“The donors will love him,” Garber said. “Can you imagine how the donors will love him?”
“Is he even interested?” Liesl said.
He stood up and rubbed his hands together, like he was piecing together a difficult riddle.
“He’s ready to leave Boston,” Garber said.
“To go and do the exact same thing somewhere else?” Liesl said.
“Well. There would be a few differences.”
“Right,” Liesl said. “Your discretionary funds.”
She reached for the purse hanging on the back of her chair. There was an apple buried in there somewhere. She rooted around until she felt the smooth apple skin on her fingers, but she hesitated. Would he take the apple from her too?
She pulled a lip balm in a small yellow pot from her purse so he wouldn’t wonder what she was doing. When she turned around to replace the purse on its perch, she saw that it had begun to snow. Seeing the campus covered in snow was a surprise every year. In her imagination, the campus was always flooded with yellow light filtered through green leaves, and the snow made it look like another planet. Garber was still speaking, but Liesl turned fully around to watch the fat flakes land on the old buildings and the young students. It was so clean.
Garber’s voice rang in the back of her head as if she were wearing headphones that didn’t quite block out external sound. If she were to strain, she could hear him, but she didn’t strain. She watched the snow. She remembered then that she hadn’t planted tulips. Every fall she replanted tulips in her garden. Not content with the sparse second-year blooms that sprouted from her bulbs, she tilled and washed and dug and fertilized to guarantee the annual show of purple and red and yellow in her giant garden bed. But she’d forgotten. And now the snow was here, and she wouldn’t get the opportunity.
“Listen,” he said. “If I thought you would do it, I’d certainly factor that in.”
“It would save you some money.”
“Easy now. We’re looking for someone to agree to a seven-year term.”
She wanted to rush home and plant her tulips before the ground froze.
“You’re right that I couldn’t agree to that.”
“I know you better than you think. You’ll retire at the end of the next academic year…”
“Or when Langdon Sibley or whoever else is hired,” she said.
“After an acceptable transition period,” Garber said. “He can hardly be expected to pick up and leave Boston midway through the year.”
“I see,” she said. Delaying her departure would leave Langdon Sibley free from the stink of the stolen manuscripts, in Garber’s plan. The thefts would be Liesl’s legacy.
“So it will be Sibley?”
“If he’ll have us.”
“It sounds like you’ll make it difficult to say no.”
He walked around her desk and stood behind her. She tensed with him so close to her, not sure what to expect. But he was looking out the window at the snow.
“I shouldn’t have ridden my bike today.”
“Have you told Sibley about the thefts?”
He kept his back to her, kept looking at the snow. If she expected her question to startle him, she was disappointed. There was no reason to think he was worried about anything except cycling through the snow.
“No need to bother with all that yet,” he said.
Liesl’s phone was ringing. As a small act of rebellion as payback for the sushi, she answered it, cutting off Garber. John’s voice on the other end came as a great relief. She was happier to hear from him than she had been in a long time. She listened to the familiar voice asking if she had time for an unscheduled lunch, and she knew she didn’t; she told him to come anyway. Each act, each choice she made for herself since taking this job, even if it was just deciding to spare an hour for a lunch break, salvaged some small part of that long-forgotten Liesl, the one who’d vowed to be no man’s secretary.
“I thought you weren’t hungry,” Garber said when she got off the phone.
“I’m suddenly starving.”
“Have you got anything for lunch tomorrow?”
She searched for an excuse. Didn’t find one quickly enough.
“Good,” he said. “You can join me and Langdon.”
“I’m sure you two have plenty to discuss on your own.”
“And yet I expect you to be there.”
“I’d only be in the way.”
He didn’t care. He wanted her help with the wooing.