Quoth the Raven(82)

“Tibor’s arranging my love life for me again,” she said, through a mouthful of honey. “He means well, but he’s just so bad at it.”

It was Gregor Demarkian’s opinion that Bennis was so bad at arranging her own love life, almost nothing could be worse. So far in their relationship, he had suffered through an avant-garde artist in a black leather jacket and a spiked nose ring, a science fiction writer who believed that computers could be taught to procreate, a Philadelphia lawyer who spoke in what Gregor could only assume to be code, and two rock stars. The rock stars had almost given poor old George Tekemanian a heart attack. All these people had had only one thing in common. They were all extraordinarily beautiful men.

Gregor cleared a place for himself on the love seat, pushing a pile of Mickey Spillane novels to the floor. Tibor watched him do it without protest. Tibor spent a lot of his time pushing piles of books to the floor.

“Perhaps,” Tibor said, “this is the answer to what happened to Miss Maryanne Veer. You say Dr. Crockett is gay and—and using a cover. Yes. So, Miss Veer finds out, and threatens to tell, and Dr. Crockett, worried about his career, decides to—”

Gregor choked. “This is the 1990s, Tibor. And this is a college campus. No one would care.”

“According to Bennis, Dr. Crockett would care.”

“Actually,” Bennis said, “he might even have reason to care. It’s like that Katherine Branch person.”

“We ran into Dr. Branch in the quad, Krekor.”

“Strange woman,” Bennis shrugged. “Anyway, the thing is, there’s a position open here for Head of the Program all these people teach in, right?”

“Right,” Gregor said. Cautiously.

“Well, it’s one thing to grant tenure to someone who’s a little ridiculous, like Katherine Branch. I mean, why not? If they’re politically correct about being ridiculous, it even makes the administration look good. So tolerant, you know the gig.” Bennis had finished her pastry. She reached for another one. “With an important administrative post, though—and that’s what Head of this Program or Chairman or whatever is, from what I can tell, it’s the most important Program on campus—anyway, for that sort of thing, you want dignity. I hate to apprise you of this, Gregor, but 1990s or not, homosexuality has yet to acquire the odor of sanctity most college administrations are looking for in their officially visible members. Neither has being a witch. Neither has being a sex bomb.”

“Sex bomb?”

“It is silliness, Krekor. It is Bennis’s personal theory of what makes a professional image.”

“Well, Alice Elkinson is a very ambitious woman. You don’t put out all those publications everybody’s talking about if you’re not. Under those circumstances, if I’d had a randy old goat chasing me all over campus right before a promotion decision, I would be furious.”

Tibor sighed. “We have been all over campus today, Krekor. We have been talking with students. Bennis has been flirting. I have been serving as bodyguard. If it is necessary to a professional image not to be perceived as a sex bomb, I think it is a good thing Bennis did not become a scholar.”

“I would have choked on the dust.” Bennis had finished the second pastry. She licked her fingers and stood up. “I’m going to go find myself something to drink,” she said, “you people want anything?”

Gregor and Tibor both shook their heads, and she wandered off The alcove kitchen was neither hidden nor very far away. They could both see her opening the refrigerator door, leaning down to get a good look at what was inside (it was really only half a refrigerator), rummaging through the contents. Gregor couldn’t imagine anyone looking less like a sex bomb than Bennis did on an ordinary day: the knee socks, the baggy jeans, the turtleneck, the oversize flannel shirt, the hair either falling or rising cloudlike into the air around her face or pinned precariously to the top of her head. And yet, he knew what Tibor was getting at. There was just something about Bennis Hannaford.

Gregor looked up to find Father Tibor staring at him in concern, and shrugged slightly, feeling embarrassed. He had come up the west staircase determined to lay his theory on the line and proceed from there, but now he didn’t want to do it that way. He had been made a little gun-shy by David Markham’s laughter. He and Father Tibor had discussed the little solder cylinder thoroughly last night, after Tibor and Bennis had come home from the restaurant. Gregor pulled the copy Jack Carroll had made for him out of his pocket and put it down on one of the books on the coffee table. Tibor raised eloquent eyebrows. Gregor shrugged. Bennis had taken to sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the refrigerator and swearing under her breath.