Myrtle stood waiting on the path the next morning still feeling a bit tired despite a good nights sleep, but also feeling quite satisfied with her breakfast of a toasted English muffin with peanut butter and jam. She had been getting tired of homemade flat breads. They’re something you don’t always think to make, she thought, and they come in handy when you can’t get out to buy bread. But a change had been in order. And as she breakfasted, she also jotted down a rather lengthy shopping list while sipping her coffee. She didn’t know how much she’d be able to pick up, but since she’d just used the last of it, coffee was right there on top.
When Fred pulled up, Myrtle climbed into the car and noticed right away that Fred was also in a rather cheerful mood. She could just feel it somehow. She had no sooner clicked her seatbelt into place when Fred gleefully bubbled that his insurance cheque had finally arrived and had been waiting for him when he got home yesterday.
"Of course, it won’t cover the total replacement cost of new furniture... insurance never does. But with the bit of rent money I’ve saved living with Mother the past three months, I ought to be able to outfit a new apartment pretty well," he enthused.
"Have you been looking for an apartment, Fred?"
"Just from the outside," he replied. "I’ve got my eye on a couple of fairly new buildings near the town limits with apartments still available in them. Would you go and look at them with me, Myrtle? You see, I’d really appreciate your help picking out my new furniture. Women are so practical about such things... and you should know what the apartment is like.. if you wouldn’t mind helping me out."
Myrtle could scarcely believe her ears. "I’d love to, Fred," she enthused. "Now, you’ll have to tell me your favourite colour and the basic kinds of things you’re looking for... oh and I think Price-Mart is having a sale on curtains and blinds next week...."
Myrtle loved to shop. It was only the realistic boundaries of her limited needs, her natural practicality, and the restrictions of her insignificant income which combined to prevent this happy pastime from blossoming into a consuming hobby. She was every bit as thrilled as Fred at the prospect of finding an apartment and furnishing it all fresh and new from scratch. By the time they entered the college grounds Myrtle had conducted a reasonably thorough investigation of Fred’s colour and taste preferences.
Fred’s favourite colour was brown, with which almost anything goes, except maybe the purples and reds... ah, but orange and yellow, thought Myrtle gleefully. And he was undecided on any of the details of just what furniture he wanted, which left the possibilities wide open. Myrtle was all aglow with the possibilities when Fred pulled to a stop in front of the Commercial Art Department.
"Anyway Myrtle, I’ve got the numbers of the building management and I’ll call today and see if I can get us an appointment for later in the week. But tonight I promised to take you grocery shopping, so I told my mother I wouldn’t be home for dinner and I thought we’d eat out, then go to the grocery store. You know, you shouldn’t shop for food on an empty stomach."
Being wrenched back into the present so abruptly like that made Myrtle feel vaguely irritable. But she stoically offered Fred a grateful smile. "I’d forgotten all about that," she confessed. "I really do need to do some grocery shopping though. Are you sure you don’t mind, Fred?"
"Positive," he grinned. "I’ll be here at about quarter of five to pick you up," he reminded her.
Once again Myrtle turned to wave after closing the car door and Fred waited until she was inside the building before continuing on his way. Pulling her work from her desk drawer she began rummaging through the top papers to remind herself what she’d wanted to tackle first.
Two hours later, having made pretty good headway on the stack of work, Myrtle was casting her eye back and forth between two memoranda. One was dated September 12 from the Records Department responding to her own earlier concern about the new computer system. The other memo was dated September 18 from the Dean’s office to Dick requesting that he deliver a critique of the computer system to one of the Dean’s committees on October 2. It was rather short notice for such a request and Myrtle wondered if there was a connection between the two memos. It wouldn’t be the first time the administration had discouraged enquiry by creating work as a sort of punishment. It was also very short notice for Myrtle to prepare the report for Dick to present, but before she did so, she wanted to know more.
She was concentrating so intensely on this problem that she failed to hear the approach of Professor Horace Dilby and was quite unaware of his presence in her office until he spoke.
"G’morning, Myrtle. Glad to see you back. Can I have an envelope?"
At the first crack of his lecturer’s voice in her ear, Myrtle started straight up in her chair. By the time he’d finished speaking, she was sitting mouth agape with a protective hand over her heart, her one eye locked into a shocked stare. Once she was reasonably certain her heart wasn’t going to stop, she slowly sagged into a normal posture. Then she reached into her drawer for the requested item and held it out to the professor. She said nothing, but offered a friendly, helpful smile as she waggled the envelope in front of him.. He seemed rather confused at the sight of it, but finally took it and, returning her smile, tottered slowly out the door as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was or where he ought to go next.
Myrtle chuckled knowingly. When she first came to Upton College she found it most disconcerting that so many of the faculty thought nothing of interrupting her concentration to ask her for some small item. So she had conscientiously supplied each of the eighteen tenured faculty members with all the little things they might conceivably need in the performance of their duties. Still, they came to her. And so Myrtle learned that there was an element of employer care in the world of academia reminiscent of babysitting. It was never the students who were the problem. All 370 of them in her department tried hard to be grown up and were no trouble at all. But the faculty had apparently abandoned this charming, youthful pretense and had reverted to behaviour similar to that exhibited at their mother’s knee at the approximate age of eight. And so Myrtle did her best to look after them.
Still smiling, she shook her head and glanced down once again at the Dean’s memorandum. What she’d been seeking jumped instantly from the page in the two words "clerical complaint." She realized suddenly that it wasn’t her own minor complaint which had prompted the Dean to demand a report from Dick. It was that secretary who’d been so nasty. The administrative decision she’d wanted from Dick must have had something to do with the computer system and she must have complained to the Dean when it wasn’t forthcoming. Myrtle was livid. "Bless Professor Dilby," she murmured, vaguely wondering if the poor man had remembered yet why he’d wanted the envelope.
Actually, Horace Dilby hadn’t needed an envelope at all. He was a teacher of many years tenure who had simply come to dread his own classes in Drawing the Human Figure. While he’d explored different methods over the years, the basic principles of drawing never changed. The human figure never changed. The endless sea of youthful faces yawning and munching snack food throughout his lectures and demonstrations never changed. Sometimes the poor man just needed to gaze upon a smiling human face which had nothing whatever to do with his actual classes, and though no one had ever accused Myrtle of being pretty, he had decided that she possessed the very face he was craving. Over the past two and a half years it became routine for Professor Dilby to wander into the administrative office at regular intervals. He only wanted a glimpse of Myrtle’s smiling face. But right from the beginning he had recognized that it just wasn’t dignified for a man in his position to loiter in the administrative office with no apparent purpose. Hence, his habit of requesting some small item Myrtle was sure to have handy. And since Myrtle generally proffered the requested item in concert with a friendly smile, his strategy worked to perfection.
This day found Professor Dilby wandering distractedly down the hallway debating with himself whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday. It made a notable difference in the time and location of the class he was reasonably certain was imminent and for which he was responsible. Spying a set of washrooms to his right as he toddled along, he abandoned his debate with himself for the moment and entered the door marked "men." Only when he was inside did he discover the envelope still in his hand, and as it had no practical value to his immediate needs, he simply deposited it in the washroom waste can.
Meanwhile, satisfied that she now had the clue she’d been searching for, Myrtle was prepared to begin Dick’s report, but it was going to have to wait till after lunch. During the morning, Winnifred Rodwell, the Resource Librarian in the department, had invited Myrtle to lunch with her and Myrtle was looking forward to the chance to catch up with her friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment