Huston punctuated his response with a sigh—the impatience of a parent whose child refuses direction. “You’ll have to say something besides that. Mrs. Carr is likely just following the Know Your Neighbor guidance. And after what happened with the Patton fellow . . . well, the provost won’t let this matter drop.”
Gen ran her damp palms over her skirt and stood. “You haven’t given me enough time.”
“It’s what we have,” Huston said.
✥ ✥ ✥
As the light drained from the day, Gen pulled up to the curb in front of her bungalow but remained in the driver’s seat, hands fastened on the steering wheel. Beside her on the passenger’s side was a stack of papers she’d grabbed from her desk before racing from her office to the safety of her car. She wasn’t even sure what was in the messy pile, some of which had pitched forward onto the floorboard when she jammed on her brakes at a stop sign. She decided to abandon it all and get inside the house as quickly as she could.
Gen glanced at the liquor cabinet but bypassed it. She had too much to do, too much to think about, too many people to call to allow herself the luxury of getting drunk. Instead, she forced herself to enter the kitchen and down two glasses of water from the tap in rapid succession. Her throat scratched like sandpaper. She let her eyes wander across the yard, where the light was on in the Carrs’ kitchen. At almost dinner time, Mrs. Carr was sure to be home.
Gen continued to watch out the window, her heart tapping out a frenzied beat. After some time passed—five minutes? ten?—she spotted what she’d been waiting for: Irene Carr’s outline in her own window. Gen straightened her spine and willed Mrs. Carr to look back at her. As if she could sense Gen’s stare, Mrs. Carr’s eyes remained cast down, fixed on something in front of her, likely in the kitchen sink.
“Yes, wash those hands,” Gen muttered. “Get them nice and clean.”
And then Mrs. Carr glanced up—so fleetingly, Gen wondered if she imagined it. Within seconds, her neighbor had closed her flouncy cafe curtains.
Gen’s legs turned to rubber. If she called Ruby, if she related the situation to Darrell, he would likely tell her not to engage her neighbor in any way. Her better judgment agreed with his imagined advice, but her heart also weighed in. Without donning her coat again, Gen left her house through the kitchen door, crossed her backyard, and found herself standing on the Carrs’ porch.
She jabbed the doorbell once, twice. She crossed her arms to keep herself from shivering in the evening air, then punched the bell again. The fixture wasn’t broken—she could hear the melodic chime from where she stood—but no one came to answer it. Mr. Carr’s Lincoln wasn’t in the driveway, so his wife must be alone. The woman had bemoaned to Gen, more than once, her empty nest since Susanna had enrolled in Baines.
“I know you’re in there,” Gen said loudly, not caring who else heard. She switched to the door knocker, a polished brass lion’s head, and rapped it in a forceful rat-a-tat-tat.
Still, nothing. Gen trudged down the walkway and back to her house, letting the door slam behind her. Inside, she rested her forehead against its heavy wood.
She needed to warn Juliet and Fenton, but the pain of having to tell her gay friends that she’d let them down was intolerable. Gen sank onto the phone bench and dialed another familiar number.
Not long after the call, Ruby stood in Gen’s foyer bearing a fragrant roasted chicken Darrell must have cooked for dinner. She hadn’t stopped to cover the bird with tinfoil, and it listed precariously to one side of the serving platter. The sight of her distinguished friend, hair in disarray, coat sliding off her shoulders, holding a chicken, made Gen half-laugh, half-cry.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gen
Frank Johnson had only a few hours before his bus left for Washington, Mae explained. “No appointments today at all, Dr. Rider.”
Gen understood how rude it was to show up at the law firm first thing in the morning, without an appointment, expecting a busy attorney to carve out a slot for her in his schedule. Still, out of desperation, she had risked the discourtesy and detoured to Johnson & Waldron on her way to campus.
“I won’t take but five minutes of his time, Mrs. Johnson, I swear.”
