True Grey (7 page)

‘I did not.' Dulcie had been using the program for several months now, with no problems.

‘You did, Dulce.' If he'd been looking at her, instead of at the screen, he might have held back the next words. ‘I tried to idiot-proof it, but there's only so much I can do.'

The evening had gone downhill from there, to the point where they'd both been somewhat relieved when Darlene had called, pleading some sort of domestic crisis.

‘She is seeing someone,' Chris had said, as he disengaged the cat from his sneaker laces. ‘And it hasn't been going on that long, so maybe they do need some extra time together.'

Biting back the more bitter of her possible retorts, Dulcie had smiled and hugged him. He might not be the most sensitive man at times, but he hadn't meant to screw up her work – or insult her. She knew that.

Sitting in her lonely bed, however, she regretted what she thought of as her generosity. Not only had the nightmare left her with a racing pulse, it had raised some questions. The kind she longed to bounce off someone.

‘Why has the dream changed?' In lieu of her boyfriend, she asked the cat. ‘I mean, I'm glad that I'm not seeing a murder any more, but there's still the same sense of dread, right at the end.'

Esmé continued to wash, moving on from the smooth black fur of her back to her white hind foot. And Dulcie had to admit that the cat had a point. ‘I know; it's because my situation has changed, right?'

Without Chris – and without another shot at that tantalizing manuscript – Dulcie faced the day with a heavy heart. Her toilette done, Esmé did what she could, scampering around until Dulcie – running late and hurrying to the kitchen – nearly tripped over her in her distraction.

‘Esmé! Can't you watch it?' Dulcie heard herself snap, and caught herself. ‘I'm sorry, kitten. It's not your fault I lost the excerpt and can't get back into the Mildon. It's not your fault I'm going to be late for section. Nothing's your fault.'

Whether it was the unexpected outburst or the sudden apology, the round little cat stopped her heedless scurrying. Instead, with her head tilted ever so slightly so that the whiter side of her nose was uppermost, she examined her person.

‘
What's wrong, Dulcie?
' The voice, so quiet and yet so definitely there, startled Dulcie to the point where she almost dropped her coffee.

‘Esmé?' Dulcie swung around to look at the little cat. ‘Was that you?'

‘
Who else?
' The cat flopped, exposing a fluffy white belly.

‘I thought – no, never mind.' Dulcie sat heavily in a kitchen chair. ‘You never speak, and I was beginning to think . . .'

‘
You thought it was
him
, huh?
' Esmé stretched her white legs above her portly tum. ‘
You think the old man runs everything around here, don't you?
' She flexed her pink toes and ended up rolling herself over. ‘
Meant to do that,
' she muttered, and Dulcie suppressed a smile. ‘
But, I'm right, aren't I?
'

‘I don't know.' Dulcie didn't want to be disrespectful, especially after that undignified move. In truth, she hadn't given much thought to the relationship between the two feline presences in her life. ‘I guess, I thought Mr Grey had seniority.'

‘
Huh!
' The little cat extended one foot and began to wash it furiously. ‘
As if there were such a thing as cat tenure! No, our bonds are deeper and more subtle than you could ever know, with your concerns of legacy and birthright.
'

‘Birthright?' Dulcie paused to do the math before realizing that Mr Grey had been neutered. ‘No, it's not possible.'

‘
I said we were more subtle, as so should humans be. But wait.
' The little cat stopped mid-wash and stared up at her person. ‘
You were about to say something about my intellect, weren't you?
'

‘Not at all.' Clearly, Dulcie had lit upon a touchy subject. ‘I was thinking that you speak so rarely, I was beginning to wonder if perhaps you had lost—' She stopped herself, suddenly aware of the need to tread carefully. ‘That perhaps you chose not to converse with us.'

‘
Nuh!
' With a not inconsiderable effort, the little cat swung herself around again. ‘
What is this “chose”? As if we didn't all have our own roles to play.
'

With that, Esmé scrambled to her feet and galloped off to the living room.

