Stork Raving Mad (4 page)

Her prim, condescending manner set my teeth on edge. And, to my astonishment, I felt some combative, articulate part of my brain wake up for the first time in several months.

“I do beg your pardon,” I said. “I should not have spoken carelessly. I meant Kathy Borgstrom, of course. As you surely know, she coordinates matters related to the drama curriculum and the students enrolled in it.”

“Perhaps she does,” Dr. Wright said. “But she has no formal position, other than as Dr. Sass’s secretary, so I fail to see why we would have any reason to consult her.”

Maybe because if Dr. Wright had half a brain, she’d know that after ten years as Abe’s secretary, what Kathy Borgstrom didn’t know about the drama department wasn’t worth knowing. But before I opened my mouth to say so, I remembered where I’d heard of Dr. Wright before. She was on Michael’s tenure committee. The committee that would start its final deliberations in a few weeks. The committee that would determine whether the twins would grow up with the security of a father who was a full professor at Caerphilly College or whether Michael would remain a mere associate professor, whose employment could be terminated at the first sign of a budget crunch.

Or whenever he ticked off someone like Dr. Wright.

Luckily, Ramon finally found his voice.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But my computer’s in my room. It’s a desktop, so it wasn’t easy to move, and I just haven’t had the time to bother with it. I know I could probably get into my e-mail someplace else, but it just didn’t seem that important. I’ve been very busy with the show.”

“Yes,” Dr. Blanco said. “The show. I’m afraid—”

“First things first,” Dr. Wright said. “You could have saved us all a lot of trouble if you’d remained in proper communication with the department. But at least now we can formally notify you that your dissertation topic is unsuitable.”

“Unsuitable?” Ramon echoed. “But—”

“We are the English department,” Dr. Wright continued. “Of an English-language institution. We cannot possibly approve a dissertation in a foreign language.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I said. “As far as I know, he’s writing it in English.”

Dr. Wright fixed her frown on me.

“That is immaterial,” she said. “The topic is foreign, and thus unsuitable for an English department degree. Mr. Soto will have to select another topic.”

“But that would mean starting over!” Ramon exclaimed.

“Sadly, yes,” Dr. Wright said. She didn’t look sad. She looked as if this was the most fun she’d had since outgrowing childhood pastimes like pulling the wings off flies.

“But I got permission,” Ramon said. “I submitted about a million forms two years ago.”

Dr. Wright reached down and opened her purse. She pulled a couple of things out of it—a matching wallet and a worn pale-blue Caerphilly College envelope that had been folded in half. She located her target: a small electronic gadget. She stuffed the wallet and the envelope back in her purse, then began clicking buttons on the electronic device—presumably making notes of their conversation.

“Now,” she said, glancing up from her PDA or whatever it was, “to what forms are you referring?”

“I don’t know.” Ramon shrugged. “The forms the department secretary told me to submit. They were all on that stupid blue paper.”

Not helpful. All official Caerphilly College papers were printed on a tasteful pale-blue paper stock, theoretically to make them stand out from other, less exalted papers. Which it would
if the college didn’t send out such a blizzard of official papers that every professor’s desk was covered in blue snowdrifts.

But criticizing the blue paper wasn’t very smart. For all we knew, Blanco and Wright could have been on the committee that came up with the idea. Ramon should be more diplomatic. In fact—

“Do you have a copy of this alleged permission?” Dr. Wright was saying.

“I don’t know,” Ramon said. “If I did it’d be back in my room. Look, can’t this all wait till after my show? I’ve got a rehearsal in five minutes and—”

“Ah, yes, the show,” Dr. Wright said. She turned to Dr. Blanco. He looked blank for a moment. She frowned and made an impatient gesture.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “The show.” He turned to Ramon. “I have the unfortunate duty to inform you that the show cannot continue. Regrettably, the administration has determined that the show contains offensive and unsuitable material.”

“We’re canceling it,” Dr. Wright said.

“Canceling it!” Ramon echoed.

“That’s crazy!” the woman student said, and then clapped her hands over her mouth and ran back into the kitchen, as if hoping not to be noticed.

