Extra Credit (8 page)

She pursed her lips together in a way that suggested disapproval. “Alison, you know, I think more people would like you if you dropped the sarcasm every once in a while.”

“People don’t like me?”

She stood. “The sarcasm. Drop it.”

Ouch. I stood as well. I tried to put on my most sincere, least sarcastic voice. “Thank you for coming by, Joanne. I appreciate your letting me know earlier about Meaghan’s failure to perform in your class, and now I thank you for taking the time to let me know that she’s doing better.”

She regarded me coolly. “Go back to the sarcasm. The sincere thing isn’t working for you either.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Joanne: Without the sarcasm, I’m an empty husk.” I smiled sincerely. “I don’t really have a personality to speak of.”

This didn’t impress her. “Interesting,” she said.

I decided that in addition to some children, I didn’t like psychology professors very much.

She left in a huff, clearly not satisfied with my strange reaction to her news. Had Meaghan studied really hard to get a good grade, or had Mr. Super Senior—her
tutor
—provided her with a test from years gone by to help her boost her score?

I sat down and took a deep breath. First, I didn’t even know if Mr. Super Senior was involved in the cheating caper, and second, I didn’t know if Joanne was the professor who was too lazy to vary her tests from year to year. One thing I knew for sure, and that was that Meaghan wasn’t one of the students I had overheard. I talked myself down, something I’m getting better and better at the more time I spend on the proverbial ledge.

Still, I needed some confirmation. I don’t know why I called Max; she’s notoriously contrary. “Hi,” I said after she picked up and let it be known that she was doing several things at once, “quick question.”

“Shoot.”

I thought of a way to phrase the question so that I could get an honest answer from my sometimes obtuse friend. “Does the fact that I use sarcasm ever make it difficult to like me?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

The alacrity with which she answered took my breath away. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” she said. “Sometimes all we want is an honest conversation instead of one filled with your ironic asides and sarcastic nonsense. It’s annoying. We hate it,” she said, speaking for the masses, it would seem.

That was pretty much to the point.

“You’d be doing yourself, and all of us, a favor by not trying to be so funny all the time,” she said. She was, as she liked to say, as serious as a heart attack.

I was stunned into silence.

“Kidding!” she hollered into the phone. “Got you!” Her guffaw was as annoying as the sound of a buzz saw at six o’clock in the morning. “Had you going, didn’t I?”

“That wasn’t very nice,” I said, my voice husky with the weight of uncried tears.

“Oh, lighten up,” she said. “What’s this all about?”

“One of my colleagues told me that nobody likes me because I’m too sarcastic.”

“Well, that may be true, but don’t change. You work with a bunch of cadavers who wouldn’t know sarcasm if it bit them on their dead, numb zombie asses.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Who is this person, anyway?”

“Meaghan’s Forensic Psych professor.”

“Oh. Well, maybe you should tone it down a bit until Meaghan gets out of the class.”

“Thanks, Max.”

She put something in her mouth and then attempted to talk. I couldn’t really understand the specifics of her next question but knew that it had to do with Chick’s money.

“It’s with the public administrator. From what I understand, that person decides who gets the money.”

When it came to business—or money—she was as sharp as a tack. “Did he have a will?”

I didn’t know.

“That would clear up a lot. Anyway, why did he keep that much scratch in his apartment?”

“Not a clue.”

“What did you do with the girls’ ten g’s?”

“Crawford put it in a safe deposit box at the bank, just in case it turns out it’s not ours after all.” I tapped my mouse and saw that in the space of a half hour, I had twenty new e-mail messages. “I’ve got to go, Max.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean to mess with you,” she said.

“Yes, you did, but it’s okay. Thanks for reminding me that I work with a bunch of zombies.”

“
De nada
.” She paused. “That means ‘I’ve got your back.’”

No, it doesn’t, but I didn’t tell her that. Before we hung up, she jumped in with one more little detail.

“I forgot!” she said. “My parents are having a little get-together at their house on Sunday afternoon.”

I didn’t know if that qualified as an invitation, so I waited.

“For my birthday?” she said, as if I were supposed to know.

“You have a birthday coming up?” I asked, just to get a rise out of her.

