Choke On Your Lies Part 12

Octavia's voice whispered to me, Slap him. Right now. I bet he wouldn't do a thing to you. It's the perfect time.

Balled up my fist. Let it go. Carl caught it, though.

"See what I mean, Mick? All that anger. If you don't funnel it properly, we'll all catch a glimpse of your dark side. Now, a professor at a small but prestigious private college wouldn't want that. We all want to work this out. Divorce happens, and I know it hurts, but you're a bigger man than this."

"I'd just like to live in my own house. Do my work, live in my house, leave everyone else alone."

He shrugged. "You're the one who signed the house over. Maybe you feel differently now than you did then, I can't help that. No one can. The best you can do is keep your word."

I thought about it a little longer. What was in it for Carl? Then I knew. And I was pretty sure Octavia had known for even longer, but was waiting for me to catch up. If she'd laid it out for me, I would've denied it, seeing it as more of her grand delusional hatred of Frances. But when I was led to it, bit by bit, what a difference.

I feigned his admonishment getting to me. I looked down at the road. "Yeah, I understand."

"I hope you do." He let out a dramatic sigh. "I just went through a divorce myself recently, I don't know if you realize."

Yeah, because she didn't like you falling for my wife.

He kept on. "I heard that we had to take your cla.s.s release time away because of budget issues."

Whoa. "Yeah."

"I tell you, it's been really tough all over, and everyone had to sacrifice." Carl shook his head, wore an expression of I'm really feeling it with you, bud. "d.a.m.n, Mick, it's not like you've been publis.h.i.+ng the last few years, either. I've been stepping up to bat for you, saying that's the way it is with creative types. The dry periods are when you're thinking, right? But that can only go so far."

It was a d.a.m.n fine fake. Take it all away and then offer it back to me. Quiet down and you can have your toy back. What a nice guy. What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

I said, "But this year, I'll have something. Pain is wonderful for poets."

"That's what I told them." Closing the deal now. "Listen, maybe I can go back and work something out. How about this? You take the Fall off. You can have an early sabbatical at full pay, then come back in the Spring to two poetry workshops and a senior lit of your own design. I wish I could give you more, but like I said-"

"I know, we all sacrifice."

This little gambit of his told me one thing I hadn't considered all along. None of these people knew about Octavia. They had no idea she'd been helping me step carefully through this minefield. Would I have accepted this if I was on my own? Probably. It seemed the "adult" thing to do. Especially for a blocked poet worried about his future. We could all be mature and get on with our lives. Yes, I would've taken it. d.a.m.ned if I wasn't thinking about taking it right then and there.

But Octavia had planted something inside me, and now it was blooming. I wanted to win. I wanted to punish Frances and the Provost and whoever it was who forged my name and David and Alice and and and...

"How about we talk about it over dinner? Tomorrow night?"

That was me talking. A total surprise.

Then I followed up with, "A friend of mine, she's pretty well off, and she just hired a new personal chef. Really fantastic. She used to work downtown."

"That's interesting." Which is what you say when you're not paying attention. "I'll have to check my schedule."

"Carl," I said, giving it a moment to sink in. "I'm serious. Just come over, and I'm sure we can come to an agreement."

"I can't promise anything else. This is the best I can do."

Not true. He could've done plenty more. The President was a figurehead who raised a lot of money because he knew a lot of liberal celebrities. He had nothing to do with the day-to-day schedule or the academic planning. It was Carl who had the final say, most of the time. An Iago to our President's Oth.e.l.lo-but without the racial problem.

What Carl was saying was, Don't try to negotiate with me. Take it or leave it, s.h.i.+tstain.

"Then let this start the healing." I pulled my hand from my pocket and offered it to him. He shook it, good and firm. A dealmaker's handshake.

"I'm glad we had a chance to talk about this. Could you call Alice and give her the address and time? Sorry, I've got to run." He pulled sungla.s.ses from behind his ears, where they'd been snug to the back of his head. He flipped them and covered his eyes.

