As Ruby scanned it, one point caught her attention. “Why does it say your stint at Cavendish only goes to May?” she asked.
“Because this will be my last year living there,” Juliet replied. “I need to have a private life. Away from campus.”
Ruby couldn’t believe she had to state the obvious. “But you’re going up for tenure. It’s not the time to give up a major service commitment, especially not for an excuse like privacy.” She glanced around the circle of faces. “Am I right?”
Frances Palmer, from Biology, nodded vigorously. Almost Ruby’s age, she’d never married but had set up housekeeping with another spinster on the outskirts of town. “I second that,” Frances said. “You can enjoy your privacy after tenure.”
Juliet cast her eyes from one to the other in the circle. “It’s hard for single women. Harder than you might realize.”
Ruby glanced instinctively at Juliet’s left hand, which, as always, wore a stunning sapphire and diamond ring. She assumed Juliet had a fiancé somewhere, or that maybe, like Gen, she’d lost her man to war.
Juliet turned abruptly toward Gen, who was taking a sip of coffee. “What do you think, Gen?”
Gen returned her cup to its saucer with a tiny clink. “I might have to agree with Ruby and Frances on this,” she said. “It will look bad to give up the post, no matter how much you want to. I had to sacrifice things when I was going up for tenure so I’d look like a team player. My promotion came with a cost, for sure.” Gen leaned toward Juliet, and Ruby thought she heard her say, “We’ll talk more later.”
Ruby suspected Gen’s “cost” meant giving up membership in the local NAACP. On Ruby’s advice, Gen had begrudgingly stopped paying dues and attending meetings when she got a shot at promotion.
Juliet took in a measured breath before she spoke. “I’ll leave the subject with this,” she said. “You can’t maintain any privacy when you not only teach your students but also live with them. I bet most of you can’t even imagine it. Why, when you’re married—like you, Ruby, and most of you—you go home at night to your husbands and families and enjoy breathing room. I can tell you, that’s a privilege.”
Ruby shifted in her seat. She was unaccustomed to being contradicted, especially by an assistant professor just launching her career. With almost three decades of teaching and multiple terms on the Tenure and Privilege Committee, she understood the workings of Baines backward and forward.
In the awkward pause that followed Juliet’s statement, Darrell entered the room with a second plate of cookies. Ruby’s husband had taken up cooking after his retirement from law when she pointed out it was unfair for him to expect her to get dinner on the table after she’d worked a full day and he hadn’t. After some initial grousing, Darrell gave in and found he enjoyed the creative outlet. Recently, he had moved on to baking.
When he realized he’d stepped into an awkward discussion, Darrell apologized and withdrew quickly. “I wasn’t even here, ladies!” he said with a little bow.
“Better be careful, Ruby,” Vanessa, a music professor, said with a giggle. “You don’t want your man turning into Fenton Page.”
Silence descended on the room again, and Ruby’s face tightened. “That kind of talk is uncalled for, Vanessa. Especially with what happened to Mark.”
The mood of the gathering shifted at Mark’s name, and Ruby turned them back to Juliet’s CV. “Well, Juliet, you’ve heard our advice. Whether or not you take it is up to you. What other comments do we have for our young professor?”
There was just a smattering of remarks after that, and the meeting ended earlier than planned. Most of the women claimed they still had papers to grade or class prep to do. Gen, too, deposited her coffee cup on the buffet and prepared to leave, although she often stayed after the others had gone.
Ruby caught Gen by the elbow and whispered, “Have you seen Fenton?”
“I have. I’ll have to tell you about it later. I owe him a call.”
Ruby nodded approval. She worried about Fenton and a colleague in English, John Hiram. Of course the women’s group could never discuss the topic openly, but the threat facing some of their male colleagues hovered in the shadows.
“Please tell him to call me. We’ll have lunch soon.”
Although she wasn’t sure what compelled her, Ruby watched from the front window as Gen ambled down her walkway with Juliet. The two had a brief, serious-looking exchange on the sidewalk. Then Gen got into her car, Juliet mounted her blue Schwinn, and they headed in different directions.
