by Sung J. Woo
Back in front of my computer, I re-read Craig’s email.
Hey. Now that we’ve shared cronuts, how about we take it up a notch and go for dinner when I come back Friday?
I clicked on the reply button. My fingers hovered over the keys. Frozen in place.
Hey right back at you. Dinner sounds great. Let’s do it! That’s is what I wanted to write. I did want to have dinner with Craig. It did sound great.
My cursor kept blinking. I opened up another tab on my browser and looked up Vera Wheeler’s number on Llewellyn’s administrative directory.
It picked up on the first ring, and as the administrative assistant spoke, I heard the fake smile she was wearing as she spoke to me.
“Oh, I’m afraid that’s just not even remotely possible. President Wheeler is booked solid for the next three weeks.”
“Is she there?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is she there now, so if I ask you to go and tell her something, you can do so?”
An edge crept in her voice, the smile losing its shine. “Ms. O’Brien, President Wheeler’s schedule simply will not allow…”
So she was there. “The mannequins in Travers Hall.”
“Mannequins…?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And why should I…”
“How about this. You tell her what I said, and if she doesn’t understand what you’re talking about, then you can just hang up. But my guess is that she’ll want to open up her very busy calendar for half an hour to chew the fat. Any time after 2 p.m. is good with me tomorrow.”
The phone went from annoyed silence to soft piano Muzak. While I waited, I went back to Craig’s words for the third time, and my conscious mind finally let in on what my unconscious had been hiding. There I was, sitting opposite Craig at some dark and woody table for two, a votive candle flickering between us. He had a nice, guileless face, almost childlike in its innocence. And then after dinner, a kiss. And then another dinner after that, then going to some thing, like picking apples or a jazz concert…and then sitting on the couch at his place, fumbling in the dark for each other, love and hope and fear and disappointment. It was so much work to be with someone else—no wonder I was having trouble writing him back. I was already exhausted.
The phone clicked. Did she just hang up on me? Well, I did tell her that was a viable option. But no, it was her coming back online.
“4 p.m. tomorrow.”
Click. Well, there’s another person who’ll never be my BFF.
So tomorrow would be another day spent at Llewellyn. I hadn’t signed up for any classes, but I was beginning to feel like a real student.
Back to the email. I took a deep breath, then exhaled a little too aggressively, as I wiped the few dots of spittle from my screen.
Sometimes the best way to get something done is to just do it as fast as possible. I typed:
Okay!
And before I had a chance to change my mind, I hit send.
33
Grover 107 looked more like an old dining room than a classroom, a weathered oval-shaped wooden desk with twelve chairs surrounding it. There was even a sideboard in the back, which I assumed was where cookies and tea would be served. Two large windows offered the view of the quad, which was kind of stunning.
Having arrived fifteen minutes earlier than the scheduled start time, I watched little cyclones of yellow and red leaves form and disappear on these green lawns of academia. There was almost a meditative quality to being here with students and professors and books, like the tranquility found in a church or a monastery. I’ve always felt safe at colleges, like nothing bad could ever happen. But bad things happened all the time, everywhere. All you had to do was look.
“Well hey there, stranger,” a voice behind me said.
It was the black girl with ear piercings that ran all the way from the top of her ear to the very bottom of her earlobe, a Womyn of Llewellyn. Today she had thin gold chains woven through her myriad of holes, ending with loopy, hoopy rings the size of a fist.
“How did your chemistry exam go, Raven?”
“I did all right, I think. I hope. I guess you’ve forgiven us for pulling a fast one on you the other night, because Sister Faith said you’re helping us out.”
“Happy to serve, Sister Raven,” I said. “Now maybe you can do an honorary sister a solid?”
“I can try, Sister Siobhan.”
“There was a fight between Penny Sykes and a girl named Henrietta a week or so ago in this class. Your professor broke them up, but he told me he didn’t know what it was about.”
Raven nodded. “I heard about it later. It was the story Penny submitted that freaked Henrietta out.”
“Submitted it? To whom?”
Raven filled me in on the logistics of their creative writing workshop. The class met twice a week. A week before, two students send out copies of stories they wrote, which then allowed the class to comment on the works to be discussed the following week. Rinse and repeat with the next pair of writers.
“Penny emailed it to everyone the night before, which sucked because that hardly gives us enough time to comment on it, but then like an hour after she sent it, she took it back.”
“Took it back?”
“She recalled her email, which deletes it off the server. She said she’d submit something else, but she never did.”
“So what was the story about?”
“I never got a chance to read it.”
“Did anyone other than Henrietta read it?”
“Doubtful. We’re so busy that if something like that happens, it’s like a get-out-of-jail card.”
“There must be someone else who’s as devoted to this class as Henrietta was.”
“It’s a huge relief when somebody doesn’t want you to read their story. We got enough work as it is around here with our seminars and lab sections and whatnot.”
“Did Henrietta have any friends?”
The class was almost full now, all but two chairs empty. Raven clapped her hands and everyone looked up at her.
