“You had a call,” he said.
“You could have just left it at my desk.” He followed her as she walked to her office.
“It was a Rhonda Washington.” Dan said. “She said she called your office line first before calling the main line.” Liesl nodded, her face neutral. She took the message slip from Dan. “She said it was important to speak with you and wanted to make sure you got the message. Everything all right at the landowner’s meeting?”
“Everything’s great.”
“Well I’m back to the fields then.”
***
They didn’t find the Plantin that first day. Eventually Liesl had to go home. She had emailed President Garber early in the day, asking him to call her. Her muscles were exhausted from bracing for the impact of his reply all day. He never called. When she got home, she threw her purse on the floor by the front door, inadvertently hitting a stack of canvases with it. She stood, sweating from the walk in the mid-September heat that didn’t show any sign of waning, not moving to see if she had done any damage.
“The woman warrior,” John called from the kitchen. He sounded good. She should have been relieved. “Get you a drink?”
“Mind if we eat out tonight?” She was all of a sudden feeling claustrophobic just being indoors. “You haven’t cooked, have you?”
“Nothing that won’t keep,” he said. His beard, his blue eyes, and all the rest of him appeared in the hallway to greet her.
“Noodles then?” she said.
“It’s a bit hot for noodles, but if that’s what you want.” If he noticed her purse resting against his canvases, he didn’t flinch.
“It’s what I want,” she said.
“You all right? You seem tense. Even for someone with a tense new job,” John said, jogging to catch up with her after he’d paused to lock their front door.
“Fine. Fine, fine,” Liesl said.
“No one fine has ever answered the question that way,” he said as they walked. “You don’t have to tell me, but you know I have to ask.”
“We’ve had an incident,” said Liesl. “I’m a bit over my head.”
Their favorite noodle shop was on the corner of their street. They hadn’t closed their patio yet for the season, so Liesl sat at an outdoor table.
“The great outdoors,” John said. “These backless stools are for a younger man.” He might have been asking for a move to a seat better suited to his large and aging frame, but Liesl pretended not to notice, to read it as an observation and not an ask so she could mark a win in her column for the day.
“We’ve lost the Plantin Bible.”
“The book that Christopher was fundraising for while you were away? What do you mean you lost it? It’s hardly a set of house keys, is it?”
“Why does everyone immediately go to that metaphor? It’s a multivolume set, not just a book.”
“Was it stolen then? Imagine walking around with half a million dollars in your backpack. Good God, Liesl, I’m so sorry.”
The idea of theft had hardly crossed her mind, and now that it had, she didn’t like it in there. She pulled a strand of gray hair toward her lips and chewed on it while she waited for John to settle on his stool.
“No,” she said, pushing the hair away from her mouth. “It wasn’t stolen. We’ve misplaced it somehow.”
“Come on, my girl. Imagine misplacing half a million dollars.” He signaled to the server.
“Christopher didn’t put it in the safe, and I accidentally had it shelved in an effort to tidy up. I think.”
“Have you not called the police then?”
“It wasn’t stolen,” she said, and she believed that. Hardly anyone had access to the thing. Certainly no one who would want to steal it. “It couldn’t have been.”
They ordered their usual spicy garlic ramen bowls and sat in silence while the server fussed over their table, pouring water, arranging napkins, chopsticks, chili sauce. “I’ll take a pint of lager too,” Liesl said.
“You have to call the police, darling.”
She waited to answer while her lager arrived. “You don’t understand this,” she said, once the server had gone.
“Explain then,” he said. “The gist I’m getting is that you’re failing to report the loss of something more valuable than our house.”
Liesl shook her head. Arguing with John would require drawing a detailed picture of the intricacies of academic reputation management. She didn’t have the energy for the art project. “I can fix this myself.”