✥ ✥ ✥
Ruby’s morning was off to a hurried start, and she didn’t have time to chat with Amanda Blakeney. Yet there she was, scrambling across the Blakeneys’ front lawn, then across the street, then up Ruby’s walkway to the porch. Does she watch for me to leave? Ruby wondered. The woman was fond of bringing Ruby’s shortcomings to her attention—and always, for some reason, in the morning. One of Amanda’s pet peeves was her neighbor’s failure to draw up her venetian blinds evenly. “It gives a house a disheveled look, don’t you think?”
When she wasn’t complaining about blinds, Amanda might enlist Ruby to signing petitions. The most recent, just last week, had been an effort to get the street converted to one way.
“The cars just seem to roar through here these days,” Amanda had said, brandishing her clipboard. “The boys from D and L have found the quickest route to our Baines girls! Honestly, I’m just waiting for somebody to be run over.”
Ruby had signed obediently, even though she’d never noticed the alleged roaring. Over the decades, she had learned about keeping the peace with her neighbors and flattering them whenever possible, especially Amanda.
This morning, Amanda wanted something else. “Ruby, a word?” she called out.
“I’m so sorry, Amanda, I’m late for a meeting.” Ruby fumbled in her pocketbook for her car keys. She managed to flash a smile. “I wanted to walk today, it’s so glorious, but I don’t have time.”
“Just a minute?”
Ruby nodded. As much as the woman rankled her, she could spare her a minute. In some ways, Amanda was a model neighbor, bringing soup when Ruby was ill and a casserole when Darrell’s mother died, keeping an eye on the house when she and Darrell went to their cabin in the mountains. She’d even presented a graduation check to each of their three sons.
Amanda met her at the curb, where Ruby’s car was parked. “You’re so knowledgeable,” her neighbor said, “and I wonder what you’ve heard about the investigation of the unfortunate Mr. Patton.”
Ruby reached past her neighbor for the door handle of the Bel Air. “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know any more than you, Amanda. Just what I read in the Gazette.”
“It’s just, I’ve heard a rumor that the police are broadening their investigation into . . . you know, these vice matters.” Amanda frowned, unable or unwilling to elaborate. “I heard they might even talk to other Baines faculty.”
“Where did you hear that?”
Amanda winced at the sharpness of Ruby’s tone.
“Irene Carr mentioned it at our bridge game. She wondered about the theater director and someone in your department?” When Ruby didn’t respond, Amanda added, “Irene can be an awful gossip, though, stirring up trouble for no reason.”
And the pot calls the kettle black, Ruby thought.
“I don’t know her well,” Ruby said, which was technically true. She knew Mrs. Carr mostly as Gen’s next-door neighbor. Gen had complained more than once that Irene Carr commented on her comings and goings in an unnerving way.
“I wondered if there was even a hint of truth to it.”
“I’m sure I don’t know.” Ruby struggled to keep a casual tone.
“It’s all so unsavory, isn’t it? I do hope Baines can escape a bigger scandal.”
“If I hear anything, Amanda, I will let you know.”
“I see you had your women’s group last night,” Amanda added as Ruby settled herself behind the steering wheel.
She was probably in her mid-forties but acted like an ancient biddy, keeping close tabs on everyone else.
“I did indeed. See you later, Amanda.”
Ruby closed the door with a definitive slam and waved through the glass. She sped off down the street toward campus. Amanda would probably complain to someone that she roared.
Chapter Five
Gen
First came the Hershey’s kisses in her department mailbox. The following week Gen found a box of creme-filled Girl Scout cookies propped against the door of her office. Someone likely had a kid sister who hadn’t unloaded all her boxes during the cookie season.
Gen knew she was likely to devour the cookies in short order if she took them home, as she had the candy kisses. She had developed a craving for sweets after the breakup with Carolyn, and she alternately binged on chocolate ice cream and Tom Collinses to mask her pain. The failed attempt resulted only in tighter waistbands on her fall wardrobe.
Now, Gen dutifully placed the cookies in the department office for everyone to enjoy, not saving even one for herself. The treats vanished by the end of the day, and she spotted the history chairman helping himself to two vanillas.
