Grey Matters (17 page)

Dulcie had been so proud of herself and even Professor Bullock had been impressed. And so she had set out to make her case, to compile the linguistic evidence that would support the flash of insight. But now everything was cast in doubt. Only a few months before, Dulcie had felt like such an accomplished scholar. She’d spotted the gem that the critics had missed. The bright spot in the cold dead yard. The witty, wonderful manuscript that nobody had ever noticed before. An irresistible lure to a young academic, just starting out and eager to make her mark. And just maybe, Dulcie realized, too good to be true.

THIRTY-ONE

C
hris had not been much help.

‘Oh, sweetie, I’m sure that’s not the case.’ His voice on the phone sounded just too far away. ‘You’re just . . .’

The pause gave him away.

‘What?’ Dulcie heard herself snapping as she sat up on her bed. ‘Imagining things?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Chris had tried to argue her down, but by that point the only thing that might have worked was a warm hug. A cold phone was not a good substitute. It didn’t help that on the walk home, she’d found herself recalling things Chris had said the previous summer. Then, she’d been the victim of a computer virus. Originally inserted through her computer, it had nearly brought down the Harvard library system before Chris and his buddies had helped unravel its poisonous 1s and 0s.

The virus, he’d said, wasn’t that sophisticated. The university had been alerted when it kept trying to enter through various firewalls again and again. But it wasn’t until Dulcie had helped uncover the source – her laptop – that the impromptu IT security team had been able to dismantle it. For some reason, a phrase he’d used last summer trying to explain the computer bug came to mind. ‘Anomalous coding.’ Was that it? She remembered the warmth that had existed between them then, the pride with which he’d explained his find – the one stray piece of coding that had threatened both the Harvard libraries and Dulcie’s nascent career.

‘It’s elegant coding, really.’ His voice had been full of admiration, once the virus was located. ‘Not complicated, but really quite beautiful, if you look at it.’

To Dulcie, it had all sounded as horrid as an invasion of beetles, although she admitted that some of her colleagues over at the Museum of Comparative Zoology would probably find them beautiful, too. Once they were dead and pinned to a card. As it was, the memory kept replaying in her mind. What if she’d gotten the wrong message from those wonderful lines? What if the beauty was really a sign that something was wrong?

What if she’d been duped?

‘I just don’t know, Chris.’ She heard herself getting weepy and lay down once more, reaching for the old quilt that Lucy’s Wiccan circle had made for her.

‘I know.’ Chris sounded confident, but so far away. ‘I trust your instincts even if you don’t.’

His words sounded so much like those of Mr Grey that Dulcie wanted to believe him. But how could she? Dulcie pulled the quilt up higher. Lucy had meant to embroider a grey wolf in its center. Despite her own childhood in Philadelphia, Dulcie’s mother insisted on the wolf as her spirit guide. To Dulcie, the pointy-eared creature looked more like a cat.

‘Why don’t you go out tonight?’ Chris was still talking. ‘Isn’t this Trista’s big chance at the darts tournament?’

Dulcie sniffed. ‘Uh-huh. But I was hoping, you know . . .’ She didn’t want to say it.

‘I’ll come if I can get out of here.’ That didn’t sound very reassuring. ‘I tried to catch up with you the other night, you know. At that party?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Great, so she wasn’t only alienating her friends, she was missing opportunities to see her own boyfriend. ‘Jeremy’s shindig?’

‘Yeah, you’d taken off from the lab, but I was hoping you’d show at some point.’

You could have come here
. She didn’t say it. Already, she was being whiny. ‘Yeah, sorry.’

‘Dulcie?’ He sounded sad. ‘I’m just working, you know. I want to be with you. It’s just – well, there are things I have to do.’

‘I know.’ She didn’t really. They were both broke, but Chris had never worked such long hours before.
That you know of
, she didn’t need a ghostly cat to correct her. She and Chris had started dating during the summer, when the demands of classwork and students were at their lightest. How did she know what his schedule was like during term time? They were both grad students; she was lucky that none of her students needed her to be available round the clock. And, she had to admit, she was a little more needy than ever before – with reason. ‘But would you try to come over to the People’s Republik later?’ She paused, not sure how else to make her claim. ‘I’ll definitely be there.’

‘I will, Dulce.’ He hesitated. ‘And I promise, this is just for now. There’s a situation.’

She waited for him to elaborate, determined not to pester him.

‘I love you, Dulcie Schwartz.’

And before she could respond, he was gone.