I said, "Oh, and bring Frances. She'll need to be there if we want any true resolution, you know."

He gave me a curt nod, then opened his car door. "Then she'll be there. I know for absolute certain, Mick, that she wants nothing less than the best for you. Try to understand."

"Tomorrow night," I said, and closed the car door for him after he'd climbed inside. I started down the sidewalk feeling better than I had all week, looking forward to the looks on their faces when Octavia told them what we'd pieced together. It was worth losing the job. But I wouldn't even let them have the pleasure. As soon as she told them, I planned to resign.

Felt so good, I hummed a tune all the way back to the car. The melody had been stuck in my head, but I couldn't remember what it was. Not until I was already a mile away. It was Sting. "It You Love Someone, Set Them Free". Well, how about that?

FOURTEEN.

About dinner: I should've asked Octavia first.

In the greenhouse, she exploded. I expected the gla.s.s to shatter and the plants to wither.

"The f.u.c.k of it all! You think you can stomp on my hospitality like that? After all the help, you want to throw a f.u.c.king dinner party at my house? With my chef? My f.u.c.king food?"

I was standing pretty far away, afraid she would wail on me. So I looked around the greenhouse. Most times when you see people growing marijuana, it was probably on the news, a big bust, and what you had was a bunch of industrial buckets in a windowless room, a lot of tin foil, and plenty of light bulbs. Octavia's greenhouse was nothing like that. After all, she wasn't trying to sell anything, which meant the cops had no reason to sniff around. Growing and smoking great pot was one of her pa.s.sions, and the greenhouse reflected that. She had a host of other lush plants to create the atmosphere she wanted-some with unusually large flowers, the stranger-colored, the better-as a garden of contemplation, so she could best think of how to get the most flavor and intensity from her weed.

To me it smelled like a grad school party, but okay.

"I'm sorry," I said. "But this is exactly what we need. They come over, have a great meal, feel intimidated by the surroundings, then we spring it on them. Carl thinks I've been snooping around on my own. For him to understand that it's more than-"

"Shut up already! G.o.dd.a.m.n!" She threw a clump of soil at me. I ducked and it sailed over my head. Didn't matter. She was already off in her own head, standing there in her gardening clothes-a black T-s.h.i.+rt with a mammoth flaming skull all over the front, and satin boxing trunks, for super heavyweights, I supposed. She put a hand to her cheek, held it there a long time, then brought it away, a dirt smear in its place. "I can't do it."

"Please finish this with me." I wasn't beneath begging. I inched closer and closer still. "We've come so far. You wanted to punish her, now you can do it to her face."

"She won't even hear it."

"Why not?"

"Because she'll be too busy disgusted at how fat I am!"

I had more arguments ready to go, but this one took me by surprise. I shut up. Octavia didn't get embarra.s.sed, or so I'd thought.

She clipped a few buds. "Mick, this was for you. Too G.o.dd.a.m.ned stupid to see it right in front of your face, so I was trying to help you. That's how I get back at her. I'd rather watch from the back of the theater, not climb on stage."

"Come on, that's ridiculous."

"Look at me." She spread her arms wide. "Do you think I'm beautiful? Can you say I'm not some horrible...sow or something?"

True, she was a big woman. More than big, as I've seen many big women who were indeed beautiful, s.e.xy, and vivacious. Octavia, well, she was my friend. I saw her as a sister. And I'd seen her mostly naked. Sure, she could've toned up. She could always learn some discipline and sculpt a body that matched her mind, her eyes, her lips.

But I wasn't going to say any of that. I needed to, but I was afraid of losing the only woman who seemed to care about my life anymore. I said, "Yes, you are beautiful."

The look I got back was frightening in its vulnerability. Blank. Eyes lifted to meet mine, lips parted just so. No posing or posturing. In that moment, there was the Octavia I used to know.

"Coward," she said. "I counted three long seconds waiting for your answer, and I could read your mind through your eyes. Like a sister, I bet. Could use some toning, I bet. You want me to have a body as sharp as my mind. Pathetic."

