Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno #1)(5)

Heartened by a shot or two or three of tequila, Julia allowed herself to ask some simple questions.  And what must he think of me now?

She contemplated packing up all of her belongings and boarding a Greyhound bus bound for her hometown of Selinsgrove, just so she wouldn’t have to face him. She was ashamed she hadn’t realized it was Grace that Professor Emerson had been discussing on the telephone that terrible day.

But she hadn’t even contemplated the possibility that Grace’s cancer had returned let alone that she had passed away. And Julia had been so upset about having gotten off on the wrong foot with The Professor. His hostility was shocking. But even more shocking was his face as he cried. All she had thought about in that terrible moment was comforting him, and that thought alone had distracted her from considering the source of his grief.

It wasn’t enough that he’d just had his heart ripped out by hearing that Grace had died, without having an opportunity to say good-bye or to tell her that he loved her. It wasn’t enough that someone, probably his brother Scott, had effectively torn into him for not coming home. No, after having been destroyed by grief and crying like a child, he’d had the delightful experience of opening his office door to escape to the airport and finding her note of consolation. And what Paul had written on the other side.

Lovely.

Julia was surprised that The Professor hadn’t had her dismissed from the program on the spot. Perhaps he remembers me. One more shot of tequila enabled Julia to formulate that thought, but to think no further, as she passed out on the floor.

Two weeks later, Julia found herself in a slightly better state as she checked her mailbox in the department. Yes, it was as if she was waiting on death row with no hope of commutation. No, she hadn’t dropped out of school and gone home.

It was true that she blushed like a schoolgirl and was painful y shy.

But Julia was stubborn. She was tenacious. And she wanted very much to study Dante, and if that meant invoking an unidentified co-conspirator in order to escape the death penalty, she was willing to do so.

She just hadn’t revealed that fact to Paul. Yet.

“Julianne? Can you come here for a minute?” Mrs. Jenkins, the lovely and elderly administrative assistant, called over her desk.

Julia obediently walked toward her.

“Have you had some sort of problem with Professor Emerson?”

“I, um, I…don’t know.” She flushed and began to bite viciously on the inside of her cheek.

“I received two urgent e-mails this morning asking me to set up an appointment for you to see him as soon as he returns. I never do this for the professors. They prefer to schedule their own appointments. For some reason, he insisted that I schedule a meeting with you and have the appointment documented in your file.”

Julia nodded and removed her calendar from her knapsack, trying hard not to imagine the things he had said about her in his e-mails.

Mrs. Jenkins looked at her expectantly. “So tomorrow then?”

Julia’s face fell. “Tomorrow?”

“He arrives tonight, and he wants to meet you at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon in his office. Can you be there? I have to e-mail him back to confirm.”

Julia nodded and noted the appointment in her calendar, pretending that the notation was necessary.

“He didn’t say what it was about, but he said it was serious. I wonder what that means…” Mrs. Jenkins trailed off absently.

Julia concluded her business at the university and went home to pack with the help of Señorita Tequila.

By the following morning, most of Julia’s clothes were packed into two large suitcases. Not willing to admit defeat to herself (or to the tequila), she decided not to pack everything, and thus found herself twiddling her thumbs anxiously and in need of a distraction. So she did the one thing any self-respecting, procrastinating graduate student would do in such a situation besides drink and carouse with other procrastinating graduate students — she cleaned her apartment.

It didn’t take very long. But by the time she was finished, everything was in perfect order, lightly scented with lemon, and scrupulously clean.

Julia took more than a little pride in her achievement and packed her knapsack, head held high.

Meanwhile, Professor Emerson was stomping through the halls of the department, leaving graduate students and faculty colleagues spinning in his wake. He was in a foul mood, and no one had the courage to trifle with him.

These days he was ill tempered to begin with, but his fractious disposition had been exacerbated by stress and lack of sleep. He had been cursed by the gods of Air Canada and consequently seated next to a father and his two-year-old child on his flight back from Philadelphia. The child screamed and wet himself (and Professor Emerson), while the father slept soundly. In the semi-darkness of the airplane, Professor Emerson had reflected on the justice of government-enforced sterilization on lax parents as he mopped urine from his Armani trousers.

Julia arrived promptly for her four o’clock appointment with Professor Emerson and was delighted to find that his door was closed. Her delight soon left her when she realized that The Professor was inside his office growling at Paul.

When Paul emerged ten minutes later, still standing tall at six foot three but visibly shaken, Julia’s eyes darted to the fire exit. Five steps and she’d be free behind a swinging door, running to escape the police for illegally sounding a fire alarm. It seemed like a tempting proposition.