Triple Love Score (28 page)

T
HE CAMPUS WAS UNDENIABLY beautiful. She would miss this if she lost her position here. The sky was a perfect blue for the clear and cold weather. Even in winter with the trees bare and piles of black-tinted snow melting at the corners of brick sidewalks, it was beautiful. The whitewashed campus buildings sparkled in the sun. Miranda plunged her hands into her pockets and hugged her arms close against her body.

In a blinding realization at four in the morning, Miranda decided that she would beg for her job. As much as she wanted to marry Scott, she didn’t want to give up her whole life. It’s not like a poet could get a job just anywhere. She and Scott could use the money when they finally got married; having a kid meant needing money—even Miranda, in her limited experience with children, knew that much. And she liked her job. She liked sitting in the loose circle of her workshop classes, nodding along as students read through their work and began to debate about the second or third stanza. She loved seeing students with the sparks of inspiration, the fever of creation burning rosy on their cheeks as they stopped by her office. And she loved this place, the beautiful cold campus that she struggled to get across in time. Lynn and Scott could love it there, too. The woman didn’t always have to give everything up for the man.

The president’s residence was as you would expect. It was a tall building in the middle of campus, white with green shutters, and a long sprawling porch on the front that rose up from ground level by an impressive set of marble steps. Miranda steadied herself with one hand on the railing as she picked her way up the stairs. She looked at the door and suddenly wasn’t sure if she should knock or just go in. During the regular term, the front of the residence served as an office space for the assistant and any specially commissioned committees. People came and went at will, but today, the college was closed. She stopped at the top step, unwilling to go any further and risk making a mistake that would damn her case further.

As soon as she stopped, the front door sprung open, and President Jonas Nicholls himself beckoned her inside. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

He ushered her into a sitting room just off the main hallway. Fine leather chairs in the college’s hunter green surrounded the fireplace that had a white marble mantle. A surprisingly large fire filled the hearth. The rug under her feet was so plush that with each step her footing gave way in a slight slide. She stopped walking and stood in front of the fire, pulling off her coat and folding it over her arm. Not knowing what to expect, she didn’t want her coat to be too far away from her.

The president entered, carrying a tray with two cups of coffee, milk, sugar, and some breakfast pastries. The joke around campus about meetings was that if the president was there the food would be great. From the look of the cheese Danish with sugar icing, the joke was true. “Please take a seat,” he said. He motioned to a chair next to the fireplace and sat the tray down on a low table in front of it. “Coffee?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, reaching for a cup. Normally she took sugar, but Miranda couldn’t imagine the awkwardness of opening the sugar and stirring. To do so, she would need to set down her coat. Instead she took a sip of dark bitter liquid and smiled.

He cleared his throat. Then he clasped his hands in front of his chest, raising his shoulders, before exhaling the words she most feared hearing. “There’s been a complaint.”

“A complaint?” Miranda choked out.

“Yes. I am sure you can guess the origins of this issue.”

Miranda swallowed hard.

“In light of the man’s age and current status, we are left with a certain amount of leeway here. Leeway is also afforded by the secondary set of circumstances you seem to have found yourself in. Apparently, you have been quite busy in the last few months.”

Miranda shifted in her seat. His tone dug at her, and he didn’t stop looking at her, eyeing her up and down as if he were imagining the details Ronan must have provided.

“Apparently, the internet celebrity driving your current fortunes extends to the university as well. The IT people tell me hits to the website are up 65%. Applications are up 35%. Even from top-tier high schools, which I personally would have thought immune to the cult of the Internet.” The president rolled his eyes and set down his coffee.

“Yes,” Miranda said, more a question than an answer. What current fortunes, she wanted to ask. Did he mean Blocked Poet? Suddenly, she wished she hadn’t skipped those emails from Ambrose.

“While you were not asked to sign a waiver to your creative works when you were hired, we do feel that in order to restore you in good standing to the community, some reparations, if you will, some service would be in order. You have placed us in a very delicate position. We do not wish to terminate your employment given your current circumstance, but misconduct as alleged in the complaint, no matter the student’s age or standing cannot be tolerated. Do you understand?”

“I’m beginning to,” Miranda replied.

“We have drawn up some papers, an agreement that outlines certain service expected of you in your new capacity as, what do they call it? Scrabble Poet, is it?”

“Blocked Poet,” Miranda said.

“When Mr. Reed first reached out to me, I must admit I didn’t understand. I don’t do much with the Internet except email donors and read the newspaper. I didn’t understand that anyone could cause the stir that you have and so quickly. Mr. Reed quickly educated me, though, and when I told the trustees—they all understood immediately. As your classes were already cancelled for this disciplinary action, we saw no reason not to request that Mr. Reed extend your trip, at your expense, to include certain stops beneficial to the university in terms of donors, etc.”

Mr. Reed. She nearly choked on the last sip of her coffee. A trip? What trip, she wanted to ask. What expense?

“Additionally, Mr. Reed assured us that you would be able to create volumes dedicated to the university with the proceeds directed to us.”

Miranda nodded.

“Let me be clear. You must meet these obligations to be reinstated in your position. Additionally, we expect the utmost in confidentially about this issue. We will settle things with the complainant in a timely fashion once these documents are signed.” He handed her a stack of paper with a rainbow of tiny sticky notes indicating where she should sign.

“I’ll leave you to review those, but I must caution you that this is not open for negotiation.” He rose and left the room, his feet made no sound on the heavily padded carpets. “You can leave them on the table when you are finished and show yourself out. Mr. Reed already has a copy.”

