One More Time (18 page)

“Straight A’s, regardless of what the kid has done. Welcome to the consumer society.”

“Exactly.”

“So, it’s all about money.”

“Yes! Money and marketing and bureaucracy and...”

“Bullshit.”

“Yes!”

“You know, there was a time when the antidote for low grades was more work on the part of the student.”

“Oh, but that’s not all. There’s more...”

“I get the Ginsu knife, too?”

Leslie chuckled. On some level, she was astonished by how easy this was. It was beginning to talk that was difficult, but once they were rolling, their old rhythms kicked right in. “This morning, I got a memo that Dinkelmann wants course offerings sexed up...”

“Sexed up? He actually used that word?”

“Um hmm. Listen, here’s his example.” Leslie retrieved the pink sheet from the trash and read to Matt. “`A sample of a new course might well be
Submissive Whores, Lusty Heiresses and Dominant Queens: The Unexpected Women of the Middle Ages.’
” Leslie snorted, knowing she could express herself honestly to Matt. “What’s ‘unexpected’ is his suggested course title.”

“That’s incredible. Could such a course even be taught?

“Well, at some level. Maybe like a cable television script, not like a history course.” Leslie forced herself to consider the root of Dinkelmann’s suggestion. “Maybe he just wants to get away from political history, which I can understand. I would be the first person who would welcome a women’s studies course focused on the middle ages and the role of women in medieval society. It’s intriguing stuff and the origin of a lot of our notions of gender roles and courtship.”

“But...” Matt prompted, drawing her out.

“The problem is, as always, source material.” Leslie warmed to her theme. “How many churchmen wrote extensively about whores—or even about heiresses or queens? How many women were even taught to write, so they could write about themselves? How much raw stuff is available?”

“Not much,” Matt guessed. “Some, but not much.”

“Exactly. Is it reasonable to extrapolate from some bits and ends to half of the population of Europe?”

“Dangerous stuff, statistically speaking.”

“Exactly. Here’s a comparative for you. Could you take a case history of a hooker working in Manhattan and make conclusions about the role of women in general in twenty-first century western society?”

“No way.”

“Even the United States? Even Manhattan? It would be risky to even extrapolate to hookers working in Manhattan: one point does not make a line.”

“How much material is there on medieval woman?”

“We have three well-documented examples and not much else.
Three
, for roughly a thousand years of history that encompasses all of Europe. It’s a pretty meager sample, but they are remarkable women. There’s Blanche of Castille, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Hildegarde von Bingen: that gives us a queen regent who ruled with an iron fist, an assertive heiress who became queen twice by virtue of her inherited lands and sheer force of will, and an abbess who had remarkable dreams on theological themes.”

“But the million dollar question is how typical are they?”

“Right. Probably not any more typical than Ivana Trump or Princess Diana are of your mother or me.” Leslie heaved a sigh. “Maybe even less so. And none of them wrote without a scribe, none of them wrote themselves, so there’s always the chance that their words have been edited or revised.”

“Not very reliable stuff.”

“No. My own suspicion is that chroniclers who wrote about these women did so because they acted often in the ways men were expected to act, ways in which women were not supposed to act. They were considered abominations by clergy, and were newsworthy, so to speak.”

“Wasn’t Eleanor of Aquitaine the one someone called Queen of England ‘by the wrath of God’?”

“Yes! Giraldus Cambrensis called her that,” Leslie said, thrilled that he remembered some of this stuff. Her stuff. She balled up the pink sheet and tossed it back into the trash. “So, that’s why I hate my job. I can’t even pursue my own research, what with the number of classes and number of graduate students to advise...”

“But you like teaching, don’t you?”

“Not this way. Not when they’re going to dictate the resulting grades, independent of the work that gets done. And I don’t like having all these burdens piled on my back which keep me from doing my own research, then being told that I’m not publishing enough articles. There are only so many hours in a day!”

“And if you can’t keep up, Leslie, no one can. You’ve got to be the most organized person on the planet...”