‘Our own roles? Like jobs?' Dulcie was tempted to follow up, but from the sounds in the other room, Esmé was already busy with one of her toys. Maybe that was her job: catnip monitor. And Dulcie's? Well, with the Mildon off limits and her thesis hanging by a thread, she had little better to do than actually try to teach. If she hurried, she told herself as she screwed on the top of her travel mug, she'd make it to her section on time. Even the strange conversation with the cat had cost her a few minutes she could ill afford. For her Saturday section was all the way down by the river – in the library of Dardley House.

Dardley House, where Melinda Sloane Harquist would be holding court in only a few hours. The visiting scholar had her sights set on Dulcie's topic – and seemingly had no interest in sharing. For all that Esmé had been talking about connections, Dulcie couldn't see how that would work here. Maybe cats simply were superior creatures. Taking a sip from the mug, Dulcie clattered down the apartment stairs and set off.

English 10, the year-long survey course by which potential majors lived or failed, had been one of her favorite classes, she reminded herself as she darted across a one-way street with barely a glance at traffic. Like most such courses, it covered way too much – jumping from Puritan sermons to Mark Twain's satires, all before midterms. As an undergrad, Dulcie had loved the way it drew connections between these, linking entire schools of thought through philosophical arguments over time. Only now, teaching the course, did she understand that for some students, those links were a bit too much.

‘The key is attitude,' Dulcie rehearsed to herself, as she waited for a light. ‘Let yourself see how ideas can do the connecting.'

She tried a few takes on it, attempting to sound as encouraging as possible and startling another pedestrian as she spoke out loud. ‘It's all about attitude,' she said, and realized she was beginning to sound like Esmé.

Wednesday's lecture had involved the course's first difficult leap, from those early sermons to the first-hand reports of Kentucky explorers. Some of her students – she was thinking of two in particular – were not going to make it, she feared. Well, speaking of roles, it was her responsibility to reach down and haul those two up. The fact that this section was held in one of the conference rooms of Dardley House was neither here nor there. Melinda Sloane Harquist wouldn't have arrived yet, anyway. And she would get to talk to her later. The Dardley clock rang the quarter hour. Nearly eleven. Picking up the pace as she turned on to the walkway to the house entrance Dulcie took another chug of coffee. Almost there. Which meant a few more moments to focus on the task at hand.

‘Try thinking about the mindset of the writers.' It sounded good. Maybe it would work with the scared and scattered undergrads she was about to face. ‘How did they view this big new country of theirs? Were they frightened? Invigorated? A little bit of both?'

Such questions invariably brought up her thesis topic.
The Ravages
was not covered in any of the big courses – Dulcie had only discovered the remaining fragments of the book in a graduate-level discussion group she'd wiggled into in her junior year – and its author was firmly identified with a British tradition. Still, she couldn't help asking herself the same questions. Her author had been here, somewhere. A newcomer to a new world, fleeing some kind of danger. What had she thought of her new world?

‘I don't care.' She was steps from the open door when a woman burst out of the house's front door, voice raised nearly to a shriek. The clock chimed again, but it didn't come close to drowning her out. ‘I'm sorry, Rafe, but I don't,' Dulcie heard, between peals. ‘You're always on about grabbing the opportunity, about networking, about bettering yourself. You should talk!'

The owner of the voice – a young black woman – stopped on the path and turned. Arms akimbo, bent slightly at the waist, she seemed to be using a good deal of her energy to yell at the young man who had followed her out the door and was holding it open. Glancing at him, Dulcie got the impression of cheekbones and a certain grace, the kind that some men took advantage of. Maybe she had reason to be angry.

‘You're a hypocrite!' With that one last cry, she spun on her heel and took off. Dulcie stepped off the path to let her pass, unsure whether to offer condolences or turn her head. As it was, she went by too quickly, and Dulcie had only a moment to see her dash a tear from her cheek as she stalked off toward the road.

Head down, Dulcie pretended to be looking for her ID as she approached the main entrance of Dardley House. The double doors were oversized, more fitting for a castle than an undergraduate house, but the dark-haired man managed to almost block them anyway as he stood there, looking slightly stunned. Dulcie got a quick impression of Heathcliff on the moors – lost, dark, and undeniably romantic.

‘Excuse me,' she said, as gently as she could. In an ideal world, she'd have ducked aside for a few minutes and left the abandoned lover to collect himself. However, even if most of her section was likely to be late, she should at least try to be on time.

