Overture

Overture

“No, sir. You may not take any document with you. I’m sorry, I must insist.

Glory took a deep breath and prepared for the patron’s next onslaught. She dealt with him countless times and knew the short catalogue of his arguments. She knew he was well aware of her restrictions. Those never stopped Professor Emeritus Montgomery St Jacques.

           “Dr. St. Jacques you are, as always, most welcome to take this up with the Dean of your faculty, the Dean of Earth Sciences, or the Provost herself. I doubt it is any consolation to you, but I too would prefer to read journals at home. Perhaps you could explore the newest options for digital subscriptions?” Glory’s head snapped back as St. Jacques slammed his receiver down with Richter force.

           Throughout this exchange, a line of graduate students and teaching assistants formed in front of the check-out desk. To each she had handed a number to designate their place in line. Glory introduced the ticket system to mitigate the constant crush and plaintive demands for journals and other documents in the University Earth Science Library closed stacks. She hit the button to start the rotation of numbers. A red headed, freckled faced student she knew well pushed forward and placed a list in front of her. He looked so young Glory marveled he was older than a middle schooler.

           She glanced at the list. Though without a signature, the scrawl told her this was from a professor in her department, Geology and Geophysics. Invariably he used his most vulnerable students to dig out material he was too lazy to get for himself. Glory glanced at the line length, smiled at the student and said, “Come back in two hours. With your fingers crossed.”

           Oh, he is young. He looked so relieved you would think I’d awarded him a Nobel Prize.

           Glory felt exhausted by her lunch break at one o’clock. The push to prepare complete final term papers had hit fever pitch. Students, Academic Staff, Support Staff, and the University Administration were in shock over massive cuts to budgets campus-wide. Every request Glory received now seemed urgent. The anxiety was palpable, since the fate of positions, programs, and even departments rested on budget skills. Glory called on the other clerk and rushed away to meet her lunch mate.

           “My God, Gloria Louise. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

           “Thank you so much for your stirring affirmation, Michelle.

           “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I said it. What I mean is; I think you must work too hard, even more than usual. With your last degree so close, it must seem like you can taste it. But think of this period as a portal to an unknown life.”

           “Portal? Did you find one in one of your beloved Science Fiction novels, or have you taken up poetry again?”

           “My attempt to change your point of view, my friend.”

           “Thanks.” Glory sat back and thought about Michelle’s reference to this period in her life as a doorway. It has been a long time coming. She was in a place she had never been. “I’m not sure which toll is the worst; the work on the library desk, or the wait to hear from my Committee. The Ph.D. is the biggest goal I’ve ever attempted. All of it is over, except the waiting. And the aftermath. Some days it felt like time stood still.”

           “The latest paper you finished? Was it the one you hoped Dr. Morgenstern would approve?”

           “Yes.”

           “And?”

           “Too early to tell.”

           “Come on. We both know him. He favors you. He always looks at your work first. I don’t believe he didn’t say a thing.”

           “There was a signal.”

           “Spill it.”

           “Eyebrows. Both of them up.”

           Michelle clapped her hands. She hugged her friend. “Two eyebrows. My God, that’s equal to the Lister Prize in Earth Science! I am so happy for you.”

Colleagues, students, and online followers recognized Professor Morgenstern’s bushy, untamed eyebrows. They sent semaphore signals and as alerts to his reaction. He never yelled, berated, or used put-downs on his staff or students. Watchers cued on his brows as silent alerts. Encouragement remained his consistent goal.

           Michelle had been so animated in her response people at other tables looked on in astonishment, bent close to each other and made behind-hand comments. Michelle saw the gestures and made an exaggerated bow. Two of the regulars clapped. One yelled. “BRAVO!”

           “Enough about work. How is Frank?”

           “Why do you ask about Frank?”

           “Last week you acted concerned about him in a way I’d never seen.”

           “He invited me to dinner tonight. Perhaps circumstances have improved for the better for him. He stressed he will pay.”

           “Oh. Oh. Oh. I knew it. He will make his move. How do you feel about it?”

           “About what?”

           “Don’t be obtuse, Gloria Louise. Frank will propose.”

           “Not a chance. No way. No how. What do you have in that mug? Pease don’t use my full name. You aren’t my grandmother. Thank God. If you won’t use my nickname, call me Louise, even Lou.” Glory shuddered. Her maternal grandmother used more nuances in her name than there were letters in all of them combined. Her intonations covered a spectrum from treacle through the hammers on forged steel.

           “I wish you wouldn’t keep on about Frank. I have known him since I freshman year. He was my first friend on campus. And he is a friend, end stop. He has never made overtures. Didn’t want them if he did. Whatever it is he has in mind, it has zero to do with romance.”

