He has many pictures in fancy frames facing out into the room, and they all feature him with people I recognize from television news broadcasts.
Where are the ones of his family, I wonder. Then again, they must be in frames he faces toward himself while he sits behind the desk—oh, wait. There are none of those.
Mr. Pasture closes the door behind me and I look to a sitting cluster of a couch and flanking chairs, its coffee table bearing copies of a tome on Ambrose’s history, its area rug like a plate serving up the balanced meal of the furniture arrangement.
But he doesn’t want us over there. He goes around behind his desk, and indicates the chair opposite him, as if I need the direction to quell any confusion about where I must be. As I take the seat he directs me into, we’re separated by all of his photographs, as well as a telephone, a lamp, a coffee mug on a coaster, and a stack of reports in folders. He couldn’t be behind a better firewall if he’d built one of cinder blocks.
He does not even spare me a professional smile. “So I understand yesterday there was some unpleasantness in Tellmer Hall.”
Directly behind him, hanging on the wall, is an antique oil painting of a man draped in red robing, with a shepherd’s crook in one hand and a Bible in the other. His vestments and bishop’s hat are marked with symbols of the cross, and in the background, there are Gothic arches that recede in perspective as well as a beehive that suggests his cathedral needs an exterminator. I don’t need to read the little plate on the ornate frame to know it is St. Ambrose, the man whose life-example of Christian leadership is the basis of the school.
As I regard the somber portrait that sits at Mr. Pasture’s back as both a guardian and a warning not to violate tradition, that’s when it hits me. This man intends on becoming the next headmaster. He cannot wait to give the reins of this also-ran position to his associate dean, and leave this crappy building and second-tier job, and install himself in the headmaster’s house, which is a grand white wedding cake of a mansion with its own garden, cooking staff, and office facilities. This venerable and somber painting and these photographs that face outward and the diplomas with the school names of august places of highest learning are not for the students, but for the parents of the students as well as the staff he oversees.
I’ll bet he takes his buddies in the gold-leafed frame with him.
Looking away from the piercing eyes of the saint, I clear my throat. “A copy of an essay I wrote was—”
“That is not relevant to why we are here.”
I’m taken aback by his starchy comment. “But it is. That’s the reason why Strots—Ellen, I mean—”
“I am uninterested in the particulars of what was put into those mailboxes. What matters is the fact that one of my students was physically attacked in her very own dorm.”
Something about his tone as he emphasizes the “my” before “student,” coupled with all those pictures of himself with important people, makes me wonder whether he’d have such a personal stake in this matter if Greta were not the daughter of a trustee of the school, Mr. Stanhope’s bankruptcy aside. And this dean is wrong about what matters. My essay, served up as it was with malicious intent to everyone in my dorm, is a boxing match of over five thousand double-spaced, twelve-point Times New Roman body blows, against which I had, and have, no defenses to offer.
“Provocation is very much the issue,” I say. “Strots had a reason for what she did. She was protecting me.”
“There is no excuse at the St. Ambrose School for Girls for settling any disagreement with bodily harm.” His brows go down. “And let us talk about Ellen Strotsberry. It has come to my attention that there have been difficulties with her during the previous year. I gather that the student affected did not feel comfortable coming forward about them until the attack yesterday, at which point she believed that she could no longer handle matters privately. Given the deviant nature of the complaint’s details, I do not blame her.”
Damn you, Greta, I think to myself.
And I hate that I was right.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
“If you lie, it will not reflect favorably upon your record here at Ambrose.”
“I don’t even know what you’re asking me.”
He steeples his hands, and his distaste of me is simmering below the surface of his brisk, professional demeanor. I take both the revulsion and his composure as signs that I’m a perfunctory visit for him. He’s already made his mind up about everything.
“I understand that the door to your room is closed a lot,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
“This is unusual in the dorms, is it not.”
Maybe for “his” students it is. “There’s no rule against privacy. And it’s not always—”
“Why exactly do you and your roommate feel the need to have your door shut all the time.”
This is not a question. So I answer the statement with an inquiry just to keep the conversation balanced. “What are you suggesting, exactly?”
“Are you and your roommate behaving inappropriately behind that closed door?”
“Are we having sex, you mean?”
I take a mean-spirited thrill at how his eyes dart away and an ugly flush colors his face. It feels good to make him uncomfortable.
“Have you read the student handbook?” he says as his stare returns to mine.
“Yes, I have.” I decide to stop playing games. “And no. We are not having sex. The door is closed for another reason.”
“And why is that?”
“What is Strots being accused of exactly?”
“Why is your door closed, if there is nothing inappropriate happening.”
“Tell me what Strots is being accused of.”
We both lose our questioning inflections and turn to declarations because we have exited rhetorical territory as well as any semblance of polite behavior. We are arguing, and I have a thought I need to keep this hard-line going. I have to be strong, for Strots.
Mr. Pasture sits back in his padded leather chair. “Do you want to stay here at Ambrose?”
“Yes.” The definitiveness of my answer surprises me. “I do.”
I cannot imagine going to school anywhere else at this point, even with Greta and everything she has done. Even with Nick Hollis. Even without—no, I will not think like that. My roommate cannot be expelled.
“If you want to stay, then tell me why your door is closed.”
“I smoke. It’s closed because I smoke.”
Mr. Pasture smiles a little, and almost, but not completely, manages to keep his nastiness out of it. “You realize that is a violation of school rules.”
“Yes, and for a first offense, I am to be put on probation. You can’t expel me. It’s in the handbook.”
“If you smoke frequently, it is not a first offense.”
“Then I’m only admitting to doing it once, and by all means, try to prove it’s a habit. I’ve never been caught.”
The dean of students studies me for a long moment, and I sense a shift of position in him, but it’s not one that will help me. “Has Ellen Strotsberry ever made any advances toward you?”