Tenure Track (10 page)

The young man agreed to her suggestion with a simple, “Cool.” Years later, she could still feel the shudder that ran through her body as she noticed how snugly his jeans fit across his firm buttocks when he turned to leave.

It had been so easy to yield to temptation. How could she pass judgment on Lewis when she knew how loneliness and physical need could lead to passion? Leaning back in her desk chair, she looked at the photo of her mentor.
You were right
Gerda, actions have consequences,
as Jane had learned from her own experience. Lewis was playing under different rules, but he had known what the consequences might be if he yielded.
If
he really did yield.
That
was the narrative that Jane had to uncover about Lewis’s personal history, relieved that her own indiscretions had never been exposed for public scrutiny.

For several days after his meeting with Jane, Lewis intentionally avoided his supervisor, although it proved impossible to avoid gossip as “Puptent’s” photo became one of the most popular Web hits on campus. Not coincidentally, an even larger than usual number of female students tried to transfer into his classes during add/drop period. He could feel the stares, real or imagined, as he stood in front of the podium trying to analyze American history, knowing that his students knew what he looked like disrobed. This was the exact type of public embarrassment he had wanted to avoid.
So much for that idea.

At least he had been able to avoid bumping into Mandy. It was harder to avoid her roommate, who was still working with Dr. Stevens. He usually tried to keep an eye out for Blanca and sneak off in another direction if he saw her coming. Finally there came a day when he had no escape. Lewis was standing at the faculty boxes getting his mail when Blanca and Sheila came into the outer office. Dr. Stevens was using her wheelchair, as she did most of the time now, but the apparatus could not fit through the lounge’s pre-ADA doorframe. She asked Ms. Dejean to get her mail, as she sat waiting, wheelchair blocking the doorway. Lewis pretended to be engrossed by junk mail as Blanca brushed him aside. “’Scuse me, Puptent,” she muttered, reaching across him to Dr. Stevens’s box.

Lewis knew he should ignore her, but he could not let the comment pass. “What did you call me?” he grimaced.

“
You heard me, Puptent.” She stood and glared at him defiantly, daring him to take her on. He could see Dr. Stevens watching from behind with a curious eye, as if studying their behavior for an anthropology project.

Again, Lewis knew he should not grab the bait, but he wanted to take his frustration out on someone and Blanca was always up for a challenge. “Was that your idea?” he asked.

“
What if it was, Puptent?” She stepped a little closer to him. Normally, Blanca would never dare show such blatant disrespect to a professor, but Lewis had willingly crossed a line months ago and now he had to pay the toll.

Suddenly worried that the hefty young woman might actually punch him, he took one step backwards. Sensing his fear, she raised an index finger and prepared to slip into the faux ghetto dialect she only used to mess with gullible white minds. Just as she started to open her mouth, a resounding voice stopped her cold.

“
Ms. Dejean!” Dr. Stevens interjected, halting the standoff.

Blanca refused to take her eyes off Lewis as she backed away, finally turning towards Dr. Stevens. “Sorry, Ma’am,” she said demurely, head respectfully bowed.

“
Take those things up to my office, please. I will be there in a moment.” Blanca obeyed, giving Lewis one more dirty glance before leaving.

“
I’m sorry about that, Dr. Stevens,” Lewis offered.

His colleague just lowered her eyes at him. “Dr. Burns, are you familiar with the works of Terry McMillan?” Not surprisingly, he shook his head. “I suggest you examine them if you wish to understand the depths of sisterly wrath. You have a blessed day, Sir.” With that, she wheeled herself out of the office, giving a nod to someone out of his line of vision.

Lewis stepped out of the lounge, mortified to see the recipient of the nod. There stood Jane, right beside Isobel’s desk. Both she and the secretary were watching him intently, having heard every word of the confrontation. He wanted to scurry out of the room like the rat Blanca thought he was. Instead, he ignored the encounter and approached Isobel’s desk with his back ramrod straight and chin held high. “We should submit a work order to get that door widened,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s ADA compliant.”