“Did Henrietta have any friends?”
“Whatshername,” a short brunette girl said.
“That’s real helpful, Brooke,” Raven said.
“You know, the one from Israel. Or is it Palestine.”
“Better not mix that up,” somebody else said, and everyone laughed.
“Hajira,” someone said.
“Last name?” I asked.
“I can pretty much guarantee there’s only one Hajira in Lewie,” Raven said.
“Thanks, guys,” I said. I didn’t see any reason to stick around here, so I grabbed my purse and was about to leave when Marks walked in. He was wearing a black broad-brimmed hat that made him look sort of Amish.
“Ms. O’Brien! Don’t tell me you’re leaving?”
“I’m sorry, but duty calls. Gotta follow leads, magnifying glass in hand, that sort of thing.”
I was a lousy student back in the day, and I guess I was a lousy student now.
34
Raven had assumed correctly there was only one Hajira in Llewellyn, and according to the campus directory, she lived on the second floor of Eldred Hall. I was cutting through the quad when something caught the corner of my eye. A little ways up the hill, there was Brent Kim, Mister Special Campus Security, conversing with a really tall young man, like basketball center tall. He might have been imposing, except the kid had a slacker slouch that made him look like he was apologizing for his extended height.
I was still too far away to hear what they were saying, but from the body language, it looked like the guy was pleading something, and now something more, because Brent put his hand out like the Heisman trophy. The kid stopped slouching and loomed even taller, but this was not going to impress Brent, Mister Seven Star Mob. Brent’s open palm turned into a pointing finger, and for a moment neither of them moved, just looking at each other, p
osturing like the way men do when they get angry.
The tall kid turned and stalked away. There were Greek letters on his sweatshirt: TBA. Tau Beta Alpha. Llewellyn had no Greek system, but Lenrock University had an enormous one. I’d look into this later.
I made my way over to Eldred. I didn’t know if Hajira was in class, but I figured it was worth a shot since I was on campus anyway. Her door was halfway open and I could hear Taylor Swift crooning over some guy who wronged her. I knocked.
“Hajira?”
The dorm room was decorated quite tastefully. Gauzy red curtains billowed by the open window, and Hajira was reading on her bed, propped against a pile of pink satin pillows. Wearing a red headscarf with glittery beads, she looked up at me with wide, uncertain eyes.
I gave her my card and stated the purpose of my investigation.
“May I ask how you arrived upon an Irish name?” she asked. She spoke with a British-Indian accent. The student in the creative writing class thought she was from Palestine, but it was more likely Pakistan.
“I’d like to ask you a bunch of questions, so this is the least I can do. I was adopted by an Irish father and a Norwegian mother. My brother, who’s black and also adopted, is Sven.”
“That is a very cosmopolitan story,” she said. “I like it very much.”
Hajira offered me her desk chair, so I turned it toward her and sat and caught her up.
“I spoke to Penny perhaps once,” she said. “Two shy people do not have long conversations.”
“I’m actually interested in Henrietta. You were friends with her?”
Her big eyes turned softer at her name. Maybe it was more than friendship.
“We were roommates,” she said. “We chose to live together last year, when we were freshmen.”
By my calculation, Henrietta left a little less than two weeks ago, so the wound of departure was still fresh.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. Hajira’s intensity was like a physical thing in this room, thick and hot and miserable, and I wish I didn’t have to keep asking her questions. “Henrietta left after fighting with Penny—is this true?”
“True, but it was not the only reason. She had already initiated the transfer from Llewellyn. The conflict with Penny only accelerated her plans.”
“But the story she read by Penny set her off.”
“Oh, yes, and if you had seen it for yourself, you might understand.”
“Wait, you read it?”
“The first two pages. That was as far as I could go.”
“Because the email was recalled.”
Hajira shook her head. “Because it was so disturbing. I shudder to think about it. But I will tell you what I remember because I know it may assist in your investigation. The story’s protagonist was Penny Sykes.”
“I thought creative writing was about writing fiction.”
“Believe me, this was fiction, because the character Penny in the story begins as a baby in her mother’s womb, and she is devouring herself. She eats her foot, and then her arm, but the parts keep growing back. Then she is born, and she is about to have sex…”
“As a baby?”
Hajira took one of her cushions and hugged it.
“That’s when I stopped reading. It was so disturbing – how anyone could write such things…”
I didn’t know what to say. All I could see in my mind was that photograph Josie had brought of her daughter, Penny in a yellow one-piece bathing suit staring at the camera. So much for innocence.
35
Hajira was headed for Petty Hall, which was on the way to Broadhurst, for her psychology class. Yesterday had been the perfect autumn day, high fifties with a bright and shiny sun, but today dark clouds and a cutting draft announced the coming of winter. Hajira tucked her headscarf neatly around her neck.
“This was Henrietta’s favorite time of the year,” she said.
“What did she like about it?” I asked.
“Everything,” Hajira said. “The colors, the leaves, the chill.”
