Phoenix Heart

Edited by
Amy Redd-Greiner

Copyedited by Carolyn Nash (any errors are my errors)

Thank you to
Navin Madras for suggesting the final title and to Christine de Brabander for
all of her suggestions for the cover design. And to all the Brats, the greatest
writers’ group in the world, thank you for, well, everything.

Copyright © 2013 Carolyn Nash

All rights reserved.

I leaned against the wall, hugging my
tablet of paper like a shield across my chest. I took one deep breath, then
another, but it really didn’t stop the fear. All it did was add a large helping
of dizziness.

Don’t think about the
interview. Think about something else.

I looked down the hall and out the window. It was a lovely
day. Early fall, no smog for once, and my appointment was perfectly timed so
that I would miss the noon rush back at the bank.

Oh lord. The bank.

All teller windows are open
and a long customer line snakes through the lobby. Men, women, and children
wave brochures, demanding to be allowed to open savings accounts. A multitude
of tellers beckon new customers to their windows and just as quickly send them over
to New Accounts. They give each other significant looks and snicker behind
their hands. Jan leans over to Carl: “She will never win the contest, now!
Mu-ha ha ha ha!” A big certificate with Winner emblazoned on it floats in
water. The moisture soaks in and “Winner” changes to “Loser” before the paper
twists, turns, and spirals down the drain.

I looked the other way up the hall trying to find something
to take my mind off the disappearing prize. The hallway was university
standard: beige linoleum tiles, cream-colored walls, yellowed-fluorescent light
panels on the ceiling. At the end: the Biology Department office--the last view
I wanted. My latest in a long line of anxiety attacks had begun with the sight
of the students and professors trooping in and out of that door, greeting each
other by first name, all of them so obviously knowing why they were there, so
obviously belonging. No, that sight had only added to the panic that had been
with me from the moment I’d received my graduate admissions interview notice. Me,
alone, facing a committee of five professors.

I shook my head, trying to drive back the sudden images of
black cowls and iron maces.

Concentrate on your shoes. That’s
safe.

So, I stared down at the tips of my shoes. Brand new, I’d bought
them just for this interview because they looked great with my new outfit. The
shoes had a design incised into the leather that was really quite attractive,
and string ties. I’d had another pair of shoes with that type of laces; had the
damnedest time keeping them tied…

The left one comes loose going
through the door; her right foot tramps down on it. She stumbles, tries to
recover, falls forward across the table, knocks the department chairman’s cup
of coffee into his lap. He leaps up screaming, slams his elbow into the nose of
the guy next to him, blood spurts everywhere.

I pushed off the wall. “Stop it.” I whispered. “Just stop
it.”

“Stop what?” came a voice from my right.

I bit off a scream, barely managed to snag my pad of paper before
it hit the floor, and turned to see a tall, lanky guy in jeans and a faded
green T-shirt leaning on one shoulder against the wall, arms crossed. His
brown, slightly curling hair looked like he’d combed it with a blow dryer set
on high. His light blue eyes glimmered behind gold, wire-framed glasses. My
face begin to heat up to somewhere in the spectrum between red and scarlet.

“I didn’t hear you come up,” I said.

“Didn’t want to disturb you. You looked pretty deep in
thought.”

“More like deep in terror.”

He grinned and his glasses shifted down his nose. He pushed
them back up. “Waiting for the inquisition, huh?”

“How’d you know?”

“I’ve been watching the whole line of you going in: pale-faced,
twitching, talking to yourselves.” His otherwise innocent face split into a
wicked grin. “Don’t worry; three out of five first-year grad students survive
the initial interview. The two who don’t?” He shrugged. “Well, this is the
Biology Department; we do find a use for the bodies.”

I smiled brilliantly. “I really can’t tell you how much
better you’ve made me feel. Really. I can’t.”

He held up a hand and shook his head. “Please, there’s no
need to thank me.”

“You know, I really wasn’t going to.”

He raised an eyebrow, a look of mild shock on his face. “Do
you know to whom you are speaking?”

I bit my lip to keep from smiling and shook my head.

“One of your betters, I can assure you,” he said. “
I
am a second-year student.”

“Oh! I am so sorry!”

“I’ll let it go this time.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m
Chuck Benson.”

I curtsied. “Melanie Brenner, Your Worship.”

“You’re going to fit right in. Listen.” He jerked a thumb
toward the door. “Don’t worry. This interview is just for the professors to
meet you and get to know a little more about you. Nothing more than a
how-are-ya, glad-ta-see-ya kind of thing.”

I turned to him, letting, for the first time, the tiniest
seed of hope germinate. “Really?”

He shrugged. “Oh, sure. Listen, this is nothing. I mean,
compared to the raw terror of your first paper presentation; the horror of
stepping in front of a lab full of freshman biology students whom you have to
teach, test, and grade, and all who have access to sharp instruments; the
gut-wrenching dread of defending your thesis proposal; the...”

I threw up a hand. “Enough! Enough! You’ve convinced me. I’m
giving up on the whole idea of grad school. I’m going to take a job in my Uncle’s
donut shop. No more of this nonsense about a higher education. Bah.”

Chuck nodded with a look of great satisfaction on his face. “My
work is done here.”

