Testimony

by Paula Martinac

  “I don’t feel well,” she announced. “Can I use the bathroom?”

  Ruby escorted Lee-Anne to the powder room. Through the stillness, Gen heard the distinct sound of retching followed by Ruby’s comforting, motherly tone. She pictured her friend holding back the girl’s long hair as she vomited into the commode.

  Gen crossed to the window for something to distract her, but her mind worried over the fact that time was slipping away and Lee-Anne had set a thirty-minute limit.

  When Lee-Anne and Ruby returned to their seats, the girl’s face had drained of color, and she dabbed at her mouth with a dampened washcloth.

  What would Ursula do? The lawyer would have disapproved of this clandestine meeting to begin with, but if she were in charge, she would firmly steer the witness to the point.

  “Lee-Anne, Dr. Woods and I would like to help you.” Gen propped herself at the edge of her chair. “But we can’t until you tell us more. Like why you’ve been making up stories about . . . how I’ve acted with you.”

  Lee-Anne’s chin jutted out as if she were poised to object and carry on the charade. But then her bottom lip quivered and the tears flowed again.

  “You have, haven’t you?” Gen continued. “Been making things up.”

  When Lee-Anne’s head dipped up and down reluctantly, Ruby reached over and patted her hand. “It’s all right, dear,” she said. “No one’s angry.”

  “I—I needed them to get me out!”

  “Of school?”

  Lee-Anne nodded again, and tears dropped off her chin onto her cardigan. “I wanted to just leave, but they wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t stay.”

  Gen inclined farther toward the sofa, willing the truth out of her.

  “And I . . . I couldn’t tell them the real reason,” Lee-Anne sputtered.

  Ruby shot a worried glance at Gen as she stroked the girl’s hand gently, but Gen couldn’t decipher what the look meant. Was she going too far? How could she stop now? She sucked in a determined breath and posed the question she already knew the answer to.

  “Lee-Anne—you’re . . . expecting, is that right?” She’d almost chosen pregnant but settled on the more muted phrase.

  Pain and panic crossed Lee-Anne’s face. “I told Susanna not to tell!”

  “Susanna did the right thing,” Ruby said. “You haven’t told your parents?”

  “They’re gonna find out pretty soon,” Lee-Anne muttered, rubbing her stomach.

  The girl wasn’t showing yet and she had morning sickness, so she was likely only a few months along. Susanna had refused to tell Fenton who the father was, but she did disclose that Lee-Anne had become “involved” with a male professor in the fall. On the phone with Gen, Lee-Anne gave Thoms’s name as the reason for wanting to talk but wouldn’t go into detail until they met in person.

  Gen thought back to Halloween: Lee-Anne flustered, hopping around in one shoe, Thoms stealing off down the hall. Now it was too late to make it right—for Lee-Anne, anyway. Her parents would likely send her away in disgrace when she got too big to hide her condition.

  But maybe there could be one final jab at Thoms to keep him from hurting the girls yet to come.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Gen

  Men’s laughter undulated from behind the closed door. Henry Thoms emerged from the chairman’s office as if he belonged there, and the sight made Gen shudder.

  Thoms slapped a younger man on the back jovially. With the other hand he rattled a set of car keys. “My boy, you have made my day.”

  The other man resembled Thoms, lanky with high cheekbones. His hair held no traces of gray, though, and was plastered down with a Brylcreem shine.

  “You enjoy that car now, Uncle Henry. You picked a beaut.”

  Gen placed him immediately by his voice. He was the thug who had bashed her car door in Slocum Point at the Grace AME Church.

  Thoms and his companion spotted Gen at the same time and smiled.

  “Virginia, so sorry to keep you waiting,” Thoms said. “My nephew dropped in early with a nice surprise. Spence, this is my colleague, Professor Rider.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. You ever need new wheels, you come visit me and I’ll fix you right up.” The nephew winked and flashed a business card that read, “Spencer J. Thoms, Manager—Big Beau Motors, New & Used Cars.”

  Gen couldn’t resist a taunt as she returned the card. “You already fixed me right up, Mr. Thoms. Back in October?”

