A Skeleton in the Family (2 page)

O
nce she was gone, I set up my laptop on the coffee table in the living room to make sure my parents' Internet connection was up and running and ended up getting caught in a flurry of e-mail. That meant I was concentrating on the screen and didn't see the door to the armoire behind me slowly drift open, and the noise of my typing masked the sound of movement as the skeletal figure emerged from the gaping blackness.

Had the worn oriental carpet not muffled the footsteps, I would have heard the feet scraping against the floor as the creature stepped into the room, even though his feet were bare.

In fact, they couldn't have been any more bare—bare of clothing, bare of skin, bare of anything—there was only bleached white bone from head to toe. Or rather, from skull to phalanges. Like something out of a nightmare, the skeleton moved across the floor.

It stepped toward my unprotected back, one fleshless arm reaching for me, but an instant before that mockery of a human hand touched my shoulder, I saw his reflection on my computer screen. “Sid! I'm working here.”

“How did you know?” the skeleton demanded.

“How long have I known you?” I wasn't about to tell him about the reflection or he'd think of a way around it next time.

“Hey, can you blame me for wanting to jump your bones? Get it? Jump your
bones
?”

“I got it the first thousand times you made that joke, Sid, and it hasn't been funny since the first time.” Then I reconsidered. “No, I giggled the second time, too.” I sent off the e-mail I'd just finished typing, and said, “So do I get a hug or what?”

“I wasn't sure you'd care, since you didn't even bother to come up to the attic to see me.”

“You weren't in the attic, were you?”

“But you didn't know that.”

“I suspected,” I lied. Years back, my parents had bought the battered but sturdy armoire for Sid to use as an emergency hiding place for those times when he couldn't get upstairs to the attic without being seen, and Deborah had installed locks inside and out so nobody could open it unexpectedly. In addition to hiding in there, Sid wasn't above using it for a spot of eavesdropping—his hearing was excellent despite his lack of ears.

“I had to wait to make sure that the coast was clear, which is your fault, since you're the one who wants to keep Madison from finding out about you.”

He sniffed as if to say he suspected I'd been stalling.

It made no sense for a skeleton to sniff, but of course there wasn't anything about Sid that did make sense. When your best friend is a walking, talking human skeleton, you pretty much give up the expectation of logical explanations and just stick with the reality of his existence.

If I'd been older when Sid rescued me, I'd probably have been traumatized for life, but as a six-year-old I'd still firmly believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. Adding an ambulatory skeleton to my roster of childhood heroes wasn't that much of a stretch. Though later evidence had proven to me that those other guys weren't real, Sid was still a part of my life.

I repeated, “Do I get a hug or not?”

“I suppose,” he said, but the hug was more sincere than his words.

Hugging Sid is an unusual sensation. The closest thing I've ever felt to it was wrapping my arms around a really dried-out Christmas tree so I could lug it out to the street. Sid didn't have that nice a scent, but then again, he didn't leave an annoying trail of pine needles either.

“Did you lock the front door in case Madison comes back early?” Sid asked.

“No, but I will.” I did so. “Sid, are you sure you want to play it like this? I know Madison is ready to hear about you.”

Sid and I had agreed when Madison was born that it would be best if we waited to let them meet face-to-skull. It wasn't that he was overly terrifying in appearance—my father's great-aunt Margaret, who used a pound of white face powder a week and dyed her hair to the darkness of a black hole, was much scarier. We just didn't want to rely on a child to keep the secret of Sid's existence. But when Madison turned a mature ten, I was ready to introduce them during our annual visit to my parents. Sid vetoed it, and had continued to do so. He said he didn't want to disturb the status quo, that it was too much to put on her, that Madison was too young, that Madison was too old. The reasons just kept on coming, and I'd reluctantly respected his wishes, even if I didn't understand them. That didn't mean I'd given up, of course.

“Besides,” I said, “it's going to be tough hiding you long-term without my parents to run interference if Madison hears anything suspicious from the attic. It'll be hard on you, too.”

“Don't worry about me. I'll be extra quiet.”

“But there's no reason to keep you secret. Madison isn't a little kid anymore. She can be trusted. Just wait until you get to know her.”

“I'd like to,” he said wistfully, “but let's not pile too much on her at once. Making new friends and settling into a new school is more than enough for a girl her age.”

“She's used to changing schools, Sid.” Though I wasn't proud of the fact that my employment record had meant she'd had to switch schools midyear more than once, I was glad that she didn't seem to have suffered from it. “She can handle—”

“How was the move?” Sid asked, firmly changing the subject.

