Invasion (5 page)

“I know I’m a tad late,” Pitt said nervously. Dr. Miller had a reputation of being a no-nonsense administrator. Her nickname was “Dragon Lady” among the lower-echelon staff, particularly the first-year residents. “It won’t happen again,” Pitt added.

Sheila glanced at her watch, then back at Pitt. “You’re slated to start medical school in the fall.”

“That’s true,” Pitt answered with his pulse rising.

“Well, at least you’re better-looking than most of the ones in this year’s crop,” Sheila said, hiding a grin. She could sense Pitt’s anxiety.

Confused by the comment, which sounded like a compliment, Pitt merely nodded. In truth he didn’t know what to say. He had a sense she was toying with him but couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll tell you what,” Sheila said, nodding toward her
back seat. “If you carry that VCR into my office I won’t mention this egregious infraction to the dean.”

Pitt was now reasonably certain that Dr. Miller was teasing him, but he still felt it better to keep his mouth shut. Without a word he reached in, lifted the VCR, and followed Dr. Miller into the ER.

There was a moderate amount of activity, particularly from a few early-morning fender-benders. Fifteen to twenty patients were waiting in the waiting area, as well as a few more back in the trauma section. The staff present at the front desk greeted Dr. Miller with smiles but cast puzzled looks at Pitt, particularly the person Pitt was scheduled to relieve.

They walked down the main corridor and were about to enter Sheila’s office when she caught sight of Kerry Winetrop, one of the hospital’s electronic technicians. Keeping all the hospital’s monitoring equipment functioning was a full-time job for several people. Sheila called out to the man, and he obligingly came over.

“My VCR had a seizure last night,” Sheila said, nodding toward the VCR in Pitt’s hands.

“Join the club,” Kerry said. “You and a bunch of other people. Apparently there was a surge in the TV cable line around the university area at quarter after ten last night. I’ve already seen a couple of players that people brought in early this morning.”

“A surge, huh,” Sheila remarked.

“My TV blew up,” Pitt said.

“At least my TV’s okay,” Sheila said.

“Was it on when the VCR blew?” Kerry asked.

“No,” Sheila said.

“Well, that’s the reason it didn’t pop,” Kerry said. “If it had been on you would have lost your picture tube.”

“Can the VCR be fixed?” Sheila asked.

“Not without essentially replacing most of the guts,” Kerry said. “To tell you the truth it’s cheaper to buy another one.”

“Too bad,” Sheila said. “I’d finally figured out how to set the clock on this one.”

CASSY HURRIED UP THE STEPS OF ANNA C. SCOTT HIGH
School and entered just as the bell announced the beginning of the first period. Reminding herself that getting freaked out was not going to help anything, she rushed up the main stairs and down the hall to her assigned class. She was in the middle of a month-long observation of a junior English class. This was the first time she’d been late.

Pausing at the door to brush hair from her face and smooth the front of her demure cotton dress, she couldn’t help but hear the apparent pandemonium going on inside the room. She’d expected to hear Mrs. Edelman’s strident voice. Instead there was a mishmash of voices and laughter. Cassy cracked the door and looked within.

Students were haphazardly sprinkled around the room. Some were standing, others were sitting on the radiator covers and on desks. It was a beehive of separate conversations.

Cracking the door further, Cassy could see why there was such chaos. Mrs. Edelman was not there.

Cassy swallowed hard. Her mouth had gone dry. For a second she debated what to do. Her experience with high
school kids was minimal. All her student teaching had been at the elementary-school level. Deciding she had little choice and taking a deep breath, she pushed through the door.

No one paid her any attention. Advancing to Mrs. Edelman’s desk in the front of the room she saw a note in Mrs. Edelman’s script. It said simply:
Miss Winthrope, I will be delayed for some minutes. Please carry on
.

With her heart accelerating Cassy glanced out at the scene in front of her. She felt incompetent and an imposter. She wasn’t a teacher, not yet anyway.

“Excuse me!” Cassy called. There was no response. She called more loudly. Finally she yelled as loudly as she could, which brought forth a stunned silence. She was now graced with close to thirty pairs of staring eyes. The expressions ran the gamut from surprise to irritation at being interrupted to outright disdain.

“Please take your seats,” Cassy said. Her voice wavered more than she would have liked.

Reluctantly the students did as they were told.

“Okay,” Cassy said, trying to bolster her confidence. “I know what your assignment was, so until Mrs. Edelman arrives, why don’t we talk about Faulkner’s style in a general sense. Who’d like to volunteer to get us started?”

Cassy’s eyes roamed the room. The students who moments earlier were the picture of animation now appeared as if cut from marble. The expressions of those who were still looking at her were blank. One impertinent red-headed boy puckered his lips into a silent kiss as Cassy’s eyes briefly locked onto his. Cassy ignored the gesture.

Cassy could feel perspiration at her hairline. Things were not going well. In the back of the second row she could see a blond-headed boy engrossed with a laptop computer.

Stealing a glance at the seating chart in the middle of the desk blotter, Cassy read the boy’s name: Jonathan Sellers.

Looking back up, Cassy tried again: “Okay, everyone. I know it’s cool to kinda zone out on me. After all I’m just a student teacher and you all know a lot more about what goes on in here than I do, but…”

At that moment the door opened. Cassy turned, hoping to see the competent Mrs. Edelman. Instead the situation took a turn for the worse. In walked Mr. Partridge, the principal.

