Testimony

by Paula Martinac

  Which part is the “very good news”? she wanted to ask, but found her voice wasn’t available.

  “You can have an attorney present, and you said you contacted one already. He can call character witnesses, people to provide testimony on your behalf. And you have a good friend on Tenure and Privilege. Ruby will be invaluable. She’s greatly admired and has a lot of influence.”

  Huston’s words scrambled out, like they were ready to run for cover. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped his brow.

  “Nothing will happen until January, possibly February. Unfortunately, you know I’m on sabbatical at Cambridge. Can’t be changed at this late date.”

  She remembered what Huston’s sabbatical meant—that the department’s only other full professor, Henry Thoms, would step in as interim chairman.

  “I’ll write you a statement of support, Gen, a strong one, I promise. I’ll get right to that as soon as I submit my grades. If there’s an opportunity for me to give testimony before I leave for Cambridge, I’ll do that, too.”

  Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, and she blinked them back, determined not to let Huston or anyone at Baines see her cry.

  “What about my spring classes?” she managed to ask.

  “I’ve canceled the seminar. Henry and I are in the process of interviewing a part-time instructor for the pre-Civil War class. There’s one impressive young fellow who’s finishing his dissertation on Manifest Destiny. Of course, he won’t follow your syllabus, but at least the class will run.”

  Of course they’d hire a man. Henry Thoms wouldn’t have it any other way. “You’ve thought of everything,” she said, unable to curb her sarcasm.

  “This is all most unfortunate, but it’s going to be fine. You have an impeccable teaching record and solid scholarship. This will be over before you know it.”

  His face clouded as he cast his eyes toward the door. Gen turned and saw a campus security guard hovering in the frame, a slender young man whose name Gen didn’t know.

  “Give us a minute, would you?” Huston said to the guard. “Now, about your exams—”

  Gen turned away and pushed past Linda Sue and the guard, even as Huston called after her. The young man followed her down the hallway to her office and waited at her door while she grabbed her coat and shoved the provost’s letter into her briefcase. She left her blue books on her desk, assuming that was what Huston was going to instruct her to do. She couldn’t imagine someone else grading them. What would Henry Thoms make of her questions about “the Lost Cause” and Jim Crow?

  Across the hall, Lee-Anne was waiting outside Thoms’s door for his office hours to begin, and she stared at Gen with wide eyes, her mouth a perfect O of shock. Gen relocked her office, then hissed at the guard under her breath, “Whatever you do, do not touch me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The guard’s voice trembled. Not much older than her students, he had likely never imagined this sort of task. He walked a respectful distance behind her to the parking lot, where he halted and continued to stand watch even when she was in her car with the motor running.

  She lingered before shifting the car into reverse, making the guard stamp his feet in the cold while she withdrew the provost’s letter from her briefcase and ripped it open. The envelope flap sliced a cut in her thumb, just deep enough to leave a thin red line on the creamy vellum. Gen pressed down on the wound as she read the dreaded words: without pay.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ruby

  Ruby assembled an emergency meeting of the female faculty group, but only three women showed up. She tried not to attribute the sparse numbers to anything but the end-of-semester timing.

  When the women arrived, Ruby’s dining-room table stood bare, without a cookie or glass of water in sight. “I apologize for my lack of hospitality,” she said. “I’m not in a hostessing mood.”

  “Ruby, dear, what’s the matter?” Vanessa Westergren asked.

  Ruby informed them about Gen’s suspension. At the far end of the table, Frances Palmer blanched and ran a finger repeatedly over a grain of wood. Juliet May nodded as if familiar with Gen’s story. Ruby remembered that she and Gen had become friends in the past few months.

  Vanessa demanded specifics. Ruby realized Gen hadn’t given her much.

  “Mrs. Carr, her next-door neighbor, thought she saw Gen in an improper . . . embrace. Through the kitchen window.”

  Vanessa grimaced. “What do you mean by an improper embrace?”

  “With another woman.”

  “Who?” Vanessa demanded.