“Could you stop saying that, please?” Her words were lightly spoken and she heard Matt chuckle. “I’d like to be given another adjective, even if it’s only for a while.” Leslie swung in her chair, surprised to find herself smiling. She felt better for venting, better for having Matt agree with her, better for tasting their old camaraderie again.

Reality, of course, was quick to intervene.

“But you see, they’re asking exactly the same thing of you that my father asked of me,” Matt said with a levity that the assertion certainly didn’t deserve. “You’re being asked to compromise your principles, your ideas of what makes good scholarship or even good teaching.”

Leslie froze, startled by the truth in this.

“It sounds as if you know exactly what I was facing, as if you understand
now
what you didn’t get the other day. You always were the moral lodestone, Leslie, so I know you’ll do the right thing.” He thought it was resolved, as easily as that. “Back to the topic at hand.”

Which was his leaving her. Leslie was in shock.

Matt apparently took her silence for assent. He cleared his throat, making her think he was uncomfortable with whatever he meant to say. Leslie had a heartbeat to marvel at that before he shocked her again.

“Look, this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I lost my wallet last night.” His voice was strained, and Leslie intuitively knew that he was lying. “So, I’ll need to get the credit card numbers from you so I can cancel the cards.”

What had happened to his wallet? Or maybe it was just one item in that wallet, one credit card maybe, for which he needed the number. Matt never lost anything, so Leslie knew his story was exactly that.

A story.

A
lie
.

Which made her angry all over again. How dare he challenge her for not telling him everything? How dare he spout about the value of honesty? She had just shared her concerns with him, only to have him
lie
to her in return.

Her silence clearly concerned him. “So, when do you think you could get me the numbers? A couple of those cards have a lot of open credit and I’m a bit worried.”

Leslie grit her teeth and deliberately didn’t answer his question. “I don’t have the numbers here. Remarkably.”

“I wouldn’t expect even you to be that organized.” Matt laughed. When she didn’t laugh with him, he cleared his throat again. He was nervous. Because he was lying? Because he guessed that she knew it? Because the truth was something that would really infuriate her? “Well?”

“I think you have to report the loss within twenty-four hours,” Leslie said crisply. “So, tonight will probably be fine. If you call the house around dinner, I should have all of the statements collected by then.”

“Thanks.”

“Glad to be of assistance.” The words came out terse and hard.

“Leslie, don’t take this wrong. You know that there’s no one else I could ask about this...”

Being convenient was not what Leslie wanted to hear in this moment. Nor did she want to be told that she was organized, or useful, or any number of other safe wifely traits.

For once, Leslie wasn’t going to make nice and swallow her frustration. Matt wanted honesty? Well, he was going to get some. “Well, it’s terrific to find myself useful, especially when you’re lying through your teeth.”

“What do you mean?” He was hesitant, as if he knew that she was going to call him on something—and be right.

“You’ve never even lost a hair off your head, Matt. You never lose anything and no matter how drunk you might have been, you would never ever lose your wallet. You could at least tell me the truth, after I’ve shared my truth, Mr. Honesty-Is-Everything.”

He whistled low, but didn’t deny her accusation. “Cutting right to the chase, just like old times.” In fact, there was admiration in his voice. “I remember this Leslie. Where have you been?”

“Working, because somebody has to,” she said bitterly.

“Look, Leslie...”

Leslie could hear that he was preparing to negotiate something, but she wasn’t inclined to give him another chance right now, not considering where he was and how little he was telling her about what he had done.

She was too angry.

“Ooops, gotta go. Give my love to Sharan.” Leslie blew a kiss into the receiver then chucked it into the cradle. She shoved a piece of chocolate into her mouth. There’s only so much truth a person can face after being sheltered from it for so long.

Leslie gathered her stuff and left her office, telling herself that she didn’t care that the phone didn’t ring before she got to the end of the hall. She was leaving early and she didn’t care who knew it. Thank God she had under wires to hold her up straight.

In fact, she left the building with a certain aplomb.