  Spence’s grin faded, and she suspected her face may have finally registered in his memory. “Don’t rightly recall that,” he said, turning away.

  Spence shook his uncle’s hand and left in a rush.

  “Isn’t it a small world, you buying a car from my nephew?” Thoms gestured toward the chair Gen had occupied when Huston informed her of Mrs. Blakeney’s accusation. The chair looked the same but felt different, less stiff.

  “Actually, I didn’t buy anything. Your nephew bashed my car door with a baseball bat when he saw me coming out of a meeting at the Negro church. Used some choice language, too. The dent’s starting to rust, what with the snow.” She hadn’t meant to divulge so much, but her days at Baines were numbered anyway and he might as well face the low caliber of his kin.

  Thoms’s brow furrowed as he settled into the chair next to her. “I apologize for my nephew’s crude behavior. He’s a good boy, but he’s gotten into some scrapes. I thought we were past it.” He laced his hands together in his lap. “Let me take care of that repair for you, Virginia. I don’t like the sound of that rust.”

  Gen examined Thoms curiously. For the first time in her long acquaintance with him, his tone didn’t reek of condescension or sarcasm. The show of humanity fit him as poorly as a cheap suit, and she wondered how often he tucked away the Henry Thoms she was accustomed to—someone only a few notches above his nephew.

  “Feeling guilty, Henry?”

  Thoms snapped to attention. “Whatever for? I didn’t bash your car.” He moved to the chair behind Huston’s desk. “Well, the offer stands. I like to make things right. Now, on to business.”

  Gen glanced down at her right hand, fastened on the chair arm. Before she left for Wilmington, Juliet had slid her grandmother’s sapphire onto it. “For luck,” she had said. When Gen resisted, Juliet added, “It’s just on loan, mind, so you’ll have to come find me to return it.”

  The ring was a size too large, and Gen hadn’t worn it for fear of losing a precious heirloom. Today, it shimmered on her middle finger and made her loosen her grip on the chair.

  When she looked up, Thoms had folded his arms, his face unreadable. “I assume you have a letter for me.”

  Gen drew back. “Oh, I’m not here to resign. The school will have to fire me to get rid of me. And you don’t have that authority, Henry, so it will have to come from the provost or dean.”

  Thoms’s frown brought back her familiar adversary. “Then what is this about? I don’t have time to play games with you.”

  “Yet,” she began, considering her words with care, “you seem to play them with your students.”

  Thoms rose from his seat, glaring at her. “To think, I offered to help you and all you do is try to intimidate me about . . . well, God knows what. If you aren’t here to resign, I’ll ask you to leave.”

  Gen scowled back at him, trying to make herself look fierce even though her heart hammered against her chest. “I have some information about Lee-Anne Blakeney you might want to hear.”

  His Adam’s apple jerked. “I’m sure I know Miss Blakeney better than you.”

  “Why don’t you sit down and we’ll see?”

  He remained standing, but clutched the edge of his desk. His hands were as slender as a pianist’s. “I will stand, thank you. I’m not in the habit of discussing advisees with other professors, and besides, you are on suspension and under investigation. I’ve asked you to leave, but if you won’t, you’ll force me to call security to escort you off campus. Why, they might even press
charges for trespassing.” His hand hovered over the phone.

  Gen held his eyes. “No need for that. I’ll leave on my own in a minute. But I wanted to give you the chance to consider resigning before I take the information I have to the provost. You’ve been having an inappropriate sexual relationship with Lee-Anne and she’s pregnant.”

  Thoms fiddled with a black striated fountain pen lying on the blotter. It looked expensive, like a Mont Blanc. He removed the cap from the pen and clicked it back into place several times.

  “I won’t deny we’ve been intimate, but she wasn’t in my class in the fall. She’s a flirtatious thing, as you yourself have seen—”

  “I’ve seen no such thing.”

  “So you say. Anyway, we had a handful of enjoyable times that she initiated. It was all very tender and satisfying, and she got what she wanted.”

  Gen stared at him in disbelief. “To be pregnant?”