I sighed. He was one stubborn bag of bones. “About the same as usual. We threw out as much as we kept, and I dropped a box of books on my foot. Then the landlord tried to stiff me on the security deposit, but I had photos of the day we moved in and could prove that the stains on the carpet predated us.”

I'd had far too much experience with sneaky landlord tricks. Not that all landlords I'd had were bad people—we still exchanged Christmas cards with a couple—but because of my job, Madison and I usually lived in college towns, and dealing with college students can make even the most hospitable landlord turn cynical. “He finally admitted the place looked better than it had before we rented it and said he'd mail the deposit back, but when I pointed out that our lease said he had to pay on the day we moved out, he just happened to have a check in his pocket. Which I cashed before leaving town, just in case he tried to pull a fast one.” Well, that and the fact that I needed the money to pay the VISA bill.

Before I could return to the subject of introducing Sid to Madison, he asked, “Ready to start your new job?”

“You have no idea.” I'd nearly given up on finding a teaching job for the fall—I'd thought I was all set for another year at the previous college, so being let go after writing up lesson plans for the summer session had caught me off guard.

“Why weren't you on tenure track, anyway?”

“You sound like Deborah.”

“Sorry.”

I waved it away. “It was the same old story. They gave me five sections of freshman expository writing each semester, with a textbook I hadn't worked with before, and I had a hundred essays to grade every week. With no assistant, of course. And even though I got top marks from the students and peer review, all they wanted to know was why I hadn't published any papers during the two years I was there. Apparently ‘because I had to sleep' wasn't considered a legitimate excuse.”

“That's insane. I have no brains at all—literally—and I can see that's insane.”

“That's life in academia.” Though I'd networked like crazy, I'd had no luck lining up a new job for the fall and had been filling in the gap by teaching high school students how to improve their SAT scores. Then one of McQuaid's instructors got an offer from a corporate education center that was lucrative enough to make her leave on short notice. I'd exchanged small talk and business cards with the department chair at a campus function last year, which is why he'd called me.

Since I was more than ready to leave that subject behind, I said, “Anyway, about Madison—” But, as if she'd heard my voice, I got a text from the fourteen-year-old herself:
On the way
. “Madison will be back in a few minutes. Are you sure . . . ?”

But Sid was already heading for the stairs. “Come up tomorrow after work. I want to know how it goes.”

“Will do. You know—”

“I think she's here!”

He zipped up the stairs, and I zipped toward the door, but there was no Madison to be seen. He'd fooled me.

Time was when I could see right through Sid, metaphorically as well as physically, but somehow my best friend was hiding something.

T
he next day felt all too familiar.

I spent the first part of the morning getting Madison enrolled at Pennycross High School. The school was technically my alma mater, but they'd abandoned the century-old building where I'd attended classes some years back. So instead of nostalgia, I got déjà vu—the new building could have been half the schools Madison had attended. On the plus side, we knew everything we needed to know about the red tape involved in the transfer of paperwork and enrolling in classes. In fact, we knew the procedure better than the school's vice principal, who was looking a bit dazed by the time Madison gave me a big hug and kiss good-bye. Well, actually she waved, and said, “Later!” but for a teenager, that was a display of affection to be treasured and posted about on Facebook.

Thanks to our efficiency, it was still early when I got to the McQuaid campus, which was considerably more recognizable to me than the high school. Unlike me, my parents had both been granted tenure early on in their careers, which meant that they'd been teaching at the same college since I was in junior high school.

They'd been trying to get me a job there for years, but the timing had never worked out—either I had what I thought would be a long-term position when something opened up at McQuaid, or McQuaid had just hired somebody when I was looking for work, or one of my parents had been serving in some capacity in which the hiring of their own daughter would be suspect.

I hadn't been overly disturbed by the situation because I wasn't convinced that I wanted to teach in the same department where my parents were regarded as twin pinnacles of academic achievement. This time, it was different. For one thing, my parents were on sabbatical for several more months and, given my luck, I might be gone before they got back. For another, there was nothing like the prospect of a year of coaching anxious high school students in test-taking techniques to shift my standards.

That edge of desperation was part of why I was wearing my best navy blue suit for this meeting, even though the adjunct job was supposed to be in the bag—I didn't want Dr. Hardison Parker to think I was cocky. The shiny red leather briefcase I was carrying instead of my usual soft-sided bag was to convince him that I wasn't desperate.

Parking is a perennial problem at any college, and McQuaid had it worse than most. They'd recently embarked on a massive building campaign, so a good chunk of the parking was currently being taken up by construction equipment. Fortunately I'd noticed my parents' parking hang tags in the basket of mail that Deborah had been collecting for them, and I'd grabbed one. So I parked in one of the conveniently located faculty spaces instead of tromping across campus in heels, hoping not to sweat in the surprisingly warm fall day.