Buoyed by his final declaration, Dulcie realized that she did not need the nap she’d been planning. Instead, if she was going to go out, she needed to shower and change. As she got out of bed, she pulled the quilt back to make the bed. It was so Lucy, really, she looked down at it with that mixture of warmth and humor that only her mother could evoke. The stitching, while heartfelt, was amateur. Some of the patches puckered slightly, and no amount of ironing would make it lie completely flat. Still, as she reached down to straighten it out, she had to admit a fondness for the homey piece. And as she did, she was sure that the wolf – the cat, as she preferred to think of it – winked.

THIRTY-TWO

‘
S
omeone’s in a good mood!’ Trista looked up as Dulcie came into the bar. She nodded, knowing the broad grin on her face had been absent lately.

‘Yeah, I might be meeting Chris later.’ She walked up to the table where Jerry was pouring from a communal pitcher.

‘Chris is coming?’ He looked up as he handed her a full glass. ‘I thought—’

‘That’s great.’ Trista cut in, pushing herself by Dulcie and jostling her beer.

‘Wait, what’s going on?’ Dulcie put her glass down and, at a loss for a napkin, licked the cold beer from her hand. ‘Jerry?’

‘My dimwitted boyfriend is jealous.’ Trista spoke loudly enough for Jerry to hear. ‘He was hoping to pick up some extra hours in the computer lab. But Chris needs them.’ That was directed at Jerry, who nodded. He didn’t look that displeased to be at a bar, instead of at work.

‘What do you mean? He’s not in any trouble, is he?’ Dulcie knew well the round of grants and scholarships, and how precarious funding could be.

‘No more than the rest of us.’ Trista emptied her glass. For a tiny girl, she could drink. ‘Which is why I’m really hoping to get top prize tonight.’

Two hours later, she had, but the fifty dollars were being spent on multiple pitchers. The grad student crowd had grown, with nearly every face from the department crowding around the long, wet table that they’d commandeered earlier. Everyone except Lloyd, Dulcie noticed.

‘Has anyone seen Lloyd?’ Between the jukebox and the riotous cheers accompanying the runoff matches, she had to yell to be heard.

‘Lloyd?’ A huge pair of glasses with a tiny person attached blinked back at her. Sarah, a medievalist, Dulcie recalled. ‘You mean, Bullock’s boy?’

Dulcie nodded, biting her lip. If Lloyd wasn’t careful, he was going to become the next Polly. ‘He’s got his own work, you know.’

Sarah turned back toward her, her glasses catching the light from the bar. ‘I hear he’s been helping the professor put his house back in order.’

So much for Lloyd’s own thesis. Well, they all needed to get paid.

But Sarah was still talking. ‘I wonder if he’s trying to take over Cameron’s role, I mean, now that it’s open.’

Dulcie spun around, but with the colored light sparkling off Sarah’s oversize frames it was hard to read her face. ‘What do you mean?’

The medievalist shrugged. ‘Just saying.’

‘But Cameron wasn’t working with Bullock.’ Dulcie struggled to make sense of the claim. Between the beer and the lighting, she was feeling a bit muddled. ‘He’d only just come over from Comp Lit. He was in an entirely different period.’

‘He was doing something with Bullock!’ Sarah’s voice had started to grate, too. ‘I remember him asking about his hours and stuff.’

‘He was? They were?’ She shook her head to clear it, but that only started it throbbing. Tiny pinpricks started behind her eyes, like little claws just beginning to make themselves felt. Just then three of the bar’s execrable pizzas arrived, and Dulcie was jostled aside as the darts team and its cheerleaders fell on the greasy pies.

Five minutes later, only three sad-looking slices remained, and Sarah had gone off. Dulcie found herself next to Trista, pepperoni and mushroom in hand. Those tiny claws were still digging in, and she chewed on the slice, hoping that food would ease the pressure in her head.

‘Did you hear anything about Cameron working with Professor Bullock?’ Dulcie took another bite. She hadn’t eaten since lunch, and mushrooms were a vegetable, weren’t they?

Trista shrugged, her mouth full. ‘Wrong period.’ She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

‘That’s what I thought.’ Dulcie looked at her crust, thinking to discard it, and instead took a bite. ‘But Sarah was saying something about Cameron.’

‘Sarah.’ Trista rolled her eyes and reached over for one of the remaining slices. She looked up at Dulcie, who nodded. What the hell, it was Friday.

‘What does that mean?’ The cheese on the second slice had congealed and Dulcie had to grab it to keep it from sliding off.

