“Or a foolhardy one,” Stephen said with a smile.
“I adore old films. But what a dismal life you must lead having to watch all those horrible new Hollywood atrocities.”
“Well, at least they don’t take as long as reading a bestseller.”
“Maybe. But I wouldn’t have to put in more than a couple of hours on any of these.”
“Speed reader?”
She shook her head. “Speed skimmer, speed skipper, speed gagger.”
Willy was dressed in the drabbest possible student attire, faded baggy jeans, oversize gray sweatshirt, worn and aged sneakers. She had a practical short haircut but a lovely face free of makeup and apparent piercings.
“I’m making a study of these,” Willy said, casting a hand over the display of blockbusters. “I should probably read a few all the way through before this weekend, shouldn’t I?”
“Why?” Stephen said. “I mean, if you have such a low opinion of them.”
“I need to figure out the formula. I’m going to write one to help finance graduate school.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
“It worked for Michael Crichton, didn’t it? And he was Tolstoy compared to most of these people. It must be a real effort to write this badly. I must ask Professor McDougall how he does it.”
“I’d be careful how I phrased that, if you do,” Stephen said.
“Oh yes, I can be tactful if I try very, very hard.”
“Well,” Stephen said, glancing at his watch, “I’m late for a meeting. Good luck with your writing, and I’ll see you at the silents program.”
“Where is your meeting, Mr. Fenbush?”
“Over in the library.”
She replaced the book she had been holding and said, “I’m going that way. My next class is in Lyden Hall. May I walk with you?”
“Ah, sure.”
She donned a bulky anorak from the coat rack by the door, and they set off across the picturesque campus together. Willy was quiet for around thirty seconds. Then she looked over at Stephen and said, “I know how I seem to you. The naivete and arrogance of youth personified, isn’t that right?”
“There are nicer words for it.”
“I prefer accurate to nice. Usually. Is it true Professor McDougall and Professor Bosworth hate each other?”
“What?”
“That’s what I’ve heard. And I noticed on those books by the writers in the bestseller conference that Professor McDougall had a quote on the back recommending every one of them. Except Professor Bosworth’s. They really must hate each other.”
“Look, Willy, I’ve only been on campus a few months, so I’m really not up on faculty relationships. And anyway, I really shouldn’t be exchanging gossip with a student.”
“Oh my God, a student! A different species. Be careful what you say.” She smiled. “But you’re probably wise. If they do hate each other, it may just be that they don’t understand each other. They come from different places, one a literary person and the other a scientist. They haven’t bridged C.P. Snow’s two cultures.”
Stephen was impressed. He wondered how many Worden undergraduates had even heard of C.P. Snow.
“I wish I could know you better,” Willy went on wistfully. “There’s probably a lot you could teach me. Outside of the classroom, I mean.”
Uh-oh. Stephen had already been feeling a sense of alarm to go with the natural male impulses he was working to keep at bay. Now the alarm was getting louder.
Willy read his expression and laughed. “Don’t worry, Mr. Fenbush. I understand how things are. Back in the day, student-teacher relationships were possible, if not exactly encouraged, and both classes of people could benefit from them. But it’s not that way anymore, is it? And anyway, the whole campus knows your heart belongs to Professor Strom.”
“Oh, does it?”
“Absolutely. She talks about you in class.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Stephen said with confidence. He knew Vanessa that well.
“All right, she doesn’t,” Willy admitted. “Don’t mind me. I just like to tease.”
They had arrived at the crossroads, with Lyden Hall to their left and the Chandler Memorial Library to their right. Stephen was both relieved and a little sorry. Willy said, “It’s been fun talking to you, Mr. Fenbush. Will I see you at the bestseller conference?”
“Uh, sure, probably. Good luck with your writing.”
Stephen walked across to the library, pondering how the whole campus could know about his relationship with Vanessa Strom. Hadn’t they been almost absurdly discreet? Ah, well, gossip would find a way.
When he reached the top of the library steps, a fast-moving figure in a white lab coat came storming through the tall doors and plowed into him. The much larger man gripped Stephen by the shoulders just long enough to prevent him from falling, rasped out a barely civil “Excuse me,” and continued on his angry way down the steps. Though they had never met, Stephen recognized Professor Amos Bosworth from a much happier view on the back jacket of his novel.
Just inside the door, Stephen saw the other parties to his meeting, which was more accurately a lunch date. Vanessa Strom, the tall and elegant Professor of English who had occupied much of his time and thoughts since his arrival on campus, was in close conversation with Edie Yamamoto, the petite and energetic collection-development librarian. Stephen had pegged her for a youthful fifty until he found out she was a very youthful sixty.
When she finally looked up and saw him standing there, Vanessa said simply, “Oh, hi, Stephen. Save the smart comments for once. Edie’s had a tough morning.”
“Not really,” Edie said. “It’s infuriating, but it’s funny too.”
“Let’s hear about it,” Stephen demanded. “Something to do with Professor Bosworth, by any chance? He nearly ran over me on his way out.”
“We shouldn’t talk about it here,” said Vanessa.
“You’ve been talking about it, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but we’re capable of talking quietly. Your voice booms off the four walls.”
The bestseller’s life is not a happy one;
Bookstore signings keep you on the run.
Those first-class flights to twenty cities,
Interviews by TV pretties.
Hotel suites with no vacation,
Women’s club lionization,
Boxed white plonk with writing wannabes,
Whose envy blooms among the canapés.
It feels so good when all the tour is done;
The bestseller’s life is not a happy one.
At a quiet table in the Faculty Club, a bottle of zinfandel at the ready, Edie Yamamoto unburdened.
“It comes down to this,” she said. “University libraries don’t collect schlock fiction.”
Stephen said, “And you told Bosworth that?”
“Of course not. I was very diplomatic. I know how to handle prickly academics. I’ve been dealing with them for almost forty years. But I still provoked him enough for the reaction you saw. He’ll probably complain about me to the Librarian.”
Edie pronounced the capital letter on the word with the faintest of irony. The thirtyish Gillian Godfrey, recently appointed to administer the Chandler Memorial Library and all the satellite collections scattered over Worden’s campus, had decades less experience and probably less librarian smarts than Edie.
“There’s popular fiction and popular fiction,” Edie went on. “Some of it has real literary merit.”
“But not the sort of thing Amos Bosworth hit the jackpot with,” Stephen put in. “I heard somebody describe his book as Tom Clancy with all the military and technological detail but none of the elegant style.”