She didn’t take the bait. “Two o’clock. Early-bird special. There will be cake.”

“Well, as long as there’s cake, I’m in,” I said. “Anything in particular that you want?”

“Just your smiling face next to me as I blow out the candles.”

We hung up, and I turned my attention to my e-mail. Just to let her know that I was still paying attention, despite the fact that her mother was back in town, I shot Meaghan a message. It was short and sweet: “Good job on your Forensic Psych midterm!” Hopefully, by the next time I saw her, I would have more information on this situation and be able to discuss it with her. For now, creative writing students awaited, and I was in danger of being late.

I raced up the stairs, and I found Mary Lou Bannerman waiting for me outside of the classroom; all of the other students were in their seats, all of them looking at some kind of handheld device and busily working their thumbs into a frenzy. If only we could harness that kind of energy for good. Mary Lou smiled at me as I approached. She was in a pair of expensive-looking jeans, soft leather driving moccasins, and a cashmere turtleneck. She dressed like I would if I had money. Or any fashion sense whatsoever.

“Hi,” she said. “I wanted to catch you before we went into class.”

I shifted my heavy messenger bag from one shoulder to the other. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s great!” she said. “I’m really enjoying your class.”

“Good. We love having you,” I said, and it was true. The kids seemed to have grown to like her in the few days she had been in class; she was familiar enough, like someone’s mom, yet she was one of them, having a tough time with plot and structure just like they were. I was proud of my mixed class of sophomores and juniors and happy that they had brought her into their postadolescent fold.

“Thank you for saying that,” she said, seemingly touched. “Listen, can I buy you lunch? After class today?”

“It would have to be in the cafeteria downstairs because I only have fifty minutes. Would that be okay?”

Her face lit up. “That would be perfect.”

We went into class, and I started my lesson. I thought about Mary Lou inviting me to lunch; in all my years of teaching, a student had never done that.

Maybe Crawford was right. Maybe I would enjoy having another middle-aged person to pal around with; I had worn out my welcome with my colleagues, obviously. Maybe I’d get really lucky and Mary Lou would be the kind of woman who appreciated some good sarcasm.

I didn’t have high hopes.

Ten

Marcus was surprised to see me on a nontaco day accompanied by someone he had never seen before. I introduced Mary Lou to Marcus, the head chef, and I have to say, she was quite impressed that I had such an in at the cafeteria. I noticed a new guy behind the grill, tall and handsome, filling out his chef’s coat in a way that suggested that there was a nice body beneath it.

In all my years teaching here, I had never seen anyone new. I asked Marcus, “Who’s the new guy?”

He called over the counter to the grill. “Briggs! Say hi to one of our most valued customers!”

The guy, a strapping blond who looked like he had just gotten off the boat from somewhere in Scandinavia, put a finger to his chef’s hat and gave me a little salute. “Ma’am.”

The grill was fired up and making a bit of noise. I leaned over toward Marcus. “Please tell him to drop the ‘ma’am’ stuff. I hate that. ‘Alison’ will suffice.”

Marcus grimaced. “You know we can’t do that.” Our president was very formal and insisted that college staff refer to each other by their titles and nothing else. “How about ‘Professor’?” he asked, knowing I was really a “doctor” of letters.

“I guess,” I said, hating that the cafeteria staff were made to address professors by their titles rather than their given names. Marcus usually didn’t call me anything, except what I ordered. One day I was “Hey! Ham on Rye!” and the next I was “Chicken Parm!” It worked for us.

I looked at Briggs and thought that with his steady job, good looks, and ability to cook, he’d be perfect for my stepdaughter Meaghan, who seemed to have been born with seriously bad taste in men.

“So, do we order?” Mary Lou asked, interrupting my daydreams about having a line cook as my son-in-law. She was obviously unaccustomed to moving down a food line with a tray. I wondered where this woman had gone to high school; hasn’t everyone experienced a meal or three hundred in a cafeteria over their lifetime?

“I prefer to let Marcus surprise me,” I said, hustling past an old, stooped nun whom I recognized as Sister Frances from the Nursing Department, frantically counting the number of croutons on her plate. Nuns take a vow of poverty when they enter the order, and believe me, teaching at St. Thomas does nothing to relieve the financial burdens that they face. Salad was weighed and charged by the ounce, so the more croutons Sister Frances took, the heavier—and more expensive—her lunch would become.

