Ivory Tower

Ivory Tower

K C Maguire

Ivory Tower

A Books to Go Now Publication

Copyright
©
K C Maguire
2013

Books to Go Now

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First eBook Edition –February 2013

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.

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Look for Other Stories by K C Maguire

Dear John

Destiny

Ivory Tower

“Was Professor Blenheim on our list?”  My best friend Melissa  probed me for dirt on our imminent dean search. 

“Why?”  We weren’t supposed to gossip about it in public, but as we were hidden away at our usual back corner table in the campus diner, I figured it was safe enough.

“Apparently he died yesterday.”  Melissa shrugged her shoulders.  “Heart attack or something.”

“Really?”  I toyed with the straw in my iced tea.  Although Professor Blenheim had been a big deal on the dean market, to me he was just another curriculum vitae I’d have to vet.

“So?  Was he on the list?”  I couldn’t understand why she was so interested.  She’d been around long enough to know that despite the lip service to “process” and “ find the best candidate”, the dean search was fundamentally a sham to cover up our old boys’ network.  The successor in line to our deanship was probably already chosen.  And I had known for several weeks who it
wouldn’t
be.  “No idea.  I haven’t seen the list yet.” 

“I’m still surprised they put you back on the committee,” my friend said as she eyed my fries.

“Please don’t start that again.”  I batted her hand away as she grabbed for my plate.  It was bad enough to watch her eat everything in sight and maintain her stick thin figure without having to feed her myself.  She removed her hand and made a show of tucking her perfect platinum blonde locks behind her ears, and revealing the diamond stud earrings she’d recently wheedled from her husband.

Jealous much, Evie?
  I shook my head and pushed my plate toward her.  The fries weren’t going to do me any good anyway.

“C’mon, girl,” she said as she tucked in with her manicured fingertips.  I surveyed my own unpolished nails.  Maybe if I had tried harder to look the part of a professional department head, I wouldn’t have been stuck on the committee again. 

Acting
department head, I reminded myself.

“You’d be a great dean.  You know it, Evie.  Why do they keep sticking you on the committee when you’re such an obvious candidate?”

I knew exactly why, but I couldn’t tell Melissa.  I didn’t tell anyone what I did, but the powers-that-be figured it out anyway.  That’s why I wasn’t in the running.  I was barely hanging on to the acting department head job by the tips of my un-manicured nails.

“Well then,” Melissa adopted her most authoritative professorial tone, “if you’re not going to tell me about the dean search, you owe me
some
gossip.”  It was obvious what she was getting at by the self-satisfied smirk on her face.  “At least admit you’re glad I talked you into going to the new faculty social.”

“Maybe.”  I made a show of smoothing my thick wool skirt over my knees to avoid her penetrating gaze.  I didn’t want to admit how well my first date had gone with Pete Charlesworth, the new bio-chem professor—  at least not until I was more sure of him.  He asked me out again so that  must be a good sign, even though I had to admit the pickings were pretty lean in our  one-horse college town.

“Okay, then you have to tell me about dean search stuff.  One or the other.  Your choice.”

Praying for deliverance, I glanced at my watch and realized that we had accidentally taken another overlong lunch.  Ignoring Melissa’s expectant expression, I tapped the face of the antique timepiece and reached for the check.  Melissa beat me to it.  Snatching up her purse, she made her way to the front counter to offer a couple of folded bills to the acne-covered student manning the register.  I tried to push a ten-dollar bill toward her but she slapped my hand away.

“It’s on me,” she said, “but you have to tell me how your date went.  Quid pro quo can be such a bitch.”

“Yeah, so can you.”  I couldn’t help smiling as I retrieved our heavy wool coats from the rack by the door.

  Twenty minutes later, I burst into the fourth floor conference room, nursing a Styrofoam mug of what passed for coffee in the faculty lounge. 

“Nice of you to join us, Professor King.”  The medical school dean, Magary, glared at me.  I never quite understood why the Provost had asked him to chair the business school dean search.  How a medical doctor would know anything about a business faculty was anyone’s guess.  Mumbling apologies, I searched for a vacant seat.  The conference table was surrounded by old white guys—who Melissa not-so-ironically referred to as “pale, stale, and male.”  By and large they ignored me, focusing instead on their smartphones and tablet computers.

Dean Magary and the Provost were sharing what would have been the head of the table if it was rectangular rather than the peculiar oval shape that barely fit the room.  I’ve been told it’s the mark of a good business school to engage in innovative interior design.  I have often wondered if better schools could afford designs that were actually functional.  A large stack of papers teetered in the center of the table, a speakerphone perched awkwardly beside it, extension cord straining to the wall. 

