting the mysterious scholar was a real possibility, Dulcie felt a little twinge of nerves.

  The look on Lloyd’s face – a grimace of discomfort as he shook his head – didn’t help. ‘There’s the catch, Dulce.’

  Dulcie held her breath. She’d have to sneak in. Dress as a bartender. Be a bartender. But Lloyd kept talking. ‘You see, there’s a little bit of weirdness you should know about.’

  ‘More than I’m already dealing with?’ Lloyd nodded. ‘Shoot,’ she said.

  ‘Turns out this Melinda Sloane Harquist is not a complete stranger to the university. Or to Dardley House.’

  ‘Oh?’ Dulcie couldn’t read Lloyd’s face.

  ‘Melinda Sloane Harquist – better known as plain old Mellie Harquist – did a term as an exchange student, back when she was an undergrad at Ellery.’ He was watching her, so Dulcie thought back.

  ‘The name sounds vaguely familiar.’ She remembered a lot of dark, curly hair, and a lot of fuss at mixers.

  ‘They called her “Mellie Heartless” then,’ Lloyd offered.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Dulcie remembered now. ‘Every guy was crazy for her. She was the It Girl of Comp Lit.’ At the time, Dulcie had been suffering from an unrequited crush on a junior who rowed crew – one of the many who had fallen for Mellie. In retrospect, the pain was gone – but not the sense of awe.

  ‘That was her, but I bet you don’t remember who finally won dear Mellie’s favors?’ Dulcie shook her head and waited. ‘Rafe Hutchins, then the boy wonder of the lit department. They were the hot couple for, oh, about a summer. Then she went back up to New Hampshire, and broke poor Rafe’s heart.’

  Dulcie felt relief wash over her – so her rower hadn’t gotten his heart’s desire either! This was followed immediately by guilt. ‘Poor guy. So the “Sloane” in her name? She must be married.’

  ‘No, it’s an old family name. Maybe her mother’s maiden name, or something.’ He paused, Dulcie’s situation clearly in mind. ‘She was always looking for her roots or something, Rafe said.’

  Dulcie nodded that she understood. At least she’d had the commune. ‘And after all that, he has to host her?’

  Lloyd nodded. ‘It’s not that bad. It’s been a while. He’s got a new girlfriend. It’s just – awkward, you know?’

  She did. ‘And calling on old intimacies to sneak in a visitor would probably be uncool.’

  ‘To sneak in a potential rival.’ Lloyd stressed the last word in a way that made Dulcie smile.

  ‘May the goddess hear you,’ she said. ‘And thanks, really, for setting this up. I’m a little afraid it’s going to be more like me in Oliver Twist mode, begging for scraps.’

  ‘You’re getting your Dickens – oh, never mind.’ Lloyd reined in his Victorian mindset, and turned serious once again. ‘Really, Dulcie, I know she’s got this book ready to come out, but there’s something more going on. If her work is set in stone, then why does she need access to the Mildon now, at this late date? And if she weren’t worried about competition, then why would she have it closed to anyone else – closed to you? I mean, you’re the only other person who is researching this author.’

  ‘That we know of,’ Dulcie responded automatically, her mind already wandering. ‘It is funny. I mean, I published about that essay. But it’s not like I’ve found anything solid since.’ She thought of the handwritten page. Of the handwriting. �
�Nothing I can prove, anyway. It’s really lousy timing.’

  Lloyd was watching her, waiting. Despite everything, she couldn’t help but smile. ‘’Cause I think I’m this close, Lloyd. In fact . . .’ She looked down at the notes in front of her. ‘If I only had one more day in the Mildon, I think then I might have something. I think I’m on the brink of something big.’

  NINE

  She didn’t take the time to explain it to Lloyd – the whole dream thing would sound too weird – but he’d cheered her on anyway as she’d gathered her papers and left the office. She’d been so happy she’d barely noticed the tie-up at the new turnstile, as three of her colleagues kept trying to swipe their cards.

  Surfacing into the balmy afternoon, she made a mental list. Lucy would have an astral reason for all the elements coming together, and for once Dulcie was almost ready to agree with her. Her edge – her recognition of the handwriting – was as insubstantial as, well, a whisker. Still, her dreams had come through for her before.

  Plus, there were other positive notes: Lloyd had arranged for her to meet with this Melinda before the visiting scholar’s big talk. That was key, Dulcie had thought, for two reasons. The first was tactical: if she could find out what the visiting scholar was specializing in, then maybe she could safely claim the new book as her own turf. As much as she loved The Ravages, the idea of a previously unknown book excited her.

  Besides, it seemed possible – likely, even – that the visiting VIP already had some area of specialty within the larger scope of the author’s work. Trista’s general area of concentration, for example, had been Victorian fiction, but her thesis had homed in on ‘Architectural Details in the Later Victorian Novel’. Lloyd, who theoretically covered the exact same period, was toiling away at ‘The Mid-Victorian Epigraph: Wit Carved in Stone’. Nothing could be more different.

  Knowing what this Melinda’s specialty was before the big presentation would also serve as the intellectual equivalent of a leg-up. After the talk, when Thorpe came up to question her, as Dulcie knew he would, she could have her answer ready – and be prepared to defend her right to continue with her thesis. ‘Oh, Melinda isn’t dealing with the American years,’ she could say blithely. Or, ‘She’s not concerned with the possibility of a lost novel.’ Maybe it would even be true.