She would have forgotten the gifts in time, chalked them up to some girl’s innocent gesture of regard. Maybe Margaret Sutter was quietly repaying her for the loan of the Civil War book.
The situation turned less childlike when a package appeared on her porch, wrapped in brown paper. Inside was a lurid pulp novel, Girls’ Dormitory, its spine cracked and cover tattered.
Two summers back, Carolyn had picked up the novel at a drugstore and read it in one sitting during their Rehoboth trip. She had pronounced it “a delightful dose of trash” and urged it on Gen. The cover, with three girls in various states of undress, sparked Gen’s interest, but the description of a college dormitory housemother who “initiated” students made it seem too salacious to bother with. Gen had tossed it aside for Doctor Zhivago, which she’d been saving for vacation.
She knew Carolyn hadn’t mailed the novel; the package had been placed on her porch with care. Whoever wrapped it tied it up with the same pink ribbon as the candy kisses she’d received at school.
Gen’s skin crawled at the thought that her “admirer” knew where she lived. Granted, Springboro was a compact town where people recognized each other by sight, if not by name, and she was the only Rider in the local directory. Still . . .
Worse, Girls’ Dormitory was about a lesbian predator at a girls’ school—a creepy message, for sure, but possibly an ominous warning.
The novel’s housemother plot brought back a memory. In her second year at Baines, the dean at the time asked Gen to be a dormitory housemother. “We rely on our single ladies without families for these positions,” the dean had said. “It will look good on your CV if you ever go up for promotion.”
The dean mentioned no end date for the appointment, which had made Gen nervous to accept. She wasn’t dating anyone at the time, but that didn’t mean she wanted to become a nun. With the advice of a friend at another college, a woman she’d dated in graduate school, Gen finessed her refusal—an excuse about a long-term lease. She’d never told anyone at Baines about the housemother offer, not even Ruby. Girls’ Dormitory landed too close, an eerie coincidence.
And that turned her thoughts to Juliet, who wanted desperately to give up her housemother position. In the five years Juliet had taught at Baines, she and Gen had met for coffee only a couple of times. After the women’s meeting, Juliet had followed her out of Ruby’s and asked if they could talk more about what applying for tenure had cost her. Gen agreed readily. Since securing tenure she was expected to mentor others, and she found Juliet affable. In the busy early weeks, though, neither of them had followed up. Now the incident with the book gave Gen an immediate reason to place the call.
Gen located Juliet’s number easily in the phone book. Juliet agreed to meet on Saturday, suggesting breakfast at the town diner, but Gen set her sights farther afield—someplace where she never encountered anyone from Springboro. That morning, she drove east until she reached the sign: “Barrington, Virginia—Founded 1768—Pop. 10,602.” It was a safe spot where she sometimes met Carolyn, midway between their two lives. Carolyn liked to fantasize that the “02” at the end signified a couple of spinsters who had met as nurses in Korea and set up housekeeping together when they returned.
Lace curtains draped the windows of Barrington Tea Shoppe, presided over by a war bride who had followed her American husband from England after VE Day. The cozy spot served finger sandwiches, pastries, and pots of tea, mostly to tourists snaking their way toward the Blue Ridge Parkway and points west.
Juliet had already procured a table facing the square. With her back turned toward the door, Gen almost didn’t recognize her. At school and at Ruby’s meetings, Juliet usually wore her blond hair in a bun at the nape of her neck, a professional look that accentuated her slender neck. For the weekend, though, she’d arranged it in a French braid that extended past her shoulder blades. The hairstyle and her cotton slacks and madras blouse gave her a girlish air. Gen wished she’d dressed more casually, too, instead of like she was heading to class.
As they deliberated over scones and tarts, Juliet said, “Thanks for reaching out, Gen. I’ve been so blue since Ruby’s, I couldn’t even bring myself to call you.” She clutched her menu, her grip crinkling the sides of the vellum sheet.
