Tall Man Down - 27. Chapter 27

It took the Board about a year to appoint a new president, and she came from Tech. She was in her late thirties, had created a mid-range start-up that had been bought – very expensively – by a far better established, much better known company, and she never needed to work again. But she liked the idea of coming back to Massachusetts after fifteen years of living in California, and she’d gone to Hampshire before doing grad work at Berkeley.

“I’ve just always been comfortable here,” she told us all at her first faculty meeting. “Though I know that, as soon as winter comes, I’m going to miss Palo Alto.”

Still, she fit right in – not too pompous, not too dull – and the guy she was living with – a sculptor who liked Waldron’s artists’ community – was just low key enough to be a faculty dad. They were raising two kids from earlier relationships if not exactly marriages.

“From what I heard,” Pete told me, “he didn’t even know about his daughter until recently. And that was when her mother went into rehab and the court decided she was – at least temporarily – a less that fit mother.”

“How did that get past our Board?”

“They knew about it. Danielle was very open in her interviews. “But the Board liked her contacts and money more than they disliked her complications.”

“Nice of them.”

“She’s another very good catch.”

“I didn’t think we were allowed to talk about people in those terms anymore.”

“Bite him,” Pete said to Josh. And he now had enough teeth to do damage.

Rebecca seemed very happy about Danielle, but I never actually talked with her about it. I mostly got my news from Larry, in the same way Pete heard about the steadily growing Tech/Business area from Elise.

“They got the old Music building,” Larry told me one morning when we ran into each other at Financial Aids. I was checking for available work-study students. “Music goes into pre-fabs for a couple of years while the old music building is rehabbed and rewired for Tech – at least for important offices. The adjuncts still stay in Waldron Hall’s basement, which is close enough by.”

“Where’s Music eventually land?”

“To be determined – possibly the half basement that’s mostly used for dead storage now. And there’s the thought of a performing arts center again.”

I laughed. “They’ll never get money for that. Besides, I like our church. It’s the perfect size for our tiny department.”

“You underestimate yourself.”

“You need to get to New York more.”

We laughed at that, too. Larry and Marcia had too many kids for the family ever to waste money.

“And college is coming,” Larry added. “They can all go to Waldron for free, but I don’t want ‘em here.”

“Don’t let that get around.”

Larry had easily held on to both his jobs, though the tentative union faltered without his lead. In that way, Catlin, Greg, and the Board had gotten what they wanted, as well as avoided at least a year of faculty infighting. Greg got something else he possibly didn’t know he wanted – he and his assistant suddenly got married.

“And not even ‘cause we’re about to have a baby,” he joked. “Donna already has two, she doesn’t want more, and she thinks I’m too old to produce anything viable.”

“That’s a blow,” I kidded.

“Yeah. But proving her wrong is self-destructive.”

“Well, welcome to instant family.”

“Don’t you know it. And suddenly my farm seems too small.”

Abby Rodelle was still around town, and I occasionally saw her come out of the Catlin Foundation office, when I went to the post office. And Pete saw Sandra, who still did a little decorating, in and around Abby’s continued research and their joint writing.

“We haven’t finished any of Steve’s books yet,” Sandra told Pete. “But his agent likes what we’ve shown her, so I think we’re okay. Besides, the Hollywood people keep considering Steve’s other projects.”

And Don wasn’t back directing traffic. Owen still made him crazy, but I heard about them shooting pool often enough to know their long friendship wasn’t in trouble. And Don had Zen Noah to keep him calm.

As I had Pete and Josh. He should have been starting his Terrible Twos, but we hadn’t seen much sign of them yet. Though everyone counseled there were far more complicated times to come.