“University of Florida.” Solidad giggled. “It isn’t fair, but I notice that it’s a Holloman joke that any Florida school is a place that awards degrees in ballroom dancing and underwater basket weaving. Well, Fernando’s degree is in sociology, and it’s a respected one.”
Annabelle looked insufferably smug. “Derek’s doctorate is from Chubb,” she said.
“The hall does look as if it’s populated by peacocks,” said Desdemona. “The gold detail on some of the robes is truly astonishing. And ermine! Head Scholar Tinkerman’s purple-and-gold is the Chubb School of Divinity.”
“So that’s what’s wrong with him!” Nessie O’Donnell called.
“It’s so pretty,” said Annabelle, gazing around. “What’s the scarlet and ermine?”
But that, no one knew, though all agreed that its wearer stood out brilliantly.
Fernando was quizzing Carmine. “Is that really black guy on the high table Dr. Jim Hunter?”
“Yes. His wife’s the only woman wearing academic robes.”
“I noticed them coming in, each wearing the same gown. A handsome couple. Man, he’s huge!”
“Champion boxer and wrestler ten years ago. Came in handy.”
“I bet.”
Fernando’s remark about the Hunters as a handsome couple had intrigued Carmine; people usually didn’t see them that way, and he applauded Fernando’s perception.
But inevitably his attention went back to Dr. Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman, looking magnificent in his Doctor of Divinity robes. Well, Carmine amended, he was the kind of man who would manage to make sackcloth and ashes look great. Tall and ramrod straight, he gave an impression of considerable physical strength — no nerdy weakling, he. More like a West Point graduate full bird colonel who divided his mental energies between stretching for the next promotion and coping with a new attack of hemorrhoids. Tonight was definitely a hemorrhoid night: maybe not Martin Luther, but Napoleon Bonaparte?
Handsome in a Mel Ferrer way, chiseled features that said he had the asceticism of a monk. Grey hair went well with light eyes. The corners of his mouth turned down as if he despaired of human frailty in the full knowledge that he himself had none. Conceited! That was the word for Tinkerman.
The whole of C.U.P. knew that he didn’t want to publish A Helical God. It was written for ignoramuses by an ape, not a scholar, and it cast doubt not so much on the Christian God as it did on His ministers, their reluctance to accept science as a part of God’s grand design. How Tinkerman must be writhing at the thought that he dared not use his most powerful tool — racial prejudice. No, he wouldn’t run the risk of being accused of that. His tactics would be oblique and subtle.
How expressive was a feminine back? Surprisingly so, Carmine concluded, going down the row of the high table’s ladies’ backs, all he could see. Angela M.M. bobbed up and down like a sleek yet busy bird, the two Parson wives sat haughtily straight thanks to old-fashioned corsets, and poor little Mrs. Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman looked like a plucked fowl, her shoulder blades vestigial wings, her backbone knobby beads. It was more difficult to catalogue Millie, in a University of Chicago Ph.D. gown, but certainly she wasn’t hunched over in defeat; just, it was plain, ignored by all the other women save wafty Angela. How she must be missing Dr. Jim, almost the distance of the table away from her — and who had placed her between the Parson wives?
Neither Millie nor Jim had gone to the expense of buying doctoral robes; theirs were hired, which meant a generic robe mixed-and-matched. It showed as what it was — shabby, much used by many, and not the right size.
Heart feeling twinges for the Hunters, Carmine returned to his own table to join in a merry discussion with Derek Daiman and Manny Mayhew about the merits of teaching Shakespeare to hoods.
Once Mrs. Maude Parson ascertained that the rather common girl next to her had a doctorate in biochemistry, she dried up defensively, while Mrs. Eunice Parson on Millie’s other side didn’t seem to speak to anybody. Only Angela M.M. knew that the billionaire ladies were abysmally educated, and utterly intimidated at being in this kind of company. Had Millie only known, she would have made an effort to talk to them, but what happened in reality was a Mexican standoff: one potential conversationalist was terrified by so much money, the other two by so many brains. Poor M.M. was carrying the major burden of conversation, Angela helping valiantly, but it was not, the President of Chubb said to himself, one of the better banquets. That was what happened when you let someone like Hester Grey of C.U.P. do the seating arrangements. And Nate Winthrop instead of Doug Thwaites — was the woman mad, to demote Doug to the floor? If anyone he hated wound up in his court within the next six months, he’d throw the book at them — and his chief target would be M.M., innocent.