“
Isobel?” Jane asked, looking at Lewis curiously.

“
I’ll get that out today,” the admin promised.

Thanks to Isobel, by the next day most of the department knew about Lewis and Blanca’s confrontation, with a few additional curse words and gestures thrown in with each retelling. Isobel’s version presented Blanca as a stereotypically sassy, angry black woman amusingly sticking it to the clueless white guy.

Jane had seen the young woman who worked for Dr. Stevens in the office many times, but did not know her name. The student obviously had some connection to Lewis’s situation. After mulling it over a few days, Jane decided to check in with Sheila to see what she knew.

Jane and Sheila had always had a cordial, if not close, relationship. Jane was not sure she could call them friends, but she was probably the closest thing to a friend that Sheila Stevens had among the History faculty. The Chair was one of the few colleagues allowed to call Dr. Stevens by her first name, but only in private. They admired one another’s work and had often joined sides on causes such as increasing campus diversity. Jane respected Sheila’s opinions perhaps as much as anyone in the department.

She caught Dr. Stevens in her office between classes. Wheelchair squeezed in behind the desk, Sheila was typing away at her laptop, reading glasses perched on her nose. She was noticeably thinner than the previous year; her hair, once a well-coifed flow of loose curls, now carved into a close-cropped, easy-to-manage Afro; her former business-like attire replaced with comfortable, loose-fitting clothing.

Jane glanced around the office and realized how hard it must be to maneuver the wheelchair around such a tiny space. Offices were usually assigned based on seniority, with the longest-tenured faculty getting the largest ones. Since these people usually tended to hang on to their spaces long after becoming emeriti (basically, until they dropped dead and really had no use for the room anymore), spacious offices did not come available often. When Sheila gave up her job as head of the Center for African American Studies, she also relinquished the plum office real estate that came with it, returning to a Hammond hovel better suited for a junior professor.

“
We need to get you a bigger office,” Jane noted as she sat down.

“
Well, when one becomes available, I will jump right on it,” Sheila said plainly, though Jane smiled appropriately at the joke.

“
How are you feeling, Sheila?” Jane asked, anticipating the answer.

“
Fine. What can I do for you, Jane?” Dr. Stevens responded in a business-like tone.

Dr. Roardan described what she had heard and seen the previous day in the office. “Your assistant,” she noted, “seems to have an issue with Dr. Burns. If you can shed any light on this situation, it would be very helpful.”

Sheila carefully removed her reading glasses and set them on the desk. “Blanca Dejean, my research assistant and an excellent one at that. I believe she exchanged a few words with Dr. Burns.”

Jane nodded, “Pretty bold for an undergrad. Is she usually so cheeky with professors?”

“
I’ve already spoke with her about her rudeness, though she had her reasons,” Sheila said matter-of-factly. “Ms. Dejean would like to grow into Michelle Obama, if she can resist her baser impulse to play Sister Souljah.”

“
Can you enlighten me about the specific reasons for her behavior towards Dr. Burns?” Jane asked.

“
Now Jane,” Sheila said firmly, “you know I do not engage in the spreading of gossip.”

“
I know you don’t,” Jane assured her, before deciding to reveal more of her hand, “but an ethics complaint has been made against Dr. Burns and I have to investigate. So, if anything a student has told you involves inappropriate conduct on the part of a faculty member, I need to know.”

Sheila looked at Jane sympathetically, carefully balancing her respected colleague’s need to know against the trust of one of her favorite students. “Well, I can reveal that Ms. Dejean knows a Ms. Mandy Taylor, who was also a student of mine two years ago.”

Jane realized that Sheila was not going to divulge more than was requested, so she came right out and asked what Dr. Stevens knew about Mandy’s relationship with Lewis. Dr. Stevens lowered her head slightly and gave another chastising look.

