Art: Lucy by Johnbel Mahautiere
HOT
“Good, you got here on time,” a voice said from behind Julia. She turned to see what must be the quintessential Geek U grad—short, dressed in a rumpled button-down shirt with a mismatched tie, rounded shoulders, black, heavy-rimmed bifocals covering beady gray eyes, a face that didn’t look to need shaving more than once a week, prematurely gray hair thinning on the crown, and, of course, a pocket protector sporting two pens and two mechanical pencils. Julia stuck out her hand to Conrad Jenkins, the WITSI-ALA assistant vice-president for programmatic initiatives and outreach; he didn’t shake it. He was ten minutes late.
“The equipment that goes with these wires arrives this afternoon,” he said, pointing to the spider-web of wires running from underneath the empty folding tables bordering three of the conference room walls of the Wahrberg Institute for Technology Studies and Informatics Transferential Meditation Centre. “You’ll need to have it all set up by tomorrow afternoon.”
“What kind of equipment?” Julia said.
“Didn’t you get the handout? I left a folder for you with the work study program.”
“What handout?” Julia said. “They told me the manager was out with the flu. The student assistant manning the office just said to come here at 10 AM.”
“Look, we can’t screw this up. The Chairman’s put up a lot of money from Mrs. Wahrberg’s Foundation to kick off the campaign to become a real university.”
“My admission materials said this place was an accredited institution of higher learning.” Julia wondered about her student loan.
“Oh, we’re accredited, all right, as a technical college.” He made a sour face. “Geek U, you know.” Julia tried to nod knowingly. “That’s where the ALA comes in; you probably didn’t see that in your admissions materials, did you?” Julia shook her head. “ALA, a liberal art.”
“Just one?”
“Our consent decree with the Justice Department forces us to avoid even the appearance of overselling the breadth of our academic diversity. Now we have a liberal art, transferential meditation.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“Don’t confuse transferential meditation with transcendental. Ours is cutting edge stuff. It’s going to put us on the liberal arts map. Why in no time we’ll have English majors, art history, maybe sociology. I don’t know how those kids are going to pay off their loans, but we will be a real university, and the Mrs. Wahrberg will be happy.”
“What’s the difference between transferential and transcendental meditation?” Julia said.
“Damned if I know, but our new superstar Meditation Centre director, Dr. Franklin Bottomswold, plans to kick some meditative butt, starting tomorrow, when the other meditative types show up for MED-COMP I. Everybody’s going to be hooked up to all the latest techno-gizmos to measure heart rate, EEGs, respiration, galvanic skin response, core temperature, REMs, the whole nine yards,” Jenkins said.
“What are they trying to prove?” Julia said.
“Last year, back at his old university, Dr. Bottomswold got into a hospital bed next to a patient who’d been comatose for a couple of weeks due to a car accident, and three doctors, including a neurologist, couldn’t tell, from the monitors hooked up to the patient and Dr. Bottomswold, who was comatose and who was meditating.”
“And that’s good?” Julia said.
“Well, yeah.” Jenkins looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting in a couple of minutes. Go back to the work study office and find the folder I sent over. Then come back here and wait for the equipment to arrive so you can hook it up to all of these wires. Before lunch Dharma Discount Supplies will be delivering a dozen zafu-zabuton sets for the contestants. Make sure the gold set goes in the middle in the back; that’s where Bottonswold’s going to meditate—that spot’s got the best aura, but don’t tell anybody I said that.”
Jenkins rushed off to his meeting, leaving Julia wondering how long she would be able to keep this work study position that made it financially feasible for her to attend Geek U.
“Close the door, please, Julia,” Edith Fuchs said. “I need some advice. I know you’re only a student, but you’re older, you’ve been around. I saw on your transcript you attended Maguire University for two years. You were probably in a sorority.”
“Kappa Eta Sigma,” Julia said.
“The Party House, even better,” Edith said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that you have some experience dealing with conflicts in romantic relationships.”
Julia was surprised. She wouldn’t have imagined Edith having a romantic relationship. She’d been working for Edith at the Computer-Assisted Design Lab of Wahrberg Institute for Technology Studies and Informatics since losing her work study assignment at the Transferential Meditation Centre, where she had fried an expensive EEG monitor by mistakenly plugging it into a sound amplifier—it wasn’t a big deal; there were several no-shows at the first international meditation competition, so the EEG wasn’t needed.
Edith put the d’s in dowdy. She was forty going on eighty. Her figure, what you could see of it under the loose-fitting brown clothing, in shades varying anywhere from tan to coffee, appeared to be cylindrical. Her hair was always in a bun. Her eyes, brown—what else?—hid behind a pair of wire-rimmed granny spectacles. No lipstick, no make-up, no earrings. She arrived at work before sunrise and left after sunset. Her face was so pale, it probably hadn’t been exposed to the sun in the current century. There must be some aging computer nerd somewhere pining for her.
Edith sipped from a china teacup, seeming to steady herself. “Part of the reason I decided to talk with you specifically, is that you have some experience with the offending party.” That was a bit of a curve ball. Julia hadn’t been dating or even hanging out anyone at WITSI during the fall semester. She was going to tell Edith this, but decided to wait.
“It just seems so improbable that this person has developed an interest, well, maybe more than an interest, something more like an obsession with me,” Edith said. “I can’t explain it to myself.”
“Who are we talking about?” Julia said.
“All right, now, I am telling you this in the strictest confidence. I mean, it just can’t get around,” Edith said. “You promise?”
“Sure.” Julia secretly pinched her thigh. This was too weird. It must be a dream.
“It’s Franklin Bottomswold.”
Julia pinched harder. For sure, it was a dream. She flashed back to the Meditation Competition I. Even distracted over shorting out the EEG machine, she had been enthralled by Franklin Bottomswold. What would a person expect a meditation guru to look like? An aging, emaciated twerp with a big nose and a scraggy beard. Franklin Bottomswold was an Adonis; late thirties, a buff body that spent plenty of time in the gym, an almost baby face with a radiant smile and smooth voice. But what really got Julia’s engine started was his appearance at the competition. He wore a long, flowing diaphanous cream colored robe. When he went to the golden zabuton in the center of the conference room, he raised his arms and spread his legs in preparation for sitting. The backlighting showed through the robe, revealing all of his equipment; he was meditating commando.
Julia was disappointed when she was reassigned to the CAD lab at the end of the competition, which Bottomswold had won by a wide margin: his beta 1 – theta ratio was under 0.2, nobody else even made it to 0.3. She went to see him the next week, in the outfit she wore when she was a cocktail waitress, ostensibly to apologize for frying the EEG machine, but actually to get her assignment back. Julia couldn’t get a rise out of Bottomswold; she even tried crying over the damaged circuitry, she put her hand on his, but nothing worked. It was out of his hands, he said, as he slid his hand away.
“You’re shittin’ me,” Julia said. Edith pushed back in her chair, nearly falling over before grabbing onto the top of her desk. Edith turned white, then red.
“I’m not accustomed to that kind of language, Julia.”
“Sorry, Ms. Fuchs. I didn’t mean, I was so surprised. I mean, Dr. Bottomswold and you, it’s so, well, you know, he’s quite a bit younger, not that you’re so old, but, well, frankly, I thought he was gay.” Julia was sweating now. She wanted to stop talking but was afraid of what would happen if she did. Crap, another reassignment. She was just getting used to the CAD lab, hadn’t shorted anything out in weeks, she was learning stuff that would let her make some real money without putting the cocktail waitress outfit on again. Finally, she put her hands over her face and peeked through her fingers at Edith.
“Well, frankly I had much the same reaction,” Edith said, “although I expressed it with more decorum. I am simply not used to, really even comfortable with the romantic attentions of men, certainly never one of Dr. Bottomswold’s age and attractiveness.”