Up ahead, four Asian men in white turtlenecks and black slacks approached us. They all looked like Brent Kim, strong and quick and no-nonsense. They’d been walking two by two, but since the path was narrow, the two on the left fell back in synchrony to create a single line. The exactitude of their movements was akin to a military maneuver.
They said nothing as they passed us, and as soon as we were beyond them, they resumed their two-by-two formation.
“Does it bother you that those special campus security people are around all the time?” I asked Hajira.
“They stay out of sight. We usually don’t see them out much, but they must be getting ready for tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“It’s the odd-even basketball game. Puppet show, sing-a-long, comedy skit, fire engine parade…you have no idea.”
“My Llewellyn history is rather lacking.”
“Grace Park will be playing.”
“Basketball?”
“She’s actually quite good—I’ve seen her practicing her highly accurate jump shot. If you wish to see the game later tonight, you’re more than welcome to come with me.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I might just do that.”
She rang my phone so we’d both have each other’s numbers.
“Thank you, Siobhan,” Hajira said. “I must admit, I didn’t think I wanted to talk about Henrietta with anyone, but now that I have, my heart feels lighter. You are a fine listener.”
I watched her as she climbed the worn granite steps to Petty. Young love, maybe first love, now lost. Did I even remember what that pain was like? Oh yeah, like it was yesterday. His name was Ruben, and his eyes were huge, dark, and eternally calm. But he was a senior and didn’t even know I existed. So maybe this wasn’t really first love, but rather first crush. Who was my first love? Was it bad that I didn’t know? What did that say about me? Maybe I should be the one going to that psych class. Whatever. I was inside Broadhurst now, the chandelier still painfully bright, on my way to see big bad President Vera Wheeler. I made sure the app on my phone was already recording.
Gloria Reedy was still at the front desk, the same lady I’d talked to a few days ago who was the essence of effervescence. But today, she gave me a shoulder colder than absolute zero.
“Ms. O’Brien,” she said. “I’ve been told you have a meeting with President Wheeler. Please proceed to the fourth floor.”
Ah, so that was it. Wheeler’s secretary no doubt said some un-nice things about me. Gloria was another one I’d have to cross off my ever-shrinking potential BFF list.
Three dings later, the elevator door opened and I stepped into a tony lobby that looked like it, too, had been recently refurbished. The spotless red carpet on the floor was of a deep and rich hue, a color you’d find on a luxury automobile. The walls were outlined into panels with trims and moldings of a flawless redwood and covered with a red satiny fabric.
The same elaborate chandelier as the one in the foyer hung here, except the wattage was mercifully toned down. Affixed on the center of each wall was a golden lamp crafted in the same style as the chandelier, and the combined muted glow created a formal atmosphere.
The silence here felt oppressive, mandated, mausoleum-like. In the middle of the room was a desk and a chair, unoccupied. The upholstered straight-backed chair with a fleur-de-lis pattern and the wooden oval desk with a surface as smooth as glass looked like antique pieces that belonged in a museum. This was probably where the assistant sat.
I approached the pair of closed doors straight ahead, ones I assumed led to Wheeler’s office. When I reached out to knock, the doors opened slowly, automatically, inward.
“Come, Ms. O’Brien.”
Vera Wheeler faced the window that took up the entire wall, her arms crossed and leaning against her desk. She gazed at the view of the campus below and Lake Selene beyond, where the setting sun cast its wa
rm glow over slate roofs and billowing sycamores and gilded the still waters. On the foreground of this stunning backdrop was Wheeler, tall and thin, her straight blonde hair cascading to the middle of her back, black seams down the center of her sculpted, stockinged legs.
36
Five years ago, I’d interviewed Wheeler for the Athena Times, a feature story about her experiences as a first-year president and as an educator with an interesting background, a high-fashion model. For that piece, she’d worn a simple white blouse and a black skirt. But now the outfit that she was in, a black two-piece skirt suit, could best be described as a hybrid of haute couture and businesswear. The curves on the collar were almost Elizabethan, and the above-the-knees pencil skirt ended with tuck pleats grazing the hemline. And she was balanced on some serious stilettos; thin leather straps snaked and crossed around her foot and ankle, sexy and classy and quite likely painful. I’d worn heels like these in my twenties and even then, my youthful feet yowled after a night out.
It was a look only a former model could pull off, and did she ever. She was a beautiful woman, even now at fifty. Earlier this morning while I was prepping for this meeting, I’d come across photos of her birthday party in the Hamptons this past July on a fashion blog. There was a shot of her and Vera Wang and Diane von Furstenberg together, holding up champagne flutes for the camera.
Wheeler never reached supermodel status like Tyra Banks or Cindy Crawford, but in her time, she’d been highly regarded, and even more impressive was her business acumen. One magazine profile mentioned her 140 IQ, and she’d put those brain cells to good use, as she parlayed her knowledge of the fashion industry into a consulting firm for cosmetics and clothing companies. Her mother’s dying wish had been for her to complete her college degree, so she went a few steps further to get her Ph.D. in Education, which led up to her current gig as president of an American college.
