Once she’d closed Taylor’s office door behind her, the thing that had risen up to choke Emily when she first saw Taylor with Daniel came back in full force. She could hardly breathe. Still clueless as to what was causing this, she stumbled down the hall to Marguerite’s office, seeking sanctuary.
Marguerite opened to her knock, and immediately her delicate brows contracted in concern. ‘Chérie, qu’est-ce qui se passe? You look like death.’
‘I’m not sure. I need to sit down.’ Emily staggered past her and dropped onto her small sofa. ‘Water …’
Marguerite filled a water glass and handed it to her. ‘You look as if you need a doctor.’
‘No, no, I’ll be all right. Just give me a minute.’
‘Perhaps some brandy, then?’
‘Yes, I will take that. Thanks.’
Marguerite handed her a snifter, then sat beside her and took her free hand. ‘Your hand is like ice. If you are not ill, then something must have happened. Tell me.’
Emily took a few deep breaths punctuated by sips of brandy. ‘I’m really not sure. I’ve just come from Taylor’s office. It’s a long story – other people were there – but we more or less walked in on Taylor making a move on Daniel. And it hit me like – I don’t know – not just the outrage you’d expect, but something more visceral. It hit me like a punch in the gut.’ She took another breath, battling the sensation that her chest was closing in.
Marguerite frowned. ‘Perhaps it reminded you of what happened to Katie in the autumn?’
A few months ago, Emily had been just in time to rescue Katie from being assaulted again by the man who had raped and impregnated her more than a year before. That had been traumatic, but her concern had all been directed outward, toward Katie. This was different.
‘I don’t think so. This feels – more personal. As if it reminded me of something that had happened to me. Only …’
She was about to say, Only I’ve never been sexually assaulted. But was that true? Indistinct flashes of memory tugged at the corners of her mind. A blurry face, much too close to hers. A cloying smell. A wheedling voice that sickened her.
A knock came at the office door. Emily started, but Marguerite steadied her. ‘Reste là. I will send them away.’
Marguerite opened the door, and Emily heard Richard’s voice. She didn’t pick up his words, but the voice itself merged with her memory flashes and intensified them. Then, as Marguerite shut the door on Richard, a draft blew in, carrying a whiff of his aftershave. Suddenly all the flashes coalesced and she was sick.
Marguerite grabbed the wastebasket just in time, then wet a cloth and gently wiped Emily’s face. ‘Ma pauvre petite,’ she crooned, rocking Emily and urging her to take another sip of brandy.
At length Emily regained enough control over herself to speak. ‘It was something that happened to me. Right here at Bede. Over thirty years ago. And I’d blocked it out until now.’
Her breath was still coming ragged. She willed it to steady as Marguerite stroked her hand. ‘Old Professor Jenkins. He was gone by the time you came. By the time I came back as an instructor.’
She paused, and Marguerite put in, ‘And he had a reputation like Taylor’s?’
Emily nodded. ‘I had him for Hum One Ten. He singled me out from the very first seminar, only I was too naive to realize what was going on. I thought he just appreciated my contributions to the discussions. I was used to being teacher’s pet, after all.’
She took a breath and another sip of brandy. ‘Then I had my first paper conference with him. First time I’d been alone in a room with him. His office was in the old Faculty Office Building. That was gone by the time you came, too. Terrible place, crumbling at the edges. Never meant to be permanent.’
Marguerite pressed her hand as if to recall her gently to the point. It was so much easier to talk about the derelict old building than about what had happened there.
‘We discussed the paper first. I was expecting a positive review, given how encouraging he’d been in class. But he picked it to pieces. My first paper at Bede, of course it wasn’t brilliant, but his criticism was harsh, unreasonable. I was in tears.’
Emily’s hands began to shake as if the scene were being repeated here and now. ‘He told me he was going to have to give me a D – unless I was really nice to him.’ She snorted. ‘I was so stupid. Even then I thought, what, bring him coffee? Carry his briefcase from class to class? I just sat there gaping at him, trying to figure out what was really going on.’
A shudder shook her from head to toe. Marguerite rubbed her back, murmuring unintelligibly in French. Emily forced herself to continue. ‘Then he got this smile that even a nun couldn’t misinterpret, and I got scared. He stood up, came around the desk, and pulled me to my feet. I tried to get away, but he was too strong. I started to yell, but he smashed his mouth down on mine. I thought I was going to suffocate. I struggled and kicked, trying to make enough noise to attract someone’s attention outside. But he backed me up against the door and shoved his hands down my jeans, up my sweater.’
Marguerite gave a little cry, and Emily squeezed her hand. ‘Thank God, that’s as far as it went. Someone knocked on the door right then, and I kicked at it from my side so Jenkins had to let me go. He called out, “Just a minute!” and made signs at me to put myself right. Then he opened the door to whoever it was, and I hightailed it out of there. I didn’t stop running till I got to my room.’
Marguerite gave her a minute, then said, ‘What happened after that? Did you report him?’
‘No. I was too ashamed. I felt I should have caught on so much sooner, never put myself in that position. For all I knew, that was how one got As at Bede. I didn’t have a close female friend at that point, so I never told a soul. Until now.’
‘And he never tried it again?’
‘I didn’t give him a chance. I transferred out of his section and never took another class with him, so I never had to be alone with him after that.’
‘And all these years you did not remember this?’
Emily shook her head. ‘I know it’s common for people to block out traumatic experiences. But you’d think what happened with Katie would have brought it back, wouldn’t you?’
‘Perhaps you needed to be in the same place – at least on the same campus – to trigger the memory.’
‘I suppose. And Richard helped as well, when he came to the door just now.’ Emily blinked in sudden understanding. ‘Now I know why Richard bothers me so much. His voice is like Jenkins’s. And he wears the same aftershave, too.’
‘And has the same lustful tendencies. Though, as far as I know, he has never assaulted a student.’
Emily snorted. ‘His one redeeming feature. Although I’m sure that’s only because he would fear losing his job if he did.’
‘Sans doute. You may feel your emotions have been accusing Richard unjustly, mon amie, but I would not let him off the hook because he is not Jenkins. He is Richard, and that is bad enough.’
After the stress of her revelations, Marguerite insisted on getting Emily something to eat. Since returning immediately to work was out of the question in her emotional state, Emily allowed herself to be led back to the Paradox and plied with a croissant and more coffee.
‘Now that I’m thinking straight again,’ she said after a few bites had dispelled her shakiness, ‘I never told you about the whole scene in Taylor’s office. What I was doing there in the first place.’
‘Non, you did not,’ Marguerite replied placidly. ‘And I am burning with curiosity. But for your sake I restrain myself.’
‘Daniel came into the library alone this morning and told me Svetlana’s father was on campus. You know Svetlana? Daniel’s girlfriend?’
‘The dancer?’ Marguerite sketched a chignon. ‘Oui, she is hard to miss.’
‘That’s the one. But if her father had his way, she’d never dance – or see Daniel – again. He’s set on her going to law school, and he came to bully Taylor into replacing the D she gave Svetlana last semester with the A she probably deserves.’
‘Bully Taylor? That I would like to see.’
‘It would take a different kind of man from Saul Goldstein to pull it off, if it could be done. But Svetlana and I followed him to Taylor’s office once we heard Daniel was already there. That’s when – well, I told you about that bit.’
Emily took a restorative sip of latte and went on. ‘Anyway, trying to defuse the situation with regard to Svetlana, at least, I promised I’d talk to Richard about getting a review of her work for Taylor’s class. If we could prove unfair bias there, it would help Svetlana directly and might give us the beginnings of a sexual misconduct case against Taylor.’
Again the aftermath of her flashback shuddered through her. ‘But honestly, I don’t think I can face Richard at this point; even though I know it isn’t really about him, the memories he’s connected to are too raw. I was hoping you might take care of it for me. Are you making any progress with him?’
‘Comme ci, comme ça. He enjoyed your dinner party, though one would not have known it at the time. He is perhaps slightly, how would you say, softened up toward you and your concerns.’
‘I suppose it would be pushing it to try to sway him in two directions at once. Getting rid of Taylor and promoting Oscar.’
‘It would be easier if Taylor’s position were one Oscar could move into. Then it would be two sides of one coin.’
‘Yeah. Too bad Oscar’s not qualified to teach Russian.’ Emily licked the last flakes of croissant from her fingers. ‘Would Richard have any natural sympathy with our cause against Taylor?’