Cassy panicked. Mr. Partridge was a dour man and a strict disciplinarian. Cassy had only met him once when her group of student teachers was going through their orientation. He’d made it very clear that he was not fond of the student-teaching program and only agreed to it under duress.

“Good morning, Mr. Partridge,” Cassy managed. “Can I help you in some way?”

“Just carry on!” Mr. Partridge snapped. “I’d been informed of Mrs. Edelman’s delay, so I thought I’d stop by to observe for a moment.”

“Of course,” Cassy said. She turned her attention back to the stony students and cleared her throat. “Jonathan Sellers,” she called out. “Perhaps you could start the discussion.”

“Sure,” Jonathan said agreeably.

Cassy let out an imperceptible sigh of relief.

“William Faulkner was a major American writer,” Jonathan said, trying to sound extemporaneous.

Cassy could tell he was reading off his LCD screen, but she didn’t care. In fact, she was grateful for his resourcefulness.

“He’s known for his vivid characterizations and, like, his convoluted style…”

Tim Appleton sitting across from Jonathan tried vainly to suppress a laugh since he knew what Jonathan was doing.

“Okay,” Cassy said. “Let’s see how that applies to the story you all were asked to read for today.” She turned to the blackboard and wrote “vivid characters” and next to it “complex story structure.” Then she heard the door to the hall open and close. Glancing over she was relieved to see that gloomy Partridge had already departed.

Facing the class again she was pleased to see several hands up of people willing to get involved in a discussion. Before she called on one of them, Cassy gave Jonathan a tiny but grateful smile. She wasn’t sure but she thought she caught a blush before the boy looked back down at his laptop.

11:15
A.M.

OLGAVEE HALL WAS ONE OF THE LARGEST TIERED LECTURE
halls in the business school. Although not a graduate student, Beau had been given special permission to take an advanced marketing course that was extremely popular with the business school students. In fact, it was so popular it needed the seating capacity of Olgavee. The lectures were exciting and stimulating. The course was taught in an interactive style with a different professor each week. The downside was that each class required a lot of preparation. One had to be prepared to be called on at any moment.

But Beau was finding it uncharacteristically hard to concentrate at today’s lecture. It wasn’t the professor’s fault. It was Beau’s. To the dismay of his immediate neighbors as well as himself, he couldn’t stop fidgeting in his seat. He’d developed uncomfortable aches in his muscles that made it impossible to get comfortable. On top
of that he had a dull headache behind his eyes. What made everything worse was that he was sitting in the center of the hall four rows back and directly in the line of sight of the lecturer. Beau always made it a point to get to lecture early to get the best seat.

Beau could tell that the speaker was getting annoyed, but he didn’t know what to do.

It had started on his way to Olgavee Hall. The first symptom had been a stinging sensation somewhere up inside his nose causing a wave of violent sneezes. It wasn’t long before he was blowing his nose on a regular basis. Initially he’d thought he’d caught a cold. But now he had to admit that it had to be more. The irritation rapidly progressed from his sinuses into his throat, which was now sore, especially when he swallowed. To make matters worse, he began to cough repeatedly, which hurt his throat as much as swallowing.

The person sitting directly in front of Beau turned and gave him a dirty look after Beau let out a particularly explosive cough.

As time dragged on, Beau became particularly bothered by a stiff neck. He tried to rub his muscles, but it didn’t help. Even the lapel of his jacket seemed to be exacerbating the discomfort. Thinking that the leadlike object in his pocket might be contributing, Beau took it out and put it on the desk in front of him. It looked odd, sitting on his notes. Its perfectly round shape and exquisite symmetry suggested it was a manufactured piece, yet Beau had no idea if it was. For a moment he thought that perhaps it could have been a futuristic paperweight, but he dismissed the idea as too prosaic. More probable was
that it was a tiny sculpture, but he truly wasn’t sure. Vaguely he wondered if he should take it over to the geology department to inquire if it could be the result of a natural phenomenon like a geode.

Musing about the object made Beau examine the minute wound on the tip of his index finger. It was now a red dot in the center of a few millimeters of pale, bluish skin. Surrounding that was a two-millimeter halo of redness. To the touch it was mildly sore. It felt like a doctor had poked him with one of those strange little lancets they used to get a small blood sample.

A shaking chill interrupted Beau’s thoughts. The chill was followed by a sustained bout of coughing. When he finally got his breath, he acknowledged the futility of attempting to last through the lecture. He wasn’t getting anything out of it, and on top of that he was bothering his fellow students and the lecturer.

Beau gathered his papers, slipped his putative mini-sculpture back into his pocket, and stood up. He had to excuse himself multiple times to move laterally along the row. Because of the narrow space his exit caused a significant commotion. One student even dropped his looseleaf notebook which opened and sent its contents wafting down into the pit.

When Beau finally got to the aisle, he caught a glimpse of the lecturer shielding his eyes so as to see who was making all the fuss. He was one person Beau wasn’t going to ask for a letter of recommendation.

FEELING EMOTIONALLY AS WELL AS PHYSICALLY EXHAUSTED
at the end of the school day, Cassy made her way down
the main stairs of the high school and exited out into the horseshoe drive in front. It was pretty clear to her that from a teaching standpoint she liked elementary school much better than high school. From her perspective high-schoolers generally seemed too self-centered and too interested in constantly challenging their boundaries. She even thought a number of them were downright mean. Give me an innocent, eager third-grader any day, Cassy reflected.