Since the English Department was one of the largest departments at McQuaid, it had its offices in a prime spot in Benson Hall, the most picturesque building on campus. It was, in fact, pretty much the only picturesque building. McQuaid had never had a school of architecture, and it showed in the brick-and-concrete monstrosities that made up most of the campus. Therefore Benson was featured on the college letterhead and on every year's brochure for freshmen because it had all the traditional trappings of a New England college building—the clapboard, the columns, the ivy. Unfortunately it also had the steep stairs, antiquated electrical system, and tiny bathrooms. Charm doesn't come cheap.

Mrs. Speed, the English Department secretary, who was only slightly younger than the building, was looking discontentedly at her computer screen when I stepped inside the office. I'd always thought she figured that if she looked happy, people might ask her to do more work.

“Hello, Mrs. Speed,” I said. “I'm here for my appointment with Dr. Parker.”

After I'd stood there an awkward minute, she said, “Want me to tell him you're here?”

“Yes, please.”

She turned her head almost half an inch, and said loudly, “The Thackery girl is here.” In a slightly lower voice she said, “Go on in.”

Dr. Parker offered a reasonably firm, low-moisture handshake from across his desk. He was a slender man with the large forehead and carefully gelled hair of a man trying to disguise a receding hairline. His eyes bulged just a touch more than was ideal.

We exchanged greetings, and Parker said, “Good to see you again, Ms. Thackery. It is still Thackery?”

“Yes, sir.” It was still
Doctor
, too, but I wasn't going to press the point.

“Perhaps we should begin with you explaining your background and qualifications.”

“Certainly. If it will help, I have a copy of my CV.” I pulled it out of my briefcase and handed it to him, not bringing up the fact that I'd sent him one the previous week. Printing out fresh copies of my curriculum vitae was a habit forged by experience.

The next hour was standard for such interviews. He asked a bevy of questions about my specialty in literature—contemporary American, with particular interest in popular culture—even though it was completely meaningless for the job. Except for very rare instances, adjuncts were stuck with freshman composition courses.

I'd be teaching the usual five sections: three one-hour sections meeting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and two one-and-a-half hour sections on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Though five sections were going to be a lot of work, I would have loved one more. Six sections would have meant full-time pay and benefits, even if I wasn't in a tenure track job, but with five, I got nearly as much work without any benefits. If I weren't living in my parents' house, I'd have had to teach online courses, too, just to make ends meet.

At least Parker didn't try to play games with my pay—prices for adjunct faculty are standard, and in no way dependent on experience or level of skill. I'd make the same pitiful amount per credit hour if I was still working on my dissertation or if I'd been teaching for twenty years.

After that lukewarm welcome, Parker sent me to the university human resources office to deal with the requisite paperwork, and after a solid hour of filling out forms, I was officially McQuaid faculty. I stopped at the school's Hamburger Haven, making use of my brand-new faculty ID to get a discount. The food was fine, but I was almost certain I detected a sniff of disdain when the cashier saw
ADJUNCT
on my ID.

I keep expecting some college to adopt the idea of a big red A embroidered on the bosom of each adjunct. It would be both demeaning and literary, which was a rare combination.

While eating, I read over the packet labeled
Welcome Aboard, Adjunct!
In a cloying style, it told me how glad McQuaid was to have me and outlined the responsibilities and benefits of the job. There were far more responsibilities, of course, with required office hours and time sheets to be filled out weekly and grades to be turned in seconds after the last class ended. The benefits section mostly described the food discount I was already taking advantage of, the faculty parking hang tag that could be used by me and nobody else but me, and my choice of desks in the office I'd be sharing with the university's other adjunct faculty members.

The adjunct office was my next stop. It was in the basement of the student center, a location that was equally inconvenient for all departments. The door was wooden, with a small panel of translucent glass and a badly printed sign. There was a battered coatrack on one side of the door and a row of office mailboxes on the other. Judging from the wide variety of name labels stuck, taped, and stapled onto the mail slots, apparently I was going to have to provide my own.

I stopped to look at the names, hoping for a few familiar ones. A bonus to being an adjunct was that I rarely worked at a college where I didn't know somebody, or at least have connections. In this case, I recognized the names of four friendly acquaintances from previous jobs before I realized somebody was standing next to me.

“Dr. Thackery,” a man said in a pleased baritone. “What a delightful surprise.”

“Dr. Peyton. You're looking as dapper as ever.”

Dapper
isn't a word I use every day, but it's pretty much the only way to describe Charles Peyton. He was wearing a tweed suit and vest with an honest-to-God watch chain hanging out of one pocket. His hair was perfectly arranged without visible use of product, and the streaks of gray only added to his look of distinction. His shoes were shined to a blinding gloss, and his mustache was neatly trimmed. In a word:
dapper
.

