“We should take you to the hospital for observation. Your husband said—”
I shot Phin a glance. “He’s not my husband. Unstrap me. Now.”
The medic didn’t move.
“Look,” I said. “I promise I’ll go straight home and rest. I know all about eclampsia. There’s nothing that can be done to treat it, other than giving birth. And I’ve still got three weeks before that happens. So there is absolutely no reason for me to go to the hospital. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” the paramedic said. “The next time you have a convulsion, you may not ever wake up again. If you know all about eclampsia, then you’re familiar with the term multi-organ failure. Both you and your baby are in serious danger. You should go to the hospital.”
“That’s my choice,” I said. “Not yours.” I met Phin’s eyes. “And not his.” I noticed I had an IV in my arm. “What’s that?”
“Magnesium sulfate. For the convulsions.”
“It’s making me sick.”
“No, that’s your toxic body making you sick. You’ve basically become a factory for manufacturing poisons. Until you have this child—”
I nearly lost it. The tears welled up suddenly, and almost erupted in a sobbing jag to end all sobbing jags. I was stubborn, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew I was acting like a selfish asshole. I knew inducing labor was the right thing to do. I knew I needed to apologize to Phin and everyone else.
But I managed to squeeze my eyes shut and keep everything inside. It was more than just my unpreparedness for motherhood. There was a very bad man after me. A bad man who no doubt knew my doctors, knew my due date, and might very well be watching me right now.
I wasn’t prepared to fight that man while a baby suckled at my breast. And as vulnerable as I was, I couldn’t rely on my friends to get me out of this mess.
But maybe I could compromise a little.
“Geneva,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’ll go to Geneva.”
I felt Phin grasp my hand.
“You’re sure?” he whispered.
I nodded, no longer able to trust talking without blubbering.
“Thank you, Jack,” Phin said, kissing my forehead.
I somehow managed to mumble, “Please take me home,” without having a complete breakdown.
March 31, 11:30 A.M.
Midmorning on the third floor of Lewisohn Hall, the dismal light crept in through the blinds into the cluttered, cramped office of Reginald Marquette, PhD, Department Chair of Ancient Literature at Columbia College.
The knock at the door drew Marquette’s head up from the paper he’d been reading—a twenty-five-page thesis on William Blake’s Proverb of Hell that was so well-done he was almost certain the author hadn’t written a single word of it. She’d been a solid C student all semester, and had never produced anything approaching this caliber of excellence. Her mistake was in not buying the B version and keeping this quantum leap in academic performance plausible.
Marquette set the paper aside and worked his way between stacks of books and papers and prehistoric correspondence, some of which bore postmarks from the previous decade. But the disorganization didn’t bother him. He thrived in chaos. As he moved toward the door, his only thought was how much he was looking forward to locating whatever website this William Blake scholar had used to purchase her term paper. Maybe he’d surprise her with a rigorous oral exam on her two dozen sources next class.
Watch her twist and blush and stutter.
You had to make an example out of cheaters.
A painful, public, humiliating example.
Marquette opened the door to a man with long, black hair tied up in a ponytail, who sported a black blazer over blue jeans. Black cowboy boots completed his unusual costume.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“Professor Marquette?”
“That’s right.”
The man extended his hand.
“Rob Siders from Ancient Publishing. I e-mailed you last week regarding our interest in publishing your work on Dante.”
Marquette smiled as he shook the man’s hand.
“Of course. Yes. I’m sorry. You mentioned you’d be stopping by, didn’t you? Please, come in.”
Marquette ushered him inside and closed the door after them.
He lifted the stack of his embattled TA’s student reviews off a chair, said, “Have a seat. I apologize for the mess, but there is actually a system in place here, as unlikely as it may appear.”
When they were finally sitting across from each other at the desk, Marquette said, “May I offer you a cup of coffee or tea or water? I could probably wrangle something up in the faculty lounge.”
“No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s a great honor to meet you, Dr. Marquette.”
“Please, Reggie.”
“Your work is amazing, Reggie.”
Marquette puffed his chest up. “Oh, thank you.”
“Busy morning?”
“Just catching up on some grading for my eighteenth-century English lit class. I have to say, your e-mail was intriguing, but would you mind telling me a little more about you and your company? I couldn’t find much information on the Internet.”
“We’re a boutique publisher of academic work of the highest quality. I’m the editorial director and co-founder, and I’ve been searching for someone like you for quite a while.”
“What do you mean, ‘someone like me’?”
“A true scholar who can bring The Divine Comedy to twenty-first-century readers like it’s never been presented before.”
“Wait…you’re talking about a translation? Didn’t Pinsky already knock that out of the park back in—”
“I’m not talking about another inaccessible translation. I’m talking about an adaptation.”
Marquette straightened in his chair. “I’m not following.”
“We’re looking for something written in modern language. Possibly even using modern historical figures.”
Marquette laughed. “You mean like putting Bill Clinton in the second circle?”
“Exactly. And Bernie Madoff in the eighth, and so on.”
“Who’s in the ninth?”
“I have no idea. That’s where you would come in with your vast knowledge of the mood and intent of the original text. We want a book that can communicate to present-day American masses, just as Dante’s masterpiece reached his Italian countrymen back in the fourteenth century.”
Marquette felt a shudder of excitement.
An adaptation for the masses could mean recognition. Serious recognition, beyond the handful of academics who subscribed to the same six scholarly journals.
And he did have a sabbatical scheduled for the fall term.
“Of course, you don’t have to decide right now,” Siders said, rising from his chair, buttoning his blazer. “Are you free for lunch? I can lay it all out for you. We are offering a sizeable advance.”
Marquette leaned back in his chair and scratched under his chin at the salt-and-pepper goatee. His wife, an economics professor at Northwestern, did have a midday mixer for her department faculty that he had kind of promised to attend, but the last thing he wanted to do was spend several hours mingling with a bunch of accountants dressed up like teachers.
“That’d be lovely,” he said.
The pale man smiled. “Perfect. And I brought the company credit card, so lunch is on me.”
March 31, Noon
Home was a house in a secluded, woodsy area in the western suburb of Bensenville. I moved there with my mother a while back, but my mom had since gone on to a Florida retirement community (where, according to a phone call from her last week, she had to buy a new mattress because she wore the other one out with sexual escapades). Now I lived there with Phin, an ill-tempered cat named Mr. Friskers, and a basset hound named Duffy who was a gift from a friend also named Duffy.