The Empty Room by Lauren B. Davis

on his fingers. “You are late virtually every day, and when you do arrive, you’re hungover and you smell of liquor. You do very little work until late morning, and then off you go to lunch, which is usually two hours, and sometimes, like last Friday, considerably longer, and when you come back, it’s clear you’ve been drinking. You are often inappropriate with co-workers as well as students, you lose things, forget to do what’s asked of you, and, often as not, what you do has to be done over. It used to be that your work only suffered Mondays and perhaps Fridays, and we all knew about it and let it pass because, believe it or not, we really do care about you, Colleen. However, over the past six months or so, things have gone from bad to much worse. I’ve spoken to you about your performance on several occasions, and I’ve given you written warning—haven’t I done that?”
    “Well, yes, but given what I’ve been going through …” Her mind raced like a demented greyhound. “I didn’t think it was serious enough to warrant all this and I don’t know what you mean by inappropriate . What does that mean?”
    “Did you, or did you not … how do I put this delicately? … fondle Max Sinclair on Friday?”
    “I did no such thing!” And she thought: if I had he would have liked it.
    “You did, I’m afraid. I saw it myself. You grabbed Dr. Sinclair’s buttocks and made a remark about coconuts—a song, in fact.”
    Pat Minot coughed into her hand. “Excuse me,” she said.
    I’ve got a luverly bunch of coconuts , sung in a Cockney accent. Colleen squirmed. She might have done that. It was possible there had been some teasing, but Max was young and handsome and funny as hell in that fabulous British way.
    “I was joking. He didn’t mind.”
    “I’m afraid he did, Colleen, especially since there were students present at the time, students who were also less than impressed.” Moore cleared his throat. “And this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened, now is it? Do we have to go over what happened at the start-of-term party?”

AIN’T NOBODY WORRIED
    T he main dining room in the Faculty Club was a cool sea of Wedgwood blue and white. Fairy lights hung in the potted weeping fig trees. The gold chandeliers gleamed. Faculty and grad students mingled and chatted over hors d’oeuvres—shrimp wrapped in bacon, little egg rolls, mini-quiches, smoked salmon. The bar was fully stocked and a DJ played jazz standards near a small dance floor.
    Colleen had a Manhattan, and then another. They were delicious. She’d had a couple of glasses of wine at home, and was just starting to feel that happy cloud of confidence and goodwill toward men, and women too, for that matter. She wore a slinky black dress with a high collar and long sleeves. It hugged her curves. She might have put on just a pound or two since her skinny-malinks days, but that didn’t mean she’d lost her sense of style. She hadn’t lost her allure, that lovely word. Allure … it rolled around the tongue like a pearl.
    She talked with Max Sinclair. He was so charming, even with those acne scars. They made his face interesting. She suspected he was gay, since he never had a woman with him and surely a man that handsome would have oodles of women. Besides he dressed sowell. And he was funny. He gossiped about the other professors, especially Ron Porter, who he said had a tendency to dress in his wife’s clothing. “Such a shame,” he remarked, “since the poor old thing dresses like a vicar’s mother.” He told her how Mike Banville and Porter loathed each other. Mike was the sort of corduroy-and-khaki geographer most at home punting up the Orinoco. Ron was an urban planner with a model train set in his basement.
    Colleen plucked the cherry out of her drink and sucked its potent juices. The liquor gave her such a lovely floating feeling. She arched her back. She imagined she was a ballet dancer.
    “Did you know,” said Max,