Tall Man Down - 2. Chapter 2

One of the more endearing things about Waldron College is it feeds its faculty lunch free, and at lunch that afternoon in the cafeteria, I saw something curious. The woman who’d been with Steve Catlin that morning – she’d been introduced at the faculty meeting as Elise Pelletiers – was still with him. After moving through the food line together, they’d chosen a small table away from the rows of larger ones. Then Tanya Huertas, one of the younger Admissions people, loaded with her own tray, unexpectedly stopped there to talk. Of course, Catlin – charming as ever – had to introduce Tanya, and Elise must have invited her to stay, as she soon took a chair. When Pete and I left, nearly an hour later, Catlin had already gone. But Tanya and Elise were still talking.

That evening, the faculty was again scheduled for a mandatory event, this one social. “I don’t mind the Christmas party,” I told Pete. We were in our bedroom, getting dressed. “We need a break by then. And the year-end picnic’s kinda fun – it’s closure. But we’ve all seen too much of each other today, to chat pleasantly tonight.”

“There’s a thread coming off your collar,” Pete replied. It’s not that we don’t listen to each other. But we don’t, particularly, about dumb things. Still, as Pete gently detached the thread, I thought how nice it would be to stay home with Josh.

“Too late to cancel Nollie?” I asked.

“You feeling okay?”

“Tired.”

“You’re always like this before this party. Then you have a good time.”

“How soon’s Nollie coming?”

“Five minutes. And she needs the money.”

“Then pay her... and take her with you.”

Of course, I ended up going, and, of course, I enjoyed myself. We were in the cafeteria again – the college didn’t have another large place to entertain. But the lights were dim, and the tables were set with cloths and dishes the students never saw. One area had been cleared for dancing, and there was a good jazz band, mostly composed of faculty.

When Pete and I came in, Steven Catlin was dancing with Elise Pelletiers. They were dressed more formally than before, he in a probably-European suit and she in a little dress that left too much to consider. I looked around for Sandra Catlin, Steve’s wife, and she was happily dancing with another new faculty member, a young guy probably no older than Elise. But he was more scruffily dressed.

Most of the other men dancing – or simply watching – seemed focused on how to cut in on Elise. A second year guy from Poly Sci tried first. But he didn’t last.

“Why can’t most men dance?” Pete asked, as I mainly followed. “They know how to move all right. But they don’t hear the music.”

“I’m working on it,” I said, long past being defensive.

“And you’ve gotten so much better.” He kissed me.

“A bone.”

He smiled.

“Of course, I can’t match Catlin,” I admitted.

“Maybe in the dips.”

We dipped. And I guess I would have liked to match Catlin – at least there. Watching him with Elise – and later with the women on the dance faculty – I envied his ease. He was clearly the most sophisticated man in the room, and I would have liked to share that with Pete. Instead, we mingled.

Catlin also spent time making necessary conversation, both with his wife and without. Sandra was his equal in many ways, excluding the fact she wasn’t paid by the college. She had her own business, interior design, which is how she got friendly with Pete. They shopped in the same fabric stores. Still, Sandra did her share of fundraising.

Because Catlin had to take diplomatic breaks from dancing, that gave most of the interested men on the faculty or staff their chances with Elise. At one point, I saw Keith Zawaski with her, and he wasn’t bad. Through it all through, Catlin and Elise seemed to track each other – as Pete and I did – as if they’d come to the party together. Not the easiest thing to do, with several hundred people.

I spent some time talking with Catlin myself, largely about how each of us had spent the summer. Pete and I had puttered – painting the house, working in our garden, watching Josh grow. We both loved having the summers off, and we needed them to separate our busy school years. Before I started teaching – when I did a lot of things impulsively – time blurred so completely I almost lost the ten years after college.

As he told it, Catlin and his wife really had little vacation time. Mostly, they’d traveled the country – sometimes him alone, though he preferred her assistance – gently trying to pry money from alumni – to increase the college’s small endowment.

“The school has a strange history,” he explained, and not for the first time. “Some of our wealthiest and most successful graduates are still with us. And while many of them have promised to remember us after they’ve passed, the problem – and it’s tricky to call it that – is they’re relatively young and still very much alive. That doesn’t build capital.”

“Will a larger endowment really help?” I asked carefully, trying to keep our talk friendly. I actually wanted to say, “Are we simply becoming a business school?” That was one of several issues that sometimes angrily divided the faculty.

Catlin smiled as though understanding my intention.

“We’ll do what we have to, Gil,” – he liked to use people’s first names. “The important thing is, if we do finally favor one area more than some people might like, we’ll be as good as we can – the best – overall.”

“Sometimes I hate Catlin,” I told Pete later. It was almost eleven, and we were headed toward the parking lot. “I admire his intelligence – and his skill and discipline. But I hate how he depends so much on charm. As soon as he senses where you’re going, he tells you just what you want to hear.”

“He looks good,” Pete replied. “He’s the kind of person even the most resistant alumni know should be president.”

“You say that ‘cause he’s nice to you.”

“Not always.”

“He’s nice to anyone he can use.”

“I’m being used?”

“Well, you’re always telling me he’s really a good guy. Isn’t the way to win me through you?”

“Yeah,” he said, tickling me under my jacket. “You’re such a wimp.”

We’d stopped by our car and had both reached for our keys. “You want to drive?” I asked. “I drank more.”

“But you absorb less.” So he let himself in on the passenger side.

Opening my door, I looked absently across the parking lot and realized Catlin and Elise Pelletiers were moving away from the cafeteria, heading across the street and towards the main campus. Catlin must have been ten inches taller than she was, even in her heels, and they walked slowly, as though busy in conversation. As they neared the gate, shielded momentarily from the bright overhead lights, they stopped to kiss. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I tactfully looked away and got into our car.