“He said not to disturb him for anything,” Mae replied. “Big meeting to get ready for.”
“Please.” It sounded like begging, even in Gen’s own ears. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent.”
Mae’s face softened, and her hand inched toward the intercom button of the phone on her desk. She didn’t have to make the choice, though, because Frank emerged from behind his closed door.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Just this one interruption. Dr. Rider, good to see you again.”
He extended a welcoming hand that Gen shook gratefully. Since the fool she’d made of herself with Frank in October, she had been to a second NAACP meeting and even volunteered for the women’s committee, all without asking for anything in return. Now Frank’s warmth suggested they might soon return to a first-name basis.
“I won’t take but a minute,” she assured him as he motioned toward a seat across from his desk.
He shot her a polite smile. “What can I possibly do for you?” His slight emphasis on possibly wasn’t lost on Gen.
“I’m in a bind. At the college. I need an attorney’s advice—” Frank’s eyebrows lifted, and Gen stumbled to explain. “I was hoping just—I hoped maybe you could refer me to a lawyer for my particular case.”
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “What is this bind you’re in?”
Gen bit her upper lip before continuing. As she related the conversation with Huston, she watched the lawyer’s face closely but didn’t notice a change, not even a flinch. At the end of her story, Frank steepled his hands in front of his mouth but didn’t speak.
“I have to talk to the chairman this morning, and I wrote this statement that I would like a lawyer to look at in case it’s a mistake to put it in writing. I can’t afford to make things worse for myself.”
Frank held out his hand for the sheet she’d withdrawn from her purse.
Dear Dr. Huston:
Per your request, I am furnishing a response to an allegation put forth against me by Mrs. Blakeney, which I believe is an invasion of my privacy. At the time Mrs. Blakeney alleges the incident took place, it was a Sunday evening and I was in my own home. Also, as you yourself noted, Mrs. Blakeney made this scurrilous charge based solely on hearsay and secondhand information.
Thank you in advance for drawing this matter quickly to a conclusion.
Sincerely,
Virginia Rider, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
He scrutinized the short statement, appearing to read it twice, then passed it back to her.
“Legally, I don’t see any problem with it,” Frank announced. “I might have left off scurrilous.”
Gen sensed a “but” somewhere in his statement. “Is there some other problem, aside from legal?”
Frank rubbed his mouth and took his time answering. “I find it unlikely to satisfy anyone in a position of authority. You said you were asked for an explanation that the chairman could take to the provost. You haven’t given one.”
“My explanation is that it’s none of that woman’s business to spread rumors about me because of something she thinks happened in my home. I don’t care what cockamamie idea she got from the Know Your Neighbor campaign.”
The attorney drew in a long, patient breath. “Privacy is a tricky defense, Gen. The Constitution doesn’t outright guarantee it. There’s some judicial precedent, but if someone accuses you of committing a crime in your home—”
“Kissing someone is a crime?” She laughed, but Frank’s face remained impassive.
“It’s not sodomy, but there are laws against homosexual fondling and lewdness.”
“In private?”
“In public.”
“Which this isn’t a case of.”
Frank glanced to
ward his desk clock, an ornate brass piece that resembled a ship’s gauge. He clearly hadn’t anticipated a circuitous discussion when he agreed to speak to her for five minutes.
“What would you do, Frank?”
He held her eyes but paused for a long moment. “I’d go with your first instinct. I’d hire an attorney.” He picked up a pen and scratched onto a legal pad. “Let me give you some names.”
✥ ✥ ✥
After Gen delivered her statement to the department secretary, Huston did something he had not done in all the years she’d taught at Baines: He came to her office. Not bothering with a hello, he blurted out, “I was hoping you’d give me something more substantial.”
“And I was hoping to put the matter to rest,” she replied, as evenly as she could. She motioned him to her visitor’s chair, but he remained just inside the door, his face as pale as the letter flapping in his hand.