Didn’t Ramon realize he shouldn’t be talking to these two by himself? I had to do something before he got even deeper in trouble, but the brain wasn’t cooperating.

“Wait!” I shouted. They all turned to look at me, and both
the jackals took a step back. Ramon merely looked anxiously at my protruding abdomen. In fact they were all staring. I glanced down to see one of P’s feet outlined perfectly against the tautly stretched fabric of my maternity blouse.

I shoved him back into a more comfortable position, while frantically trying to think.

“Is there some problem?” Dr. Wright asked.

I couldn’t come up with anything to say that would rescue Ramon, so I decided to stall. I grabbed the back of a chair and tried to look faint. It wasn’t a stretch. I started breathing as shallowly as I could, trying to keep the perfume reek from triggering a sneeze.

“I hate to interrupt your discussion, but I’m feeling unwell,” I said. “I need someone to help me. I—I—
achoo
!”

Both professors flinched.

“If you have an infectious disease,” Dr. Wright said, “it’s highly inconsiderate to expose others to the possible contagion.”

I wanted to tell her that it was equally inconsiderate to wear so much perfume that you polluted every room you entered, but I decided that wouldn’t be politic.

“What I have isn’t contagious,” I said. “I’m sensitive to strong odors. Side effect of pregnancy. I must be reacting to all the seafood Señor Mendoza is cooking. Mr. Soto? Would you mind helping me?”

Looking even more anxious, Ramon gave me his arm. I leaned on it heavily and steered him back to the kitchen.

“Should we call a doctor?” he asked, as I sank into a chair in the kitchen. The noise level dropped as at least half the people in the kitchen turned to stare at me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Or as fine as anyone can be when she’s swollen to the size of a Panzer tank. You, on the other hand, are in deep—um, big trouble. You shouldn’t be talking to these people by yourself.”

“You mean I need a lawyer or something?” he said, sounding incredulous.

“It might come to that, but right now—quick, someone find Professor Waterston!”

Several people ran in search of Michael.

“Did you know they were looking for you?” I asked Ramon.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I knew someone from the English department had been trying to reach me, but they never said what it was about and I figured it was just some kind of bureaucratic thing that could wait until after the show was over.”

“Well, the show is over for now, unless we—unless Professor Waterston can fix this,” I said.

Something suddenly occurred to me. I’d been calling Wright and Blanco “doctor.” They referred to Michael as “Professor Waterston.” So did I, usually, when talking about him to anyone from the college. But why? As far as I knew, Caerphilly College had no rule, official or unspoken, that you only called tenured professors “doctor.” I knew adjunct professors in several other departments whom everyone called doctor. As far as I could remember, there were only three Ph.D.s at Caerphilly College that everyone always called “professor” rather than “doctor”—Michael
and his drama colleagues, Abe Sass and Art Rudmann. Maybe I was imagining things or being oversensitive, but this felt to me like a deliberate slight. From now on, I was going to fling Michael’s doctorate in their faces at every opportunity.

Dr. Michael himself appeared at my side.

“You wanted me?” he said. “Time to head for the hospital?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Though if Dr. Wright and Dr. Blanco continue to annoy me, you may need to take them.”

“Annoy you? Wright and Blanco? How?”

“They say I can’t do my dissertation on Señor Mendoza, and the play is canceled,” Ramon said.

Michael’s reaction was lost in a sudden outburst of exclamations and oaths in two languages from the crowd of students.

“Down with the English department!”

“Those jerks!”

“Censorship! Censorship!”

“Discrimination!”

I wasn’t up to deciphering what was being said in Spanish, but I assumed the gist was about the same.

“Professor, can they do that?” one student asked.

“
Qué pasó?
” Señor Mendoza ask. “
Qué pasó?
”

Three of the students began explaining to him, simultaneously, in rapid-fire Spanish. At first he looked confused, then he seemed to catch on.

“Villains!” he shouted. “Infamy! Let me accost them!”

I was bracing myself to intervene—to leap out of my chair, or at least yell at him to stop. But I realized he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He began speaking loudly and rapidly in
Spanish. The students gathered around him, but considering his vehement tone, they were strangely subdued, as if struggling to understand him.