Julia didn’t want to say anything. Everything that came into her mind seemed like a potential landmine. She could nod. That would be safe. She nodded.
“It started shortly after Dr. Bottomswold arrived. There was that meditation competition, the idea of which I frankly found offensive, and then Mrs. Wahrberg hosted a reception for all WITSI administrators to introduce Dr. Bottomswold and the beginning of the whole university thing, which I found to be quite demeaning, like those of us who have been working here since the beginning, who put WITSI on the map as place to learn real skills that can get you a job, we’re just second class to somebody with a useless advanced degree who can tell a sonnet from a haiku.”
Julia kept nodding her head to keep from having to say anything, even though she did pretty much agreed with Edith.
“So we were milling around. I was drinking soda water, because alcohol makes me dizzy. I had a nice quiet corner where nobody was bothering me, when I see Dr. Bottomswold staring at me from across the room. He wasn’t smiling or anything. He had no expression on his face at all. I thought maybe it was some kind of meditation thing, and he wasn’t really looking at me. So I moved to another corner. Well, his eyes followed me the whole way. I didn’t know what to do. I started sweating. My blouse was getting stained. I put down my drink and rushed into the ladies room.”
Julia had to say something. “How long did you stay in there?”
“Oh, maybe ten, fifteen minutes. Shirley from Accounting came back in after me. She wanted to know if I was sick. I didn’t know what to say. I said I was constipated, which is usually true, although that night, maybe because of the crab puffs…”
Julia didn’t want to go there. “And was he waiting for you when you came out.”
“Why, yes, he was.”
“What did you do then?” Julia said.
“My legs were wobbly, so I decided to leave. When I got to my car, I looked back, and he was staring out the window at me. I had an awful time getting to sleep that night. I overslept and didn’t wake up until the sun came through the window. I was forty-five minutes late for work.”
“What happened then?” Julia said.
“Oh, I was lucky. I had everything ready from the night before, so the lab was set up when the students arrived.”
“No, I meant with Dr. Bottomswold.”
“Right, then things got really creepy. Three days later, I got an envelope in the mail. I’d never seen the return address before. The envelope contained a DVD with a single word written on it, ‘please.’”
“You didn’t open it, did you?” Julia said.
“I did, but I disconnected my Ethernet connection and put the computer in safe mode.”
“What was on the video?”
“Eyes.”
“Whose eyes?” Julia said.
“Dr. Bottomswold’s eyes, I’m pretty sure. It was just a video of staring eyes. The video was black and white, so I couldn’t tell the eye color, but they looked like the eyes I remembered from the reception.”
“So, what are you going to do about it? Talk to him?” Julia said.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’d be too embarrassed.” Edith was wringing her hands. “I’d just like him to stop harassing me.”
“I don’t know if staring would really constitute harassment,” Julia said, thinking back to the time the assistant manager of the Jolly Roger Grill slipped his hand up her skirt and had her panties down to her knees before she could clock him with a service tray—and she was the one who ended up looking for a new job. “Maybe you should wait to see if anything else happens before you make a complaint.”
“Oh, all right,” Edith said. “You’re so much more experienced than me in these romantic situations, not that I’m implying that you’re loose or anything.”
“Of course,” Julia said.
Two weeks later, Julia came to the CAD lab for her shift and found Edith staring out the window at the parking lot. She was trembling.
“Are you all right?” Julia said.
Edith turned toward her. She looked terror struck. “He stalked me at the Biff’s Gym this morning.”
“What happened?”
“I was on elliptical number 7. I like that one because you can watch the TV with CNN but it’s still off to the side a bit. I’m ready to start the uphill portion of the workout, when I look to the left and there is Dr. Bottomswold on the rowing machine staring at me. I pretended I didn’t see him, but I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my neck. He was undressing me with his eyes, I could feel it.”
“Did he come over and say anything to you?” Julia said.
“He didn’t have to. His eyes said it all.” Edith put her face in her hands. “I’m at my wit’s end. I’ve got to do something”
“What happened after you got off the elliptical?”
“The same. He followed me with his eyes into the locker room. When I came out, he was on my elliptical. His eyes followed me out to the car. I was so nervous, I almost backed into another car on the way out.”
“Biff’s Gym offers a discount to WITSI faculty and students. It makes sense that Dr. Bottomswold would be there,” Julia said, flashing back to Dr. Bottomswold in his diaphanous robe at the meditation competition. “He keeps himself in pretty good shape.”
“Why haven’t I seen him there before?”
“He might have just joined the Gym, or had to change his schedule. He’s only been here a semester and a half,” Julia said. “What are you thinking about doing?”
“I am going to file a complaint. I have to stop the harassment.”
“Don’t you have a friend here at the Institute who could maybe talk with Dr. Bottomswold about the staring? He might just be queer?”
“No, a gay man would not be undressing me with his eyes,” Edith said.
“I meant, maybe he’s odd or weird. He might stare at other people when you’re not around.”
“Oh, I see what you mean.” Edith hesitated. “I don’t really have any friends, besides you.”
Oh, shit! What have I done to myself? “Ah, well, I mean, I’m a student. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me…”
“No, you’d be perfect. If I go to anyone in the administration, it’s bound to get back to Mrs. Wahrberg, and who knows what might happen then. The way she’s been fawning over Dr. Bottomswold with this whole university thing, why I am the one who could end up losing my job.”
Unfortunately, there was a certain distorted logic in what Edith was saying, and Julia hadn’t completely given up hope that Bottomswold might eventually find her interesting.
Julia had several friends from her business software class who were taking Dr. Bottomswold’s Introduction to Transferential Meditation. The class was ninety minutes long, and after a brief pep talk at the beginning, Julia’s friends, mostly married women or single moms who were working and taking classes at the same time, got a good seventy minutes of sleep. At the end of class, they told of their meditative experience, repeating the comments they’d found on the TfM Practitioner Blog. Julia learned that Bottomswold held office hours on Thursday mornings from 8:50 to 10:10 AM, and he complained about no one ever showing up for them. Julia tapped on the office door.
“Dr. Bottomswold, do you remember me?”
“Sure, Julie. You ruined some of Mr. Jenkins’ rental equipment at our inaugural conference.” He nodded. “The crier.”
Maybe the crying gambit hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.
“I’m working over at the CAD lab with Ms. Fuchs. I haven’t damaged any electronics since the conference.”
“Ah, La Divina Edythe,” he said, smiling. “Please give her my regards.”
“Actually, that’s why I’m here.”
“Edythe sent you? ¡Que Esplendido! Please sit down.”
“You know I am just a student, but because I knew you from before, Ms. Fuchs asked me to talk with you about the staring.”
“Staring?”
“Yes, she says that on several occasions, starting with the Mrs. Wahrberg’s reception, she noticed you were staring at her. And other places, here on campus, and at the gym.”
“Yes, it is true, but how could I not stare? Such beauty!”
Okay, what to say now? Edith is a dog, why are you staring? There must be a good way to put it.
“Ms. Fuchs dresses very modestly and is unassuming in her appearance. She is not used to men paying so much attention to her looks. It makes her uncomfortable.”
“I’m not staring at her body. I am gazing into her soul, her inner beauty. It is maravillosa, no?”
“Oh, well, you know, we have a very professional relationship, what with all the new software, keeping the viruses at bay, why I don’t get to do many heart-to-hearts with Ms. Fuchs.”
“Your loss,” he said. “It was nice to see you’re doing well after your rocky start here.” He leaned back in his chair and picked up a book, Muraqaba: The Art and Science of Sufi Meditation. Julia remained seated, not knowing what to say next. “These are my office hours, I have to keep them open for meditation students,” he said.
Julia couldn’t go back to Edith without some kind of resolution. “So you will stop staring at Ms. Fuchs?”
