Chapter Thirty-Two
For the first time in weeks, Maggie left her apartment early so she could spend Monday morning alone in her office.
After dinner on Saturday, she had returned to Galloway by herself, leaving Arthur in Atlantia with his family.
Alone, she could not stop thinking about what Lane had said.
It ran through her mind on repeat, and with each repetition, she grew more and more anxious about what it meant.
Either Arthur had told Lane about her, or her affection for him was so obvious that Lane suspected. Either possibility had Maggie on edge.
She never should have agreed to the baseball game, to dinner with his family. It was too intimate, the kind of thing you did with someone you were going to stay with, not for a relationship that had an expiration date. And her relationship with Arthur had to have an expiration date—didn’t it?
What if it didn’t? How could she fit Arthur into her life?
Easily, her mind supplied, only too eager to spin out the fairy tale.
Long days on campus that ended in dinner at Dot’s; the walk back to her apartment hand in hand; coffee at Bean There, Done That on Sunday mornings as they graded papers, followed by an afternoon sitting on the second floor of Willoughby’s.
Simon’s baseball games in the summer, trips to the beach, and endless hours spent reading side by side.
It ached to dream about, when she knew she wasn’t brave enough to risk it.
And, at some point, her fears stopped being just about what she would lose in an inevitable breakup.
Arthur had just as much to lose as she did.
Maybe they would date for six months or a year or two, until their happiness curdled.
And then what would happen when they broke up after their lives were already braided together?
It was just as easy for her mind to spin this nightmare.
Arthur was too kind, too good. If they broke up and couldn’t work side by side, he would leave Hawthorn.
And what would he do then? He needed to be close to this precious family he had, the thing he had wanted for so long.
She couldn’t take that away from him. Couldn’t take him away from Simon and Rory or Barry and Lane.
She looked over at his empty desk, at the photo of Arthur, Rory, and Simon.
He had texted her that he was on his way, driving the winding roads from Atlantia.
He had messaged that he couldn’t wait to see her and that he’d pick up a coffee at Bean There.
All she wanted was to wrap him in her arms when he arrived, but she knew she couldn’t.
She knew he would feel the tension radiating from her.
She was never very good at hiding what was on her mind.
She dropped her head into her hands. She was exhausted.
Her eyes were red-rimmed and aching, and her chest hurt.
She had slept fitfully on Saturday and Sunday night, too caught up in her anxious spiral to rest, the screeches from banshees from deep in the Wilds reminding her of everything else that was at stake. What had she done?
A tapping knock on her office door startled her out of her misery. Dean Clearwater stood in the hall holding a file folder. He wore his summer attire—jeans and a Hawthorn Splinters shirt under a blazer—but his mouth was set in a hard line.
“Good morning. Is Dr. Taliesin here?” He was strangely stiff as he looked around her office, as if Arthur might be hiding in the space behind the open door or beneath her desk.
“No.” Her voice was scratchy, worn out from crying and little sleep. “He’s on his way, though. He should be here in half an hour. Should I tell him to come to Ferox Hall first?”
The deep wrinkle in his forehead grew deeper.
“No, that’s fine. I’m sure he has a busy schedule today.
This concerns you as much as him, anyway.
” He placed the file folder on her desk, tapping it once and sliding it over to her.
“Please let him know that the paperwork has been filed and approved by the board. His grant is fully funded.”
Maggie had never heard Arthur talk about a grant, and she had no idea what it would have to do with her. She opened the file folder, trying to understand. “What am I looking at?”
“Apparently, there was some kind of budgeting error. Were you aware?”
Maggie swallowed, her throat dry. Arthur had promised he wouldn’t talk to Dean Clearwater. Why would he break that promise? “I was,” she admitted.
“And did you complain to Dr. Taliesin about the error? I understand your project was defunded, and that’s very disappointing.
” Maggie couldn’t hide the way her lip curled in anger; she was too tired.
He was talking to her like she was a child.
Like she was irrational for being upset.
