Free Long Knives by Charles Rosenberg Page A

classes tomorrow?”
    “No, why would we?”
    “A student died.”
    “Once in a while we lose a student, Jenna. It’s tragic, but life goes on. We’ve never canceled classes before for that. We’ll have a memorial service of some sort at an appropriate time. Assuming that’s okay with the family, of course.”
    “I see. Maybe I’ll just cancel my own class in the morning. The one Primo was in.”
    “That’s up to you, but I think most faculty would just man up and teach it.”
    “I can’t man up.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’m not a man.”
    There was a small silence, as he, I hoped, absorbed what a chauvinist pig he was. Finally, he said, “I’ve got work to do. Let me know if you learn anything more.”
    “I will, but I don’t know how you expect me to learn anything more.”
    There was no response. I looked at the cell phone screen, which said “disconnected.” He, too, had hung up on me. I was tired of people doing that. In fact, I was tired of talking to people I didn’t want to talk to. I powered off my cell phone.
    Then I remembered the coffee, which was still sitting on the counter. I went back to the kitchen, poured some of it into a glass jar, put a lid on the jar and placed it in the refrigerator. That left almost half a pot of coffee still in the pot. I sniffed it and it smelled bad, so I hesitated to pour it down the drain, lest I smell up the sink.
    There’s a small balcony off the living room that I rarely use in the winter. It has a broad-leafed plant on it that I sometimes neglect to water. I figured I could just dump the coffee in the plant and it would kill two birds with one stone. I’d get rid of the coffee and give the plant some needed water. It seemed unlikely to me that the plant would be bothered by the smell or whatever fungus had sickened Primo. If that’s what had really happened, which I doubted.
     
     

CHAPTER 15
    I had agreed to meet Aldous at 7:45 P.M. at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood for a performance of Hamlet . The curtain was at 8:00. It wasn’t the Geffen’s usual fare, which tended a bit more toward the modern. Nor was it mine; I very unsophisticatedly prefer movies. But I had been looking forward to it as a fun night out with Aldous.
    After my strange phone call with the dean, in which he all but accused me of stealing Primo’s supposed map, I had considered canceling. Yet it didn’t seem likely that staying home would improve my mood—or my hands, which were still red and in which I could still detect an ever-so-slight tremor if I held them out in front of me. And perhaps Aldous would have some good advice. So I threw on a little black dress I had bought at Nordstrom, looped a string of pearls around my neck and slipped on my patent-leather heels. Then I retrieved my car from the valet and drove to the Geffen.
    Parking is often an issue in Westwood, but since I had a UCLA parking pass, I just pulled into a nearby UCLA lot. Teaching at UCLA doesn’t have a lot of privileges, but it has some.
    When I walked into the stone-walled courtyard of the Geffen, Aldous was standing there waiting, looking handsome. The evening was cool but not cold—in the low 60s, not unheard of for mid-November in Los Angeles—and he was dressed in a nubby brown cardigan worn over an ecru shirt, sharply creased brown khakis and brown tasseled loafers. He looked like an ad out of a Brooks Brothers catalog, which fit, since he’d once told me he bought almost all of his clothes there.
    He sprinted over to me. “Honey, I’ve been trying to call you all day, but you didn’t pick up or return my messages. And you haven’t been in your office. I’ve been by three times to look for you. Are you okay?”
    I admit that I was a bit stunned to hear him say that. I couldn’t recall the last time he had tried to track me down. For any reason.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I turned off my cell and forgot to turn it back on. And no, I’m not okay. I don’t know if you heard, but my