‘Cameron?’ Trista was having her own problems, but managed to bite through the hardened topping. ‘She was jealous.’

‘But she’s a medievalist.’ It was the beer, it had to be. She closed her eyes and flashed back in time. When she’d sleep late – or too late for her hungry cat – Mr Grey would swat her, gently, to wake her. Had he ever used his claws?

She opened her eyes to see Trista was shaking her head, slurping down the rest of the slice. ‘That hit the spot.’ She wiped the crumbs from her hands, then turned back to Dulcie’s question. ‘I wouldn’t sweat it, Dulce. I mean, I don’t think it was academic. Maybe she saw them talking, who knows? But for Sarah, it was personal.’

Behind Dulcie’s eyes, the claws took hold. Trista continued talking. ‘Cameron was a bit of a masher, you know?’

Dulcie shrugged. She’d felt the force of his charisma, and she knew the other women talked about him.

‘He’d hit on almost anyone. Act all fascinated about everything – your life, your work. And those eyes . . .’ Trista got a faraway look, and Dulcie was tempted to tell her to stop. The pain was getting too intense. But then her friend snapped back. ‘Hey, maybe he’d sweet talked the Old Bull. He could’ve. There was something off about him, though. You know? Like he was into the power trip of it all.’

Dulcie nodded. ‘I think so. I think he manipulated his tutee. You know, the undergrad I’m now working with?’

‘Raleigh Hall? Senior hot shot?’ Trista seemed doubtful.

‘Yeah. I know she looks older, but I’m getting the sense that she’s sort of messed up.’ Dulcie explained about the delayed thesis and about Cameron grooming her for the university’s most prestigious prize. The pain came and went, right behind her eyes. ‘I know she’s smart, but I think he set her up for disappointment. Maybe, from what you’re saying, he had other reasons, too.’

‘There’s definitely something going on with that girl. She’s been showing up all over.’ Trista glanced past Dulcie. ‘And now you can ask her yourself.’

Dulcie turned toward the entrance, just in time to see Raleigh push open the door, the auburn highlights in her perfect hair set off by the light from the street. ‘Just what I need,’ she groaned. ‘Work.’

‘Is she that bad?’ There was no way they could be overheard from this far away, but Trista leaned in anyway. ‘I’d heard she was quite bright.’

‘Yeah, she is.’ Honesty compelled Dulcie to continue. ‘And, truth is, I haven’t even read what she’s written already. I’m getting as bad as Bullock.’ She turned again to look. Raleigh had been swallowed up by the crowd. The pain had settled into a dull ache, leaving Dulcie feeling drained. ‘I just want to work on my own stuff, you know?’

‘Tell me about it.’ Trista nodded slowly. ‘All the kids care about these days is hypertext and postmodern staging.’

‘Semiotics and signifiers!’ Dulcie warmed to the theme.

‘Does anyone give a damn about books anymore?’

‘I do!’ The two women looked up in surprise. Lloyd stood there, smiling. ‘Did I miss anything? I mean, besides an old-fashioned gripe session?’

‘I won at darts!’ Trista preened.

‘Score one for the bookish set!’ He seemed jolly.

‘I’m so glad to see you!’ Dulcie felt herself cheered by the sight of him, at least until her own questions came rushing back. ‘Hey, you weren’t at your office hours. Raleigh dropped by—’

‘I know, I know.’ Lloyd made a face. ‘Believe me, I heard about it. She had something for me. But I got the call from Bullock, and when Bullock calls . . .’ He shrugged. Trista, meanwhile, had poured him a glass from one of the fresher pitchers, and put it in his hand.

‘So, you got it, right?’ He took a hefty swig and nodded.

Dulcie waited, but he seemed intent on his beer. Finally, she moved on. ‘So, were you helping him clean up?’ She’d get back to the book later.

‘Yeah, he’s sort of helpless these days.’ He looked around. ‘But I think I did some good.’

‘What do you mean?’ He smiled and lifted his glass to someone across the room.

‘I got him to drop that stupid claim.’ He refilled his glass and stood up. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me?’ And with that he disappeared into the crowd.

The crowd had thinned out by the time Chris showed up, taking Lloyd with it and leaving Dulcie to wonder what he’d meant by that last statement. At least Raleigh had gone, too. Though when Dulcie mentioned this to Trista, her friend had given her an odd look.

‘You’ve got to get over that girl, Dulce. She’s not the threat you think she is.’