‘What? Oh, sorry.' Heathcliff – Rafe – stepped to the side, pulling one of the heavy doors open for her. She smiled up at him. She and Chris didn't have many screaming fights, not any more, but after last night, she could certainly relate. ‘Maybe you should go after her?' As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. This was a private matter, none of her business. But certainly they must have both been aware of her, scurrying through their private affairs.

‘What?' He looked over at her, and she saw that his eyes were a startling green. ‘Oh, Darlene? No, no, she's right.' He stepped into the foyer beside her, and let the door close, as if those words had decided something. The main entrance where they now stood was tiny, just a short passage that opened at its other end on to a courtyard and, from there, all the interior rooms of the house. Despite the presence of a security booth – Dulcie could see the student guard on duty, tow-head bent over a book behind the glass partition – the enclosed space gave their conversation an air of privacy, if not intimacy. ‘I have to let her make her own decisions. I mean, I've got my own unfinished business.' He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Anyway, sorry you . . . ah . . . had to see that.'

‘I've been there,' Dulcie could say, honestly. ‘Relationships!' She tried to sound world weary, and realized too late that she wasn't making sense. Still, she realized, she might as well take advantage of the occasion. ‘If you don't mind – are you Rafe, the senior tutor?'

‘Yes?' He looked apprehensive, and she wondered just how much unfinished business the handsome young man had. And with whom. The little foyer began to feel claustrophobic.

‘I'm Dulcie Schwartz, Lloyd Pruitt's office mate?' Those green eyes looked dazed, and she hurried to fill in the blanks. ‘I'm here because I teach the eleven o'clock section. English 10 – 10 at eleven,' she was gibbering. ‘We still use your syllabus, you know. The way you divvied it all up – matching Jonathan Edwards up with
Moby Dick
is brilliant.' He was waiting. ‘Lloyd talked to you yesterday? About meeting with your visiting scholar?' She leaned in and dropped her voice. The student in the security booth appeared to be reading, but she couldn't be sure how much was public knowledge. ‘Melinda Sloane Harquist?'

‘Yes, yes, of course.' He ran his hand through his hair. This close, Dulcie couldn't help noticing how muscular his arms were. Yes, he could have won the heart of Mellie Heartless, at least for a time. ‘She's not here yet.'

‘No, no, of course not. And I have my section. It's just that, hearing your name . . .' She left it at that, and he nodded.

‘She'll be staying in the suite off the junior common room, second floor of the F entryway. You go through the courtyard and it's the last entrance on the right. Do you know it?' Dulcie nodded. Dardley was organized around its six stairwells, each with its own entrance on to the courtyard. Though a top-floor hallway connected most of the entryways, labeled A through F, this set-up meant a lot of exercise for the undergrads. ‘She's supposed to arrive by two, and the reception isn't until five. If you came by at three or three thirty, you'd have plenty of time to talk.'

He rattled off the schedule as if by rote, Dulcie noticed. He must memorize such things as part of the job. Dulcie had a flash of Esmé again, and looked up at him. ‘That will be OK? I'll be able to get in?'

‘Sure.' He shrugged, his mind still clearly elsewhere. ‘Just show your university ID at the door and come in.' He nodded toward the student guard, who still hadn't looked up. ‘I'll make sure the door to F won't be locked.'

Well, it wasn't exactly an introduction, but it would serve. Dulcie thanked him and received a distracted nod in return. She followed him into the courtyard, with its battered lawn and scattered picnic tables. Around her, the house curved like a brick castle, punctuated by the green entryways and – on the far left – the French doors of the dining hall. Her own class took place in B, in a ground-floor conference room, but she turned to watch him duck a Frisbee as he crossed the patchy grass over toward F. The Frisbee landed in his path, and as he reached for it, someone called.

‘Coming in?' She nodded, turning toward the door the girl held open for her. This was courtesy, rather than necessity. The courtyard doors, Dulcie knew from experience, were seldom locked. That's what the main entrance, with its security post, was for. The entrance she'd just breezed right through, Dulcie realized, as the door swung shut behind her. Where nobody had even asked for her ID.