tomorrow. Four-thirty,” Meg said. “If it’s true you’re here for a week, I’d skip it. If it’s true.”
“Meaning that in your experience sometimes a temporary gesture slides imperceptibly into an unintended permanence?” Fred said.
“Meaning if I see you at that faculty meeting, I’ll have a good idea how temporary you are.” She paused, deliberating the next gambit. “If those are Morgan’s keys you got in with, if he sent you as his ringer, how come his car’s still on the street?”
Fred spread his arms in the universal gesture that means whatever that universal gesture hopes to mean at the time.
After she had closed him out, Fred heard, from the other side of the door, Meg’s raised voice, “They’re all such liars!”
“Time we considered sleeping arrangements,” Fred decided, once back in Morgan Flower’s apartment. He’d replayed the inconclusive conference with Meg Harrison while climbing the stairs, and registered the fact that what he knew best, now, was that she bristled with a suspicion that amounted almost to paranoia. If she decided that Fred was acting
for
Morgan Flower, or in collusion with him, Meg Harrison wanted no part of him. Since Fred was an unknown quantity to her, that seemed a vehement response on first acquaintance.
“These academics,” Fred said.
The few grains tossed into the coop make trouble among the chickens.
No lamp next to the bed. Did Morgan Flower not read before he slept? No. There was no bedside table with a dog-eared book. No radio. He didn’t read, he didn’t smoke. What did the man do, just lie down and turn off?
Do we give the man a shock, letting him stagger in late and find himself at the climactic scene in
Goldilocks
—there’s
Intro to Lit
for you—with Fred in the role of the heroine? Fred turned down the blue chenille coverlet—checking for sperm?—to reveal the splotched pillow and then, progressively, but gingerly, the continuation of the interior of a bed whose owner’s mother would have recoiled in dismay.
Not that he hadn’t slept in worse. Still, Fred pulled the coverlet up again as it had been, and smoothed it gently into place. Not for the first time in his life, he stretched out on an inadequate couch and considered the vagaries of sleep.
Chapter Twelve
“Wait in my office, would you, Professor Taylor?” Elizabeth Harmony soothed. “Tom” –-to the student at the reception desk—“if Professor Taylor wants coffee, would you arrange it?”
Fred held out the cup he had brought with him—bad black coffee from the Stillton Café. “It’s Fred,” he said.
Elizabeth Harmony turned and moved off with swift purpose, as if bent on reprimanding a delinquent caddie. Tall and broad hipped, her white hair clipped into a Prince Valiant helmet, her perfunctory greeting had hardly rippled heavy features that revealed that she had gotten the better of many encounters with the Demon Rum.
Fred had found her in the small cottage marked
Administration,
engaged in a conversation with Tom, whose desk, on which were a telephone, a typewriter and a sign saying
Reception,
occupied a space that would otherwise be called the front hall. The sign on the door behind him, which was ajar, said
Director.
“I’ll hang out with Tom,” Fred said to her striding back.
“My name’s not Tom,” the young man said. “Tom Meeker sits here sometimes. As far as she’s concerned, we’re all…”
The desk telephone rang. The man whose name was not Tom noted which light was blinking before he told the receiver, “Stillton Academy. Admissions.” A pause while he noted some information from dictation—a name and address—before he continued, “The new catalogue is in preparation. What she’ll need in the meantime is the brochure, and an application form. Have her return the form, with the deposit, and the next thing is the admissions interview and portfolio review.” A pause. “Yes, that will be with one of our studio faculty. The
“Meaning that in your experience sometimes a temporary gesture slides imperceptibly into an unintended permanence?” Fred said.
“Meaning if I see you at that faculty meeting, I’ll have a good idea how temporary you are.” She paused, deliberating the next gambit. “If those are Morgan’s keys you got in with, if he sent you as his ringer, how come his car’s still on the street?”
Fred spread his arms in the universal gesture that means whatever that universal gesture hopes to mean at the time.
After she had closed him out, Fred heard, from the other side of the door, Meg’s raised voice, “They’re all such liars!”
“Time we considered sleeping arrangements,” Fred decided, once back in Morgan Flower’s apartment. He’d replayed the inconclusive conference with Meg Harrison while climbing the stairs, and registered the fact that what he knew best, now, was that she bristled with a suspicion that amounted almost to paranoia. If she decided that Fred was acting
for
Morgan Flower, or in collusion with him, Meg Harrison wanted no part of him. Since Fred was an unknown quantity to her, that seemed a vehement response on first acquaintance.
“These academics,” Fred said.
The few grains tossed into the coop make trouble among the chickens.
No lamp next to the bed. Did Morgan Flower not read before he slept? No. There was no bedside table with a dog-eared book. No radio. He didn’t read, he didn’t smoke. What did the man do, just lie down and turn off?
Do we give the man a shock, letting him stagger in late and find himself at the climactic scene in
Goldilocks
—there’s
Intro to Lit
for you—with Fred in the role of the heroine? Fred turned down the blue chenille coverlet—checking for sperm?—to reveal the splotched pillow and then, progressively, but gingerly, the continuation of the interior of a bed whose owner’s mother would have recoiled in dismay.
Not that he hadn’t slept in worse. Still, Fred pulled the coverlet up again as it had been, and smoothed it gently into place. Not for the first time in his life, he stretched out on an inadequate couch and considered the vagaries of sleep.
Chapter Twelve
“Wait in my office, would you, Professor Taylor?” Elizabeth Harmony soothed. “Tom” –-to the student at the reception desk—“if Professor Taylor wants coffee, would you arrange it?”
Fred held out the cup he had brought with him—bad black coffee from the Stillton Café. “It’s Fred,” he said.
Elizabeth Harmony turned and moved off with swift purpose, as if bent on reprimanding a delinquent caddie. Tall and broad hipped, her white hair clipped into a Prince Valiant helmet, her perfunctory greeting had hardly rippled heavy features that revealed that she had gotten the better of many encounters with the Demon Rum.
Fred had found her in the small cottage marked
Administration,
engaged in a conversation with Tom, whose desk, on which were a telephone, a typewriter and a sign saying
Reception,
occupied a space that would otherwise be called the front hall. The sign on the door behind him, which was ajar, said
Director.
“I’ll hang out with Tom,” Fred said to her striding back.
“My name’s not Tom,” the young man said. “Tom Meeker sits here sometimes. As far as she’s concerned, we’re all…”
The desk telephone rang. The man whose name was not Tom noted which light was blinking before he told the receiver, “Stillton Academy. Admissions.” A pause while he noted some information from dictation—a name and address—before he continued, “The new catalogue is in preparation. What she’ll need in the meantime is the brochure, and an application form. Have her return the form, with the deposit, and the next thing is the admissions interview and portfolio review.” A pause. “Yes, that will be with one of our studio faculty. The
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