  “If I may,” the Provost began, “I know we have discussed the downsides of opening the search to internal candidates, but …”

  My heart skipped a beat.  Had they reconsidered my position?  Had they been waiting for me so they could announce my candidacy?  My hand shook, causing me to spill coffee on the faux marble tabletop as I took my seat.  I resisted the urge to search for a tissue to mop it up as I held my breath, awaiting the Provost’s announcement.

  “Is everything  all right, Professor King?”  Magary’s annoyance was palpable, but I didn’t care.  He’d have to suck it up when the Provost announced my candidacy. 

  “As I was saying,” the Provost continued, “we have previously discussed the idea of barring internal candidates from this committee’s consideration, but it has come to my attention that there is at least one internal candidate for whom I believe we should make an exception.”

  He was actually going to say it.  I straightened my shoulders, careful to avoid moving my hands any closer to my coffee cup.  I wondered if they would ask me to leave the meeting as soon as they named me as being in the running.  Looking at the stack of C.V.s piled on the table, I experienced a wave of relief at the thought that it wouldn’t be me, for once, plowing through them, vetting and ranking them.  Then it hit me that my own C.V. was probably now in that pile.  My lips  stretched into an uncontrollable smile.

  The Provost was still talking.  “In this instance, I have decided to accept Professor Maxwell’s self-nomination for the deanship.” 

What? 

“We’ve had great success with internal candidates at other schools within the university,” the Provost  said. “As you know I, myself, was an internal candidate.”  He glanced at his watch and shuffled to his feet.  “My apologies.  I have another meeting.  I’ll leave you all in Dean Magary’s capable hands.  And of course, I’d like to thank you for your valuable service on this committee.”

  After the door  closed behind the Provost, Magary cleared his throat and directed his next words to the speakerphone.  “Shall we look at the pool now?  Let’s turn it over to our search consultants.  You still with us, Bob?”

  “Sure,” a disembodied voice responded from sunny San Diego.  I wondered idly how much Bob  caught of my humiliation.  I had been thinking of calling him to ask his opinion of putting my own name forward, but that was all out the window now.

  “What have you got for us?”  Magary asked.

“Do you have our summary sheets with you?”  Bob’s voice crackled from across the country.

  Magary shoved the papers at me.  Before I could think about why he singled me out, I was on my feet distributing them to my colleagues. 
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
  Apart from anything else,  why would   they ever  take me seriously if I allowed myself to become a secretary?

“We’re circulating the list now, Bob,” Magary said to the speaker, “You want to walk us through it?”

“Sure.  This is our list of potential candidates with their bios attached.  Unfortunately, we have to scratch one name.  Professor Blenheim from Wilmington.  Apparently he passed away yesterday.”

The meeting continued as they usually do.  Lots of hemming and hawing, and discussion of “process,” desirable credentials and experience, and lots of empty words about the general importance of ideological diversity.  Several times I had to bite my lower lip to keep from screaming in frustration, particularly when they started singing Maxwell’s praises.  How could they think he would be a better dean than me?

Actually, I knew how they could believe it.  He’d never been a department head, never even an acting head like me.  He was only a program director.  He’d never had the opportunity to make the mistakes I’d made so naturally they believed he would never make them.  And if he did, it would be explained away as something he had to do for the good of the school—   the old boys’ club in its most basic form.  It was okay for a man to skirt ethical boundaries with good intentions, but if a woman made the same decision, she was labeled as inept, or as having questionable morals.  I supposed I was lucky they regarded me as the former.  That way, I maintained my acting head position—for a while anyway.

When the meeting finally concluded, I was laden with a stack of C.V.s, including Professor Maxwell’s, and a tight deadline for reviewing them.  As I attempted to slip past Magary, his words stopped me in my tracks.

“Professor King?”

“Yes,  Dean?”

“You do know that we appreciate your service on this committee again.”  He sounded so sincere that I almost believed him.

“Thank you.”  I turned for the door.

“I’m sorry.”  His voice was low now.  “It’s not personal.  We simply can’t take the risk.”

“It’s not about me.”  I whirled back to face him, trying to think of some way to retain a shred of dignity, to remove the focus from my own shattered ambitions.  “It’s just that … that we’ve never had a female dean.  We’ve never even had a permanent female department head.  Don’t you think that’s a problem?”  I figured attack may be the best form of defense.  And this was a good angle.

“Then you should be thankful to have a place on this committee.”  He straightened his tie and slipped his jacket on, brushing the lint from his sleeves in the process.  “Maybe you can do something to change that.”

Oh yes
, I thought,
this is my golden opportunity
.

But I only said, “Thank you.  I’ll try.”

