I’m about to check the hallway when I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. I push the door closed again, my heart pounding as I hold my breath, praying that it’s not his roommate. In my head I’m already making excuses as to why I’m here, alone, when the footsteps continue past this floor, up another flight, and I let my breath out. On impulse I grab a light beige beanie from the coat rack and push it down over my ears, then I put my sunglasses on.
I slip out and almost run down the stairs. I only need a minute, less, thirty seconds, and I’ll be outside. But just as I reach the last flight of stairs, someone comes into the building.
I hold my breath and keep my head down as I slip pass. I catch a flash of dark hair and the glimmer of a silver and purple ring on an index finger.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
I step out onto the sidewalk and run to my car.
Six
I shove the beanie in the glove compartment and drive off. My heart is still pounding. Every sense is heightened. Every sound is a roar. Even the breeze on my skin feels like a hurricane.
Did anybody see me? I visualize the wall opposite Alex’s window. It’s a plain brick wall, the side of an old warehouse building. No windows that I can remember. The alley is narrow, empty except for trash cans and the dumpster. He didn’t make a sound when he fell, which is possibly the strangest part. How long was I in the apartment after that? I don’t know. Two minutes? Five maybe?
I try to remember if I told anyone I was going to see Alex, but no, I don’t think so. Then I think Don’t think so isn’t good enough so I rack my brain, retrace my steps. There’s the call, of course, from this morning, but that’s not unusual.
In the parking lot back at the university, I pull out the letter, as if, somehow, that’s going to tell me something. I smooth its creases against my thigh and begin to read it again just as a loud bang above me makes my heart somersault.
“You okay, ma’am?”
It’s the attendant, or maybe a security guard: I can’t tell, but he’s wearing a uniform. I realize he tapped the roof of my car to get my attention. I wind my window down. “Yes, thank you.”
“Okay, then.”
How long have I been sitting here? I tear the letter in as many pieces as I can and grab the beanie from the glove compartment. I shove the lot in the trashcan near the elevator, then make my way upstairs, drop my things off and go to teach my next class.
I am normally a very engaged teacher. I ask questions as I go, make sure I’m not losing anyone along the way. But today, I teach the class on autopilot. I don’t even snap at Melanie—one of my brightest first years, but with an attitude problem—when she puts one leg up on the foldaway tablet arm of her chair. About a third of my class is young women, which is not unusual in the first year. They’ll fall away, though, most of them anyway, over the next three years. At the beginning of term, I usually play a mental game where I try to guess which ones will stick it out. Melanie is one of them: she’s so smart, and I really believe she loves the subjects, but she puts people off with her insolence. Especially me. She seems to have zeroed in on the fact that I’m a bit of a pushover and unconvincing in my admonitions. Whenever I tell her off—half-heartedly, as she scares me a little—she’ll double down and pop a bubble of gum moments later.
At one stage I hear her scoff something like, Hello? and I realize I haven’t said anything in a while. That’s because I heard muffled voices out in the corridor and I thought, This is it. They know. They’re going to burst in the door and announce that Alex is dead. Except it doesn’t happen and the voices move on.
I get through the rest of the class and then walk quickly to the staff room. I grab my tuna and egg salad from the fridge so that I can pretend to eat it back at my desk. I say pretend, because I don’t touch it. I can’t eat anything, let alone tuna and egg, but I tell myself that that’s what I would be doing normally. So that’s what I’m doing. I pull the lid off the Tupperware, poke at the food with my fork, close it again and shove it in the trash, container and all.
I go through my tasks during the rest of the day like I’m in suspended animation—I almost have to physically jerk myself forward at regular intervals just to keep moving. At one stage Geoff pops his head in and I think, This is really it. He says the name, Alex, but he doesn’t say, dead, and I blink in confusion.
“What did you say?”
“I was asking if Alex is doing a presentation next Tuesday for the panel…?”
I picture him lying behind the dumpster. Why hasn’t he been found yet? How long is it going to take? Or maybe he has, but no one will tell us. Could that happen? Should I say something soon? Something like, I was expecting to hear from Alex, he’s not answering my calls. I wonder if he’s all right?
“Is he?” Geoff asks again.
Post-graduate students are asked to do a presentation every three months to evaluate their progress. They’re not compulsory, but you’d have to have a good reason not to attend. Alex didn’t do the last two because by then he’d decided to switch his topic and he wasn’t ready to disclose that. We’d discussed this one, coming up, just last week.
“I can’t get you another dispensation. It’s getting awkward, but I’ll think of something,” I said at the time.
“No, let’s do it.”
“Really? Okay, but I’m surprised. I thought you didn’t want to discuss it publicly?”
He’d grinned. “I’ll present on the theta and zeta functions. That’s what everyone thinks I’m working on, anyway.”
“Oh.” I’d nodded, not hugely comfortable about this. It’s one thing to keep your work under wraps, it’s quite another to deliberately mislead the entire department.
“Do you have something new to present?”
“No.”
“So how’s that going to work?”
He paused, then he turned to me, his face bright, like he’d just thought of something. “You could do it. You could write up something in no time! It’s your field, right?”
He hadn’t just thought of it obviously. He’d known he was going to ask me. But I told him, no. In no uncertain terms. Even worse than lying to the department, it’s downright cheating. “Categorically out of the question,” I said. “And you may not have noticed this, but I’m kinda busy, Alex.”
“But don’t you see? That way, they’ll leave me alone! Otherwise they’ll start to ask questions! They’ll suspect something. Or maybe they’ll drop me from the program!”
“No, they won’t. I’m your supervisor. Only I get to drop you.” Which wasn’t strictly true. But saying no to Alex is like arguing with a particularly willful three year old. He begged, he sulked, he got angry, he pleaded, he threatened, he sulked again, and, in the end, I said yes because I just wanted the conversation to end. So I did the work. I stayed up until four in the morning to do it. I would have given myself an A+ for it, too.
Geoff clears his throat.
“Sorry. Yes. He’s confirmed that to me. He’ll be there.”
He nods. “Good. I look forward to it.” He’s about to leave but stops, turns around. “You okay?”