A bit harsh maybe, but it had taught Stubbs self-reliance. He could think on his feet, improvise. One lesson he’d learned over and over again was never trust anybody. Another lesson that had come in handy was never to give a sucker an even break. And maybe that meant he didn’t have a long list of close friends, but it also meant he never risked having someone let him down. Sure, he’d come up hard and tough. But he’d learned.

And he’d turned out okay.

fifteen

Morgan had been grinning wide and goofy all morning since Annette Grayson had called him to meet for lunch. After two weeks of her coyly sidestepping invitations for dinner or drinks, it finally looked like he was going to make some headway. He went home before meeting her, put on his charcoal slacks, red silk shirt. He looked slick.

He searched under his bed for his belt and spotted the pistol Fred Jones had given him. He recoiled, the memory of it clenching his gut.

He stood. Never mind the belt.

Morgan had almost hypnotized himself into forgetting about Annie Walsh’s cold body buried in the peach orchard just outside of town. But he couldn’t quite forget the way her head tilted when she was listening or the way her eyes squeezed shut when she laughed.

Last week when Jones had been over to discuss his latest batch of poems, Morgan had almost snapped. He said he couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t eat or sleep. He was going to the police. He’d tell everything, say he was out of his mind, that he’d panicked.

Jones had gripped Morgan’s wrist with strong bony fingers, had spoken low, almost a growl. “You listen to me, Professor. Forget about it. It’s handled. You get it? You didn’t kill that kid. She zapped herself on pills. Why should you get tangled up in that? How’s that fair?”

Morgan had listened, nodded, sluggishly followed the old man’s lead. Sure, why should he suffer?

But now he couldn’t help thinking about it again. About Annie.

Not now, dumbass. Annette’s waiting.

He climbed into his Buick and was five minutes late arriving at someplace called The Sprout Shack.

He walked in, spotted her, and his smile fell into little chunks, bounced, and clattered around his ankles. Two other professors sat with Annette. He didn’t know their names, but he’d seen them around Albatross Hall. This wasn’t going to be the intimate lunch Morgan had in mind.

Annette spotted Morgan and waved him over. He sat opposite her, draped the cloth napkin over his lap, tried to smile again, and it came out like a tired grimace.

“Have you been sleeping okay?” Annette asked.

“Sure.” He nodded at the two strange professors. “Hey. I’m Jay Morgan.”

The two professors nodded back.

“Hello. Susan Criger.” She was beefy, red-faced, hair knotted in a severe bun.

The other guy was bland, vanilla pudding complexion. Hair the color of old parchment. “Good to meet you, Dr. Morgan.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Morgan said. “I have an MFA.”

“I’m glad you could all make it,” Annette said. “I think you all know what we need to discuss.”

“Evidently not.” Morgan realized it had come out a bit caustic and tried to smile again to make up for it. But the muscles in his face wouldn’t work. His smile was broken.

“It’s Sherman Ellis.” Annette toyed with her water glass, shook her head, and finally shrugged. “I don’t know what to do with him or what to make of him. He’s supposed to be tutoring undergrads in the Writing Lab, but, well to be blunt, he’s useless. I had to explain to him what a gerund was.”

The beefy woman nodded. “I suppose you’ve gotten the same speech from the dean we have. I was told to-and I quote-‘use the kid gloves.’ ”

Morgan grabbed a menu, scanned it, and was horrified to find himself in a health food restaurant. “What is this? Curd? What the hell is curd?”

Annette ignored him. “I know the university is under a lot of pressure to reach out to minority students, but I’m worried about standards. I don’t think-”

The waiter arrived, set plates in front of Annette and the other two professors.

“We went ahead and ordered,” Annette told Morgan. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“No problem.” Morgan looked at her plate. Annette seemed to have ordered some kind of shredded green Brillo pad surrounded by quivering blocks of pale goo.

The waiter looked at Morgan, his pen hovering over his order pad. “Sir?”

Morgan pointed at Annette’s plate. “What’s that?”

“Alfalfa sprouts and caraway-seed tofu cubes.”

“I think I’m going to need a minute.”

The waiter left. Morgan thought he might have been rolling his eyes.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” the other professor said. He poked at a puddle of coarse gray gunk on his plate. “Dean Whittaker has the administration behind him. It’s a public relations show now, and they don’t want to have to tell anyone they flunked out an African-American student. They’ll say we don’t understand his ebonics or that he was culturally displaced and needed special consideration or Lord knows what. The fact that he doesn’t know a Restoration drama from an episode of Mama’s Family won’t matter to anyone.”

He stood, dropped his napkin in the chair. “I’m sorry, Dr. Grayson. I’m not sticking my neck out. It’s not worth my job. Come on, Susan. I’ll buy you a cheeseburger across the street.” He nodded at Morgan. “Good to meet you.”

Susan Criger stood, shook her head at Annette. “Sorry. Ethically, I’m on your side. You know how I feel about grade inflation, but now isn’t the time for this sort of battle. Sorry.” She followed the other professor to the register. They paid quickly and left the restaurant.

Annette sat back in her chair, crossed her arms. She looked at Morgan. “Well, what do you think?”

Morgan set the menu aside. “I think a cheeseburger sounds pretty good.”

“Not about that!”

Morgan threw up his hands. “Well, what do you want me to say? I thought you asked me here-why did you ask me here?”

“I thought that was obvious.”

“It’s not. You and those other two seem to have a problem with Sherman Ellis.”

“Doesn’t he seem a bit odd to you? I mean, is he the caliber of student you’re accustomed to?” She harpooned a tofu cube with her fork, sniffed it, popped it into her mouth. She frowned and shoved in a bale of sprouts on top of the tofu, crunched without enjoyment.

“Ellis is exactly as bad as all of my other poets,” Morgan said. “Ellis only stands out in that he thinks rap and poetry are the same thing. But in terms of quality he’s as bad as all of the other pinheads.”

“You don’t sound like you enjoy your job.”

“You don’t look like you’re enjoying your lunch.”

She stabbed another chunk of tofu, squinted at it, sighed. “I don’t eat meat.” She put the fork down. “But I could use some comfort food. I suppose you could talk me into a cheese pizza.”

“I bet I could talk you into a pitcher of beer too.”

Rico’s New York Style Pizza was a pleasantly shabby place with red-and-white plastic tablecloths. The guy who owned it wasn’t named Rico and had never been to New York. But the pizza was hot and the cheese thick.

Annette had eaten three slices and was on her fourth, the stringy cheese stretching from the slice to her teeth. She reeled in the cheese with a slurp and pushed it down with three serious gulps of cold beer.

“After my divorce I went on this health kick.” Annette refilled her mug from the nearly empty pitcher. “I lost twelve pounds and firmed up my abs and lowered my cholesterol. The whole deal.”

“Sounds terrible.” Morgan sprinkled red pepper on his pizza.

“It is,” she said. “I’ve been hard at it about three years. I sold his golf clubs and used the cash to buy this stationary bike. I do about two hours a night. I’ll have to do three tonight after this pig fest.” But she didn’t let up, dipped the crust into a stray puddle of sauce, and ate it.