“I’m serious, Professor King.  You find us a
qualified
female candidate and we’ll give her all due consideration.”  The barb was unmistakable but I’d had enough for the day.  I simply nodded, turned on my heel and left.  I had a date to prepare for, and if recent experience with male colleagues was anything to go by, I had an excellent chance of getting screwed.

In fact, my second date with the newest addition to the bio-chem faculty, Dr. Pete Charlesworth, went surprisingly well.  I even used the hackneyed “do you want to come up for coffee?” line at the end of the evening.  I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or depressed that it worked.  Despite my girl-power mood, or maybe because of it, I had decided to let the chips fall where they may.  This new guy was confident and sexy as all get-out, and he drove a flashy sports car.  Hardly your typical science geek.  When he helped me out of the car, he had pulled me up with a little more force than necessary, so I ended up falling hard against him.  He slid an arm around me to steady me, a playful chuckle escaping his lips which made his chest rumble beneath my hands.  The heat of the moment distracted me from the Midwestern winter chill in the air.

  “Too much Sangria?” he asked as I struggled out of his grip, belatedly realizing what an idiot I was.  The man had me right where I wanted to be, and I had pulled away.  Maybe that explained why I was still single.  Fumbling for my keys, I led him into the foyer of my old redbrick building.   

“Almost there.”  My teeth chattered from the cold and he gripped one of my hands to warm it in his.  His fingers were strong and sure and I suddenly had the urge to feel them all over my body.

Get a grip
, I told myself.  I had never been that kind of girl, but this guy was doing something to me, and I couldn’t say I wasn’t enjoying it.  Maybe it was just the Sangria talking.  The elevator opened and he followed me wordlessly to the door of my apartment, although I could feel waves of heat emanating from him—  at least I thought I could.  I really had downed a lot of Sangria.  At my front door I promptly dropped my keys.

“Nervous?” he asked as he swooped down to collect them.  “Don’t be.” 

As he slipped my key into the lock and opened the door with practiced ease, I had the distinct feeling that he had been in this situation many times before. At least there wouldn’t be too much competition for  him in this town— not unless he wanted to date the students.    When I flicked on the lights, I tried to imagine my apartment as he would see it.  It only had one bedroom so the desk and computer were in the living room.  I was facing the tiny kitchen which reminded me of the putative purpose of his visit. 

“So, coffee?”  I headed for the kitchen. 

I watched Pete as he surveyed the room, draping his jacket over the arm of my sofa. 

“How long have you lived here?” he asked.

“About five years.”

“What’s the rent on a place like this?”

“Looking for a place?” I asked, realizing he’d never told me where he lived.

“I’m staying at the Corner Inn for now.”

“That’s a nice place.” 

“Yeah, but it’s not cheap.  Not  long-term.”

“You haven’t found a place of your own?”

“The job was kind of last minute.” 

“How so?” Faculty appointments are hardly ever last minute.  There’s a lengthy university process involved. 

“The bio-chem folks started their process late.  There was a sudden death in the department and they needed to fill the vacancy for course coverage.” 

I vaguely remembered hearing about an unexpected death in the science faculty at the end of last year.  Something about a stroke perhaps?  I couldn’t quite remember, except I thought the guy had been quite young.  Pete seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.  He wandered over to my desk and flicked through the papers scattered beside the computer.  “What are these?”

“I’m on our dean search committee,” I explained.  “Those are the candidates.”

Pete grabbed the stack of papers and took them over to the sofa. 

“You probably shouldn’t be looking at those.”  The words came out automatically, but I didn’t really care what he did with them.  If my boring papers distracted him while I collected myself for my next move, so much the better.

“Hey, I won’t tell anyone.  C’mon—let’s have a bit of fun.”  He patted the sofa next to him.  Whatever turned him on.  I perched beside him.  “Let’s have a look-see.”  He started flipping through the papers.  “Hmm.  Who’s this then?  Brandon Gersch, sixty-six years old.  Retired C.E.O. 
Sheesh
.  Look at this picture.  He’d scare the students.”

I leaned over to see a thumbnail photo of a ruddy round face with an untidy gray beard and crooked spectacles that bore an uncanny resemblance to our last three or four deans, or possibly Professor Dumbledore.  Pete moved on to the next one.  “And look at this guy.  Isn’t he a bit young to be a professor?  You should check his references—or call his mom.” 

“Stop it.”  I grabbed the papers and dropped them on the coffee table.  As I raised myself back up, Pete leaned over and pushed me down into the sofa cushions, locking his eyes with mine.  His move was sudden and unexpected, not to mention a little unnerving, but I let him continue, curious about where  it might  lead and confident I could knee him where it hurt if I had to.  He moved his hands to my face to brush back an unruly strand of my shaggy dark hair.