“Can an ornithologist not gaze upon a beautiful bird?” he said.
“Well, maybe not, but the ornithologist wouldn’t get so close as to scare the bird away either.”
“True. Why don’t we meet for lunch?”
“Sure, I am free this afternoon.”
“Not you, La Divina Edythe. And tomorrow, our day off, at the Sumatra Kitchen, twelve-thirty. Does she like vegetarian?”
“I’m not sure. Around the lab, she is always nibbling on carrot sticks and nuts, so maybe. But I am not sure she will agree to come, since she’s nervous about the staring.”
“Can’t you convince her of my lofty intentions?”
“I only worked with you for one day.”
“You should have enrolled in the meditation course.” He sighed. “All right, you come too.”
“Where?”
“To lunch.”
“The three of us? Won’t that be awkward?”
“Yes, but you will sit at the counter by yourself. La Divina Edythe and I will take the booth next to the koi pond.” Julia was not smiling. “It will be my treat.”
“All right, I’ll ask her and send you an email about her response.”
“I don’t relate well to computers. Perhaps La Divina Edythe will change my attitude about them. Bring me back a handwritten note, a note from her. I want something her hand has touched.”
“Okay.” This was getting really creepy. After three and a half hours of agonizing, Julia was back with Edith’s handwritten acceptance.
Julia definitely had something better to do than shadow Edith on what was likely her first date since, well, since ever, probably. She thought she might have to slap Edith’s face to calm her down after she explained Dr. Bottomswold’s date invitation. She was like a twelve year old, and not a particularly mature one—giddy, anxious, distraught, catatonic, all in about two minutes, and then she would cycle though it again. You’d have thought Edith was the girl who got kicked off the cheerleader squad and then was invited to the prom by the captain of the football team.
Julia had been a cheerleader, went to both the junior and senior proms with the star of the basketball team. She was one of the cool kids. Back then she would have ridiculed Edith relentlessly. Then came college, and frat parties, and waking up in a strange bed and not knowing where your clothes were or how you got there. By sophomore year, Julia had had enough of the meat market and dropped out.
As long as she kept her cheerleader looks, she’d never have a problem finding waitressing jobs at fancy restaurants with good tips, but her old friends were all off in graduate school or getting married or starting careers. Where the hell was she going with her life? She’d always been pretty good at math, better than her grades suggested; cool girls couldn’t be math geeks. More than half way to thirty, Julia didn’t care anymore if guys thought she was a geek. She didn’t mind being celibate most of the time. If she developed an itch, it was easy enough to pick up a guy in a bar to scratch it.
But Julia wanted to keep her job at the CAD lab, so she resigned herself to being Edith’s dating mentor. She went home with Edith to pick out an outfit that had a color other than brown. She loaned Edith a mauve scarf with oriental designs, something a meditation guy should like. She found in the back of the closet the pair of black pumps Edith said she wore to her father’s funeral. They stopped off at Walgreens on the way home to pick up some lipstick and makeup. She loaned Edith some styling gel to put a little bit of wave in her hair. The whole makeover moved Edith’s appearance out of dreary into drab. That was the best Julia could do in one afternoon.
Saturday morning Julia got a call at 7 AM. Edith was too nervous to drive. Could Julia come by to pick her up at eleven-thirty? Yes, she knew it was only a ten minute drive to the restaurant, but she didn’t want to be late. Julia tried to slow things down by arriving five minutes late, but then they spent the next twenty minutes going over possible wardrobe changes. Edith had to go to the bathroom, twice, and then they left, parking in front of the Easy Print’n’Copy, two storefronts down from the Sumatra Kitchen, where they could monitor the parking lot for Dr. Bottomswold’s yellow Peugeot.
“I don’t want to go in early and be waiting for him,” Edith said. “I’ll look desperate.” Julia just nodded. What could she say? Edith looked like a starving puppy waiting for the food bowl to be put on the floor. Edith fidgeted while they waited. Bottomswold was three minutes late. Just as he was opening the restaurant door, he turned toward Julia’s car and stared for a few moments. Edith ducked her head down. She was trembling. Two minutes passed.
“Okay, let’s go,” Edith said. So much for not looking desperate. Once out of the car, Edith grabbed Julia’s hand and wouldn’t let go until they reached the door. “I’ll go first,” she said. Julia waited. Inside Julia saw Bottomswold wave a maroon handkerchief at Edith; she rushed over, nearly bumping into a busboy carrying dishes. Julia found a stool at the end of the counter. It was about twenty feet away from Edith and faced in the opposite direction, but because of the wall mirror she could see the booth where Edith and Bottomswold were seated. Unfortunately, Edith’s back was to Julia, and the nearby koi pond had a small fountain making a bubbling noise so that Julia couldn’t overhear anything that was said. Bottomswold knew what he was doing. How many other women had he brought here?
Julia was unsure how long Edith would be willing to sit with Bottomswold, so when the waitress came around for her order she decided on an appetizer. She chose the Bakwan Jagung, a fried fritter made from corn. The appetizer was excellent, but by the time it arrived, it appeared Edith and Bottomswold were just getting started. Julia asked the waitress, “I’m the driver for the lady over by the koi pond. I wondered how long their meal might take.”
“Oh, they ordered the lunch Rijsttafel,” she said. Julia looked confused. “It means Rice Table. The dinner version here has 26 items, but the pescatarian lunch Rijsttafel only has twelve dishes: Gado-gado – vegetables with peanut sauce, Krupuk – shrimp crackers, Lumpia Semarang – fried spring rolls, Nasi goreng – fried rice, Nasi kuning – Indonesian yellow rice, Perkedel – seafood and potato patties, Pisang goreng – banana fritters, Sambal iris – onion, tomato and chilli pasta, Satay Lilit – sliced seafood, marinated then broiled on a skewer, Serundeng – peanuts with sautéed shredded coconut, Tahu telur – tofu omelette, Telur balado – hard-boiled eggs sautéed in chilli sauce, Sayur lodeh – spicy vegetable stew in coconut milk, Lemper – rice rolls with spicy filling.” The waitress smiled, seeming very satisfied with ability to recite the entire Rijsttafel menu from memory.
“Oh, God. How long does that take to prepare?” Julia said.
“Most of the dishes are prepared in advance, so not long,” the waitress said. “But they are served in a particular sequence. Usually, the meal takes a couple of hours to finish.”
Julia could see Bottomswold’s reflection in the mirror. The first dishes had arrived, and it looked like he was giving Edith a little lecture on them. He took her fork and picked up some food for her to taste, after which Edith nodded her head. It was going to be a long lunch, and Julia had promised Edith she wouldn’t leave without her. Julia ordered another appetizer, the Tempe Goreng, some kind of fried bean cake. It was pretty good.
Lunch dragged on and on and on. Julia watched Edith’s back. She was talking, moving her arms, sometimes it looked like she was giggling, then putting her hand over her mouth. It was awful, like watching a couple of teenagers on their first date. In the meantime, Julia was working her way through the appetizer menu. Next came the Empek Empek Palembang, a fried fish cake with egg in spicy vinegar. Julia had to order another Susu Kacang, soybean milk, to deal with the heat. Then she tried the Siomay Bandung, a fish cake, chicken dumpling, tofu potato, cabbage and egg in a milder spicy peanut sauce. After all this food, she had to make a trip to the restroom.
On the way back to the counter, Julia took the opportunity to detour around the lunch buffet table in order to get a direct look at Edith. While Bottomswold was blathering on about something Julia couldn’t hear, Edith sat across from him, her mouth open, looking like a lovesick puppy. Julia remembered being awestruck and gullible like that, back when she was a freshman at Maguire U and got introduced to the officers of the Omega Theta Rho Fraternity. Next day she woke naked in the treasurer’s bed, her bra and panties in the vice-president’s room, and her skirt, blouse and sandals in the president’s room, with a terrible headache and no memory of the night before. Okay, Bottomswold wasn’t likely to slip Edith a roofie, but when you’re dumbstruck you’ll probably do something dumb.
