Pall Malls and lighter. He pictured the half-full pint of Jim Beam in the bottom drawer, but he left that in place. As he puffed, the smoke circled him like a hug.
When he returned to the stage, he took silent inventory of the actors and actresses. To his amazement, they were all in place, scripts open.
“All right, then,” he said, with the warmest smile he could summon, “let’s pick up where we left off.”
Chapter Four
Ruby
Every academic year since V-J Day, Ruby had noted the increasing number of male faculty replacing women who either retired or left to start families. She founded her women’s faculty group in response to the disturbing trend. The women who remained at Baines found it harder and harder to secure tenure and promotion. When someone did, like Gen, it was cause for celebration.
They met once a month in Ruby’s living room, a light-drenched space created by tearing down a wall that had separated two smaller, stuffier rooms. Twenty years back, she and Darrell had rescued the Queen Anne house from hard times and, room by room, restored it to glory. Across the street, the Blakeneys’ house matched theirs in every exterior detail but its crisp yellow color, like spring forsythias; Ruby preferred their plain white. A nineteenth-century logging baron had built the twin houses for his daughters, and more than sixty years later, everyone in town still referred to them as “The Two Sisters.” Not that Ruby felt very sisterly toward Amanda Blakeney.
On the buffet Darrell had arranged a plate of tollhouse cookies, a coffee urn, and cups. He’d put out a bottle of champagne to toast Gen’s promotion. As usual, Gen was the first to arrive. Years back, she had overcome her embarrassment at being early. She never came empty-handed. The Mason jar in her hands overflowed with dahlias, their blooms as big as saucers.
“I copied from Fenton,” she explained. “He brought some to dinner a couple of weeks ago, and I thought they were a wonder. He said they were the last of the season, but I found some today at the florist’s.”
Ruby winked. “Thank God for men like Fenton.”
The rest of the group straggled in. Juliet May, assistant professor of French, plopped down next to Gen on the sofa. She was a bright, career-minded woman, the kind Ruby liked to mentor. As Gen had before her, Juliet was taking all the right steps in her Baines career, including presiding as resident adviser over Cavendish House—prime real estate on campus. Along with two other antebellum residences dating from the earliest days of Baines, Cavendish sat up on a hill, judging the other dorms.
When everyone was settled with their refreshments, Ruby called them to order and centered discussion on Juliet’s tenure application in Modern Languages. Juliet passed out mimeographed copies of her CV, so the women who had been through the tenure process could offer critique and advice.
As Ruby scanned it, one point caught her attention. “Why does it say your stint at Cavendish only goes to May?” she asked.
“Because this will be my last year living there,” Juliet replied. “I need to have a private life. Away from campus.”
Ruby couldn’t believe she had to state the obvious. “But you’re going up for tenure. It’s not the time to give up a major service commitment, especially not for an excuse like privacy.” She glanced around the circle of faces. “Am I right?”
Frances Palmer, from Biology, nodded vigorously. Almost Ruby’s age, she’d never married but had set up housekeeping with another spinster on the outskirts of town. “I second that,” Frances said. “You can enjoy your privacy after tenure.”
Juliet cast her eyes from one to the other in the circle. “It’s hard for single women. Harder than you might realize.”
Ruby glanced instinctively at Juliet’s left hand, which, as always, wore a stunning sapphire and diamond ring. She assumed Juliet had a fiancé somewhere, or that maybe, like Gen, she’d lost her man to war.
Juliet turned abruptly toward Gen, who was taking a sip of coffee. “What do you think, Gen?”
Gen returned her cup to its saucer with a tiny clink. “I might have to agree with Ruby and Frances on this,” she said. “It will look bad to give up the post, no matter how much you want to. I had to sacrifice things when I was going up for tenure so I’d look like a team player. My promotion came with a cost, for sure.” Gen leaned toward Juliet, and Ruby thought she heard her say, “We’ll talk more later.”
Ruby suspected Gen’s “cost” meant giving up membership in the local NAACP. On Ruby’s advice, Gen had begrudgingly stopped paying dues and attending meetings when she got a shot at promotion.
Juliet took in a measured breath before she spoke. “I’ll leave the subject with this,” she said. “You can’t maintain any privacy when you not only teach your students but also live with them. I bet most of you can’t even imagine it. Why, when you’re married—like you, Ruby, and most of you—you go home at night to your husbands and families and enjoy breathing room. I can tell you, that’s a privilege.”
Ruby shifted in her seat. She was unaccustomed to being contradicted, especially by an assistant professor just launching her career. With almost three decades of teaching and multiple terms on the Tenure and Privilege Committee, she understood the workings of Baines backward and forward.
In the awkward pause that followed Juliet’s statement, Darrell entered the room with a second plate of cookies. Ruby’s husband had taken up cooking after his retirement from law when she pointed out it was unfair for him to expect her to get dinner on the table after she’d worked a full day and he hadn’t. After some initial grousing, Darrell gave in and found he enjoyed the creative outlet. Recently, he had moved on to baking.
When he realized he’d stepped into an awkward discussion, Darrell apologized and withdrew quickly. “I wasn’t even here, ladies!” he said with a little bow.
“Better be careful, Ruby,” Vanessa, a music professor, said with a giggle. “You don’t want your man turning into Fenton Page.”
Silence descended on the room again, and Ruby’s face tightened. “That kind of talk is uncalled for, Vanessa. Especially with what happened to Mark.”
The mood of the gathering shifted at Mark’s name, and Ruby turned them back to Juliet’s CV. “Well, Juliet, you’ve heard our advice. Whether or not you take it is up to you. What other comments do we have for our young professor?”
There was just a smattering of remarks after that, and the meeting ended earlier than planned. Most of the women claimed they still had papers to grade or class prep to do. Gen, too, deposited her coffee cup on the buffet and prepared to leave, although she often stayed after the others had gone.
Ruby caught Gen by the elbow and whispered, “Have you seen Fenton?”
“I have. I’ll have to tell you about it later. I owe him a call.”
Ruby nodded approval. She worried about Fenton and a colleague in English, John Hiram. Of course the women’s group could never discuss the topic openly, but the threat facing some of their male colleagues hovered in the shadows.
“Please tell him to call me. We’ll have lunch soon.”
Although she wasn’t sure what compelled her, Ruby watched from the front window