  “I know nothing about that. I’m sure she’s been with numerous Davis and Lee boys. If she claims I’m the father . . . well, I broke it off with her at the start of the semester, and she got angry. She actually thought I’d leave my wife and boys for her.” He snickered. “I couldn’t keep it going, what with her taking my seminar this term. I made the ethical choice.”

  Thoms’s affect never changed, and Gen realized with a jolt of disgust that he actually believed his version.

  “So, no, Virginia, I have no intention of resigning. I reckon there’s not a professor on this campus who hasn’t had a girl make up a fanciful story about him.”

  Gen took her time standing up. “Yet you were so quick to believe a girl’s story about me as the God’s honest truth.”

  Thoms sniffed. “Apples and oranges,” he said. “You’re jealous, admit it. When push comes to shove, you’re just an unhappy lesbian.”

  Gen reached over and slapped him, a crack so forceful his head twisted. She had never struck anyone before and didn’t know she was capable of it.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time.”

  His fingers grazed his cheek where her smack left pink marks. “Get out of here.”

  At the door to his office, she glanced over her shoulder and caught him leaning forward onto his desk, breathing heavily.

  Chapter Forty

  Gen

  The Great Hall occupied a wing of Old Main. The elongated, second-story reception room boasted a polished parquet floor, two elaborately carved mantelpieces, two chandeliers, more sconces than Gen could count, and a wall of French doors that opened onto a balcony. The space was not unfamiliar to Gen; she had attended a formal reception there for newly tenured faculty just last May. The evening of the event she and Ruby had clinked champagne glasses while marveling at the mountains on the horizon, swirled with peach and purple in the dusky light. “You did it, my girl,” Ruby had said, triumph and joy filling her voice.

  Such a grand place was hardly needed for a meeting of Gen, Ursula, the provost, the dean, and a few minions. “They’re trying to intimidate us,” Gen whispered to Ursula as they entered.

  Ursula squeezed her arm lightly. “They’re welcome to try,” she said.

  Their heels clacked against the parquet as they traversed the room to the table and chairs set up at the far end. Dean Rolfe was already present and stood for them.

  “I apologize for the space,” Rolfe said. “The provost’s reception room is being prepped for a luncheon today, and my meeting room just won’t hold us all.”

  “It’s lovely. All we need is a string quartet.” Ursula’s sense of humor charmed the dean, whose face lit as he hastened to Ursula’s place to hold her chair.

  A butler in a crisp white coat offered them coffee, which Gen declined. She wanted to be alert, not shaky. Ursula, however, wrapped her elegant fingers around her cup and sipped with apparent rapture.

  “That truly is delicious coffee,” she said directly to the butler. He looked surprised, maybe that one of the white people in the room was speaking to him without barking out orders. “Could I trouble you for a splash more before you leave, Mr.—?”

  “Just Harvey, ma’am.”

  “Thank you so much, Harvey.”

  Kathy Yost appeared next, carrying a steno pad and an armful of folders. Ursula had informed Gen there would be no recording device at this meeting. The secretary nodded toward her in recognition, then quickly set about passing a slim folder to each person at the table except Gen.

  “My client needs a folder, too,” Ursula noted.

  Kathy’s face blanched. Gen watched her counting the bodies at the table. “I was told to make four. You, the dean, the provost, and Mr. Burnside.”

  Ursula’s lips tightened, but her tone remained calm and polite. “That is quite all right. I’m happy to share with Dr. Rider.”

  Five minutes, maybe six, passed in which Ursula exchanged chitchat with the dean about her trip from Lexington, the mild weather, the architecture of Old Main. “These old schools are like traveling back in time,” Ursula remarked, without adding whether the effect was positive or negative. Having thumbed through the documents in her file folder, she passed it to Gen, who spotted Henry Thoms’s name on the top document and closed the folder without looking any further.

  Finally, the provost entered with another man. Ramsey introduced Arthur Burnside, the college counsel, then offered an extensive apology that called attention to itself—something about a report his office was rushing to finish for the college president. He paired his regrets with a light touch to Gen’s shoulder. His words echoed in her ears, a reminder that the recommendation to the president about her status would come from him.

  “No problem at all,” Ursula said. “We’ve been enjoying some wonderful coffee while the dean regaled us with the history of this building.” She favored Provost Ramsey with one of her gracious smiles. “You’re a fortunate man to work in a place with such a rich past.”

  He acknowledged the smile with a brisk nod before glancing at his watch, a flashy gold timepiece that demanded notice. “Sadly, I have to leave you good people in twenty, twenty-five minutes. Hopefully, we can wrap this up quickly.”

  Someone had lit a fire, and despite the room’s size the air thickened. Beads of sweat trickled down Gen’s torso to the waistband of her suit’s skirt. She missed the provost’s opening comments as she reached over to pour herself a glass of water from the silver pitcher positioned near her.

  “. . . of course, a very difficult situation with conflicting views,” the provost was saying. “We have the Tenure and Privilege Committee and the Faculty Senate that recommend reinstating Dr. Rider, and we have faculty who have provided strong statements in a similar vein. On the other side, we have a former faculty member who told her chairman that she and Dr. Rider did indeed kiss—”

  “Dr. May’s letter of resignation doesn’t mention any such thing,” Ursula pointed out.

  Burnside rifled through the documents in his folder and lifted out a sheet of paper that Gen assumed was Juliet’s resignation letter.

  “Point taken,” he said. “We’re not relying on that anyway. Far more compelling are the statements from students who say they felt uncomfortable around Dr. Rider, and one student who recounts an incident where Dr. Rider fondled her . . . private parts.” He poked his pen at a mimeographed sheet, and the rest of them leafed through their folders to find it.

  The phrase made Gen lightheaded, and she clutched her glass of water for support. Ursula inched her copy of Lee-Anne’s interview toward Gen, and they scanned it together. The girl’s “revised” testimony to the committee was far beyond anything she could have imagined her concocting. Gen’s fingers left damp spots on the paper as she pushed it back toward Ursula.

  Gen slid her reading glasses down her nose and cast her attention toward Burnside. The unblinking intensity of the counsel’s stare almost made her avert her eyes—as if he wanted to hypnotize a confession out of her. She forced herself to hold his gaze until he himself broke the spell and looke
d away.

  The provost continued, “The girl’s parents have already withdrawn their daughter solely because of Dr. Rider’s behavior, and there is some concern that others are prepared to follow suit.”

  “Yet,” Ursula said, “you’ve shown us no proof that what the girl alleges ever took place. Or if it did, that it happened with Dr. Rider.”

  “How would anyone prove something like that?” the dean asked, more of Burnside than of Ursula.

  “As Mr. Burnside is aware,” Ursula said, “a court of law would dismiss this so-called evidence. Dr. Rider is prepared to present some other information that should help this proceeding.”

  Burnside frowned. “This is the first I’ve heard of your new information.”

  “And this is the first time we’ve seen the revised testimony from the student witness, so I guess that makes us even.” Ursula leaned back in her chair. “Dr. Rider, would you like to take over?”

  They’d planned for this moment, and if she’d been in a classroom setting, Gen would have easily assumed control. But in this grand hall, facing men convinced she was a danger to students, the ground she and Ursula had covered so carefully shuddered beneath her. The voice that came out of her belonged to the scared little girl she always urged her students to overcome. “This is . . . this is a bit delicate. I don’t know—”

  Ursula cut in with a tentative, “Shall I?”

  Gen took another gulp of water, waving her lawyer off more abruptly than she intended. She stood and flattened her palms against the table for support. “Thank you, I’m fine,” she began. “I’ll come directly to the point. The student in question is lying. I know who she is because she asked to meet with me, and we don’t need to continue concealing her name. I’m very familiar with Lee-Anne Blakeney.”

  She removed her glasses, wanting to see more clearly who among the blurry faces at the table showed surprise.

  “But not because of this filthy thing she alleged about me. I have never crossed a line with any student, and the incident simply never happened, not on campus and not at my house. In fact, Lee-Anne has admitted to me that she lied.”