Free Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red by Harry Kemelman Page B

time.”
    “Your precious Malkowitz came here.”
    “Ah, but we went after him and made it worth his while. Professor Hendryx, on the other hand, came to us, and at midyears.”
    “Maybe he prefers a small college, a lot of men do.”
    He nodded. “But his last job was at a small college – Jeremiah Logan College in Tennessee. Why didn’t he stay there?”
    “Just because it’s in Tennessee. I suppose, any New Englander is apt to feel like a fish out of water in a small Southern town.”
    “True,” he acknowledged, “and it’s what I thought until I bumped into the chancellor of Jeremiah Logan at the College Presidents Association meeting last year. I mentioned Hendryx. Now you know, these days an administrator, any employer for that matter, has to be verv careful of what he says about a former employee. You can be sued if you say something you know perfectly well but can’t prove, that’s why we don’t pay too much attention to the run-of-the-mill recommendation, well, this man from Jeremiah Logan was even more cautious than most, but I was able to gather that Hendryx had been in some trouble down there – about a girl, one of the coeds.”
    “I know all about that,” she said calmly. “She was a cheap little whore, the original sweetheart of Sigma Chi – and all the other fraternities.”
    “He told you all this? Why?”
    “Because we’re interested in each other,” she said, getting to her feet.
    “Betty, the man called him an over-sexed –”
    “Well, I could do with a little of that after Malcolm.”
    “Betty!”
    “Look Dad. I might as well tell you. John and I are going to be married.”
    He stared at her.
    “Don’t look so shocked, and I’m not going to be put off just because a man of forty is not celibate. Now, aren’t you going to wish me good luck?”
    “But with a coed!”
    “Big enough, old enough. You don’t suppose your coeds here at Windemere are all innocent virgins, do you?”
    “No, of course not,” he said. “But I still cannot approve of male members of the faculty – well – having relations – that is, taking advantage of their position to – why – seduce female members of the student body.” He started again. “Look Betty; I’m as modern about these things as any man my age can be. But it’s not right for a faculty member – I mean Just from the point of view of fairness, because he can take advantage of his position. If nothing else, think what it indicates of his character.”
    “Fairness! Character!” She gave a hard laugh. “Dad, let me clue you in on the facts of life in the seventies. Sex is a woman’s business; it’s her specialty, her field of concentration. If any affairs are going on at Windemere between faculty and student, and I’m sure there are, believe me, it’s something that the girl has initiated and is managing, and she’ll usually be the one who terminates it when she finds someone else or has decided she’s had enough. Now this affair of John’s down at Logan, and others he’s probably had at the other places he taught, well, he might think they were his doing but you can bet that in each case it was the girl’s.”
    “Betty, we you having an affair with him?”
    “Dad, you’re sweet. No, I’m not, but it’s just because it hasn’t developed that way – not yet, anyway. Have I shocked you?” She looked at him in amusement.
    “Do you love this man. Betty?”
    “I’m not a teenager with a crush, if that’s what you mean. I find him attractive, he’s goodlooking and intelligent.”
    “But you’ve only just met him. You don’t really know him.”
    “Yes, and I practically grew up with Malcolm and see what happened,” she said. “I’ve known John for almost two months now. It’s long enough.”
    “Just because you made a mistake once –”
    “I’m thirty-five and John is forty. Our backgrounds are similar, he comes of an old New England family, and he’s unattached, he’s the most eligible man around. If I wait.