* * *

Matt met his brother in the usual colorless featureless room reserved for meetings between lawyers and their incarcerated clients. He was in a sour mood after that morning call to Leslie, not particularly inclined to kiss his younger brother’s booboos better. He was tapping his toe with impatience when Zach was ushered into his company.

“It’s about time you got here,” Zach complained and Matt’s back went up.

The two guards exchanged a glance and Matt saw that they were already used to his brother’s expectations. And they were bemused by it. They gave the usual instructions about where they would be and how to summon them and Matt nodded, letting Zach fume.

“Good to see you, too,” Matt said with forced politeness, as if they were strangers instead of brothers. “Maybe you’d like to sit down.”

“Nice shiner! How does the other guy look?”

“Shut up and sit down.”

“Jeez, no sense of humor today.” Zach sat. “What’s wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Yeah? Then why do you seem so officious? More like James than yourself.” Zach grinned and lounged in his chair.

Matt considered his brother, the man so accustomed to having everyone else clean up his mistakes. He had a sudden conviction that he might not be so helpful this time. “Imagine that someone could be less than thrilled to be summoned the length of the country to serve your whim, with no hope of compensation.”

That made Zach pause, but then he braced his elbows on the table. He was too handsome for his own good, this kid, and too smooth to have ever gotten what he deserved. Even after a couple of days in the can, he had a certain rakish charm. “You’ve got to get me out of here, Matt. These guys are apes. It’s got to be a violation of my constitutional rights to be detained for so long on trumped-up charges.”

“I can only assume that you have told them as much.”

“Well, yeah! I’m an innocent citizen...”

Matt glanced at the charges. “With five pounds of pot in your backpack, just because.”

“Look, it wasn’t even my stuff...”

“Be serious, Zach. You had it in your backpack, which was apparently zipped closed.”

“I
am
serious! It was a plant, no pun intended. Somebody set me up. What do you think I am–stupid? I never carry that much at once, even when I’m selling, because you’re dead meat if you get caught.”

Matt couldn’t resist the impulse to pointedly look around. “Clearly.”

Zach scowled. “This is no time for joking! Look, I’m in a jam and I need your help.”

Matt tapped his finger on the table between them. “Correction, Zach: you’re in deep shit. Three counts of resisting arrest, one count of assaulting a police officer—”

“He deserved it! He was twisting my arm behind my back, so I decked him.”

“Good plan. It always makes things go better for you when you’re innocent, if indeed you are, if you can manage to deck a cop who’s doing his job.”

“Wow, you’re cranky today. No sex in Belmont these days?”

Matt lowered his voice to a growl. “Shut the fuck up and do it now.”

Zach swallowed. “It was just a joke...”

“Too bad it wasn’t funny, then.” Matt flipped through the dossier he’d assembled upstairs. “Let’s see: driving under the influence, possession of marijuana, intent to traffic marijuana, soliciting... You were having yourself a good time for a Tuesday night, weren’t you?”

“I was at a party, that’s all.” Zach sat back, displeased with something. Whether it was the litany of charges or Matt’s attitude, Matt couldn’t say.

And he didn’t much care.

Especially when Zach criticized him again. “So, where were you? I’ve been here two and a half days. I called James Tuesday night.”

“Wednesday morning, actually.”

“So? Did you walk from Boston? It’s Thursday.”

Matt forced a thin smile, determined as he was not to lose his temper. “You heard, perhaps, that Father is dead.”

Zach sat back, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s not like anyone would care. Don’t tell me you were too busy crying to get your ass on a plane and come to help me out.”

That was it. Matt leaned abruptly across the table and seized Zach by the shirt collar. He had always been strong and fury made him stronger. He lifted his little brother so that his butt came off the chair and gave him a shake. “You stupid bastard,” he snarled, then once he started, he couldn’t stop. “Let me tell you about Father’s death. Let me tell you what it’s like to be summoned to a man’s study, a man who eats his gun while you’re en route.”

“Jesus, I didn’t know...”

“Let me tell you about the library at Grey Gables, all those books behind his desk dripping with blood and little bits of his brains.”

Zach swallowed and averted his gaze. “Jesus, Matt, give it a rest.”