“
All I know for certain is that Ms. Taylor was Dr. Burns’s assistant and that she earned two well-deserved A's in my classes.”

Jane nodded in resignation, knowing better than to push Dr. Stevens across her own ethical line. However, she might still be able to help. “I’m just looking for an opinion here, but . . . how would you assess Dr. Burns’s character?” Jane asked.

Sheila leaned back in her chair, scanning her mind for the most accurate words to reflect her views. Scratching her neck thoughtfully with short-clipped nails, she replied, “My impression has always been . . . favorable. He does good deeds for animals.”

“
I’m sorry, what does that mean? About the animals?” Jane asked

Sheila smiled wryly, amused by her colleague’s incomprehension. “The Prophet Mohammed once said, ‘A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being.’ Dr. Burns has shown compassion for unwanted animals. To me, that reveals a great deal about the content of his character.”

Jane nodded, pretending to understand this cryptic assessment.

“
Was there anything else?” Dr. Stevens asked.

“
Uh, yes,” Jane pressed on, still trying to decipher their previous exchange. “This complaint has raised some issues about No Fraternization. As I recall, you disapproved of it, but I don’t remember why.”

Dr. Stevens did not hesitate. “Quite frankly, I’d rather use my time in more productive ways than discussing the personal lives of others.”

Jane had no comeback for that argument, coming from a 42 year-old with a failing body and precious sense of time. As she started walking out of the room, the Chair paused to look around once more. “You know, I think it’s time we booted Ralph Chandler from his office. I mean, the man’s 91 and has been in a nursing home for a year. Perhaps we can work out a swap.”

“
That would be fine,” Dr. Stevens replied casually, returning her glasses to their perch.

Jane was still pondering the case that evening as she sat on the bed watching Mark carefully roll up his clothes and pack them into a duffel bag for a consulting trip. Years of camping trips had made him such an expert at tight-packing techniques that he never ceased to amaze with the amount of stuff he could cram into a small space.

“
Do you think you’ll be able do any hiking?” she asked.

“
Hopefully. Of course, it’ll depend on the weather. Seattle can be rather dreary. I’ll probably spend most of my time just hanging out with other nerds, drinking coffee and trying to avoid becoming suicidal.”

She snickered, then out of the blue he asked how things were going in her department. “Any new developments in that sexual harassment case?” She told him about the scene she had witnessed between Blanca and Lewis, including the advice that she had overheard Sheila give to Lewis. Mark guffawed heartily. “Go Stevens! Did she know anything about the affair? Excuse me, ‘alleged affair,’” he said, making air quotation marks.

“
No, at least not anything she was willing to divulge. You know how Sheila is. She did express her displeasure with No Fraternization wasting her time on other people’s personal lives.”

“
Well, you know why she doesn’t want anybody prying into
her
personal life,” Mark commented. “Perry swears she’s one of the tribe.”

“
Mark!” she chastised, “That’s not very politically correct of you.”

Thinking she misunderstood, he defended, “I don’t mean as in African tribe, I’m talking the Amazon tribe, Lesbos, you know, the Sapphic Sisterhood.”

“
Oh, Perry and his damned gaydar,” Jane retorted. “I don’t think he’s always accurate with that thing. He thinks anybody who’s single and doesn’t brag about their sexual conquests is in the closet. I’m not so sure about Sheila. I was dying to ask if she had ever dated a student, but I knew she wouldn’t tell me.”

“
Any updates on her MS?” he asked, changing the subject.

“
Of course not. She never talks about that,” Jane accurately observed. “You’d think she was healthy as a horse, except that she’s using a wheelchair now. She looks weaker. I think we may be able to get her into a bigger office with better accessibility.”

Suddenly they heard Dennis calling for them. Before racing off, Mark leaned in towards his wife. “Hey, got any plans later on?”

“
What did you have in mind?” she asked suggestively.

“
Oh, I thought maybe we could get naked and bump into each other.”