She turned back to her work. I was chilled. Gooseb.u.mps in summer in a greenhouse.

I tried again. "Forget me for a moment. You're right. But so am I."

"Aw, f.u.c.k, Mick. I don't know which is worse-that you've become such a predictable gushy-hearted academic, or that you're so f.u.c.king self-righteous. I could take self-righteous if you'd be a man about it. At least then I could shove it back up your a.s.s."

"Whatever. Look, this is all I'm saying. Yes, do it to her face. It will embarra.s.s the living s.h.i.+t out of her. And we can spring the final trap. The robo-pen signature."

Still examining buds, clipping. "Maybe you're nastier than I thought deep in that heart of yours. But still too afraid to follow through on your own. Why don't you take them out and do all of that?"

"Because she won't care. Coming from me, it won't matter. She'll shrug, tell me my d.i.c.k was always too small, and Carl will tell me to either take or leave the offer." Had to play to her vanity. "But it's not all about what I want. How about you?"

That got her attention. Turned her eyes to me. "Then what do I want?"

"First, I want to save my a.s.s and my house and humiliate them. I want to call the shots. When they're feeling as low as they possibly can, that's when I want to strike. My list of demands. And for once, my dearest friend," I reached over and laid my hand on her shoulder. "Whom I should've listened to long ago, for now I regret not heeding your advice, you can watch Fran's life fall apart on your office floor. And you can gloat like a motherf.u.c.ker."

Octavia stopped clipping. She set her shears down. "Well done."

"So?"

She sighed. "Tomorrow night?"

"Yeah."

"Good, because tonight I'm going cruising for chicks." She started for the door, her choices for the evening's refreshment in a paper bag clutched in her fist. "You know what, invite them all. Your two, plus your colleague's wife, maybe that David kid."

"How about the guy on the receipt?"

She stopped walking, raised an eyebrow. "You need to call Pamela."

"Something wrong?"

She waited.

I said, "The name on the receipt?"

Big smile.

"Phony?"

Octavia started walking again, leaving me behind. It felt like she did that a lot. She said, "Aren't you glad you didn't invite them over tonight?"

I didn't get it. I said, "I don't get it."

Pamela said, "Officially, the payment was for a man to help install new hardware. Now, there is a man in the office with a very similar name to Ron Moore. So to most people, it's just a misprint."

"No, they knew what they were doing."

"I know that. Stop talking. Listen to me. The guy with the similar name, he doesn't do hardware. Doesn't even do computers. So now it looks like a secretarial mistake."

"Where did the money go?"

"I have no idea. Maybe to a private contractor."

I stopped pacing. I was upstairs at Octavia's place, on my cell phone, going up and down the hall, shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor. But now I stopped, pinched the bridge of my nose, and said, "How is that possible?"

"The department was paid, but then the money got shuffled off in the system. You can't follow it, not without court orders and depositions. Eventually other money was s.h.i.+fted around to take its place, and so on and so on."

"But it was real money paid to a real person?"

"Probably, but I would need a lot more time."

I leaned against the wall and slid down beneath an ornately-framed print of Goya's Satan Devouring One of His Children. "I don't have any more time. I need it by tomorrow night."

"You can't do it. Not legally."

I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. "Excuse me?"

"Can't be done. Courts need time. I need time. We can't just go in and ask them to pull stuff out of the filing cabinet."

She would argue with me for years to come, I was sure, but I knew it was an act. She'd handed me the key to the vault.

I asked, "Are you coming to dinner tomorrow, then?"

She laughed her old cowboy laugh. "It'll be the best thing on TV. Except it'll never be on TV. Count me in."

FIFTEEN.

"Can I help you, Professor?"

I was standing at the desk of a frumpy, middle-aged lady, maybe the backside of her forties but wasting it on short haircuts and terrible clothes. I felt maybe I'd dealt with her before in some other department on campus. Couldn't remember her name. But then again, they all sort of looked the same, these women. Some strange coincidence, maybe.