Gen hadn’t considered how disheartened her younger colleague might have been when the other female faculty downplayed her concerns—especially Ruby, so revered and yet so harsh when she disapproved. Gen’s own reason for contacting Juliet faded into the background. “I should have called you sooner.”
“It’s a busy time.”
“Not that busy.” Gen fiddled with her napkin, unfolding and refolding it, ashamed that she hadn’t offered Juliet more support. “I’m sorry I didn’t speak up for you at the meeting. The truth is I’m a chicken.”
Juliet snickered. “You don’t fool me, Gen. A woman doesn’t make it to tenure being a chicken.”
Their pastries and pot of Earl Grey arrived, and Gen fell silent for a moment while the waitress served.
“Fact is, there was something I couldn’t bring up in front of everyone. No one knows, not even Ruby—”
Juliet raised her eyebrows over her china cup, as if she expected a salacious reveal. “I thought Ruby knew everything.”
Gen smiled at the assessment. “She likes you to think that, but I’ve managed to keep some things close to the vest. So you can’t tell her, but here’s the thing. My second year at Baines, the dean approached me about being a housemother at Paxton.”
“No!”
“He implied I had no life at all, so I’d be perfect for it. There was no term limit either. It looked like I would just do it until I dropped dead or retired.”
“That’s the same line I got. How did you get out of it?”
“A friend helped me manufacture an excuse about signing a two-year lease I couldn’t break. Apparently, the dean doesn’t know a thing about leases. I was actually living in month-to-month rooms back then.”
“I wish I’d had a friend like that four years ago.” Juliet stared at the scone on her plate. “But I didn’t know you, and Ruby told me to do whatever the dean asked if I hoped to get tenure someday. So I said yes, but I had this sinking feeling about what could happen down the road.”
Gen sipped her tea. “Maybe you could come up with an excuse after the fact,” she said. She glanced toward Juliet’s left hand on the tablecloth, at the shiny jewel as blue as her eyes, surrounded by diamond chips. Juliet caught the shift of Gen’s attention and spun the ring with her thumb.
“I don’t have a fiancé. That would be the perfect excuse, wouldn’t it? But there’s no wedding in the offing, so folks at school will be on to me soon.” Juliet moved her hand to her lap. “Family heirloom from Granny May. Keeps the men at bay. Nobody understands why a thirty-six-year-old woma
n wouldn’t be married.”
Gen had assumed Juliet was younger, and something loosened in her when she realized only six years separated them. “I’ll see your fiancé and raise you one,” she said softly, like a co-conspirator. “Everyone thinks my man died on Utah Beach.”
Juliet’s eyes popped, and it was clear she’d heard that tale about Gen, too. “You mean, he didn’t?”
After a demure bite Gen explained. “I mean there was no fiancé. But that’s our secret. Well, yours and mine and a few select people that don’t include Ruby.”
“Ha! She doesn’t even know what she doesn’t know,” Juliet quipped. “So what is your story?”
Gen pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, feigning distress. “I’ve never recovered from the shock of getting the telegram. A bit callous, but it works.”
“No, I mean, is there some private person you don’t want Ruby to know about?”
Gen blinked quickly. The river of comfort had widened between them, and with the word “person” Juliet offered a way to jump in. But Gen needed more before she gave up all her secrets. “Not at the moment,” she said. “Anyway, my story doesn’t solve your problem, does it?”
Juliet peered at Gen as if weighing whether to press her further about her “private person,” but she let the subject drop.
“You know, I think I may just roll the dice and give up the post,” Juliet said. “I’m tired of girls knocking on my door at odd hours, and I’m dying to throw a raucous cocktail party. And I won’t even mention my private life, which has been nonexistent for too long.”
Gen made a quick segue into her own predicament. “I hate to tell you, but it isn’t that much easier for single women living off-campus.” She reached into her straw handbag, the one she had bought for beach trips with Carolyn, and fished out the copy of Girls’ Dormitory. She passed it to Juliet under the table, afraid that the waitress or another customer might see the smutty cover art.
“I’ve been getting little gifts at school, candy and then a box of Girl Scout cookies. Crush-type things. But then I found this on my porch the other day.”
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