“And you got caught.”
“Yup, I got caught. They couldn’t expel the brains of the group since his father had just bought them a laboratory, so they just suspended all of us for a year. I waited tables.” He shook his head and chewed on a thumbnail. “When we got back to school the following year, the other guys moved into an apartment off campus. I couldn’t afford it. I was pretty upset. I did some damage to their apartment. And their car. And to the guys. They didn’t press charges.”
He pulled to the side of the road, turned off the lights and then the engine in two quick, smooth passes.
“It’s who you were a long time ago. Everybody has a past with something not so nice in it.”
“Whatever. Well, that’s my dirty secret — poverty and a temper. What’s yours?”
“I do have a PhD.”
He held onto my hand and pressed it to his lips. “I don’t mind. I’m very attracted to you, Dell. You know I am.”
He kissed me, warm, soft, firm, and I kissed him back.
“You’re very special. You are, even you think you are,” he whispered.
Not good. Whatever that was, that wish to demean and delight simultaneously, had made the hairs on my neck as stiff as quills. I began to think, with some urgency, about getting out of there.
“I’d like to lie in bed with you a few times — before we make love. Just lie with each other, get to know each other’s bodies, enjoy each other without sex, without pressure.” He was murmuring in my ear. “I want to appreciate you, watch you, I want you to teach me all about your body and I’ll teach you about mine. And then, when we’re ready, we’ll make love.”
Oh, that should have sounded good but it sounded awful. I’d have rather babysat Mrs. Freeman than listen to Daniel’s erotic plans. I’d have rather sat on the stoop with a warm beer, playing Fuck, Marry, Kill with Big Betty. I did want him to touch me — but without speaking. Sometimes men get upset when you say that.
“Oh wow, Daniel. Gee, I’m a little overwhelmed. Could you take me back to my place, please? I can’t even think straight.”
He laughed and started the car, snaking one hand under my shirt, stroking my stomach. My adrenaline was pumping along as visions of getting mutilated alternated with visions of Daniel’s golden head between my legs. I stumbled out of the car. Big Betty caught a glimpse of Daniel and gave me the thumbs-up.
What was that?
They arrested him for the murder of Oliver Bullfinch — bronze bust included — the next day. A big day for the New Haven Register. We made it to the Times again, which managed to cluck, in its way, that this tragedy happened at Yale, that murders of one scholar by another and that murders on Yale’s campus seemed to happen all the time. The bust of Melville got a tremendous amount of play. Someone made a GIF of it falling off a shelf. The motive seemed to be mutual dislike and Daniel’s hot temper. People were found all over town to remark on his snappishness, his unnervingly good looks (which were held against him), and his high-handed ways. Most Yale murders were committed by people described as “gentle loners” or “isolated geniuses.” But Daniel was described as being like the rest of us: poor impulse control leading to kicking the shit out of a hated boss. The implication was that it was a fight gone wrong, that Bullfinch’s death was an accident in the end. I turned on the local news and there was attractive, intelligent Ann Nyberg telling us that his bail was very high and the charge was criminal manslaughter. She turned over the interviews with his idiot neighbors to a reporter who was just like the neighbors, but better looking.
I wanted to cheer at justice done. I wanted to be unreservedly glad that the beautiful guy who creeped me out was getting what was coming to him. But all I could see was his alibi, Jim’s alibi, a big bunch of English professors, none of whom were persons of interest — and then way over in the corner and under the radar, little Allison. To the police, Paris denied and tenure denied might not add up to murder, but I could see it. See it? Hell, I’d felt it.
The sequence of events leading up to the crime unrolled in my mind: Allison spent a year facing the fact that she wouldn’t get tenure, a year of bitter acceptance and endless hustle. She comes to terms with it. She hustles. She stays friends with Daniel, who has sway. She doesn’t completely disappoint Jim Fiske, who’s admired in the department. She puts herself forward for every committee and conference in North America. None of it comes to anything but there’s still the Omni Foundation, which could add a little sparkle to her CV. Maybe she speaks French. She has a shot.
Omni says no. She knows — like you know when the airline says delayed but means cancelled — what’s happening. Bullfinch blocked her. She goes to his office and confronts him. He acknowledges it. He’s not sorry. Like the rest of us, he underestimates her. Her crush on Daniel, and those god-awful clothes, make her look weak. She’s not a weak person, in any sense. Bullfinch is infuriating. Maybe he grabs her shoulder to push her out of his office. She whips out a few Krav Maga moves, startling him the way she did me. She smashes his head on the desk. So far, not murder. He sinks to the floor. He loses consciousness. Or he doesn’t. He writhes and moans. The door is already closed behind her. She wrestles with her conscience, which she sees right now as a weakness, a hypocritical rag. She is not the kind of person who can easily bludgeon a man to death. But she does. She braces herself and bashes him in the side of the head one fierce, awkward time. He groans and lurches a little, away from her. She waits until he’s quiet. There are places near his body, under his shirt, where the blood is so deep, she can’t see the linoleum beneath it. She edges closer to his desk, avoiding the corner which shines with blood like jam on a knife.
So far, there’s nothing in the room to indicate that Allison has been a part of anything except a chat with a colleague. She carefully sidles over to the window to let in some of the humid air. It feels good, warm and scented. He has stopped making noise and his hands appear relaxed. She climbs over the furniture, avoiding the red floor. She stands behind his desk. His computer is on. His screen is open. It’s nothing to get into his e-mail, which is set up just like hers.
I imagine myself in front of the laptop. What would I do? I’d write the letter of recommendation I should have had in the first place.
Back in reality, I sent an e-mail to easy-to-find Sandrine Boulanger, using my old Wesleyan e-mail address, pretending I was still on the faculty. If I was wrong, that’d be good. If I was right, that’d be gratifying. Sandrine Boulanger wrote back promptly because I’d hit just the right time for a French office — August behind us, between coffee and lunch — and because I was a polite American professor.
Dear Dr. Chandler,
Thank you for your kind words about the Omni Foundation. We appreciate your inquiry and your interest in hiring Dr. Marx for the spring semester at the estimable Wesleyan University. The reason you did not see Dr. Marx’s name on the original list of grant recipients is that her application was approved a bit later.
I can share with you, as you contemplate hiring Dr. Marx, that we had an exceptionally strong letter in support of her application only recently from Professor Oliver Bullfinch of Yale University, one of the most esteemed American literature scholars in the world.
We are delighted to host Dr. Marx this summer and we hope we have been able to help you.