Finally, the waitress brought out a pot of tea and an unusual-looking layer cake—dessert, the end was in sight. Oh, God, they were sharing the cake, just like the old married couples Julia used to serve at the Jolly Roger Grill. She ordered a cup of coffee for herself. Just out of curiosity, she asked the waitress if there were any server openings at the Sumatra Kitchen. Yes, turns out she was moving in with her boyfriend who lived out in East Southfield; it was too much of a commute. How were the tips? Okay, if you got the evening shift Thursday through Saturday. Weekday lunch shift not so good. Did she want an application? The manager was in the back. Julia said she would think about it. Then somebody touched Julia’s arm.
“I’m ready,” Edith said.
Wait. “Where’s Dr. Bottomswold?” Julia said. He hadn’t picked up Julia’s lunch check.
“Oh, he was late for a meditation session. He paid the bill on his way out.”
Julia owed twenty-six fifty for lunch. She left a ten and a twenty for the waitress. Not much of a tip, but she was just a work-study student.
Edith sighed a few times but didn’t say much on the way back home. Julia didn’t want to know and didn’t ask. Julia stopped her car in front of Edith’s condo. Edith sighed again and then handed Julia a key.
“You didn’t finish installing the new anti-virus software on the computers in the overflow room yesterday. Here’s the CAD lab key. Why don’t you run over there right now and finish up. Drop the key off on your way back home.” Edith gave Julia a dreamy smile that showed she was oblivious to the daggers coming out of Julia’s eyes. Julia took the key and drove away. In the rear view mirror, she could see Edith walking a crooked line up to her door, in a total daze, drunk with puppy love. Julia was going to enjoy it when Edith fell off her cloud.
It was nearly the end of the spring semester, and Julia was way behind on her class projects because she had been working overtime, unpaid, at the CAD Lab, ever since Edith fell in love with Dr. Franklin Bottomswold. Just a few months ago, Edith was well on her way to an early spinsterhood, a couple of decades before she would have been eligible for Social Security. For some reason, Franklin Bottomswold, who could easily have made a career as a magazine model for advertisements selling meditation apparel and accessories, became enchanted with Edith’s inner beauty, notwithstanding her drab exterior, and was now engaged in a full blown love affair with the Lab Director. Since the initiation of the affair, Julia had been spending an inordinate amount of time at the CAD lab, not because her duties had expanded, but because, by virtue of her previous experience as a high school cheerleader, prom queen runner up and college sorority sister in a notorious party house, she had been pressed into service as a full-time dating coach for the romantically inept Edith.
Friday morning, Edith, who in her early spinsterhood had always arrived at the Lab before sunrise, strolled in five minutes late, and something about her looked strange, wrong. Julia wasn’t sure what it was until Edith removed her jacket—Edith had boobs, Dolly Parton boobs; they weren’t there when she’d left the Lab on Thursday afternoon. Julia wanted to say something, like ‘holy shit,’ but she kept her mouth shut. Edith would explain, eventually, without being asked. Edith sashayed around her desk a few times, sighing heavily, heaving her enhanced chest, but Julia wouldn’t bite. Finally Edith ambled over toward Julia’s bench. Julia kept her eyes on the screen of the computer whose malware protection she was updating.
“Notice anything different?” Edith said.
“Falsies?” Julia said. Edith frowned, then huffed a little and went back to her desk.
“I thought Franklin might like them?”
“Has he been staring at your breasts?” Julia said.
“No, that’s what’s got me worried,” Edith said “He doesn’t stare like he used to. That’s why I have been trying all those new clothes and beauty products.”
Before the romance, Edith’s wardrobe consisted of clothing in fifty shades of brown, from beige to bistre, all formless and loose fitting. Early in the romance Edith experimented with different shades of green. Then came the blue period, followed by some pinks and yellows, and lately red, orange and even purple garments began to appear. Julia wondered how much of her retirement nest egg Edith had squandered on her increasing garish wardrobe; she never wore a garment again after the week of its first appearance.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Julia said. “Dr. Bottomswold was attracted to you back when your clothes didn’t show many of your physical attributes.” That was putting it nicely, Edith didn’t have any physical attributes to display.
“I’m sorry to keep putting all this on you,” Edith said. “But you are such an attractive woman. I see the male students watching you when you’re walking around the Lab. They ask you for help when they don’t need it, so you’ll bend over to look at their screens.”
That’s not all the horny little bastards would do when they got Julia within touching distance. But it was true, Julia never had any problem getting guys to stare at her, except for Franklin Bottomswold, who never showed any signs of interest.
“I don’t think Dr. Bottomswold has quite the same preferences as most of the younger male students who use the Lab. I might not be a good role model for you to follow,” Julia said.
“I’ve been trying everything, but we seem to be drifting apart.” Edith looked down at her falsies. “That’s what these are about. If Franklin likes the way I look, I’m going to get real ones.”
“Real ones?”
“You know, breast implants. I’m considering soy oil, because Franklin is into natural, unprocessed food.”
“Oh, dear,” Julia said.
“And I’m thinking of buttocks enhancement,” Edith said. “The surgeon is a little reluctant about doing both at the same time.”
“That sounds like a big step,” Julia said
“Of course, you’d say that.” There was a flash of anger in Edith’s voice. “My god, you’ve got the chest of a porn star.”
It was true; Julia had the kind of knockers that guys on spring break were willing to spill a whole pitcher of beer to see in a wet shirt contest. It was exciting the first couple of times, but the wet clothes and torn tee shirts and drunken hands got old pretty fast. And the morning after, there was the hangover and the sore crotch courtesy of a guy who couldn’t even remember your name, or you his.
“Don’t you think you should talk to Dr. Bottomswold about this?” Julia said.
“He doesn’t want to talk. He just wants to meditate. He says everything we need to say will come from inside.” Edith was near tears. “He bought me one of those zabuton things. But when we sit down, he’s asleep in an instant, and I am sitting there, my mind racing. I want to explode. He tells me to be patient. That if I relax and concentrate, it will come. I’m going crazy.”
“I’m sorry.” Julia was sorry. For the last month she had been angry and frustrated by Edith’s parade of needy requests about clothing and makeup and dating behavior. It wasn’t just irritating because of the interruptions at work. Julia’s romantic life was more dismal than Edith’s. She had no boyfriend; she hadn’t had one since high school. Once she started to look hot, she attracted guys who were interested in her looks. She went along with it; she had some fun—if fun was getting screwed on a regular basis by inebriated jocks. Now, every guy she met was just a dick in need of release. Maybe there wasn’t enough beneath her surface to attract a guy whose sole interest was something other than getting laid? She was sorry for Edith, in spite of all her annoyances, because it looked like she’d taken a different path to the same dead end that Julia found herself in.
“I don’t think you should do something as drastic as surgery without really talking it out with Dr. Bottomswold.”
“Oh, shut up,” Edith said. “I should have never listened to you in the first place. All the advice you’ve given me, where has it gotten me? I’m losing him.” Now she was crying. She ran out of the Lab, and Julia didn’t see her for the rest of the morning.
Julia had the afternoon off and spent the rest of the day and the entire weekend finishing up her semester projects.
Monday morning when Julia arrived at the Lab, Edith was back at her desk, flat-chested, dressed in an uncoordinated mishmash of blue, pink and yellow period clothing. Julia avoided contact, not sure what was happening, until she read in the Weekly Circuit staff e-newsletter that Dr. Bottomswold was the keynote speaker at the Third International Transferential Meditation Conference being held at the Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune, India. Edith should have gone along with him. Maybe they could have sorted things out?
