Puffy Nips smiles at me reassuringly. This is not a trial, Miranda. You are not being burned at the stake, no no. Just a friendly chat is all, am I right? He looks to the other two men, who glare at me.
“Come in, come in. Whoa! Got quite a bit of a limp there! What happened. Knee sprain?”
“My back. My hip and my back actually.”
“Ouch.” He smiles. “Well. Come in, come in. Have a seat.”
I gaze at the flimsy plastic chair the dean is pointing to, which may as well be an iron maiden. If I sit in that ridiculous chair, I’ll pay for it dearly. I may not be able to get back up. But I imagine asking these men if I can remain standing. I picture myself standing, casting my crooked shadow over them. All of them gazing up at my body, lump of foul deformity. They’d think it was some dramatic strategy. The drama teacher’s histrionics. My inherent need to make theater wherever I go.
“Miranda, everything okay?”
No. My body is a black sky filled with bright stars of pain.
“Fine.” I sit. My leg cries out. Do they hear it? No. They’re still gazing at me like all is well. Just a chat, Miranda. Just a chat.
The dean loves to remind me that he did some community theater in his time. Shakespeare, believe it or not. Oh yes, The Tempest. Have I read that one? He was Caliban! How he enjoyed being the monster. Best time of his life. And talk about a learning experience! In other words, Miranda, I’m an ally. Here to help you.
So why don’t I trust Puffy Nips, his blue eyes twinkling with cataracts, his office full of photos of himself in the mundane throes of familial New England life? Because he always gives me this speech whenever he’s about to propose a cut.
“Been trying to get a hold of you. You’re not an easy one to reach.”
“I was teaching. I am a teacher,” I remind them. “I had a class. Then office hours. Then another class. Then rehearsal. But no one showed up.”
Silence. I accuse him with my gaze.
The dean looks uncomfortable now.
“And how are your classes going?” he asks me.
After I respond, he says, “Good, good. That Shakespeare.” He shakes his head. “Timeless stuff, am I right?”
“Absolutely,” Comb-over says, unsmiling.
“Yes sir,” Bow Tie says, knocking on the desk like a door.
“Makes you think, am I right?” the dean adds. “Maybe too much.” He grins like a fool. “Which is good! Thinking is good, don’t get me wrong.”
“The students like it,” I say. I sound defensive. I sound useless.
“Sure, they must, they must,” the dean agrees. “Of course, some plays are more exciting than others, aren’t they? Wouldn’t you agree, Miranda? That some plays are more exciting than others? For the students in particular?”
This is it. The trap. Walk in, Miranda, go on.
“I would say that all the plays are valuable, interesting, in their own unique ways,” I counter.
The dean frowns. Bow Tie and Comb-over say nothing. Because the matter is not a light one; I see that now.
“Well, that’s what we wanted to talk to you about, Miranda.”
“So talk,” I say, smiling, though my lip is twitching wildly on one side. “I’d love to talk. I’d love to know why I found a maquette of another play in the scene shop.”
I’m shocked at myself. Bow Tie and Comb-over look at each other, then at Puffy Nips, their idiotically smiling puppet. How is he going to handle me?
“Here’s the thing, Miranda,” he begins. “We know how committed you are as a teacher. How much you care about the theater program. How much you want to restore it to its former glory, am I right?”
I look at Bow Tie and Comb-over, mouths set in straight lines. By comparison, the dean’s wide, imploring smile is obscene. He’s sweating a little, I notice.
“We all want to see that happen, by the way,” the dean adds. “But alas”—he sighs dramatically for my benefit—“for that to happen, Miranda… we need support, am I right? From the community, am I right?”
He looks helplessly at the two silent men on either side of him, his superiors.
“Bottom line,” says Comb-over at last.
“Exactly, yes, bottom line,” the dean adds, nodding wildly. “Do you understand, Miranda?”
I stare at the framed photos of him and his boring wife and their boring brats on the Cape. In all the pictures, they’re in various stages of sailing. In one of them, he’s gripping a lobster fork, about to dive into the bowels of a boiled crustacean. He’s practically leering at the creature.