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“I THINK I MIGHT HAVE a chance this time.” Nicole dabbed her eyes with the soggy tissue. “I have one book published from my dissertation, and my second one’s already under contract.”
“You have two books?”
I didn’t have any books. Since I had started at the College of Commerce I had been publishing in journals and presenting at conferences. Refereed journal articles were required to attain tenure in the College of Commerce. But books were the coin of the realm in most English departments. I couldn’t believe I had overlooked something so basic.
“At least, I hope I have a chance,” she faltered. “Some of the other applications are unreal. Top schools, amazing rec letters, awards.”
“But Nicole, you have an impressive record too. And you’re a great teacher. The students really like you.” I had no idea how the students felt about Nicole Nixon, but I figured there was no harm in trying to be encouraging.
“And I’m stuck in Mahina. I can’t just pick up and move somewhere else. Scotty’s doing so well here.”
I nodded sympathetically and marveled at how much Nicole knew about the applicant pool. Only the search committee was supposed to see applicants’ materials, and as an adjunct, Nicole was not allowed to serve on a search committee. Scott had almost certainly defied the confidentiality rules and told his wife everything.
I couldn’t imagine Donnie doing anything like that for me. Donnie was such a stickler for rules and discretion. It did mean he was trustworthy, but on the other hand, I could never squeeze any worthwhile workplace gossip out of him. Well, Donnie wasn’t my problem anymore, was he? The realization filled me with gloom. I’d have to get used to it.
“Are you drinking coffee from the vending machine?” Nicole asked. “You’re the first person I’ve ever seen who actually bought something from there.”
I gingerly touched the Styrofoam cup and decided it had cooled down enough to take a sip. It was tepid now, and oddly flavored with hints of chicken soup and chocolate.
“Yeah, I don’t recommend it.”
“So what brings you over here? Were you looking for Pat?”
“No, I actually came for the coffee. My personal supply ran out. But I’m glad you were in today.”
I certainly wasn’t going to tell Nicole the real reason I had stopped by: I was tired of explaining what my literature degree and I were doing in the College of Commerce. I wanted to be able to tell people I was an English professor.
The other students in my graduate program used to sneer at the business school. Most of them didn’t think such a thing even belonged in a university. When I’d informed my dissertation advisor that after a year of job-hunting, I had finally found a position in the Mahina State College of Commerce, he did not congratulate me. According to him, “trying to teach a room full of slack-jawed baseball caps how to pad their resumes” would be a grievous waste of my “fine critical mind.”
Melanie’s needling, on top of everything else, hadn’t helped either. I’d been feeling like a failure and a sellout. And here Nicole Nixon from the English department thought I was the lucky one.
And she was right. Except for the part about losing my fiancé and getting arrested for murder, I was lucky. Poor Nicole. If anyone deserved this job, she did. All I wanted to do now was extricate myself from this conversation, scurry back to the safety of my office, and kick myself smartly for not thinking this through.
I returned to my office to find Pat and Emma sitting there and drinking coffee.
“Where did you get coffee?” I asked.
“Hello to you too,” Pat said.
“Hi, Pat. Hi, Emma. Where did you get coffee?”
“You ran out,” Emma said, “so we bought you some more. Hey, how come you never told us you got arrested for Melanie’s murder? You thought you’d just let us read it in the County Courier?”
“Yeah, I thought I’d be able to keep it a secret. Actually, I did try to tell you.”
“Oh yeah? When?”
“When you were busy talking about other things. Thanks for the coffee, by the way. I was just over in your building, Pat. I got some coffee from your machine.”
He laughed. “You drank our Cold War coffee? What about the new place up in the quad?”
“I don’t know their summer hours, and even if they’re open, I don’t want to spend five bucks for a cup of coffee. Anyway, the machine worked for me.”
“Really? What did it taste like?”
“Horrible. Anyway, I saw an announcement for an opening in the English department, but I decided not to apply.”
“You were thinking of applying for the English department?” Emma said. “How come? Think you’re gonna get smarter students?”
“It was just an impulse. I thought better of it.”
“I think Nicole’s going to apply,” Pat said. “So you made the right decision. You don’t want the department chair’s wife to be your lifelong enemy.”
“No, I know. It was a dumb idea. Hey, I managed to get into Melanie’s campus email, though.”
“Excellent,” Emma exclaimed. “Anything juicy?”
“Unfortunately, no. Nothing at all.”
“Well, we found something.”
“We’ve been struggling through Melanie’s manuscript,” Pat said.
“Good. Tell me what it says so I don’t have to read it.”
“Pat’s been reading Melanie’s stuff to avoid working on his career book,” Emma said.
“Sorry, Pat, I completely forgot about your career book. How’s it going?”
“No progress at all. Oh hey, Molly, give me a good College of Commerce career tip.”
“Let’s see. What did they tell us at the Student Retention Office retreat? It takes fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown. How about that?”
Pat considered this.
“And fewer still to delegate your work to someone else. Good. Thank you.” He pulled out a spiral notebook from his shirt pocket and wrote it down.
“Glad I could help. So what’s new with the Melanie Manuscript?”
“I think we found the part that got you in trouble,” Emma said.
“Oh yeah.” Pat dropped the little notebook back into his shirt pocket and pulled something up on his tablet.
“Let me read it to her.” Emma grabbed the tablet from Pat before he could object. “Maybe you should sit down for this, Molly.”