  Ruby huffed with impatience at her colleague from the Music Department. Vanessa sang soprano beautifully, but aside from that, Ruby had never taken to her. “That’s irrelevant. I’m not even convinced it happened. Gen won’t say anything too specific, and that’s fine. Her privacy is what’s at issue. Why, your privacy and mine are, too, for that matter. What we do in our homes is our business, not the college’s.”

  “Precisely!” Juliet noted. “Ruby, shouldn’t the Faculty Senate have a say? And what good is tenure if they can do this to someone?” The young professor gripped the edge of the table.

  “Tenure and Privilege will take up the matter as an employment issue and make a recommendation to the Senate,” Ruby replied. “The Senate will relate the decision to the provost. As members of the committee, you and I will have to stand strong for Gen, Frances.”

  Frances continued to stare at the table without speaking.

  “Tenure doesn’t protect anyone when it comes to . . . behavior,” Vanessa added, in response to Juliet’s other question. Her slight hesitation before behavior—as if she’d considered inserting a descriptor—made Ruby press her hands together in her lap.

  “Gen Rider is one of our most respected professors,” Juliet said.

  “Of course, that goes without saying,” Vanessa agreed. “Her behavior on campus has been nothing but exemplary in all the years I’ve known her. But what if off-campus, she’s . . . done something immoral? What if this so-called embrace was something . . . seamy?”

  Frances lifted her head, finding her voice at last. “First of all, who decides what’s ‘immoral’? And second, why don’t you tell us how any off-campus behavior would affect Gen’s teaching?”

  Ruby had always liked her bite. Frances had fought her way through the Biology Department, the only woman in a male-dominated field, and wore as many battle scars as Ruby. She had still not attained the rank of full professor, after all her years of service and a strong research agenda.

  Vanessa snapped back. “You needn’t get so testy, Fran. I like Gen. But you have to admit that if a faculty member is caught stealing or brawling in town or something like that, it would make you question how morally fit they are to guide students. It seems Gen’s done something that got her neighbor so riled up she wanted the administration to know.” Vanessa leaned back as if she’d finished her summation.

  “The Know Your Neighbor nonsense is over,” Frances pointed out. “Her neighbor shouldn’t be spying on her.”

  Ruby had lost control of the meeting. She hadn’t meant to let the discussion drift toward the legitimacy of the charge against Gen or, worse, her moral fitness. Why hadn’t she limited the meeting to faculty she knew would be sympathetic? Before she could try to steer them to an action plan, however, Juliet chimed in.

  “If Gen’s done something immoral, then so have I.”

  All heads swiveled toward the young woman, whose high cheekbones bloomed with rosy splotches.

  “Gen and I were kissing in her kitchen,” Juliet said. “We forgot to put the shade down, and Mrs. Carr apparently saw us.”

  Something welled up in Ruby and escaped as a little gasp. She tried to cover it with a cough, but the sound drew Juliet’s attention. The active were kissing jumped out—not a hug or an embrace or a peck on the cheek, but an adult kiss that continued for a while.

  “I thought you knew and were being discreet,” Juliet said to Ruby. “I t
hought embrace was your euphemism.”

  Ruby shook her head. “Gen didn’t give specifics, and I didn’t ask.”

  “Well, it was completely consensual,” Juliet continued. “I’ve wanted to speak up, tell the provost it was me, but Gen’s worried that would make things worse. She thinks she can withstand this on her own just by claiming she was in her own house.”

  A long silence followed Juliet’s admission. Vanessa twisted the wedding band and engagement ring on her finger, while Frances returned to staring at the table.

  Over the years, Ruby had known plenty of female faculty who set up house together—Frances, for one—but she always imagined the relationships as convenient, not sexual. On weekends, Gen drove all the way to Richmond to stay with a friend named Carolyn, and that behavior struck Ruby as odder. In public, Gen proffered the story that she’d lost her fiancé in the invasion of Normandy and then threw herself into work and friends. Ruby found it better not to think or ask about Gen’s private story—or those of Fenton and colleagues like him.

  Now, the charade had burst open. At least, in Ruby’s dining room.