He made a slight bow that would have looked either mocking or coy if performed by anybody else. “A man does what he must in order not to be completely overshadowed by beauty like yours.”

“Charles, you are a boon to womankind.” That's the kind of guy Charles is—he had me using the word
boon
. “If I'd known you were teaching here, I'd have come sooner.”

“Dear lady, you make my day complete.”

“What classes did they stick you with?”

“Here at McQuaid, two sections of Colonial American, one Revolutionary American. At Joshua Tay University, I've got one Vietnam era, and one Scandinavian.”

Charles was a historian who specialized in the Pax Britannica, 1815 to 1914, so naturally he ended up teaching courses for every era and country but that. Having to divide his time between two different campuses made it even more annoying, but sometimes it was the only way for an adjunct to get a full course load. I'd had to do the same one long year.

“I've got composition,” I said. “Again.”

“I'm sure you'll teach it admirably. Have you been made aware of our customs here at McQuaid?”

“I just got here.”

“Then please, let me assist you. Obviously, these are our mailboxes. If you don't have a label of your own, I would be happy to provide one.”

“I think Mrs. Speed from the English Department is planning to take care of that right away.”

He raised one eyebrow.

“I know. As if. A label would be great.”

Charles said, “The coatrack is reasonably secure for coats and hats, but I would hesitate to leave anything more than that. Umbrellas tend to disappear.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Now let us proceed into our humble abode. Emphasis on humble, I'm afraid.”

As Charles and I went inside, the noise level rose to alarming levels. Inside the large room were rows of desks of differing vintages, either scarred wood, dented metal, or chipped Formica. There was a hodgepodge of chairs, trashcans, and other office furnishings, and I estimated that the walls hadn't been painted in ten years. About half of the thirty desks were currently occupied with people working on their laptops, talking on cell phones, or grading papers. One poor guy was trying to meet with a student in the back corner.

Having a desk of one's own is in the mid-range for adjunct treatment. The best schools provide private offices, even if they're tiny. One step down is two or three adjuncts to an office. A step below the assigned desk at McQuaid would be a shared office with unassigned tables recycled from the cafeteria, in which one would have to arm wrestle for work space, and bribery would be needed to get an outlet for a laptop.

Sadly that isn't even the bottom rung. One school hadn't provided me with any kind of office space, which forced me to work in a corner of the library.

Charles said, “The desk chart is here. Feel free to claim any empty square.”

On the wall was a white board with a shaky floor plan of the office on it, which I suspected was drawn by somebody other than an adjunct from the Art Department. Names were scrawled on most of the blocks representing desks, but I saw three empty spots. “Any advice?” I asked Charles.

“Hmm . . .” He put his hand on his chin. “I wouldn't recommend the one in the back. The instructors to either side have rather strong voices.”

In other words, they were loud enough to disrupt my work.

He went on. “The one in the center has a tendency to be encroached upon.” He didn't need to tell me that people had been known to expand their areas an inch at a time in order to grab a little extra real estate. “I'd choose this one. It's next to the wall, giving you a modicum of privacy, and the desk is in decent shape. The chair isn't, but if you trade with the chair from the desk in the back, it should be adequate.”

“Sounds good,” I said, and found a marker to put my name on the grid. “I'm surprised somebody hasn't moved up to it. Looks like a prime location.”

“Ah, yes, well . . .” He looked significantly at a brunette with shoulder-length hair sitting in the desk in front of the one I'd just picked. Charles rarely says something negative about another adjunct, so his silence said all I needed to know. The woman—Sara Weiss, according to the desk grid—was not going to be an ideal neighbor.

I lowered my voice. “What's the downside?”

“Oh, she's a fine scholar, I'm sure, but she can be a tad . . . inquisitive.”

“I can deal.” I'd had nosy office-mates before.

“Then let me introduce you.” Charles walked me over and said, “Dr. Weiss, may I introduce Dr. Thackery?”

“Hi,” she said, looking me over. “What department?”

“English. And you?”

“Biology.”

Not only did Sara have a plum desk location, she even had a hook on which to hang her coat. Her desk wasn't bad, either.

“You've been here awhile,” I guessed.

“Six years. How many classes did they give you?”

“Five.”

“The usual.”

Charles said, “Let me trade chairs for you.” He rolled away the lopsided one that had been behind my desk.

“You hooked up with Charley pretty quick,” Sara said, making it sound distasteful.

“Charles and I go way back. I think this is the third time we've been at the same school. No, the fourth.”