           Michelle sniffed at the rebuff, but let it go. “Call me when you get home.”

           “No. I intend to get some much-needed sleep you recommend.”

           After they parted, Glory couldn’t let go of her own questions about Frank Stinson. He acted differently of late. For years they had helped each other with their Earth Science papers. She edited his, and he hers. He had been almost pushy with his offer to edit this paper for to Dr. Morgenstern.

She felt guilty about not submitting her completed work. She felt even guiltier about the money spent for the professional edit. Glory knew Frank would emit a hue and cry if she told him. Money was always either tight or non-existent for Frank. The offer to pay for tonight’s dinner was a puzzle. He had sounded celebratory. It wasn’t time to celebrate. She worried.

This assignment for Morgenstern differed from all others. Glory knew she was to keep this one under wraps, because he said she was the only student he asked for input. Her cover story for other students, and Frank, was this was an extra paper she had promised but not yet delivered. Academic monographs were often turgid and mind-numbing. She wanted this to be easier to read. The assignment fit with external courses she took on writing skills. Was that the reason Morgenstern gave her the task?

The assignment had been huge in scope—she had never tackled so broad a topic. Morgenstern requested a white paper on how to reorganize the faculty’s programs. He wanted to maintain as many the current courses as possible. He emphasized inclusion of perennially low enrolled offering. To the Administration, they appeared as superfluous, often seniors and graduate students needed them to fill their degree requirements. He worried faculty positions would disappear. Glory lost many nights of sleep in her attempt to encompass all the challenge’s needs. She was a PhD candidate, not a seasoned researcher or writer.

He had singled her out from her first term in his geology labs. She soon became his lab assistant, much to the annoyance of her male colleagues. Morgenstern was a masterful teacher. She thrived under his guidance

She had never been to the restaurant Frank had chosen. It was upmarket, dark as a cave, with a string trio playing softly. How Frank could afford this? He brought up the matter and told her he had received a long overdue payment for work he had done for his mentor. Glory knew about it and how hard he had worked. Yet a twinge of Michelle’s doubt invaded her thoughts. Our previous dinner splurges had been at high-volume family restaurants. Why spend this on me? His girlfriend would not be pleased.

He wouldn’t let her see the prices, but she peeked over the edge of his menu and had to stifle a gasp. All she saw was the appetizers.

The meal was perfect. Move over McDonald’s. I’ll never be able to eat there to save money again.

They chatted a bit and then Frank asked her about her paper. “You haven’t asked me to edit. I’m surprised. You know I’d be glad to help.”

“I do and thank you. As you know I’ve taken writing courses. The last one was on editing. I took a chance; used this as a self-test to apply what I learned. Fingers crossed it will work.”

“You submitted it?”

“Yes. Last week.” There, that cat was out of the bag. She wasn’t yet ready to tell him about the professional help the University of Utah offered to academic writers to raise the standard of research papers and proposals.

From the look on Frank’s face, she wondered if she would need to do kitchen duty to get out of the restaurant. “I wanted to have an opportunity for you to look at mine,” he said.

“That need not stop us.”

He waited a long time to reply. “Since you submitted yours, you’ll let me read it.” It was a statement, not a question.

Under normal circumstances, she would agree. This time Glory only smiled. An Arctic winter chill enveloped her as she looked at Frank’s face. His pale skin had taken on a gray tone. His jaw was tight. Michelle was right. Something was up.

“Well?”

“Let me think about that, Frank. This assignment required like a dramatic replacement in my approach to writing and thinking. Other than Morgenstern, I haven’t shared the result with anyone. I need to feel I can achieve a goal on my own with this coursework.” Not sharing wasn’t strictly true. She sent a copy to Utah, but no reply yet.

Frank looked at her in a way she had never seen before. The vein in his forehead that pulsed and stood proud. In silence Frank signalled the waiter over. “We need to leave. I’d like the check, please.” He didn’t look at her, but dropped a cash wad on the table. He rose to leave without another word.

Glory followed him to the street. He was half a block away when she emerged. He walked her home in the past. Stunned, she fumbled for her phone to call a cab. She couldn’t get the number right and went back inside. The maître d came over.

“Would you ask somebody to call a cab for me, please?”

“Why not wait at your table? I’ll notify you when your cab arrives.”

“Thank you.” The rumpled wad of cash stared at her across the table. She pulled it to her and wanted to insure Frank had left a tip. He had, but it was miserly. She added more cash and looked around. Nobody seemed to notice her. The wait seemed interminable. Their server came to announce her ride. She thanked him and pressed a tip into his hand. He tried to protest, and she waived it away. She needed an antidote to take away the foul taste in her mouth.