Edith had little to say until just before Julia was getting ready to leave for her Database Systems Design class.
“Can you do an extra shift on Wednesday afternoon?” Edith said.
“I have my accounting final on Thursday morning.”
“You can study here. Just keep an eye on the Lab while I’m gone.”
It wasn’t like Edith to be absent from the Lab during an exam week.
“I guess so. Is everything all right?”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be back Thursday morning.”
“You’re not going through with the surgery are you? While Dr. Bottomswold is away?”
“It’s no concern of yours. Professor Smithburg will be subbing for me tomorrow. I’ll see you on Thursday.”
With her class starting, Julia couldn’t stay to argue. Back in her apartment after class, Julia debated what to do. Edith was an adult. She could make her own decisions. But when it came to Bottomswold and romance, she was more like a teenager, an immature one, capable of making a stupid decision that would ruin the rest of her life. This was crazy—thinking like the parent of your supervisor who was old enough to be your parent. Still she’d feel terrible if something went wrong with the surgery. Julia tossed and turned in bed all night. Finally, at 3 a.m. she emailed Bottomswold.
“Edith is planning on having cosmetic surgery while you are in India to make herself more attractive to you. Please call her if you think this is a mistake.”
It was probably a meaningless gesture. Bottomswold didn’t do email, as far as she knew, but she didn’t know any other way to contact him. He didn’t appear to have a cell phone, and it probably wouldn’t work in India anyway.
There was no news of Edith until Thursday morning. Julia came to the Lab after her accounting final to find Assistant Vice President Jenkins sitting at Edith’s desk.
“Thank God you finally showed up,” he said.
“I had a final exam this morning,” Julia said.
“Any more exams today?” he said. Julia shook her head no. “Great, you’re in charge. Don’t forget to lock up a six.”
Wonderful. She was stuck here all day with no lunch. Maybe one of the horny little Lab rats who were always ogling her would buy her something at the student union.
No Edith on Friday. On Monday the summer session began. Julia had a couple of classes in the morning, and stopped at the cafeteria for an early lunch so she wouldn’t get caught without food again. She arrived at the CAD Lab around 11:30, and Edith was there.
“Hello. How are you feeling?” Julia said. Edith was back in her brown, formless wardrobe, so Julia couldn’t tell if there were any enhancements.
“Fine.” She didn’t sound fine, she sounded like she was in pain. “But I am going to take the afternoon off. Can you close up?”
“Sure.”
Edith got up from her chair, slowly. She had been sitting on one of those donut cushions people use when they have hemorrhoids. She lifted up the three-ring binder of software update information to put back on the top shelf of her bookcase. Halfway up she winced and grunted.
“Would you mind putting this away for me?” Edith said. Julia nodded. Edith moved slowly around her desk, holding onto the edges as she went.
“Do you need any help?” Julia said.
“You’ve helped enough.” There was anger in Edith’s eyes. Julia was going to say something, when four students came through the door of the Lab, interrupting the moment. It was the gang of horny little bastards who were constantly ogling Julia and asking for help they didn’t need. They grinned at her and sat down in a group together.
Julia sat down at Edith’s desk and logged in. Edith made her way slowly toward the door and stopped to rest, panting. One of the horny little bastards went over to talk to her; maybe they weren’t so bad after all. He took Edith’s arm and led her toward the door. A notice flashed up on the computer screen; a Skype message from the Ohso International Meditation Resort. Julia clicked on ‘Accept.’ In front of the screen was the most beautiful Asian woman Julia had ever seen.
“My name is Sheelu Unmatta Probodhi. I am being the assistant to the Goza Doctor Franklin Bottomswold of the United States of America. He is being here next to me to be speaking to the Edith Fuchs.”
“Wait,” Julia yelled at Edith, who was already out the door. “Go bring Ms. Fuchs back,” Julia yelled to one of the three remaining horny little bastards. Julia turned back to see the screen shift to Bottomswold’s face.
“I’m sorry. She’s had the surgery. She seems to be in a lot of pain.” Bottomswold’s face sagged. “She was on her way out. I sent a student to get her, but she’s not moving very quickly.” Edith came back through the door. She hobbled over to the computer screen, put down her donut and sat with a wince.
“Franklin, are you having a good time over there?”
Sheelu Unmatta Probodhi stuck her head into the field of view of the camera. “The Doctor Bottomswold is being the most wonderful of meditation guides. The guests are cheering his every session.” Her smile seemed to cover the whole screen. Edith’s face froze, as though someone were about to apply a meringue pie to it.
“Thank you, Sheelu, for setting up the computer. I will see you back in class,” Bottomswold said.
Sheelu looked very disappointed. The horny little bastards who had assembled themselves behind Edith were making the ‘hot chick’ sign to each other and snickering.
“Back to your work stations,” Julia told them. She moved away from Edith’s desk to give her some privacy, but she could still hear the conversation.
“Edith, what have you done to yourself?” Bottomswold said.
“Wait until you get back,” Edith said. “You will be happy with the way I look.”
“I don’t care how you look on the outside. It’s your soul I care about.”
Edith began to cry. She was trying to speak, but couldn’t get anything out. Julia came over to comfort her, but Edith brushed her hand away.
“Maybe you could talk when Edith is feeling better,” Julia said to the screen. Edith got up quickly, grunting. “I’ll try to set up a time,” Julia said, sitting down in Edith’s chair. One of the horny little bastards tried to help Edith to the door, but she slapped his hand away, still crying.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could have reached you sooner. I didn’t know she was going through with it so quickly,” Julia said.
“I will have Sheelu email you with the time for a possible call, if Edith agrees to it.”
“How much longer are you going—?“ Julia said, but the connection was cut before she finished.
The next three weeks were painful. Because she was taking half semester summer courses, Julia was in class from eight to eleven every morning. She had early lunch and reported to the Lab before noon.
Edith was back in her brown, formless wardrobe that hid any evidence of the cosmetic surgery. She left promptly at noon, barely uttering a word to Julia, leaving any instruction behind in writing.
Sheelu never emailed Julia about setting up a second Skype video call. Edith never mentioned a follow-up call; she would probably have preferred the privacy of her own home anyway. Julia sent Bottomswold another email, but there was no reply. Edith’s condition gradually improved over the weeks. Bottomswold was, as far as Julia could tell, still in India, or at least not showing up for work. There were no summer session classes scheduled for the Meditation Centre.
On the last Friday of the summer half-semester, Edith told Julia: “There are no CAD courses scheduled for the second half of the summer semester. I won’t need your services any longer.”
“What about my work study position,” Julia said, wondering how she was going to pay the rent.
“You have been reassigned back to the Assistant Vice-President for Programmatic Initiatives and Outreach. I took you on as a favor to him.” The look on Edith’s face said the rest—and look at what happened to me. “Drop off your key to the Lab at Facilities Maintenance after you finish today.”
So that was it. Two semesters after being railroaded into babysitting the arrested adolescent romance of a spinster and a new-age narcissist, Julia was out of another job, one that had some career potential. All because everyone saw her as hot.
Monday morning Julia passed by the CAD Lab before arriving at her new work-study assignment with the Assistant Vice-President for Programmatic Initiatives and Outreach Conrad Jenkins ten minutes early. The door was open, but there was no one in the office. Julia waited in the reception area.
“Good, you got here on time,” a voice said from behind Julia. Conrad Jenkins was ten minutes late, again. “Come into my office,” he said, pointing at a glass-enclosed cubicle. “Oh, would you like some coffee? Get me one too. One sugar and two packets of cremora.”