“It isn’t a question of me. You have an impeccable record as a teacher, and far be it from me to pry into your life at home. But this complaint has come from a parent, a prominent alumna and donor who’s capable of making a fuss out of nothing at all, and if I don’t address it with the provost, Mrs. Blakeney will. I’m afraid that could go very badly for you.”
“Just so you know, Geoffrey, I spoke to an attorney this morning.”
That brought a hint of color back to Huston’s cheeks. “Oh, very good. Excellent move.” His firm agreement buoyed her. “And what did he think?”
“We didn’t get that far. We’ll talk again soon,” she lied. Huston nodded as if satisfied that she’d taken action. She didn’t mention that she would need to work her way through the short list of white attorneys Frank had created off the top of his head, people he’d collaborated with on NAACP business.
Before noon, when she knew Huston’s meeting with the provost was scheduled to begin, Gen drove herself to the Barrington tea shop. Juliet was already waiting at a table facing the picture window. It was the same table they’d chosen on their first rendezvous, but this time when Gen sat down she noticed it wobbled a little.
Her eyes misted over, and Juliet’s face blurred. “I don’t think I can—” Gen began.
But then she heard Juliet’s calm, clear voice as the waitress placed a menu in front of each of them.
“Well, thank you. What looks good today?”
✥ ✥ ✥
After the beverages and sweets Gen didn’t have any taste for, they sat in Juliet’s ancient Buick outside the tea shop. She rarely used the vehicle, preferring to go everywhere she could on two wheels.
“I’ll come forward,” Juliet said. “We’ll say it was all innocent and that Mrs. Carr needs glasses.”
Gen shook her head adamantly. “One of us in trouble is enough. Better me than you.”
“But it might clear you!”
She almost laughed but stopped herself. “You spent the night,” Gen pointed out. “That hardly seems innocent.”
Juliet twisted the end of her braid. “They don’t know that. Even if they did, they wouldn’t know where I slept. You’ve said Fenton stays over on your sofa bed. A guy sleeping over looks worse than a woman.”
Fenton had encouraged Gen to lie, too, and Huston in his way had hinted broadly at the possibility. But she’d been so outraged at the invasion of her private space that when pressed for an explanation, she could only tell the truth. She was in her own kitchen, and what happened there was no one’s business.
“Here’s the thing,” she said to Juliet. “I was in my own home. I would have thought you of all people would get how important that is.”
Juliet gripped the steering wheel. “You keep repeating that, and I do get it. But Gen, your job’s at stake, your reputation. Why not deny the whole thing and throw the blame on Mrs. Carr? Then maybe you could continue on as always. We could continue on.”
Gen rolled down her window a few inches for air. “It would be awkward to take back my statement now. The provost already has it. What do I do—say, whoops, I just remembered?”
Juliet sighed heavily and started the engine.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gen
Gen waited for word from Huston or a command to appear in the provost’s office, all while trying to focus on grading student papers. Everything proved a distraction, even going into the kitchen to prepare a quick meal. Each time she spotted the window, so innocently facing the Carrs’ house, memories flooded back. That window mocked her even in her dreams, jolting her out of sleep. Soon, Gen stopped going into the kitchen at all, drinking water from the bathroom sink and forgoing most food except the dry Cheerios, crackers, and apples she could keep on her desk. If the kitchen had had a door, she would have closed it off from the rest of the house.
She steered clear of her office at school, too, only venturing there after dusk on Friday, when faculty and staff had departed and students huddled in their dorm rooms cramming for finals. The campus at those times offered delicious quiet, the silence broken only by the insistent “who cooks for you” cry of a barred owl.
There was no avoiding administering her final exams, though. On Monday morning, Gen dry heaved into her toilet bowl. She brushed her teeth vigorously and ran a comb through her hair, adding a spritz of Adorn to hold it in place. Foundation and powder under her eyes covered the smudges from lack of sleep.
