Blood Sugar(21)

Someone must have lit a Christmas-scented candle, because the hallway of the psychology building smelled of canned pine trees. I was shivering a little, but quickly warmed up as I walked the two flights of stairs to the department offices. Max the TA was alone, perched on a desk near the printer, reading something that amused him. He glanced up.

“Hi there. Ruby, right? I don’t think we’ve ever actually spoken. I’m Max.” He put out his hand to shake. The muscle between his thumb and pointer sexily protruded a little. Maybe he played the drums. He certainly didn’t get those hands reading Freud.

I said nothing. I walked three steps toward him, putting myself within inches of his chest. He smelled like crisp no-frills soap. He dropped his outstretched arm. I leaned in, my mouth hovering near his. He wasn’t sure what to do and just stayed as he was. I took the scarf off my neck, put it around his, and pulled him toward me. I kissed him, my mouth open. And soon I felt his tongue touch mine. It was perfect human flesh.

After that I became grateful for my salt-phobia phase because it taught me I could conquer anything, rational or not. And my breakthrough with Alisha solidified my resolve to become a therapist. To listen to people’s darkest secrets and demons and compulsions and to help them by asking, “And how did that make you feel?” I was excited to get started and be the person across from the blue couch, and not just the person on the blue couch.





CHAPTER 13


    ALIBI



My salt terrors never returned. And just when I was finding some normalcy without having Roman in my life, I got a call at eight a.m. on an otherwise unnoteworthy Wednesday morning. Ameena slept through the ringing, her pillow still snug over her face. I answered, groggy. It was the office of the dean of students. I was to report there immediately. The elderly voice on the other end assured me she would let my ten a.m. Clinical Neuroscience professor know I would be missing class and that my absence was sanctioned.

What the fuck was going on?

Twenty minutes later I sat in an office with the dean of students, the academic chair of the history department, and a Professor Barnes, who taught Eurasian Encounters. I was reminded by the dean that Yale had a zero-tolerance policy on cheating and academic dishonesty. I had absolutely no idea where he was going with all this. He then said, “And any student who might help another student cheat is just as culpable, resulting in immediate expulsion.” I still had no idea what was happening.

The dean then softened, and said I had an impeccable record and was well-liked by all of my professors and the rest of the faculty. He continued to glance over what appeared to be my file, and said he was proud of the undergraduate work I had done, and was looking forward to personally reading my senior thesis on remorse and absolution.

“Thanks,” I said, uneasy.

It was then that the chair of the history department took over the conversation.

“A student broke into Professor Barnes’s office last night, riffled through her papers, read what was to be the upcoming final exam, and placed everything back as though it had been untouched. This would have been a very clever way to cheat on the test, the professor never the wiser, but what this student didn’t realize was there was a hidden camera set up in her office.”

Before thinking, I blurted out, “Really? Why was there a camera set up?”

Professor Barnes, clearly stressed out, a little disheveled, and a lot defensive, quickly started trying to explain. “Listen, I’m a libertarian. I hate Big Brother. But I suspected someone on the janitorial staff was—”

The chair interrupted. “Sheryl, you don’t have to explain yourself. Not to her.” The chair then handed me a photo, clearly a freeze-frame printout of an image caught on Sheryl Barnes’s office camera. It was grainy. The man in the photo was covered top to bottom in black sweats and a black ski mask. But even then, I could make out the musculature, the definition of the broad shoulders, the height, the stance. I knew exactly who this man was. And it then dawned on me why I was in a meeting with the dean and two history department professors, none of whom I had ever met before.

As I looked at the picture and concentrated on relaxing my face and body, not allowing myself to give anything away until I decided what I wanted to give away, the dean spoke about the gravity of this offense. Not only was it cheating, it was trespassing and breaking and entering.

I said, “I understand. But why am I here?”

The dean leaned back. Professor Barnes leaned forward. And squeaked out, “You’re here because the only man that fits this guy’s height and build that would benefit from seeing the Eurasian Encounters final before it was given is Roman Miller.”

Ah, I thought. These people were not so dumb. They were professors at Yale, after all. They too knew exactly who the guy in the video was. So why did they need me?

I hadn’t spoken to Roman in months. I had heard through the grapevine that he scored a 175 out of 180 on his LSAT. He had been accepted into Yale Law School, of course, and was well on his way to becoming exactly what he always wanted to become.

As I stared at the photo, unsure where else to safely look, I realized that now Roman’s whole future hung in the balance. His belief that information should be taken if available was not serving him so well in this instance. I was sure he would have done just fine taking the test the fair way, but I understood him. His desire not to waste time with blanks and maybes, his need for guaranteed success, when the correct answers were simply waiting in a desk drawer, took precedence over good judgment. And now breaking the rules was catching up with him. If he got expelled from Yale undergrad, he wouldn’t get his degree, his acceptance to law school would be overturned, his record would be forever compromised, and he would be nowhere.