This was going to be hell. Julia guessed she could put up with it for a month to finish the summer session, but she needed three more fall courses to finish her certificate program in financial programming. She knew Jenkins’ type; by the end of the fall semester he’d have her picking up his laundry and babysitting his cat while he was away on business trips. Maybe she’d have to go back to waitressing at the Jolly Roger; the assistant manager who’d groped her was gone now, after another half a dozen complaints.
Julia set down the cup of coffee on Jenkins’ desk; he took a long look down her blouse. It was the middle of the summer, she wasn’t going to be able to wear turtlenecks for a whole month.
“Well, Julia, here you are back with me again, your third assignment in less than a year.” He was grinning like a cat who’d figured out how to open the door of the bird cage. There was no use arguing with him. Julia put on her best no-expression expression. “An attractive young woman like yourself is probably used to people making allowances for sub-par performance, but that’s not the standard we set here at WITSI-ALA. This work-study assignment is a chance to redeem yourself, to show you can live up to the WITSI-ALA standard.”
Julia knew what she had to say. “Thank you.” She almost gagged, but she kept up the no-expression expression.
“Frankly.” He sipped on his coffee, licked his lips. “Frankly, I would have cut you loose after Ms. Fuchs let you go, but I see here in your transcript that you earned A’s in both of Professor Frederick’s accounting classes. Since he’s an obvious fruitcake—you knew that right?”
Julia shrugged. She hadn’t noticed and didn’t care.
“You got the A’s fair and square, because he wouldn’t be attracted to you, is all I mean to say.”
Julia smiled. That was as close to a compliment as she would get. She wanted to point out that her only B was in business writing, and Professor Carluzzi’s wife had given birth to a new baby halfway through the semester. But she shut up.
“So,” Jenkins continued, “I need you to help with the bookkeeping for this office. As you might imagine, an office like mine, what with its broad mandate, has many different activities that generate expenses. It can be a challenge to keep everything sorted out, and now Mrs. Wahrberg is asking for more detailed reports on how her generous donations have been spent than we have been accustomed to make in the past.”
“Can I see some of the earlier reports to orient myself?” Julia said.
“Well, actually, we haven’t prepared any real reports, as such.”
“For how long?” Julia said.
“Since the beginning. Three years.”
“What kind of records do you have?” Julia said.
“I stored all of my receipts in that cabinet over there,” Jenkins said, pointing to a four-drawer metal filing cabinet. “The two top drawers are full, but all the receipts are in chronological order, mostly.”
“So, we are starting from scratch?” Julia said.
“Pretty much.”
“How soon does the accounting system need to be in place?”
“Oh, I don’t need to make a report to Mrs. Wahrberg until September third,” Jenkins said. Julia tried not to look like someone who just had a pencil stuck in her eye, but she apparently wasn’t entirely successful. “Of course, I can keep paying you during the summer recess after the semester ends.”
Julia knew this was way beyond a reasonable expectation for a work study student, but if she could pull it off she’d prove she was worthwhile for something other than a hot date—if only to herself. The likelihood Jenkins would take all the credit if she were successful was very high. ‘Okay, I’ll try.”
“Great, just let me know if you need any help,” Jenkins said. “I got an A in accounting too.”
Julia spent the next two weeks learning the WITSI-ALA chart of accounts and going through the pile of receipts in Jenkins’ filing cabinet. At first she would go into his cubicle whenever she ran across a receipt she couldn’t decipher or classify. Jenkins would have her lay the receipts out on his side table, and then he would move around behind her, hovering over her shoulder, trying to look down her blouse. Sometimes he would brush his hand across her shoulder reaching for a receipt. When they finished, he would pat his hands on her shoulder and tell her to keep up the good work.
A mistake Julia made only twice was to ask Jenkins to look at something in the filing cabinet. On the second occasion Julia realized that it was no accident that Jenkins slid the cabinet drawer out further, and when he let go of the handle, his hand brushed against her breasts.
Julia’s new approach was to assemble all of the receipts about which she had questions and to lay them out on the conference table just before Jenkins left for lunch. She called him on his way to the door and then stood on the other side of the conference table until he finished.
Notwithstanding her successful effort to remain at arm’s length from Jenkins, she still felt uncomfortable in his presence. He was hardly more subtle than the horny little bastards who plagued her in the CAD Lab, but she wasn’t in a position to call him down as she had with the lab rats. Although she’d professionalized her wardrobe from the time she was a sorority sister in a party house, she still dressed in a way that made her look attractive. She couldn’t afford a whole new wardrobe just for the next few weeks of her work-study assignment, so she decided to visit the Goodwill store to see if she could find something more conservative to wear around Jenkins.
At the store, the portly greeter pointed her in the direction of women’s clothing. Approaching the racks, Julia noted a big swath of brown. This must be where Edith bought her clothes; no wonder she could keep changing her wardrobe every other week. Looking more closely, Julia felt her skin crawl. These looked like Edith’s old clothes. Her stomach roiled, she wanted to run out of the store. No wait. This might be the answer. It would be like wearing a sign—hands off, eyes off, back off. But what if Edith saw her, wearing her old clothes? She’d go ballistic. It would be a slap in the face. Maybe not?
Julia asked for the restroom. She sat in the stall for quite a while until a woman and her daughter showed up wanting to use both stalls at the same time. She stood outside the restroom, got a drink of water, took a deep breath and went back to the brown zone. In the fitting room, Julia discovered that Edith bought clothes that were a size or two bigger than she needed, so most of them fit Julia reasonably well, in a drab and formless way.
The next morning Julia was a half hour late because she couldn’t get herself out the front door of her apartment building dressed in Edith’s clothes. She changed twice, but finally forced herself to the Jenkins’ office in something that didn’t quite look like a burlap sack. She went the long way around the Administration Building so as not to pass in front of the CAD Lab. But it was all worth it. When Jenkins arrived fifteen minutes later, he looked at Julia and scowled, just for a second, before he popped back into his chief-assistant-to-the-master-of-the-universe persona.
“Good morning, Julia. Aren’t you hot in that outfit?”
“No, I’m not hot.”
The summer session was ending, and Jenkins had arranged for Julia to keep working over the break before the fall semester started. Julia had escalated her fashionista retrogression with brown sensible shoes and a Cleveland Browns cap. She was comfortable enough with the new look that she’d walk right past the CAD Lab, only glancing once or twice to see if Edith might be watching her. The effect on Jenkins was close to miraculous.
“You know, Julia, an attractive woman like yourself would do well to dress so as to enhance her attractiveness, if she wanted to get ahead in the business world, and that holds true even in computer programming circles where nerdy dress is more common.”
“I thought it was inappropriate to comment on a person’s appearance or attractiveness in the workplace,” Julia said. “Couldn’t it be misinterpreted as sexual harassment?”
“See. This is what I mean. Every helpful suggestion is turned around.”
Afterwards Jenkins came to treat Julia almost like a piece of talking furniture—which was just the way Julia liked it. The downside was that Jenkins showed no interest in keeping Julia around after his September 3rd meeting with Mrs. Wahrberg and the financial accounting he would give her of the activities of his broadly mandated office.
Julia had three more courses to complete for her certificate, including a six-hour off-campus practicum that the senior students told her was the equivalent of a half time job. How was she going to pay her tuition? She’d checked with the Jolly Roger, and they were fully staffed on weekend evenings when she could have earned a hundred or more in tips. Working weeknights, the tips were pretty meager. How was she going to get up for an eight o’clock class after working until eleven?
Julia had never been dishonest before. Well, she had helped her sorority sisters cheat on tests. She’d lifted some money from her mother’s purse when she overspent her allowance. The shoplifting was just part of the sorority hazing, and she took the tank top back anyway. But now without the work-study she needed to pay $8,724 to cover the fall tuition. The brakes on her car needed replacing; she’d have to drive to the practicum site. The landlord was raising the rent. She’d have to increase her student loan to eleven thousand dollars, unless she found another way to finance her tuition and living expenses.