Inside the cab Glory breathed with shallow gulps. The driver asked if she would like an alternative radio station. “Whatever you like is fine,” she said. She hadn’t noticed it was on.

Events of the day and evening rolled across her mind like a slow chyron across a TV news screen. They repeated multiple times. As she unlocked her apartment door a realization sunk in. “Michelle was partly right. The invitation to dinner and the high-end restaurant was the Overture. Frank’s request to read her paper was not the proposal Michelle forecast. It emerged unlike anything he had said in the past. It was demand and set Glory’s thoughts reeling. What did Frank intended as a second act. And when would she experience the climax, because there would be one in this drama.

Glory’s phone was off. Glory knew she could not face questions from Michelle. Not while she felt this unsettled. Not she figured out Frank’s end game.

A sleepless night didn’t provide any answers. If she had looked sleep deprived the day before, the next morning found her haggard. When she arrived at the library for the start of her shift, she found a sealed Campus Mail envelope. Sealed? Was this an omen? It bore Dr. Morgenstern’s scrawl.

Please call as soon as you can. I need to talk with you. It’s urgent.

Urgent? Glory called immediately.

“Could you take the morning off?”

“What’s is about?”

“Best in-person,” he said and rang off.

The other clerk was glad to take over. She preferred face-to-face interactions to the drudgery of unearthing musty research journals and shelf-worn bound volumes. Glory left without an explanation. She had none to give.

Morgenstern greeted her without a smile He told the desk clerk in his office he would be in the conference room with Glory. He asked for no interruptions. The clerk was busy with the phone and didn’t appear to notice the unusual request. Morgenstern took Glory’s elbow and hurried her down the hall. He carried his battered leather briefcase. It appeared to be heavy.

When they arrived at the Faculty Board room, he closed the door. “I apologize for the cloak-and- dagger, Glory. I need us to be uninterrupted for a while.” He motioned her to one of the high-backed leather chairs around the table. He took one beside her and pulled a stack of paper from his briefcase. His face was grim.

He set the stack in front of her, but removed the top few pages. “Please look at this and tell me what you think.”

She read the first paragraph and looked up in puzzlement. “This is the first draft of the paper I did for you. How did you come by it, Professor? I haven’t shown it to anyone. It was too raw, too unformed.”

Morgenstern didn’t speak for a long time. He rubbed his face. “I knew it wasn’t yours, yet it had the style you used in the past. Some phrases, your writing tells, are there throughout. I needed to confirm what I felt to be true.”

He grilled Glory about her practices of keeping drafts. That practice was a heavy burden any time she needed to change apartments. They took up so much space, but Morgenstern had long ago taught her the necessity to track her revisions and evolution of ideas. “You never know when you might need to prove an idea, or concept was yours first.” She resorted to renting a storage locker.

Where were her early drafts? She felt a knot form in her stomach. Glory looked at the stack of drafts. She was sure it should be much larger. Was it him?

“Did somebody else submit this to you?”

“Frank,” he said.

“I swear he never saw it, Professor. I hope you believe me, but he knows where I keep my drafts. I don’t know when he could have taken it.”

“Glory, I will need you to do what you can to figure that out if possible. It may also be advisable for me to see all your other drafts to confirm. The style of your latest is very mature. It is an immense pleasure to read. The classes you’ve taken have paid off.”

“It is not just them. I had professional help.” She told him about the University of Utah’s project to improve academic writing, and about her use of it. “But the ideas and concepts are in earlier, dated drafts, though not in this one here.”

Morgenstern sat back and exhaled. “It is such a relief. To have my beliefs about you validated.”

“But it won’t be so until you see all the drafts.”

“This is the initial proof I wanted. I must work out what to do; thus I ask for your assurance of total secrecy. Do I have that?”

“Agreed.”

“Good. Now follow up with your own notes about this conversation. And keep those under lock and key.” He patted her hand. “You always were and still are my best student. Somehow I’ll figure out how to get us through this. Please, please do not worry.”

But Glory did, a lot. As she waited for Michelle to arrive for lunch, the worry slipped away like the boulder from Sisyphus’ shoulders. “Euphoria? Is that what I feel?” She ordered a half bottle of wine. An explanation of Frank’s interpretation of ‘proposal’ could wait. Glory felt an urge to shout the results of her Committee to everyone she met. They met that morning. Wreathed in smiles, they told her passed both her written and oral presentations, “With Distinction.”

Glory spent year focusing on her final degree goal. Until today she dared not look beyond. At Michelle’s arrival Glory raised a celebratory glass of wine.

“No overtures. No proposals. Here’s to a portal.”