She didn’t even need to beg; instead, she signed.

H
ER COMPUTER SCREEN FILLED up with three hundred emails from Ambrose. The last one, sent just ten minutes before, read, “Call me,” in all capital letters and a font that blinked from a normal black to a bold red so rapidly that it could induce a seizure.

She pressed call on her phone.

“Miranda,” Ambrose said. “Let’s talk about your schedule. I trust the meeting with the President went as well as could be expected. I tried to contact you about this, but I figured you would probably want to keep the position. Internet fame is so fleeting. But really, a student? Must have been hot, right?”

He didn’t wait for her reply.

“Well, anyway. As the merch rolls out, I have scheduled different events for you. I started with smaller cities. Plus the events the university demanded; I figured you would want to placate them. So anyway, you will have two or three days in each. First a college bookstore or a seminar, talking about poetry, writing in general, and about the university-themed volumes in the Blocked Poet collection. Then you will do another session at a local Barnes and Noble or indie store or community center. Each stop will get a package with ten Scrabble boards. The idea is that you will show people how to play with words. These have been billed as interactive events. People pay money to see their “poems” photographed by you at these events and posted on the Blocked Poet feeds. Tickets sales have been through the roof. You will also need to sign books. Have you seen the books?”

“I haven’t seen anything!”

“There’s been some television. You didn’t see that? Not even Good Morning America? We had a rough fight for the afternoon talk time. Ellen won. That’s your last tour stop in Los Angeles, February 14th. I didn’t bother booking New York; I figured you could do that after you got back. Baltimore, Charlotte, Atlanta, Gainesville, Birmingham, New Orleans, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Portland, and Los Angeles. You fly out of Newark tomorrow—I saw the engagement pop up on Facebook yesterday—congratulations—and then I had my assistant change the flight plan—figured you want to say goodbye to the new lover boy. I must say, you do move fast. I also need your financial information, you’ll want an accountant to keep track of taxes and your deductions, but you will be pleasantly surprised how much this has already made. There’s an ad feed on your website, and the ticket sales, books sales, coffee mugs, tee-shirts, and earrings. Links to copies of the e-books should be in your email.”

“Website?”

“Oh, dear, you haven’t read any of the emails have you?”

“I just got back.”

“They have Internet in Turkey. It’s not Patagonia. Shoot, they even have Internet in Patagonia.”

“I didn’t think I needed to check.”

“Can you check from now on? That’s how you’ll know the schedule. We may add stops.”

“Add stops?”

“Miranda, really? Scott said you were bright. Do try to keep up.”

Miranda looked at the suitcase she still had yet to unpack from Turkey. It already had her best outfits. They were dirty, yes, but there were laundry machines all across the United States from Baltimore to Los Angeles. The chance to see the country, flying from city to city, would have once filled her with ecstasy. Instead, she studied her phone, unsure what to text Scott.

Finally, she typed. “I need to tell you something.” Then she deleted it. “Text me your address,” she typed.

The address Scott returned was two hours and fiftysix minutes straight down I-87. She steered the car carefully to the interstate, then accelerated as quickly as she could, going as fast as she could without thinking too much about speeding tickets. The all rock music station blared “A Get the Led Out” tribute to Led Zeppelin. And she sang along with the music, letting the lyrics and guitar fill her mind instead of thoughts about the tour and her job and her future. She would think about that later, after she saw Scott and told him, after she made sure he hadn’t changed his mind, after she made sure that all of this would be okay. That they would be okay.

“Screw it,” he said in a whisper. They sat on Scott’s living room rug, print-outs of the itinerary spread around them like a couple of teenagers doing homework. Lynn sat on the white leather sectional, looking down over their shoulders as she pretended to color in a worksheet on the life stages of a caterpillar. “Lynn, why don’t you go watch television in my room?” he asked.

“What can I watch?”

“Anything,” he said.

“Even Cartoon Network?” she asked.

Scott sighed. “Yeah, even that.”

“Daddy hates Cartoon Network,” Lynn explained before running upstairs.

“Forty-two days. Extra stops to keep your job?”

“Yes,” Miranda said. “But it’s not all about the job. It’s a book tour. I’m a poet with a book tour.”

“More like blackmail.”

“Well, it is more than that, but if I want to keep my job, these are the terms.”

“Then screw the terms. Quit.”

“Scott, I don’t want to quit. I want to keep my position.”

“You do? Even after this?”

“These types of positions don’t grow on trees. I’m not exactly qualified to do anything else. And bottom line, I like teaching there. How else could I support myself?”

“I could support you,” he said. “You could move here. Like right now. We wouldn’t have to wait.”

“You know it’s not that easy.”

“My mother did it.”

“Did what?”

“Stayed home, took care of things.”

“That’s hardly fair to say. She did that while your dad brought home a lawyer’s salary.”

“I could go back to it.”

“And then we would never see you. What would be the point? You said you could transfer upstate; you said they had a Montessori school, too.”

“You wouldn’t want to stay home?”

“Be a stay-at-home mom?” Miranda caught herself before she laughed out loud. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“I thought you would like it,” he said.

“What would make you think that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. This suddenly feels like a lot to figure out.”

Miranda felt the bottom of her heart give out. “At least we’ll have some time to figure it out,” she said, hoping to sound lighthearted.

“Yeah,” he said. He patted the space next to him. “Can we just enjoy being together for a minute first?”