For the last six weeks, Julia had sorted through two drawers of expense vouchers and receipts generated by the Office of the Assistant Vice-President for Programmatic Initiative and Outreach and classified each of them according to the uniform chart of accounts specified by the National Association of College and University Business Officers Manual. Over the course of the last three years Jenkins had spent thousands of dollars on business lunches entertaining programmatic initiatives. There were lodging receipts for visitors to the Institute and for Jenkins’ visits to other technical schools and conferences. But there were also nine receipts for massage therapy, presumably to work the kinks out of Jenkins’ broadly mandated back, including five performed at the Jade Palace Oriental Massage Parlor on 19th Street. Julia detoured by the Parlor a few times on her way to and from class; she found only a few cars parked in the lot. But she drove by one Friday night around nine o’clock, and the lot was filled with pickups and guys sitting on the tailgates drinking beer out of paper bags.
Then there was the voucher for office furniture. She caught Jenkins trying to leave for lunch one day in August.
“Mr. Jenkins, I have A voucher here I need you to look at.”
“Okay, but make it fast. I’m late for lunch with Mrs. Wahrberg’s chief of staff.”
“This voucher for furniture from the Dayton Business Systems.”
“Right.” Jenkins said.
“Well, it’s says you received an oak desk, a leather chair and mahogany conference table.”
“Right.”
Julia looked around. “Where is it?”
“Oh, I see what you mean,” Jenkins said. “We loaned it to the President’s office. They needed it more than we did.”
“Shouldn’t we reassign the expense to their organizational code, if they have the furniture?”
“Well, it’s only a loaner until Mrs… No, it’s okay the way it is. I’ll get the furniture back eventually. Gotta go.”
The cost of the furniture alone would more than cover Julia’s fall semester tuition. Over the last two years there had been three 80/2611 entries, scholarships assigned to institutional support, two for student government representatives attending conferences on for-profit technical education and one for Dr. Franklin Bottomswold to attend the Bhagwan Shree Decennial Colloquium on Advanced Meditation at the Osho Meditation Resort in Pune, India. The fee to attend the colloquium, the room and board costs, and the travel expenses exceeded the tuition for Julia’s entire certificate program.
It would be a simple matter to transfer eight thousand dollars from the 80/2611 account to cover Julia’s tuition. She could earn enough working weekend days at the Jolly Roger to scrape by on her living expenses. Or she could dig out some of her sorority sister wardrobe—it wouldn’t take much to get Jenkins interested again in having her around for the fall semester. She couldn’t decide what to do. Friday afternoon Jenkins was meeting with Mrs. Wahrberg. Monday could be her last day in the office, unless Mrs. Wahrberg requested revisions for the report. She’d have as little as a day, maybe up to a week to transfer the money into her tuition account.
Over the weekend, Julia had subbed for one of the wait staff at the Jolly Roger who came down with a cold. Eight-five bucks in tips and only two pats on the butt. She still looked good in her waitressing clothes. It would be bearable, and financially feasible, if she could get an occasional weekend gig. Working, classes, the practicum, she wouldn’t be sleeping much this coming semester. If Bottomswold hadn’t decided to hit on a spinster with the emotional maturity of a preteen, she’d still be working at the CAD Lab, fending off the horny little bastards. Bottomswold had screwed up everything.
Monday morning, and Julia had almost given up on the idea of transferring the 80/2611 funds to her tuition account. She was on time, and dressed in normal, non-brown clothing, ready for a change.
“Good, you’re on time.” It was Jenkins again, ten minutes late. “Oh, you look normal.” He scowled. “Well, no use. You’re out of here. Pack up your stuff.”
“Mrs. Wahrberg didn’t request any changes to the financial report?”
“She trashed it. I’ve got to start all over, but without you,” Jenkins said.
“There’s a week before classes start. I could help until then.” Julia needed the money.
“No can do. You’ve been reassigned,” Jenkins said.
“Where?”
“You’re taking over the CAD Lab.”
“What happened to Edith?” Julia said.
“She’s on leave. Had some kind of nervous breakdown. You’ll be running the Lab until she’s got her screws retightened.”
“How long is that?”
“Don’t know, but she’s been given the whole semester off. Until then, you are the acting assistant director.”
“The Lab doesn’t have an assistant director.”
“They have one now. You didn’t meet the job requirement to be the director because you haven’t finished your certificate program. So if Edith is still living in la-la-land at the beginning of the spring semester, you will become the acting director, assuming you can complete your certificate program.”
“I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to run the Lab and do my practicum.” Julia said.
“Running the Lab will be your practicum, and one of those Lab rats that’s always hanging around will be your work-study so you can attend your classes.”
Oh, God, Julia would have to supervise one of the horny little bastards. “Do I get the employee discount for my tuition?”
“Yes, you will get the discount and benefits. You won’t make as much as Edith, but it will be a lot more than the work-study stipend.”
Julia was feeling a little guilty about the low esteem in which she had held the Assistant Vice President. Apparently he had some hidden qualities she had missed.
“I don’t know how to thank for offering me this position.”
“Well, I can think of a way.” Jenkins smirked. “But it wasn’t my idea, and I’m not happy about how you made an end-run around me somehow communicating with Mrs. Wahrberg.”
“I don’t know Mrs. Wahrberg. I’ve never spoken with her or had anything to do with her.”
“Well, for some reason she’s become your patron. This was all her idea, Edith taking leave, you replacing her, the whole thing.” Jenkins took another long, last leer at Julia. “You’d better get over to the Lab and get ready for the new semester.”
Julia spent the next week in a daze. Her life at WITSI-ALA was like a bullet ricocheting off one surface after another. She had a few problems getting the Lab ready, but she soon figured out Edith’s filing system—Edith was as orderly in her work habits as she was erratic in her personal life. On Wednesday, Harold, the worst of the horny little bastards, showed up for his work study assignment, and on Thursday Julia was back in her brown wardrobe, which had the same salubrious effect on Harold as it had on Jenkins. All in all, everything was going pretty damn well, except, once things settled into a routine, Julia had to admit, she was lonely, and she hated to say it, but horny, maybe more than a little. She couldn’t bear the thought of going back to picking up guys in bars. She was stuck. She didn’t know what to do.
Three weeks into the semester, and the Transferential Meditation Centre was humming with activity. On Thursday, Julia got an invitation, sent to all WITSI-ALA staff and faculty, to attend a free meditation workshop. The invitation was signed by Mrs. Wahrberg, so pretty much everybody who didn’t have a really good excuse was planning on showing up. Julia’s left brain told her to think up a convincing excuse, but the right side said she should go, that something was missing in her life, she wasn’t going to find it in the CAD Lab, even though it was a long shot she should take it.
Julia got to the Centre early and parked in front to see who was going in. Bottomswold came early, alone, no Edith. Scuttlebutt was that the affair was over, but Julia wanted to be sure. Half an hour before the event, people began showing up. She waited until ten minutes before the start and snuck inside, staying close to the walls, looking for Edith, even though she knew Edith would never show up this late—but, hey, she’d had a breakdown, who knew what she would do.
The floor of the Centre auditorium was covered with foam mats. Conrad Jenkins went up to the microphone and asked everyone to find a mat and sit down. A couple of minutes passed, and a side door opened, out of which emerged Franklin Bottomswold leading an elderly lady with bluish gray hair who could easily pass for Golda Meir’s sister. She came up to the microphone and looked around. Several people were still milling around. “Sit,” she said. She sounded like someone used to commanding an army, and being obeyed. Everybody sat.