She made it to her office without encountering a single faculty member. The janitor sweeping the hallway greeted her with “G’morning, Professor,” as if it were any other day. For a few minutes at least, she almost believed it was. Behind her closed door, she composed herself, gathered blue books from a stash in a file drawer, and reviewed the sheet of essay questions Linda Sue had mimeographed for her.
At the door to her classroom, she froze. Through the door’s window panel, she could see the rows of girls with their heads bent over their textbooks. The rumor might have already rolled across campus, and the students she was about to face might have heard the gossip about her. She dismissed the notion with a determined intake of breath. After all, there’d been no summons yet, and the allegation against her remained just that.
Gen twisted the knob. She suspected her smile might look fake, but it was the best she could muster, and besides, the girls would be so nervous about the exam they would likely not notice.
“Good morning, everyone,” she said in what she hoped was a cheery tone. She focused her gaze on Margaret, who was the first to return the greeting. “Please put your textbooks and notes away now so we can get started. You’re a bright group, and I don’t think any of you will find this test too challenging.”
With a quick scan of faces, she located Susanna and Lee-Anne at their usual side-by-side desks, looking relieved at Gen’s statement. Perhaps Mrs. Carr and Mrs. Blakeney had been too embarrassed to tell their own daughters the gossip, or maybe they wanted them to finish the semester without distractions that could damage their GPAs.
The two girls were among the first to finish the exam. Neither appeared to have an inkling of what their mothers had set in motion.
“I think I’ll pull better than a B-plus this time, Professor,” Lee-Anne whispered with a self-satisfied smile. “I really studied.” Leaving behind her, Susanna offered a pleasant, “See you next year!”
Margaret was the last to turn in her exam. She also slid the borrowed photography book onto the desk with a soft thanks. “I don’t suppose you ever found out who sent you those presents,” she said, her eyes fastened on Gen’s stack of blue books.
With all that had happened since Thanksgiving, the pranks had slipped Gen’s mind.
“I haven’t,” Gen replied. “I’m not sure I ever will. Don’t worry about it, Margaret.”
The girl’s face relaxed. “I probably won’t see you again before January. Are you doing anything fun over the break?” It was an odd question from a student, as if Gen were a peer and not a teacher.
“Just resting, I hope.”
“That’s nice,” Margaret sa
id, but her tone was laced with such melancholy that Gen patted her back as they exited together.
“You have a merry Christmas, Margaret.”
Gen withdrew to her office to gather what she needed for the second exam. As with the first, the test went without a hitch, the girls unaware of the drama unfolding in her own life. When she announced, “That’s it, girls—time,” she felt the weight lift off her as she realized she could retreat home.
She had to brave the department office one last time to collect her mail. Linda Sue said, “Good afternoon, Dr. Rider,” in a voice louder than needed for such a small space. As if on cue, Huston emerged from his office.
“Gen, would you please—when you have a moment.”
Gen gathered her mail, mainly notices of meetings and a reminder about committee appointments for the spring. Mixed in with the other papers was a vellum envelope from the Office of the Provost with, Dr. Virginia Rider, History Department typed neatly across the front.
She didn’t need to open it; she could almost read the message through the thick, watermarked paper. She walked as steadily as she could into Huston’s office and planted herself in front of his desk.
“There’s no hearing?”
“You haven’t read your letter.” He glanced down at the stack of mail in her hands, and she shook her head.
“It’s suspension, not dismissal, pending an investigation by the provost’s office. Very contained. Mrs. Blakeney and Mrs. Carr won’t go to the press or contact Congressman Duke. The provost doesn’t want parents pulling students out and all that.”
She nodded roughly as she let the idea of suspension sink in.
“I believe just the provost and Dean Rolfe’s office will be involved. The Tenure and Privilege Committee will also review the situation and send Dr. Ramsey its recommendation. That’s very good news, Gen, very good news.”
Testimony Page 15