‘It is possible. I believe he fancies her, which would work against us, but as she has undoubtedly spurned him for her younger men, his resentment could outweigh his lust. I am to dine with him this evening. I will do some subtle probing.’
‘Thanks, Margot. I’m going to owe you big-time after all this.’
‘Certainement. Merely spending time in Richard’s company, let alone buttering him up, is a sacrifice worthy of great reward. But do not worry, I will take it in the form of frequent visits to Windy Corner.’
‘That’s no sacrifice at all on my part. Win-win for me.’
‘Which of course you do not at all deserve, since all of these efforts on your part are entirely for your own personal ends.’ With a lift of a perfect eyebrow, Marguerite reached across the table and pressed her hand. ‘We are friends, not bookkeepers. There is no need to balance the accounts.’
After this conversation and its accompanying sustenance, Emily felt calm enough to attempt to return to work. At least working would be preferable to brooding over the past. She had her area in the library to herself for the rest of the day, as Svetlana was no doubt kept busy by her father, and Daniel was too shaken to try to work without her.
Emily had been making good progress on her research despite the distractions, but the volume of her notes was becoming increasingly unwieldy. Her table overflowed with notebooks and index cards, and she was running out of sticky notes to mark all the spots in her books that she wanted to quote or remember.
As she tidied her things in preparation for leaving that afternoon, she cast a wistful glance at Daniel’s side of the table. The surface was stained with coffee and littered with candy wrappers, but otherwise bare. He had taken his laptop with him, naturally, and apart from the books ranged on the shelf above the desk, he apparently needed nothing more.
Perhaps it was time to think seriously about taking the plunge into the deep and turbulent waters of the modern technological world. She’d have to talk to Luke about it. He, of course, would be in favor of plunging, so it would be a one-sided conversation, but perhaps he could help to allay her fears. And after today, she needed to talk to him anyway – though her triggered memories were not something she could imagine discussing over the phone.
At home, she fed the cats and heated a microwave dinner for herself. She was looking forward to continuing her current round of the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice – she was up to part four, where Elizabeth and Darcy rediscover each other at Pemberley – but first she needed to talk to Luke.
‘Hey, beautiful,’ he said. ‘Caught me just about to veg out in front of the tube.’
‘Same here,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But I bet you’re not watching Pride and Prejudice.’
‘Nope. Terminator. Can’t watch that with you around.’
‘Gather ye roses while ye may. I’ll be back.’ The last in a Schwarzenegger accent.
‘Hey, I’m just passing the time. I’ll take you over Arnold any day.’
‘That’s fortunate, because I was just about to ask if you’d like to come up for the weekend.’
‘This weekend? I guess I could. Pete and Heather can cover for me. Got anything special in mind, or you just miss me too much?’
‘I do miss you, of course. But I was also hoping you might help me buy a computer.’
She heard a jumble of noise, and a few seconds passed before he responded. ‘You literally made me drop my phone. Lucky it fell on the carpet. A computer? You? Is this the real Emily Cavanaugh speaking?’
‘It’s really me. Trying to corral all my research on to a library desk has finally defeated me. You have my permission to drag me kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.’
He laughed. ‘Try to keep the kicking and screaming to a minimum, OK? Or my nephew on the Portland force might have to arrest you for disturbing the peace.’
‘You have a nephew on the Portland police force? I shouldn’t be surprised. Is there anywhere in the world you don’t have a nephew?’
‘A few places, outside of Oregon. This one’s Colin, my brother Glen’s boy. Just graduated from the academy a couple years ago and he’s already in plain clothes. Real smart cookie.’
‘You’ll have to give me his private number. Good to know I have someone nearby to call if anything happens.’
‘Happens? Like what?’
‘God knows. But the situation up here is getting more explosive by the day. Given my history, it wouldn’t surprise me if it erupted into something police-worthy before long.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
‘Too complicated for the phone. I’ll tell you when you come. See you by lunchtime on Saturday?’
‘You just try keeping me away.’
She poured herself a glass of wine, collapsed on the couch, and lost herself in the trials and triumphs of the Bennet sisters for the next couple of hours. Not even Lydia’s outrageous behavior could keep Darcy and Elizabeth apart forever. That was why Emily loved fiction – it was almost always resolved satisfactorily in the end. Unlike her entirely unpredictable life.