“What’s he saying?” I whispered to Michael.

“No idea,” Michael whispered back. “When he gets excited, he lapses into Catalan. Which none of us speaks.”

Probably just as well, since from watching him I deduced that he was trying to incite the students to do something. From the expressions on their faces, I suspected the students were just as far out at sea as I was, but apparently they all assumed everyone else understood every word and had begun applauding and cheering diligently.

“Then how do you know it’s Catalan?” I whispered to Michael.

“He apologized the first time he lapsed into it.”

Señor Mendoza began shouting things that ended with either
Sí?
or
No!
The students could take a hint. They began roaring back “
Sí!
” or “
No!
” whenever Señor Mendoza paused for a response.

Michael beckoned me into the pantry, where it was a little quieter.

“So just exactly what did they say—Blanco and Wright?”

“Wright said Ramon’s dissertation topic was unsuitable because it was Spanish,” I said. “Caerphilly is an English-language institution. And Blanco said the play was unsuitable and offensive, and it’s off, too. Who is he, anyway?”

“One of the president’s pet bureaucrats,” Michael said. “Has his finger in everything. Spends all his time on projects no
one either understands or wants. Big on introducing new paperwork—he’s killed more trees than all the arsonists in California ever will. Sticks his nose in everything from academic standards to the portion sizes in the cafeteria. Currently about the least popular man on campus because his department hasn’t been able to get the heating plant problem solved. And Wright, of course—”

“Is a member of your committee,” I said.

“A problem member.” He sighed. “Not to mention a serious contender for the position of English department chair the next time that becomes vacant. But we have to deal with her. Let’s go see if we can straighten this out.”

Was he really as confident as he sounded? I followed him back into the kitchen.

Apparently, news of the prunes’ actions had spread throughout the house. Every student living with us and quite a few I didn’t remember ever seeing before had crowded into the kitchen. The room was boiling with heated discussions in at least two languages. Señor Mendoza was still holding forth in a surprisingly loud bellow.

“You have no idea what he’s going on about?” I asked.

“Something about marching and picketing in protest, I think,” Michael said.

“I got that much.”

I followed Michael into the hall—not so much because I wanted to eavesdrop, although I did, but I couldn’t stand the idea of waiting in the kitchen with all the noise and the overwhelming smell of seafood.

“Professor Waterston,” Dr. Wright said. She sounded surprised to see him.

“I understand you have some issues with the topic of Ramon Soto’s dissertation” Michael said.

“His topic is—”

“Is a drama topic, rather than an English topic,” Michael said. “As it should be, since he is working on a degree in drama, not English. What kind of drama curriculum could we have if we didn’t include playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Moliere, Lope de Vega, Chekhov, Ibsen, Garcia Lorca, Pirandello, Brecht—”

“That’s not the point of view we’re taking on the subject,” Dr. Wright began. “We feel—”

“I think I understand your point of view,” Michael said. “And I’d be happy to discuss it. What I fail to see is why this issue wasn’t brought to his dissertation committee before the department took such drastic action.”

“Since your committee failed to take any action on his highly unsuitable topic—” Dr. Wright began.

“Our committee did not fail to act,” Michael said. “We have followed every step of Mr. Soto’s dissertation with great attention and we have been highly satisfied with his progress. Are you asserting that there is a formal departmental rule prohibiting use of foreign language materials in a dissertation to be submitted under the drama curriculum? If there is, I’d like to see it.”

“The material is not just foreign,” Dr. Blanco put in. “It’s obscene!”

Michael and Dr. Wright both glanced at him briefly and then resumed their argument as if his interruption hadn’t happened.

“And why is the department taking this action now, at the worst possible moment for Mr. Soto?” Michael went on. “Has no one in the department been reviewing the paperwork Mr. Soto has filed, as well as the reports of our committee?”

“There is some question of whether Mr. Soto has filed all his paperwork,” Dr. Wright said.

“Then the department should have brought that to his attention and his committee’s attention earlier,” Michael said. “And I know damned well our committee has filed all its reports, because I’m the one who did it. What’s more—”