“Thank you. When my late husband decided to invest some of the billions he made mining cobalt in what was then known as the Belgian Congo in an institution of higher learning, he focused on the educational deficits he experienced as a corporate leader. He was what they call today a data-based decision maker, and the corporate accounting and information systems available in his day were inadequate in his estimation. He always complained about hiring some Princeton graduate who could quote him Shakespeare but couldn’t tell him the average cost of a ton of cobalt ore extracted in the Katanga mining district. That’s why shortly before his death he set up the educational foundation that resulted in the creation of WITSI.”
Jenkins stood up and started clapping, so everyone else got up off their mats and did the same. Mrs. Wahrberg looked over at Jenkins like he was a poorly trained monkey. “Sit,” she said. Everybody sat.
“When I met Mr. Wahrberg after losing my first husband to Dengue fever in the Congo, he was already quite old, sixty-three to my thirty-five, and of course he wasn’t much given to listening to younger subordinates, or to women of any age. I did try to encourage in him an appreciation for the arts, literature, music, anything besides mineralogy and finance, but with limited success, although with my help he did amass a considerable collection of Renaissance artworks, but mostly as a financial hedge. I did manage to persuade him to alter his original bequest to the Wahrberg Institute Foundation to allow for the gradual introduction of liberal arts to enhance the technical training that has been the Institute’s main focus. Now that most of the Foundation trustees appointed by my husband have died or become senile, the newly constituted Board has begun to expand the Institute’s intellectual scope into the liberal arts. The first step of that expansion was the creation of this Meditation Centre. We were extraordinarily lucky that a meditation expert of Dr. Franklin Bottomswold’s caliber happened to be available at just the right moment.”
Mrs. Wahrberg turned toward Bottomswold and smiled, for the first time since she’d entered the room.
“It is my belief that technicians like yourselves need to be able to do more than write code, crunch numbers, or design circuits, and for that reason I have invited you today to participate in an event designed to open your mind to other possibilities, to other perspectives, perhaps to find some peace and solace in the buzz of modern technology-driven life.” She stopped and moved away from the podium; there was no smile this time. Jenkins looked at her hesitantly and then jumped up and started clapping, signally everyone to stand up, which they did, clapping, and clapping more, but Mrs. Wahrberg didn’t appear to be receptive to an encore and vanished through the door from which she had emerged without ever glancing back.
Bottomswold came to the podium and signaled everyone to sit down. “Thank you all for coming to our Centre on your day off. I hope you will take something away from this morning’s session that will be useful in your daily lives.” Bottomswold proceeded to give a brief but lucid introduction to meditation in general and transferential meditation in particular. “The important thing about meditation isn’t to understand it, but instead to do it, to do it well enough to enjoy it. If you enjoy it, it will help you, whatever problem or challenge you might face.”
Bottomswold went to the side of the auditorium and picked up his gold zabuton. He carried it across the floor and placed it next to Julia’s mat. He asked everyone to stand up, raise their arms, take a deep breath, and sit down in easy pose. “Close your eyes and don’t think about anything. Whatever is buzzing around in your brain, let it fly away until nothing is left.”
Bottomswold had on the same gown he wore for the MED-COMP conference. Julia’s brain was buzzing about whether he was meditating commando again. Then came the memories of Edith, her surgery, her clothes obsessions, her needy demands on Julia’s time. Julia was determined to get past the buzzing that had ruined Edith’s love affair with Bottomswold. She got stuck for what felt like the longest time on the lunch at the Sumatra Kitchen. Then, finally, her mind was empty. It seemed to only last an instant, but the release was wonderful. Then people started coughing, rustling around on their mats. Julia opened her eyes. Bottomswold was staring at her. She couldn’t help it; she smiled. He smiled. Then he stood up.
“I think we’ve had a good first session today. I hope some of you experienced at least a moment of the peace that meditation can bring. At Mrs. Wahrberg’s request, I am going to offer an open meditation class every Saturday morning during the semester. Please feel free to come back, anytime.”
In a moment Bottomswold was mobbed by smiling staff and faculty members. Julia rolled up her mat and slipped away from the crowd, half of whom she guessed were fawning over Bottomswold because he was the only person any of them had ever seen or heard of to whom Mrs. Wahrberg paid any deference.
The first month of the fall semester was crazy at the CAD Lab. There were many students new to the campus; they had a lot of questions, many not related to the CAD Lab. It was time consuming and tiring, but Julia was feeling like she had it under control. The horny little bastard Harold must have been paying attention during the previous semester even while he was trying to goose Julia because he was actually pretty helpful as a work study; there wasn’t much Julia had to fix or correct after she got back from her own classes.
Friday afternoon Julia was finishing her paperwork for the Lab, while Harold was running the virus checkers on the computers, having been told a second time he should never again ask Julia to come over to the apartment he shared with the other horny little bastards for a session of beer pong even if there were clear signs of an impending apocalypse—she was staff now and any fraternization with a student was completely forbidden, so never mention it again. Harold didn’t appear completely convinced, but he’d probably leave her alone for a week or two. Julia would definitely have to keep up the brown wardrobe.
Harold left, and Julia started to close up the Lab. About to shut the blinds, she saw Bottomswold standing across the sidewalk looking in. Crap! There was no backdoor to the Lab, except the emergency door that would set off the alarm. She sat down at Edith’s desk, her desk now, at least for the next sixteen weeks. She felt flush, she was perspiring. She waited a couple of minutes, got up and looked again. He was gone. Did she imagine it?
Saturday morning she was wide awake at six. She didn’t want to go to the Meditation Centre. If she hung around Bottomswold, something bad would happen. She ate breakfast, put on her yoga clothes, and drove to campus. She parked in front of the Meditation Centre, an hour early. Bottomswold was standing by the front window, looking out at her. She stayed in the car, waited for the others to show up. Others would show up, right? They did, not the crowd summoned by Mrs. Wahrberg’s invitation, but quite a few. After plenty of them went in, Julia did too. She got her mat and sat in a different corner, where she thought Bottomswold wouldn’t want to sit to teach the class.
The ritual was the same: welcome, pep talk, some new explanation about meditation, some new tips on how to meditate. Then Bottomswold picked up his gold zabuton and moved it right next to her. Julia didn’t think he looked at her, but she couldn’t be sure because she wouldn’t look at him. They started meditating. It was even harder this time. She chose to come, he sat next to her, she was going to get hurt just like Edith, become even more confused, lose her job again. Finally the buzzing drifted off and she was empty again, who knew for how long. The rustling and coughing started up, and Julia came back. Bottomswold closed the session, and everyone started leaving, except for Julia. She couldn’t move. The room emptied. Bottomswold came over to her, stared. Then he looked up at the clock. “Lunch?” he said.
“Sumatra Kitchen,” Julia said. “Rijsttafel. Your treat.”
The weather was nice. They decided to walk. They didn’t talk.
Yeah, he’s a new-age narcissist, Julia thought, but I’ve got some of my inner beauty back. I can handle it.
Bottomswold nodded.
About the author:
Andrew Hogan received his doctorate in development studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before retirement, he was a faculty member at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, where he taught medical ethics, health policy and the social organization of medicine in the College of Human Medicine. Dr. Hogan published more than five-dozen professional articles on health services research and health policy. He has published seventy works of fiction.
Art:
In the artist’s words:
My name is Johnbel Mahautiere, I am originally from Haiti. I am currently living in the U.S; I’ve been living in the U.S for ten years. I fell in love with Photography 3 years ago, and I’ve been in love ever since. I would say photography is part of me now. It helps to express myself and a point of view of life. I specialize in portraits. I consider myself as a self taught photographer. It was not easy; there were a lot of difficulties and many advancements were unfamiliar to me; my passion and my love for photography wasn’t going to let those obstacles break me down. Most of my knowledge comes from reading, watching videos, and assisting other photographers. Most of my inspiration comes from my feelings and animations. My journey with photography has been a battle, and I hope to conquer that battle one day.