  Ruby’s voice wavered slightly when she finally spoke. “I doubt coming forward would clear Gen, and she wouldn’t want you to risk everything so close to your tenure decision.”

  Juliet folded her arms firmly. “If faculty can be attacked like this, I don’t want tenure.”

  Vanessa clucked her tongue but at what, Ruby didn’t know. After another pause, the music professor rose and lifted her coat from the back of her chair.

  “I’m sorry, I need to get moving,” she said. “Can’t leave Charles too long with the children. Let me know if there’s something I can do.”

  At the door, Ruby took Vanessa’s arm. “Everything we said today is confidential.”

  “I’m not someone’s nosy neighbor, Ruby,” Vanessa replied with a hint of distaste, but the assurance gave Ruby a modicum of comfort.

  With Vanessa gone, Ruby brought an open bottle of red wine and glasses to the table. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”

  The three of them inched closer together and Ruby filled the glasses. Ruby resisted the urge to gulp hers.

  “Does Gen have money to get by?” Frances asked after a sip.

  The question chilled Ruby, who realized she hadn’t bothered to ask Gen something so basic. The fact that Gen needed to support herself had gotten lost in a flurry of indignation. Suspension without pay was not only demeaning, but outright cruel.

  “I would be willing to chip in each month to help her,” Frances continued. “If more faculty got involved, I bet we could raise a decent kitty. No one has to know specifics.” Frances fished in her pocketbook for her wallet and withdrew twenty dollars. “I’ll start it off.” She pushed several worn bills to the center of the table like she was anteing up in a poker game. Twenty dollars was a hardship for any female professor at Baines, but Ruby matched the amount and Juliet gave up the four dollars she had with her.

  Juliet volunteered to approach other female faculty members about contributing and to take up the collection each month until Gen was reinstated. Frances shook her head firmly.

  “Better not draw attention to yourself,” she said. “Let me. No one looks too close at an old lady.” Gratitude for Frances’s commitment surged in Ruby.

  After her colleagues left, Ruby thought about the rustic cabin in the West Virginia mountains that she and Darrell owned. They’d fallen in love with the area around Lewisburg on their honeymoon and had purchased the cabin with money Ruby’s grandparents left her. Originally a family getaway, it now provided a summer retreat for Ruby’s writing and Darrell’s fishing. The rest of the year, the place sat empty.

  Ruby dug out the cabin keys. It would be a good escape for Gen until the provost’s hearing commenced.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Gen

  Gen and Juliet hadn’t seen each other since the suspension, but they talked on the phone most nights. Their exchange just before Gen left for Ruby’s cabin didn’t go well. Juliet voiced her unhappiness that all contact would end because the cabin didn’t have a phone line.

  “I could come with you,” she suggested. “You can’t have Christmas and New Year’s by yourself in some godforsaken cabin.”

  “I don’t mind.” They still didn’t know each other well. Holing up together in a remote cabin for weeks in the winter could feel claustrophobic, but she didn’t say that.

  “Well, I mind,” Juliet said. “I don’t like it.”

  Gen sighed. She found Juliet’s needy side unattractive, like a student wheedling to get her grade changed. “You don’t know who could be watching us.”

  Juliet snickered. “Sounds like we’re starring in a spy movie.”

  “Look,” Gen snapped, “someone was watching me and I didn’t realize it and now I’m suspended. There’s nothing funny about it.”

  The line went quiet and then Juliet said softly, “I’m sorry, Gen. I make stupid jokes when I’m on edge. Of course you’re right.”

  She pictured Juliet’s face, the way in a certain light her blond hair took on a reddish cast. “It’s just three weeks, sweetie. I’ll see you before you know it.” The affectionate name slipped out without thinking. She’d never used it with anyone else.

  The next morning, Gen took off early, gassing up at the Texaco on the edge of town. She expected the man usually on duty to try to make small talk with a regular, and her hands tightened on the wheel as she pulled up to the pump. When she didn’t recognize the young man who bounced out of the station door, she loosened her grip and asked him not only to fill it up but also to check under the hood.