“Don’t worry, Sister,” Marcus called from behind the grill. “It’s buy twelve, get twenty free on the croutons today.” Marcus had been here long enough to know that the sisters were famous for their frugality, and it was not often that they ate in the cafeteria, all of their meals generally being served in the adjacent convent.

“Thank you, Marcus,” Sister Frances said. “We were having Salisbury steak in the sisters’ dining room today, and I just can’t abide that many onions in one meal. Not to mention that lunch is nearly over by the time I can get back to the dining room from my last morning class.” She harrumphed a bit more while heaping some more croutons on her plate, adding some ham, and dispensing herself a hefty diet cola from the soda machine. The cup was almost as big as she was.

I was so busy watching Marcus flip our burgers on the grill that I didn’t notice that Mary Lou had wandered down toward the end of the line. When I realized she was gone, I looked around, spying her talking to the cashier, Maria; she slipped her several bills, all of which Maria quickly stashed in the register.

Marcus handed me two plates, each with a cheeseburger and fries, and I waited for Mary Lou to return before moving down the line. Sister Frances was in front of us and exclaimed in delight when Maria told her someone had picked up the check for her lunch. Maria professed not to know who it was or where she had gone but mentioned that the lady had said “bon appétit” after she had paid. I turned and looked at Mary Lou.

“Shhhh,” she said as we moved down the line.

Sister Frances scurried off, a big smile on her face, her croutons dancing merrily atop her healthy salad.

Mary Lou and I took a seat at a table by the window, one that had a full view of the Hudson in all its resplendent beauty. “That was awfully nice of you,” I said, plucking a fry from the stack on my plate and dipping it into some ketchup. “You made Sister Frances’s day.”

Mary Lou cut her burger into several smaller pieces, removed the top half of the bun, and salted the whole thing. “How can they serve lunch if she can’t even make it in time, poor thing?”

“You’d be surprised what goes on around here,” I said. “I have a lot of respect for the nuns. Many of them went into the convent as teenagers and have been here ever since.” I took a big bite of burger. “I agree, you’d think that the least they could do is keep a plate warm for the old gal.” I pointed toward Mary Lou’s burger. “Good?”

“Wonderful,” she said, taking a dainty bite. “I’m trying to take some weight off, so I’m cutting down on carbs.”

“You? You’re a rail.”

“Thank you,” she said, blushing slightly. “I haven’t always been. It’s such a struggle to keep it off.”

It was hard to imagine this sylph of a woman any heavier; she had a fabulous figure and wore clothes like a fashion model. I looked at my burger and decided that eating half was plenty. I pushed my plate away, but not before grabbing a last handful of fries. “So, you’re enjoying the class?” I had never gotten the sense that many people enjoyed my classes, or maybe that was just my paranoia presenting itself. I wanted confirmation from Mary Lou that indeed, what she was getting from the class was what she expected.

She took a sip of soda and looked out the window before answering. I didn’t take that as a good sign, but she was more enthusiastic once she started talking. “At first, it was hard, what with being with a bunch of young people, but now, I’m loving it.”

“Your writing is quite good,” I said. I had read the beginning of one of her short stories the night before, and although it was rough, it was headed in the right direction.

“You think so?” she asked, a smile spreading on her face.

I nodded. “I do. It could do with a couple of minor tweaks, but it’s definitely a good start.” I couldn’t resist the burger sitting on my plate, so I pulled it back in front of me, my waistline be damned. “Have you started your novel yet?” The class wouldn’t be starting the outline process on a longer work for several weeks, which I’d let her know on her first day. “Because if you have some ideas, you can start sketching them out. I don’t think that will take away from what you’re doing with the short stories.” I didn’t want to sound too curious about her husband or his murder, so I stopped talking for fear of sounding like a nosy-body. Which I am.

She looked pensive. “Do you think?”

“Whatever you want to do.” She seemed reluctant to take my advice, so I delved a little deeper. “Is it because of the subject matter of your novel?” I asked. “The death of your husband?”