“But I think my expectations about how you were to approach your relationship with Dr. Taliesin were clear.”
“I took what you said very seriously,” she argued. “I am helping him at the expense of my own work. We have a very good working relationship.”
“Then why is Dr. Taliesin concerned about a budgeting error instead of the pall that is still growing in this building?” The implication in his words was clear. You asked him to do this. You put him up to it.
“I didn’t…I had nothing to do with this.
” She held up the file folder as she said it before setting it down to look at its contents again.
Oh, Arthur…The grant was an annual gift of twelve thousand dollars, earmarked for her seminar, even more than was originally awarded to the program. “Where did this money come from?”
Dean Clearwater narrowed his eyes. “Dr. Taliesin funded this himself. Why would he do that, Maggie?” Anger burned, hot and shameful, in her gut.
Arthur hadn’t stopped to think, not for one moment, what this would look like to the dean.
He hadn’t listened to her. He’d gone behind her back and broken his promise to wait. She was a fool.
“If you’re implying that I asked him to use his own money to fund a grant—”
“What did you ask him?” Dean Clearwater interrupted.
Maggie rubbed her eyes. She was so tired.
“I asked him to reconsider the budget at the committee meeting in the fall. That’s it.
” She looked over at Dean Clearwater. “I know how hard it is to get funding back on a project once it’s been taken away.
I didn’t want special treatment. I just wanted my seminar back. ”
“Maggie.” The dean’s voice was almost gentle, even with its hard edge. “Is there anything I need to know?”
“No,” she said, too quickly. The dean’s impressive eyebrows arched, but it was clear to her now what she needed to do. “We are going to get rid of the pall as soon as the gloaming creeper decoction is ready, and everything will go back to the way it was.” She paused. “What about the grant?”
He looked down at her over his bifocals. “I told you it was approved by the board of trustees. Please let Dr. Taliesin know.”
After a moment when he watched her with an exacting gaze, he turned to leave. As he reached the door, Maggie called out to him. “Why did you put him in this office?”
Dean Clearwater’s eyes softened, only slightly. “You weren’t my first choice,” he said. “But I didn’t make the office assignments. Dr. Taliesin did. I tried to get him to reconsider, but he insisted.”
The knot of nerves in her stomach tightened and her cheeks burned hotter. Dahlia had been right, all along. What had Arthur been thinking? Gods below.
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Maggie said to the dean, her voice tight. “I promise.”
He nodded once and then left.
—
Whatever lightness she had seen in Arthur over the weekend was gone when he arrived at their office.
It was replaced with a tense scrunch she recognized well.
He set a paper cup from Bean There, Done That on her desk, along with a crinkling paper bag filled with a cream-cheese pastry.
“Morning,” he said quietly, the air between them already thick with tension as he bent down and kissed her gently on the forehead.
Her anger was a weak thing, but her shame still burned.
It wasn’t only shame at Dean Clearwater’s suspicion, at everything he left unsaid during his visit to her office that morning, but also shame at what she had done to Arthur.
She had always known this relationship between them wouldn’t work, had always known it was a mistake, but she had done it anyway.
She stared at her computer. She was supposed to be reading through her notes on the incantation, but the words were swimming in front of her as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
She didn’t know how to start this conversation.
She didn’t know how to go on without having it.
He had agreed—to keeping their relationship between them, to not go to Dean Clearwater about the budget—and why couldn’t he have just done what she asked? Why did he think he knew better?
Maggie was drawn back in her memory to Dr. Fleet’s office, when she went there to plead her case.
But Evan had gotten there first. Evan has already let me know that you were struggling.
That he has been helping you stay afloat for a year now.
Between them, it had been Evan who’d struggled.
She had coaxed him through long nights of panic about the quality of his work, motivating him to finish, prompting him to help him come up with ideas.
Everything she had done to help him, he had turned on its head and used it to make his case seem more believable.
You should have come to me or another member of the faculty.
We could have helped you then, but it’s too late now.