“What work is that, Mr. Benson?” The two of us turned toward
the sound of the voice. The door of the interview room was open. A young, blonde,
very pale woman was edging past the tall man standing in the doorway. As she
passed him, her haunted eyes briefly met mine before she scuttled down the hall
in the general direction of the women’s restroom.

I, however, barely reacted to her presence; all of my
concentration was going toward a feeble attempt to expand my lungs to take in a
breath. I stood, notepad dangling from my fingers, staring at the man in the
doorway: Andrew Richards, PhD. Author of three (so far) books explaining, in
terms even simpletons like me could understand, the glorious intricacies and
remarkable beauty of biological systems. His first book had been the catalyst
for my change from physics to biology.

On top of the brains, money. Lots of money. Money in the
family back several generations, and with each generation the talent to make
more and more money seemed to be the strongest trait passed down.

With all that intelligence and money, by all rights he
should have been four-feet tall, four-feet wide, 96-years old, with a wart on
his nose.

He wasn’t. In fact, he looked just like he had on the magazine
cover I’d seen this morning when I stopped for coffee, even without his tuxedo.
I’d had no clue that he’d be here for the interview. If I had, most likely at
this moment I’d be bouncing along on a bus deep in the interior of Mexico and
not standing in this hallway concentrating on not swooning.

“Well, not really work,” Chuck was saying. “More like a
hobby. Terrorizing incoming students. I have a talent for it, you know.”

“Ah, were it only molecular genetics for which you had the
talent.”

“Ah, come on, Andrew! Just because I got a ninety-two on
that last quiz doesn’t exactly mean I’m on the skids.”

“Who am I to wake you from this dream?” He turned to me. “Ms.
Brenner?”

I swallowed, blinked, focused. “Yes, sir?”

Dr. Richards smiled. “We’re ready for you now.”

The Richards smile, live and
in person. Beat heart. Beat.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Hear that, Mr. Benson? A few of you older students might
learn a few things about respect from some of our newer students.”

Chuck saluted. “Yes, sir! Anything you say, sir!”

“Ah, yes. Much better. Ms. Brenner?” He held the door open
to allow me to pass. I had to duck under his arm and I just barely brushed
against the wool sports jacket he was wearing. That got my heart going again.

Chuck reached out and touched my arm just before I got
through the door. “Relax,” he stage-whispered. “They aren’t all as bad as this
guy.”

Dr. Richards ignored him and followed me into the room.

When I arrived at the bank, only one
customer waited behind the red velvet ropes hanging from the brass standards in
the lobby. I ran up the stairs to the break-room to drop off my stuff. Cheryl,
my best friend, sat at the lunch table with the loan officer, as well as Jan
and Carl, who smiled quite pleasantly and were not laughing evilly. Mr.
Jackson, the operations manager, sat on the couch, a sandwich in one hand, the
other hand tracing a column of numbers down a page.

“Well, it’s about time!” Cheryl said.

“Hey! I had permission from our sweet, wonderful,
understanding boss,” I said. Mr. Jackson’s head came up and he looked at me
over the rim of his half-glasses. He didn’t say a word, merely bent back over
the ledger as he casually lifted his feet a few inches off the floor.

Cheryl and I were both still giggling as we headed down to
the vault to get our money drawers.

“I love that guy,” I said.

“I hope his wife, his children, and his grandchildren don’t
find out.”

“Oh, shut up.”

She grinned at me as we unlocked our drawers and pulled them
out of the steel vault cabinet. “So,” she said, “you look like it went pretty
well.”

“Turns out it was basically just a way for them to meet me,
and me to meet them. It was no big deal.” I was trying for nonchalance, but I
couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I counted my cash.

Cheryl dropped her tens into the drawer. She stopped to look
at me, a sheaf of twenties in her hand. “Oh my… He was there, wasn’t he?”

“Who?” I asked.

She glared at me. “Cut it out. You know who.”

“Oh, Andrew Richards? Oh, yes, come to think of it, I do
believe he was there.”

I patted the fives down into their slot, picked up the
drawer and headed out of the vault.

“Melanie!”

I swung back around, grinned, and, holding the drawer out in
front of me at chest level, I cha-cha’d backwards out of the vault, turning
just in time to lower the drawer, make my face properly sober, and walk
sedately out to the counter. Believe it or not, few people enjoy having their
money handled by someone who would dance through a bank lobby with a cash
drawer.

Cheryl followed just behind. “You idiot,” she hissed. “Tell
me!”

I slipped the tray of money down into the drawer at my
station, moved the Next Window sign aside, and beckoned to the first of three
people waiting in line. I saw with pleasure that it was Mr. Sanders, one of my
regulars. I turned to Cheryl who was dropping her till into the station next to
mine.

“Okay, I did meet Andrew Richards. And I’ll tell you every
detail, later. Okay?”

She glared at me. “Hag.”

“Witch.”

“Shrew.”

“Termagant.”

She blinked. “What?”

I grinned. “Look it up,” I said, then turned to Mr. Sanders.

“Ms. Brenner,” he said.

“Mr. Sanders.”

“Very nice to see you.”

“Very nice to see you, sir.”