  As she put more and more miles between her and Springboro, the roads narrowed until they became a series of complicated switchbacks in the West Virginia hills. A sign for “Folly Way” marked the spot where she turned left onto a gravel trail. The irony of the name made her smile for the first time in more than a week, but she quickly turned serious again when deep ruts in the road threatened to rip off the underbody of her car.

  She negotiated her way inch by inch to the white wooden fence noted on Darrell’s printed directions. Without a passenger, she had to jump out and prop open the barrier with a rock, pull in, and close it behind her again.

  Transformed into a dirt path, the road snaked through a pasture to a woodsy area. With each tenth of a mile that clicked by on her odometer, Gen’s courage foundered. The prospect of escaping had buoyed her, but now she wondered how difficult it would be to back out and head home.

  At last, Ruby and Darrell’s log cabin rose out of a majestic stand of red pines. “Rustic,” her friend had described it. If it rained or snowed, Gen would be stuck for the duration. But she had nowhere to be, and at Ruby’s suggestion she had piled the back seat with provisions. Her suitcases held three weeks’ worth of clothes.

  Remembering Mark Patton, she had also brought along the Belk’s department store box in which she kept private souvenirs. It had once held the silk blouse she’d splurged on for her interview at Baines. The blouse had long ago made its way to the Salvation Army with a frayed cuff and missing collar button. Now the tissue paper protected her mementos, the ones she didn’t dare show anyone—photos, letters. Unlike her orderly files at school, kept with a historian’s precision, the box resembled her hall closet, her keepsakes simply tossed inside.

  If Gen’s landlord got wind of the charge against her and changed the locks, nothing in her house would incriminate her. She slammed the car trunk over the box like the door of a safe.

  Ruby had warned her about the temperamental front door key that had to be wiggled until it clicked into place. In the main room, lacy cobwebs and a pattern of mouse droppings across the kitchen counter attested to the fact her friends hadn’t been in residence since August.

  Gen unfolded Ruby’s elaborate directions for opening the cabin. First on the agenda was to switch on the hot water heater and then crack open windows to dismiss the musty odor. Th
e brisk outdoor air made the main room, a sort of kitchen and living room combined, even colder, so she considered making a fire. Through the window of the back door, Gen noted a stack of logs under a tarp.

  She’d never constructed a fire on her own, but she had remembered to bring matches and newspaper with her. To guide her, she dredged up a visual memory of Carolyn sparking a fire on cool evenings at the beach cottage. Carolyn would have been amused at the pile of snapped matchsticks before the flames from the paper and kindling actually caught the logs. It was longer still until the air warmed so Gen could remove her wool coat. On a nail near the door, she found an apron that likely belonged to Darrell, given the chef’s hat printed on the front. Without taking a break she scrubbed the counters so she could unpack her kitchen supplies.

  Daylight was fading by the time she’d finished the main room, and Gen switched on all the lamps. With the crackle of the fire and the golden glow from the lamps, the place felt livable. “Cozy” was the other word Ruby had used. Standing at the kitchen counter, inspecting her work, she unwrapped cheese and crackers from her provisions and ate a few without tasting them. They brought up the sharp memory of Juliet in her kitchen, the kiss that had sparked desire and trouble at the same time; and loneliness surged in her. She shook it off and went to inspect the handsome record player, a Phillips portable in a vinyl case, which, unlike everything else in the cabin, looked brand-new.

  Ruby and Darrell owned no peppy albums that she could dance away her sadness to—or if they did, they left them all in Springboro. Classical was the only choice. The Toscanini she chose faded into the background as she sat on the sofa with a glass of white wine and an article on the Freedmen’s Bureau she hadn’t found time to dig into. But she kept reading the same paragraph over and over.

  The crunch of tires outside brought Gen out of her exhausted fog. Ruby and Darrell both pronounced the cabin completely safe, with no intrusions or disturbances in all the years they’d owned it. The nearest neighbor was at least a quarter-mile back, before she reached the wooden fence.